Project Greenlight

This morning I listened to an interview of J. J. Murphy, author of “Me and You and Memento and Fargo – How independent Screenplays Work.” His insights were intriguing, but may be too little, too late for me.

Project Greenlight was launched in 2000 as a contest, and I regret entering only one year because it went by the boards not long after. In its original version, it was simply a shot for unknowns to write and direct a film. The winner premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and enjoyed limited distribution.

Of course, if you won, you had to drop everything in your life for about a year to make the movie. I still jumped at the prospect.

In hindsight, I can discern the significant mistakes. The first was to read a couple books on screenwriting and follow them like recipes. This was independent film making, not Hollywood formula writing. I should’ve went with my creative instincts and gone off-road.

For instance, Murphy pointed out that “Fargo” employed shifting protagonists. Not something you see a lot of at the Showcase Cinema. It jumped the plot track to more graphically draw the characters. He exemplifies this with the scene where Marge meets up with Mike, a friend from high school days.

Mike fixates on her, and either deludes or outright lies about his relationships and other things. This digression adds dimension to her character. It shows she’s not only extremely supportive of her artist husband, but she maintains this focus even with her own challenging job and having to deal with an obsessive lunatic. We have a better sense of her depth.

From the title of his book, you can tell that “Fargo” is a good model to follow. I had seen it, but didn’t connect the dots.

The other big mistake I made was not starting from scratch. I had written two novels and dusted one of them off to convert it to a screenplay. If you ever loved a book and was disappointed in the subsequent movie, you’ll understand.

With a book, you have virtually unlimited space to develop characters, plot, etc. You have to gut that to fit the movie time frame. Grady’s “Six Days of the Condor” became “Three days of the Condor” on film, to exemplify. My book concept was pretty good, but it just didn’t develop in the screenplay.

My effort didn’t make the first cut of Greenlight. Mulling over the idea of entering something the following year, I sent the script to Steve for critique.

As adolescents, Steve and I collaborated to enter films in the old Kodak amateur competition and did pretty well. Steve went on to become a successful screenwriter.

“Did they give you a production budget?”

“I think it was a million dollars. Do you think I went over it?”

“In the first scene. The protagonist feels more than vaguely familiar. I assume you thought of playing yourself, like when you tried to cast yourself opposite Adelle Fizzano in our “Goldfinger” spoof. Were you trying to win this contest or just write some intimate scenes for you and Julia Roberts?” Not mutually exclusive and both worthy goals.

“What’s wrong with me as a character? I believe you used me in “48 Hours,” n’est pas?”

“No, I just said I needed to borrow some undesirable traits for one of the characters. I see this more as a book than a movie. Why don’t you rewrite it as a novel?”

Why didn’t I think of that?

I started a business shortly after the contest and Greenlight was gone before I had time to dabble again. But, that’s just an excuse. If it meant that much to me, I’d find a way.