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Interview with Michael Hauge -- Part 2

Essential Elements of a Successful Script

In addition to writing one of the best-selling books (ever!) on screenplay writing, Michael has two decades of experience as a very successful writer and script consultant. He offers two-day intensive screenwriting seminars throughout the US, Canada and England.

For seminar details---> mhauge@juno.com

Lenore Wright: Once a writer has a story they believe would be a great idea for a movie – how can they test it? Let’s find out from one of the most successful screenplay consultants in Hollywood, Michael Hauge. I'll start with a really easy question - what makes a script a movie? What are the essential components for a successful screenplay?

Michael Hauge: Keep in mind that I spend two whole days of my seminar on these points. There are certain core things that every screenplay must possess. I would say that if your screenplay has these five qualities it’s going to be in the top 10% of the movie scripts floating around Hollywood because most of them don’t.

Number 1: It must have a hero, at least one hero.

That’s my term for a protagonist who drives the story and with whom we are deeply involved.

Number 2: We must identify with that hero.

We don’t want to go to the movies to watch someone do something interesting, we want to go to the movies so we can be the person who is involved in this action. So we have to become that character psychologically.

How do you create that identification? There are five ways.

1) You make the character sympathetic, so we feel sorry for them.

2) You put them in jeopardy so we worry about them.

3) You make them a good-hearted person who is well liked by other people so they are likeable.

4) You make them funny, so even if they’re a darker character like Danny DeVito usually plays or Jack Nicholson or Eddie Murphy, they’re so funny that we want to become them because they get away with stuff we could never get away with. And we laugh at them while we watch them.

5) Or you make your hero powerful – a super hero or someone who is very skilled at what they do. Robert DeNiro plays a very skillful jewel thief in The Score. And that’s one of the main reasons we identify with him - besides that we see him in jeopardy at the beginning of the movie. He’s so good at what he does that we want to identify with him.

You must use at least two of these devices when you introduce your character.

Number 3: Your hero must pursue a visible goal.

This is the killer element that very few people understand. Movies are about characters that want to cross a finish line at the end of the movie, and we must know what that finish line is by the one-quarter mark of the movie. We must know what we’re rooting for the hero to do and we must know what it will look like when they succeed.

Many, many writers write movies about characters in situations or characters who want to be fulfilled or be successful or be accepted; but they don’t pin that desire to a specific goal to accomplish that. Take any successful movie… In Rainman, the hero wants to kidnap his brother and take him to California. In Gladiator, the hero wants to kill the emperor. In romantic comedy, they want to win the love of the other character. The hero wants to get custody of his kids in Mrs. Doubfire. She wants to break up a wedding in My Best Friend’s Wedding. She wants to put together a merger in Working Girl. You have to give your hero that visible goal because without that there is nothing to build your structure on, nothing for the audience to root for.

Number 4: You must create conflict.

There must be obstacles that seem insurmountable to be overcome in the pursuit of that goal. In Titanic, Rose wants to get to America with Jack, but unfortunately she’s aboard the Titanic which sinks – so it’s seemingly impossible for her to succeed.

Number 5: In facing those obstacles there must the need for courage. If your hero isn’t terrified in the course of your movie, then the audience isn’t going to care.

If your story has these five elements, you’re going to have a screenplay that at least gets considered. Then there are numerous other elements to strengthen it and make it more commercial and more artistic – structural concerns, character arc, scene writing, dialogue and so on. But without those first five essential things then none of that other stuff is going to make any difference.

Lenore Wright: Could you clarify the “visible goal” element the hero has to have – number 3? Say we’re talking about a war movie – isn’t that a hero in a situation – his goal is more general - to survive the war or win the war?

Michael Hauge: What war movie are you thinking of? Let’s take the most successful war movie of the last 10 years – Saving Private Ryan. That hero had a specific goal. Why did it make 100 million-plus dollars? You know the goal of the hero by reading the title of the movie - it was pretty straightforward. It’s not about a bunch of soldiers hanging around during D-Day. They have a specific goal and we are rooting for Captain Miller to lead those men behind enemy lines so he can save Private Ryan.

Take another Spielberg movie - Schindler’s List – however artistic or deep or moving you might think it was, and as much as it did to memorialize the Holocaust and pay respect to those people, it was a very simple movie. It’s about a guy who wants to help the Jewish workers in his plant escape from the Nazis. When he’s done that, the movie’s over. That’s what we’re rooting for.

Some movies just put a bunch of soldiers in a situation and let them fight it out and let them do battle and some live and some die and then the movie’s over. Those movies do not do as well at the box office. Those movies often even don’t get purchased because the reader doesn’t have anything to root for. The reader isn’t emotionally involved.

This is one of those issues that is simple and really easy to understand when I say it, but it’s hard to grasp this idea, it’s really hard. That’s where your readers who are novelists and playwrights run into problems sometimes because novels don’t have that rule. Novels can be just about a character in a situation or it can be about a character that goes through a series of events or pursues a series of goals.

There was a novel written a few years ago by Annie Proulx called “The Shipping News” which they are making into a movie because they’re under the belief that because it was well regarded it will make a good movie and maybe it will. What they’re probably going to have to do is isolate some of the story and turn it into something where we’re rooting or just hope it will attract big enough stars because it’s so well written or because the story is so rich. But by and large as great as that novel was, it was great because it had a rich style and wonderfully textured characters – not because the hero had a compelling goal to achieve. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons it wasn’t snapped up immediately, the way John Grisham’s novels are. In his books, the end point is obvious.

The most successful novelists at having their novels adapted into movies, John Grisham and Michael Critchton, write movie stories in novel form. They have heroes that have a clear end point – escaping from the partners in The Firm or escaping from the killers in The Pelican Brief or escaping from the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

Lenore Wright: What would you say to a writer who questioned point number 5 – the need for courage? The hero must be terrified – I mean does Tom Cruise really want to play a terrified guy?

Michael Hauge: That’s exactly what Tom Cruise wants to play. He doesn’t always want to play a guy who is physically afraid. In The Firm what is he afraid of? He’s afraid of dying, but more than that he’s afraid of letting go of his identity. That’s what gets him into the situation. That’s where you get into the deeper levels of the character – when you ask what really terrifies the character. What really terrifies them is letting go of who they are at the beginning so they can become who they need to be at the end.

Tom Cruise looks like he’s cool and collected in Mission Impossible let’s say but nonetheless, he’s in situations that are frightening to us because we see the physical jeopardy he’s in so that fits the bill. But, MI just creates emotion through the action. The really strong Tom Cruise movies, like Rainman and The Firm are about characters clinging to an identity. In Rainman, he is so afraid of getting close to people that he’s cut himself off. In The Firm he is so afraid of reverting to the poor existence he led as a child in the trailer park with the abusive stepfather and the prisoner brother that he’ll do anything to make a lot of money. That is what drew him to the law firm and that’s what traps him. As he says at the end of the movie, he has to ‘learn the law’. What the movie is really about is him finding his ideals again rather than becoming like the Gene Hackman character, who is the embodiment of who Tom Cruise was at the beginning.

So the need for courage is a rule that actors really like. It doesn’t mean that they’re shaking and trembling and tearful, it means that they are resisting becoming who they need to become in order to accomplish their goal.

In Titanic what terrifies Rose is letting go of her status and the protection of that rich guy because her mother says, “You won’t survive, I won’t survive. You need this rich guy to take care of you.” What she learns to do through her relationship with Jack, who teaches her real passion, is that she goes after what she says she longs for in the beginning – passion and adventure. And when she finds her courage to do that, that’s how she is able to ultimately survive on every level.

Lenore Wright: It’s a vital point that you must search within your hero for these qualities that define courage?

Michael Hauge: Yes. Another kind of fear would be fear of loss of anything of vital importance. In Working Girl she’s afraid of losing her job. In Mrs. Doubtfire he’s afraid of losing his kids. In action movies, there is the fear of dying but if the movie is well written there can also be the fear of betrayal or a fear of failure or a fear of commitment or a fear of connection with another person or a fear of need or a fear of emotional involvement or a fear of intimacy. And those fears are what make those characterizations rich.

Lenore Wright: Thanks again, Michael.

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In Part 3 of this interview we’ll be talking about how emerging writers can market their scripts successfully. Michael suggests techniques for getting your script read by people in power.

In Part 1 of this interview Michael offers advice on setting up a successful writing routine, how to learn from successful movies and tips for writers changing from another area of writing into screenwriting.

Check out Michael's new site ---> www.ScreenplayMastery.com (It's terrific!)

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To find out where Michael will be giving his legendary two-day seminar - Screenwriting for Hollywood: From Concept To Sale call (1-800-477-1947) or email his Hilltop Productions: mhauge@juno.com

To order Michael Hauge's best-selling book WRITING SCREENPLAYS THAT SELL Click Here!

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