You may have seen my previous post about my new internship, listing five things that I really appreciated about my new internship.  Since that first day, I’ve gone back twice and it’s been going well.  The people there seem to appreciate my script coverage, and say I do a solid job on it as well.  Luckily, the way I’ve learned to do coverage in the past seems to be more thorough and better than what they usually require.  Rather than come down to that level, I’ve decided to stick with my better quality of coverage.  I’ve just realized that I’ve mentioned script coverage twice now, and some people may not actually be aware of what it is.  Since this particular task is what makes up about 99% of my time at any development internship, perhaps I should go into it a bit.

Script coverage is when you read a script and then create a short document in which you completely summarize the plot of the script and then write a commentary section saying what was done right, what was done wrong, and whether or not the script is worth considering for development.  This commentary will usually go over character, dialogue, plot, structure, and anything else that’s relevent to script analysis.  I’ve found that the best lengths for these two sections are to shoot for around a page and a half of summary and about 3/4 of a page of commentary.  This obviously depends greatly on the material you’re working with, especially since you might not be covering a script at all, but rather a comic book, novel, or any other medium that tells stories.  You’ll also give both the writer and the script itself a final judgment: PASS, CONSIDER, or RECOMMEND.

The whole point of this is to save the executives and their assisstants time.  You’re taking the time to read it so that they don’t have to.  Hopefully after reading your coverage, an executive will be able to discuss the project with the writer or someone else involved with the project and be constructive and sound like they know what they’re talking about.  It also helps them know whether or not a script is worth reading at all.  Most companies receive hundreds of submissions in a month, and the people who work their don’t have time to read everything.  It’s a reader’s job to help narrow things down.  If a reader does decide that something is really good, based on the coverage an executive may decide to take the time to read it themselves.  If the reader thinks it’s a load of crap, it probably will get buried or thrown away by the company.  And usually when a script is poor, there is still a follow-up meeting with the writer, the coverage helps whoever is meeting the writer to give constructive advice and still pass on the project in a way that is considerate and understanding.

I was also asked recently by a friend what the general breakdown of script quality is.  How many are worth filming, how many are torturously bad, etc.  This really depends on the company.  I imagine a more reputable company is also more likely to receive a stream of quality scripts.  One that’s just starting out might receive a range of scripts written by writers who are still unknown.  Different companies also have different policies for accepting submissions.  My last internship, Valhalla Motion Pictures wisely only accepted script submissions through agencies.  They always said it was for legal reasons, and it very likely was, but it also puts up a very important middle man between them and the sea of writers trying to get recognized.  Sadly though, what it comes down to is very few scripts that a given reader is handed are very good.  If something is coming from a fantastic writer, the executives usually jump on it themselves.  It’s our job as readers to find diamonds in the rough.  If I had to make an estimate though, I’d say about 75% of the scripts I read are bad, 24% of the scripts are passably okay, and only 1% of the scripts are truly good to great.  So when you see a script that really is good, it really feels like a fantastic and rare find.  A discerning filmmaker would probably only make films from this small percentile, but because these are so rare (and get snatched up quickly I imagine), most companies (and readers) have to at least consider some of the ones in the passable percentile.  This does seem like a depressing set of statistics, but the fact is there’s a lot of writers out there trying to hone their craft and get known, and therefore there’s a lot to be read that won’t ever be able to be filmed.  Finding those great scripts really feels good after trudging through the mud for so long.

I mention all this because I’m coming off of a work day in which the two scripts I read included one passably okay script, and one good script.  Overall a very good day for reading scripts and I’m quite happy about it.  So on that note, I’d like to add a few “things I like” to my previous list.

1. The chair I’ve been assigned is awesome.  It’s really comfortable, flexable to various needs, and simultaneously supportive.  I have a lot of back and neck problems, so this is a big deal for me.  I wish I could take it home with me sometimes.  It also really helps me understand why all the characters in the book Then We Came to the End always made such a big deal about “inheriting” the good office chairs from their coworkers who left.  A very funny passage from a funny book made all the more relatable by personal experience.

2. Good office spacing.  The office spacing is comfortable and roomy.  The desks and offices are spaced enough to where things are quiet enough to work.  At the same time there’s no stairs to go up and down and things are close enough to communicate easily, you could even talk without leaving your desk if you chose to, it would just be slightly disruptive.  A small thing overall, but it makes working just that much more comfortable.

First: the predictions.  You can always look down below and compare with any results page you may see to see exactly which catagories I got right, I’m not going to go through them all.  Overall I got 14 out of the 23 or 24 catagories right, not a great record considering how many I saw, but pretty serviceable, and at least it’s above 50%.  The good news is that I got all eight of the big eight categories right.  Since these are the really important catagories anyway, and the ones that don’t require a bunch of technical knowledge, I take a lot of pride in this.  Especially because in order to get all eight of these right, I took a big risk and it paid off.

That risk was picking Sean Penn over Mickey Rourke, whom almost everyone was predicting, and had already one most of the lead up awards.  I did this mostly because I thought it was the better performance.  As much as I generally am not a fan of the way Sean Penn presents himself in front of the media in real life, he totally dissapeared in the character of Harvey Milk, and made him incredibly likable as well.  Meanwhile, Mickey Rourke’s performance, while fantastic as well, was essentially him putting himself out there for all to see.  Both good, but I think Sean Penn’s role was more challenging and better executed.  Luckily the acadamy agreed.  I also think Penn gave a really excellent acceptance speech.   I hate when everyone’s speech is just listing a bunch of names, and his had meaning, was well put, and delivered a message I felt needed to be said.

Obviously I agreed at least to some extent with the rest of the big eight picks.  Slumdog was a great, and uplifting movie.  But this year, more than any before, has made me feel the arbitrariness of choosing a “best” of anything when it comes to films.  So many movies were fantastic in their own way this year.  All of the best picture nominations were greatly successful at what they were trying to do, and their aims were all worthwhile.  But even other than those five, Doubt, Dark Knight, The Wrestler, Wall-E, and Iron Man all are equally fantastic in their own ways.  It’s really comparing apples and oranges, only the fruits are some of the best that you’ve ever tasted and they are a thousand times more complex than fruit.

As for the show itself, I enjoyed it for the most part.  Hugh Jackman did a good job in his musical numbers, but I did miss having a good stand-up comedian on hand.  In turn, the highlight of the night for me was the combination of Steve Martin and Tina Fey, both fine comedians who are among my favorite performers to watch.  Ben Stiller’s jab at Joaquin Phoenix and Apatow’s tribute to comedy were also great.  And I did like the new way of presenting the acting nominations, especially since it went along with my desire for all these fantastic performances to be rewarded.  It’s too bad something similar can’t be done for all the nominees.

That’s about all I have to say, but I’ve learned to try and be a little more on top of things early on if I’m going to try and watch everything.  Looking forward to blockbuster season now, though.

Nominated movies I saw as of 2/21/2009:

• Changeling
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• Doubt
• Frost/Nixon
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• In Bruges
• Iron Man
• Kung Fu Panda
• Milk
• Presto
• Rachel Getting Married
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Tropic Thunder
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• The Visitor
• Wall-E
• Wanted
• The Wrestler

Edit: before the ceremony on Sunday, I was able to catch the following:

• Toyland
• Lavatory – Love Story
• Octapodi
• This Way Up
• Manon on the Asphalt
• On the Line

Because of this, I’ve changed my prediction on the animated short catagory.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to lay out my predictions by catagory. I will UNDERLINE for my predicted winner, the one I think will win. And just because there’s a few where I have personal favorites, I will also ITALICZE those. If my favorites and my predictions line up, they will be marked by BOTH. Here we go…

BEST PICTURE
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie, “Changeling”
Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

BEST ACTOR
Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn, “Milk”
Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, “Doubt”
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin, “Milk”
Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”
Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
Michael Shannon, “Revolutionary Road”

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Stephen Daldry, “The Reader”
David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Ron Howard, “Frost/Nixon”
Gus Van Sant, “Milk”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Dustin Lance Black, “Milk”
Courtney Hunt, “Frozen River”
Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Martin McDonagh, “In Bruges”
Andrew Stanton, and Jim Reardon; original story by Stanton and Pete Docter“WALL-E”

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire”
David Hare, “The Reader”
Peter Morgan, “Frost/Nixon”
John Patrick Shanley, “Doubt”
Eric Roth, Robin Swicord, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“The Baader-Meinhof Complex” (Germany)
“The Class” (France)
“Departures” (Japan)
“Revanche” (Austria)
“Waltz with Bashir” (Israel)

BEST ANIMATED FILM
“Bolt”
“Kung Fu Panda”
“WALL-E”

BEST ART DIRECTION
“Changeling”
“The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“The Duchess”
“Revolutionary Road”

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
“Changeling” Tom Stern
“Slumdog Millionaire,” Anthony Dod Mantle
“The Reader,” Chris Menges
“The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button,” Claudio Miranda
“The Dark Knight,” Wally Pfister

BEST FILM EDITING
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
“The Dark Knight,” Lee Smith
“Frost/Nixon,” Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill
“Milk,” Elliot Graham
“Slumdog Millionaire,” Chris Dickens

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
“Australia,” Catherine Martin
“The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button,” Jacqueline West
“The Duchess,” Michael O’Conner
“Milk”, Danny Glicker
“Revolutionary Road,” Albert Wolsky

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
“The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)”
“Encounters at the End of the World”
“The Garden”
“Man on Wire”
“Trouble the Water”

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Jai Ho”
“Slumdog Millionaire,” “O Saya”
“WALL-E,” “Down To Earth”

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
“The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button,” Alexandre Desplat
“Defiance,” James Newton Howard
“Milk,” Danny Elfman
“Slumdog Millionaire,” A.R. Rahman
“WALL-E,” Thomas Newman

BEST MAKEUP
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,”
“The Dark Knight,”
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army,”

BEST SOUND EDITING
“The Dark Knight”
“Iron Man”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”
“Wanted”

BEST SOUND MIXING
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Slumdog Millionaire”
“WALL-E”
“Wanted”

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Iron Man”

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
“Auf der Strecke (On the Line)”
“Manon on the Asphalt”
“New Boy”
“The Pig”
“Spielzeugland (Toyland)”

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
“La Maison en Petits Cubes”
“Lavatory – Lovestory”
“Oktapodi”
“Presto”
“This Way Up”

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
“The Conscience of Nhem En”
“The Final Inch”
“Smile Pinki”
“The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306″

The only adjustment I might make is if I have time to watch a few shorts tomorrow (I might also make an effort for Revolutionary Road). Time will tell if any of these prove correct.

1. It’s in Santa Monica.  Santa Monica is simply a really nice place to be.  You’ve got the ocean air, there’s actually parking structures, and it’s not as crowded as L.A.  Plus getting into L.A. can be kind of a pain, not that Santa Monica doesn’t have it’s share of traffic, but it avoids the whole central L.A. thing.  Santa Monica just feels better.

2. Lunch.  They pay for lunch, and they do it from nice places that are also healthy.  Also, everyone in the company eats lunch together, which makes for fun discussion, an easy way to get to know everyone, and an oppurtunity to learn from everyone.

3. They keep a copy of the trades in the bathroom.  This one will sound really weird.  I’ll admit that I like to read on the toilet, and the fact that they keep copies in there makes me feel that that’s not a completely strange thing to do.  I like reading the trades, but usually feel like I have to be doing something more productive for the company while I’m at my desk.  This gives me a good oppurtunity to skim through.

4. Friendly co-workers.  Everyone at the compnay seems to be really friendly and laid back.  Additionally, their younger than most people in the film industry, which makes it a bit easier to relate.

5. Perks.  I had to copy some DVDs today, and not only did they suggest making some for myself, they almost made it seem like it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t.