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Kathie Fong Yoneda on Why Scripts Get Rejected
by Claire Soares
(March 2003) |
On March 15, the Scriptwriters network had the pleasure of featuring Kathie Fong Yoneda. Kathie is the main reader on staff at the TV LONGFORM division of Paramount Studios. She also consults with writers independently "in any time that I may have left over," which isn't much given her hectic schedule.
A charming and fascinating speaker, Kathie began by explaining that her acquaintance with the Scriptwriters Network dates back to 1988, when she met Carl Sautter at a conference in Hawaii. At the time, Carl had just left his job as a city planner in Pasadena and was working as a screenwriter.
"If I can do it, anyone can," he told her. One of Carl's first successes was the TV series Moonlighting, which broke a great deal of ground for him.
Kathie paused to take a headcount of the people in the group (smaller than usual because of inclement weather) who had written either four to eight screenplays, who had entered a contest and who had made either the quarter or semi-finals of their competition. She was pleasantly surprised to find the SWN superior, in terms of those numbers, to other groups she recalls addressing.
She then began the subject of the afternoon talk: The Eight Most Common Reasons Scripts Are Rejected. Although the material that follows is her own, Kathie believes most agents echo her sentiments.
Reason 1: THE SNAIL TRAIL, TANGLED YARN START. The audience needs to know inside of twenty minutes if their money has been well spent. They need to be "hooked" in a quick, efficient and interesting manner. If an audience member leaves a theater in the first 45 minutes, he or she is entitled to ask for their money back. This is a clear indication that the writer has not etched characters with whom the viewer feels a bond.
Reason 2: ACT TWO DRAG OR MID-STORY SAG. If the writer's act two is weak, he or she may use "thriller" moments, nude shots, car chases, special effects or a montage to music to move his plot along. These tactics indicate insufficient work by the writer. Act two is generally the best time to get your audience in empathy with your main stars and their goals. Added backstory is preferable to gimmicks to arrive at that goal. Heighten the root-ability factor.
Reason 3: THE FRENZIED FINISH. This may take the form of an explanatory ending, which would be fine in cases like an episode of Perry Mason or Murder She Wrote. It doesn't however, work for movies. Do not create endings with hastily contrived characters or an ending that comes "out of left field."
Reason 4: SAME-O, SAME-O SYNDROME or the formulaic rendering. Think of screenplay as a cake, Kathie suggests. Add new ingredients, experiment with your presentation, change the proportion of the ingredients and give your characters and their stories creative and unique twists. If the screenplay's hero is unique, it makes the "10 percent pile," reserved for projects that get "consider" or "recommend."
Reason 5: SLOPPY SAM OR KNOW-IT-ALL STORY TELLER. If a writer is an expert on a subject, that still does not justify an inordinate amount of detail that isn’t relevant to the plot. The detail is just as distracting in narrative as in dialogue. Details of button type on a costume or the specific genre of jazz playing in the background and other such "impressive" knowledge should all be discarded by the know-it-all writer.
Sloppy Sam, on the other hand, gives us a script which has no color, no detail, no atmosphere, which means the writer did very little research. Never underestimate the story analyst's wealth of knowledge, Kathie warns. The "newbie" analysts are mainly on staff with the agencies; however most of the studios’ equivalents are older pros in their forties. They may be able to pinpoint the release date of a hit single from the 1960s within a month.
In setting a scene, a couple of sentences of description would help. "EXT. MANHATTAN STREET." What part of New York? Slums? Park Avenue? After all, the audience is paying to be transported to another world. If the genre is science fiction, description is even more important. What kind of "other galaxy"? What do "Druids" look like?
Reason 6: FLASHBACK/ VOICE OVER HELP. If these tools are not used well and sparingly, they can detract from the main story. The Joy Luck Club is one example of a movie where this technique was needed and well exercised. However, use dialogue instead whenever possible. After all, flashbacks can add to budgets in terms of costumes, vehicles, special sets and props.
Reason 7: KITCHEN SINK THEORY, as in "everything but." Frequently, the writer who tries to add "something for everyone" ends up pleasing no one.
Such was the case with a submission Kathie once read that was about a "A Young couple falls in love and time travels to outer space." Unfortunately, the writer also included story elements from the following genres: mythology, music, melodrama, mystery, romance and comedy! An audience can't take too many leaps of faith - they need the leaps one at a time.
The best plots are about ordinary people in an extraordinary world or extraordinary people in an ordinary world. Their dialogue is what will sell the script.
Reason 8: YAKKETY-YAK TRAP. Avoid long speeches and conversations. Action works better than dialogue in many cases. Consider the beginning of Witness, as the camera focuses in on an Amish community, and An Unmarried Woman, where Jill Clayburgh throws records into his and hers piles and finishes the scene by throwing out her wedding ring.
For general advice in the screenplay arena, Yoneda offered the following gems:
THINGS CAN CHANGE. Recent surveys indicate that more than half the movie going public wants PG and G-rated fare - a change from eight to ten years ago where R ratings ruled. Remember that independent films can be R rated but need to stay within a $5 to $10 million dollar budget. Consider also that an average studio movie budget runs about $70 million and that, too, without A talent. In 1980, that figure was just $30 million.
THE BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE. Blockbusters generally share a few characteristics. These include broad audience appeal and a story that is unusual and unlikely to appear on TV (TV's budgets are smaller). It also needs to avoid demeaning any demographic group. Most blockbusters are either action, fantasy (E.T.), high concept comedy (Men in Black), sweeping history (Braveheart), the occasional drama (Titanic), or dramedy (The Full Monty). The audience needs to feel the star's circumstances are familiar (Star Wars and The Godfather) and that they can relate to the hero. Antiheros seldom create good blockbusters, but there are exceptions.
Blockbuster protagonists battle great odds and great villains, emerging victorious. The tone of the script needs to be smart and intelligent without being intellectual.
The most satisfying endings for blockbusters may not be happy ones. Consider Saving Private Ryan, Witness and Titanic. They may be loosely structured with mythical undertones: conventional structure may not matter as much with a blockbuster. However, they collectively make up more than half of the highest grossing movies of all time.
Kathie finished off her highly successful afternoon by taking several questions and autographing copies of her recent book, THE SCRIPT SELLING GAME: A HOLLYWOOD INSIDER'S LOOK AT GETTING YOUR SCRIPT SOLD & PRODUCED that covers the day's subject in far greater detail. Thank you, Kathie.
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