TITLE: BLOOD COUNT
WRITER: Jeff Beres
INTRODUCTION First of all, don’t be shocked or overly concerned about the red ink I used to mark your script; it’s a habit of mine from teaching scriptwriting at The New School. I use a red pen to mark directly on scripts because I feel it best conveys my thoughts at the immediate moment, then I use those notes to write up this analysis. Sometimes I get carried away and don’t realize the shock a writer might experience when he sees all the red ink staining his hard-written work. The best thing to remember is that the amount of ink used is not an indication of how "good" or how "bad" a script is, it's just a tool to help me help you.
The structure of these analyzes follow a certain form: first I boil my overall feelings down to several paragraphs of summary. This summary mimics the style of a report known in the business as "coverage." If you don’t know what coverage is, it is the bane of a lot of neophyte and professional writers -- it is the brief report a script reader or story editor writes for their boss at a studio, agency or production entity. It boils your script down to its bare essentials, typically attempting to reduce the script’s story into one convenient sentence description, then providing a one-and-a-half page summary of the plot, followed by the most important section: the analyst’s comments and "marks." The comments sum up the analyst’s impression of the script and either recommends that their boss read the script for possible acquisition or simply pass on it. At the very end comes a small graph that reduces all of this into a few check marks in a little box. The graph is the most demeaning part of the whole process, but it is the first place the executive will look.
It is said the best way to succeed in Hollywood is to bypass this procedure where you put the fate of your baby into a script reader's hands (who is essentially a screenwriter wannabe him or herself), but unless you know someone really high-up, it’s almost impossible. The coverage system can be brutal and there is considerable debate upon its harmful effect on the market, but the fact is it exists and so must be dealt with. This is why I mimic the 3rd person style of the script reader in my initial summary and do a graph for you. It may seem a little odd and removed, since I am talking like you don’t know the script, but this way you are exposed to the process and can get a sense of what you will encounter in the "real world." After the summary, I will drop the 3rd person approach and talk to you directly and address how you can tackle some of the issues the summary raises.
In real coverage, the analyst attacks concerns of whether they think the script is a "commodity" (sorry, but that is the mindset of these people), something their boss could produce and make money on. I don’t deal with that since each entity that reads you script will have different criteria and agenda for the scripts they want. My business is to tell you what works and what doesn’t work in your script and to suggest improvements. I am concerned with the writing of the script, with helping you write the best script you possibly can. I can tell you what my opinion is on a script’s marketability and make suggestions on where to go with it, but it is only that: my opinion based on years of writing scripts, making movies and teaching screenwriting. My underlying, strong belief is that ultimately the better written scripts enjoy a surer chance of success than one based purely on marketable strategies.
Okay, here is the first section mimicking a script reader's comments; you might want to buckle your seat belt because I try to be as straight shooting as I can be. The industry person who will read your script will be, so I should too. Just remember that after it is over, I banish my evil Development Executive "twin" and return as the helpful and supportive consultant I really am.
READER SUMMARY BLOOD COUNT is an attempt to pump fresh life into the venerable vampire genre; the twist this time is that the evil vampire, VALIOS, is actually a cardiac surgeon working in a hospital who uses his position to freely suck all the blood he needs from both his patients and the blood bank. A pretty young Nurse, ADRIAN LANE, witnesses the good doctor using a patient's artery as a straw and begins investigating, ultimately leading her to down-on-his-luck reporter BURKE ALLEN and enlisting his help. Together, with the aid of Valios' old Hungarian medical school colleague, DR. SUCH, they take on Valios and his coven of sexy/bloodthirsty vampirettes and, after the usual endangerment and escapes, vanquish him and live fairly happily ever after.
BLOOD COUNT gets off to a rousing start right on the first page when Adrian peeks through the operating room doors and spies Valios sipping blood through a patient's artery – with this opening image, we're immediately thrust into the story and caught up in it. Then the script cuts to a fun, if low-brow comedic introduction to Burke as a reporter who is not quite on the road to winning a Pulitzer. This sequence nicely introduces the humor that runs throughout the script, which is its most successful element, and Burke proves to be its most engaging character.
But this robust beginning weakens as convenience takes over the plotting: Adrian learns of Burke when a cop who doesn't believe her story about a vampire tells her, "I have this reporter friend..."; a staff psychiatrist whose bright idea of therapy is to assign her to work with Dr. Valios because he believes this will help her deal with her "hallucinations" (but we never see anything come of this assignment); she runs into a 95 year-old cleaning woman who affirms her suspicions about Valios; Burke runs into a nurse at a grocery store who knows of Dr. Valios and confirms some of the Adrian's claims about the doctor; and after one phone call Burke contacts Dr. Such who immediately hops on airplane to come to America from Hungary and help Burke and Adrian deal with Valios. While convenience is sometimes necessary in screenplay plotting, too much of it back-to-back makes the storyline feel haphazard. That and an unfocused motivation on Adrian's part – merely because she thought she saw Valios suck blood this will set her on a quest leading to the police and a questionable reporter? – makes BLOOD COUNT's storyline feel too loose.
Also, opportunities set up by the story are not explored and exploited: the interesting dynamic of a vampire, the mythical taker-of-life, "living" as a surgeon, the traditional saver-of-lives, is never examined, nor it's connected side issue of how most surgeons think of themselves as a god and here is one who nearly is! And the expected confrontation of the vampire facing down his old mentor happens off-screen instead of on, and Adrian's past personal history of being dumped by a surgeon who thought her pregnant is merely tossed off as background information halfway through the script instead of being used as an early possible explanation for the reason she "hallucinated."
BLOOD COUNT has a strong premise and some very funny moments – there are several clever lines – but it needs more focus on the details of plotting, strengthening the female lead's character so she is more than a beautiful damsel in distress and exploiting its unique contributions to the vampire genre so it will stand heads and shoulders above the bloodsucking crowd. The writer shows a strong sense of his craft in several scenes, so it is clear if he were to beef up the mentioned weak points in a rewrite, he would have a very strong, humorous and exciting script.
BACK TO YOU BILL Okay, the script reader commentary is over now -- I'm back as instructor and consultant. I know the summary part is not fun, especially the graph above, but the truth is, I'm generally kinder than "real world" readers -- they can be viscous if they want and often are. I feel it is important for you to realize that "coverage" is part of this wacky business and I want to introduce you to it as best I can. I hope it didn’t depress you, for I don’t mean to say that BLOOD COUNT is without wonderful moments or possibilities -- it definitely is. So let’s look at creating more of them!
As I see it, these are the areas that need work:
1) Better define Burke as the protagonist.
2) Strengthen Adrian's character.
3) Develop the plot so that convenience is not the major narrative engine.
4) Develop and strengthening Valios danger as an antagonist
That's all -- that's not too much, right? Let's look at them one at a time.
1) Better define Burke as the protagonist.
Maybe I should define how I use the term protagonist: The character
whose actions drive the story forward. I like that because by its very definition
it implies that the protagonist is active, something all good screenplays
must have. In that case, who drives the action forward in BLOOD COUNT? I
believe the answer is Burke, since he's the one that you spend the most
time developing and showing having a real goal, winning the Pulitzer Prize,
but he is never takes enough definitive action (until the very end) to give
him clear reign as the film's protagonist. Adrian initiates all the action
-- she is the one who sees Valios doing something weird and takes action
to do something about it (I have a question about this too, but I'll save
it for the section of beefing her character up); this leads her to, ultimately,
Burke on page 17 (which is really too late to be introduced to the script's main character). But he doesn't buy her story either and so she continues
on her own, running into Beatrice (don't you think 95 is a mite too old
to have someone still actively cleaning hospitals?) who affirms her suspicions.
Meanwhile, Burke conveniently runs into a nurse friend who tells him that
Valios is a weird dude and runs back to Adrian (does he really believe he's
a vampire just because she confirms Valios is a creepy doctor? Wouldn't
he want some kind of confirmation beyond the reports on units of blood being
used he later asks Adrian for?) Together they develop a mutual goal of ... what?
He wants a story, she wants ... well, probably just to do the "right
thing" and stop evil, although it should be better defined. So structure-wise
this is good -- the First Act follows the classic "paradigm" that
by page 30 the protagonist has a goal -- but it is not sharply focused so
we can track the protagonist's journey to achieving it. Is Burke's goal
just to get a story? He seems more interested in Adrian than any story,
so when he hesitates to go save her when "dead" Janos tells him
he must, it feels false because I never believed the story held a higher
position than her. If that is the case, then it needs built up more; he
needs to seek active proof that Valios is a vampire, pictures, first-hand
accounts or whatever. Instead he lets Janos come onto the scene and then
he sits back and lets the old man dictate what has to happen; only when
Janos is "dead" does Burke start taking strong action. This doesn't
make him as strong a protagonist as he could be. If your idea is to have
Burke be more interested in getting a really great story about vampires
to propel him into the ranks of award-winning writers than in actually
stopping the vampires (and that seems to be what you are shooting for, because at one point Adrian thanks him and he tells her, essentially,
he's doing this only for himself), then this is how his character's arc should
be constructed:
1) Gets involved initially because Adrian is a great looking dame
2) Finds something out that makes him believe there might be a story here
(end of Act 1)
3) Actively pursues leads to vampire story
4) Attraction between him and Adrian develops
5) Conflict develops between them because she wants to destroy vampires,
but he wants to wait so he can get a better story
6) Moment of true character occurs and he must decide between story or
stopping the vampires (end of Act 2, much as you have it now)
7) Hey goes and saves Adrian and vanquishes vampires
This is what the natural course of your story should be if you want Burke's character arc to be the way you have hinted in this first draft. This will also increase the tension of the love story and make the ending more meaningful when we realize he has given up his Pulitzer dream and settled down to the joys of blissful domestic life. Burke is a wonderful character, but his actions are limited: he meets with Adrian, makes one phone call (maybe he made more, but there is no evidence that he did; he only says to Janos on the phone, "I understand you taught him in Medical school..."), looks in deserted apartments, snoops around Valios' house and sees some sex, and then lets Adrian admit him to the hospital after Such dies whereupon the "dead" Such comes and feeds him important info. Only after all that does he really get fired up and take action when he and Adrian assault Valios' house. With all the nice groundwork you did in setting up his desire to be an award winning reporter, I don't see him putting it too much into it. He's not out there hot on the trail of this story, if you ask me. Once Such shows, up, he and Adrian kinda of hang around listening to Such explain it all until the old man gets himself killed. Burke needs to be more actively involved in pursuit of the his goals so we can more clearly root for his victory.
2) Strengthen Adrian's character.
I think this might be a case of the traditional "male
type of person writing a female type of person" kind of problem --
I know I can be as guilty of this as other male writers. But here are some ideas that might help.
First of all, define her goal very clearly. Her general goal of wanting to thwart evil and save mankind and all that stuff is obvious, but what is her specific goal? You need to create and define a specific goal that she wants to accomplish by the script's end. What motivates her to go the lengths she does after she first sees -- what appears to be -- Valios sucking blood from a patient's artery? How is she sure that is exactly what she saw? I wasn't convinced that a typical person would be certain that was indeed what they had seen, simply because it is so wild and outlandish. And I certainly wouldn't run off and tell my supervisor about it first thing! Maybe after a second time I saw it or had some kind of confirmation. And then, once she is convinced she isn't crazy, what is her exact goal? What the heck does she expect the police to do when she tells them she saw a surgeon sucking a patient's artery? Is that even a crime? Probably not. However, if that patient died, then there would be something to investigate! And then her goal would be made more concrete earlier on -- to save lives. After, isn't that part of why she is a nurse? Right now her big goal, what she wants to achieve by the end of the movie, is vague and that contributes creating a vague character. You want her to be more than a pretty face and body (well, maybe you personally don't but the audience will) so we care what happens to her. Strong females are becoming more and more the norm; and the stronger and more real she is, the more we will see Burke's attraction to her and root for them getting together.
And this deal about her having gone out with a surgeon and gotten pregnant (temporarily?) by him ... what does that get you? If it's meant only as a "character building" piece of background information, it is too powerful to use in that way -- it grabs our attention and we expect something more important to come out of it. Especially since it was a surgeon she was involved with -- we really expect that to play into the mix some. You do hint at it when she tells her shrink she wants go to back to work and that her hallucinations had something to do with her former affair, but this not enough to justify using such potent material. Maybe it helps feed her desire to bring down Valios beyond the simple fact that he is a vampire. Maybe him being a vampire is just a metaphor for her 'cause she views all surgeons as vampires! (Okay, just a wild thought.) Maybe this is the reason she isn't so sure whether she believes she saw him sucking blood or not, or that other people don't believe it, because she has this bad past history with surgeons. There are many good opportunities to use this information, but it has to be laid out earlier and cleaner because right now it is dumped in the middle of the script without any real purpose.
3) Develop the plot so that convenience is not the major narrative
engine.
I know most movie scripts demand a certain amount of convenience
in them because otherwise there would only be about seven-and-a-half movies
released a year, but I found the number of conveniences occurring in BLOOD
COUNT too many and they stuck out noticeably. In the earlier Reader section
I enumerated them, but let's tackle them one by one:
"Adrian finds Burke when a cop who doesn't believe her story about a vampire tells her, "I have this reporter friend...." As I mentioned earlier, what would a reasonable person expect a cop to say when she tells the police there's a vampire working as a cardiac surgeon at the local hospital? I think you need to address that on the part of Adrian's expectations and actions. But beyond that, the cop leads her directly to Burke. Now, to be fair, this isn't such a huge coincidence; cops have to deal with reporters and considering the kind of work Burke seems to get, it's more than likely the cop would know of him. So what's the deal, huh? Well, I guess it's really about how I didn't buy the cop being nice to her. Here's what I would believe though: the cop appears to be sympathetic to her plight and gives her Burke's name, but when Adrian discovers what kind of hack reporter Burke is and the type of loser stories he usually covers, she's just as disappointed and let down as he is to discover she wants him to report on a vampire. See, this works to help fuel a couple of things: it's no longer just coincidence that the cop leads her to Burke, it's mean-spirited humor; Burke has even more of a reason to prove himself as a reporter -- here's a lady with a vampire story for Christ's sake who doesn't believe in his reporting skills; and finally, it increases the tension between them that will lead to a better love/hate dynamic between them. So I guess it's not so much the coincidence as the attitude behind it; I think you could make more of it so it covers up the coincidence part.
"A staff psychiatrist whose bright idea of therapy is to assign her to work with Dr. Valios because he believes this will help her deal with her "hallucinations" (but we never see anything come of this assignment.)" I don't buy the psychiatrist using this as a method of treatment; it just doesn't sound professional at all. I don't believe a shrink would have a patient assigned to a doctor after being told the patient believes that doctor is a vampire -- that kind of therapy is only applied by parents. But even beyond that, if you were to tell me, "Screw you, that's what my shrink did, and I'm keeping it that way," I'd say fine, then use it! I mean, her being assigned to Valios could really be interesting and fun if you exploited it; there could be tension of whether or not he's going to harm her because they know she's been talking about their doings, or he could begin seducing her to the "dark side" with his seductive powers and such. There's a lot you could do with that idea, but first I have to buy it and that means the psychiatrist is a wacko or he's in with Valios brood or you use another way to get her assigned to Valios.
"Adrian runs into a 95 year-old cleaning woman who affirms her suspicions about Valios." I've already mentioned that I think 95 is really pushing the believability factor of someone actively working as a cleaning lady. Hey, there might be a few of them out there, but they should have their own story to tell and not impinge on the believability of the one you're trying to tell. The fact that there is someone who has witnessed Valios' activities is good actually, I just found it another coincidence piled on top of others, highlighted by the woman's age. Trim some of the others and deal with the incredible age factor, and Beatrice's character should be okay. But when you kill her, try to do it in a way that's unexpected -- as soon as we see this old Black woman by herself singing spirituals, we know she's a goner.
"Burke runs into a nurse at a grocery store who knows of Dr. Valios and confirms some of the Adrian's claims about the doctor." This is the most egregious, as my lawyer would say. It's just too damn convenient and worse, it doesn't allow Burke to show off either his skills as a reporter or his adamant interest in Adrian. I mean he thinks the lady's a babe É so, she believes there is a vampire haunting the local hospital? Not everybody's perfect, but there are intimate moments times when you over-look those considerations. Let Burke do some active snooping around about her and then there might indeed be something weird going on out at the hospital. Maybe not vampires, no that's too wacky, but maybe something not quite kosher that could make an interesting story. Use this is an opportunity to build his character through action.
"After one phone call Burke contacts Dr. Such who immediately hops on airplane to come to America from Hungary and help Burke and Adrian deal with Valios." I think this is just a matter of showing a little investigative work on Burke's part before he hits pay dirt with Such. You know, two or three calls or something that he strikes out on before he takes a long shot and gets lucky. Again it's just a matter of actively showing Burke doing his profession -- remember, he has goals and this just might be his chance to break out of the journalism ghetto.
Take these opportunities to further the characters and their actions and the events won't seem so coincidental.
4) Developing and strengthening Valios danger as an antagonist
A protagonist is only as powerful as the antagonist he defeats;
the bigger the bad guys are, the harder they fall. Valios needs to have
a defined master plan and he needs to be seen actively pursuing it. This
is what I see him doing in this draft: sucking blood and having sex with beautiful
girls. I have no sense of the over-all menace Valios poses.
Okay, so he's sucking blood from his patients -- he's not trying to kill
them. So he loses one now and then because he's getting sloppy; that's what
medical malpractice insurance is for! I think he has to pose a bigger threat
than the host of HMO's that are driving the medical profession to trimming
costs and giving inadequate care. That scene where he uses the dead patient's
head as a puppet, that's some wild stuff, but Valios needs more to do
than gruesome comic relief. Give him a master plan that is dangerous and
insidious and show how ruthless he is in accomplishing it. That will make
him a kickass villain.
GENERAL THINGS Couple of odds and ends to throw into the mix:
•Another element you could exploit more is Such's secret agenda -- I think that is an extremely interesting idea, his wanting to somehow work with Valios to develop a cure for his cancer. I think that needs played out a bit more, and it especially needs an on-screen confrontation between them; that's a potentially powerful scene and you should script it out for us to see.
•Tone -- if you are going to have really wild and macabre stuff like what Valios does the "hand puppet thing" with the dead patient, set up the possibility of that kind of tone early on. You want to establish the possibilities of your world during the 1st Act.
• I'm sure you're aware of THE OLD TV movie and subsequent series, NIGHT STALKER, the one where Darren MacGavin plays a reporter, Kolcheck, who constantly stumbles onto paranormal events? Well, I think it's worth at least just noting the basic similarities between the core concepts. I don't think it causes any real problems, but it's good to be aware of movies that have trod the territory before.
CONCLUSION I worry that all of this might make you feel, "Well shoot, he thinks BLOOD COUNT is a piece of crap. I might as well forget it." Please don’t think that. To paraphrase Lloyd Bensen, "I know crap. This is no crap." Something essential for writers to understand is the idea that writing is re-writing; it’s all part of the process. Some people have to do less than others, but everyone has to do it. I don’t usually start feeling satisfied until around the third draft. And that includes some radical changes made along the way. Now I’m not suggesting you have to match that number of drafts, I’m just trying to make you see that if changes have to be made, they are part of the normal process, as it is natural to have some areas that need work. I totally believe that the work you’ve done warrant the time and effort to do some more to make it as good as you can. Not perfect, because that doesn't exist, but as good as you can make it.
You have some really nice stuff where you use the movie medium very well (the opening pages especially really hum); you need to write more scenes like those. I think the core of it comes down to making both Burke and Valios more active -- do that and I think you'll give good, high-octane fuel to the obvious high performance writing engine you harbor under that hood of yours.
I hope I have said some things you can use to make a good story even better. I do believe you've done a really good job on this so far. Keep it up, take it another step or two and push it to the next level. Above all, keep on writing!
