Charlie Davis was born in Long Island, New York and spent his adolescence in Florida. Davis graduated from the University of Miami with a double major in Psychology and Motion Picture Screenwriting. He has worked as a Story Analyst for Simpson/Bruckheimer and is currently a Creative Executive at Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

Chato Hill was born and raised in Wisconsin. He currently lives in Los Angeles and works as a screenwriter as well as in sound editorial.

Where are you guys from and what got you started in the business?

Chato: I'm from Wisconsin. I moved out here a few years ago. I've just been working ever since. Not just as a writer but in sound editorial.

Charlie: My childhood was on Long Island, New York. Adolescence in Florida. Then I moved out here after film school at the University of Miami. After the one two punch of "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters" I had the desire to be able to tell stories that would move people – a group of people. As a kid I was in plays, and I was already interested in entertaining people and telling stories.

Originally, I thought I wanted to be a director until I went to film school and started making a few student films and realized you can't do it all by yourself and you have to rely on other people. I thought maybe the writing thing is better, it's just you in the room and you don't have to worry about other people dropping the ball. So I gravitated towards writing. I had double major in Psychology and Motion Picture Screenwriting from the University of Miami.

I moved out here looking for anything to get into the movie business. I got hooked up through a classified ad in Dramalogue with a fly by night coverage for money company. I wrote preliminary coverage, but didn't really know the form. I was with a temp agency and had a friend who got a gig at Bruckheimer as an assistant to somebody in development, and I knew you could be a reader who got paid to read screenplays and be a story analyst. Since I wanted to be a writer, I could at least see what was selling or not and what tricks of the trade people are using at any given time.

So I interviewed with the Director of Development at the time, who liked me personally and my taste and gave me a half dozen screenplays to read over the weekend and cover and I said "Sure, no problem." Sunday night around six o'clock, I'm suddenly going I should be reading these screenplays because I have to hand them in Monday morning. All night cram session. I'm calling all around town asking if anyone has coverage and what does look like.

I handed them in Monday and a couple of days later I got the call they wanted to hire me as a Story Analyst. But there's a union (Story Analyst union), and Simpson/Bruckheimer was at Paramount at the time. You couldn't just hire someone unless you'd gone through two or three people on the unemployment roster – sort of a Catch-22. They had to interview three people and they didn't like any of them. So they hired me. I got in the Guild. And I slowly worked my way up here at Bruckheimer as a day job doing development, then evenings and weekends writing either solo or with a partner.

When you were growing up were you interested in film and or writing?

Chato: I've always been really interested in writing. I kinda reoriented into film at around 20, for a couple of reasons. I wanted to do things to write books that would be sold and become movies. Fiction is more thankless than screenwriting because no one reads. You can write books in your house and get as much satisfaction out of it as you are ever going to get and books are long. (Laughs)

Screenplays you can get more satisfaction out of and you don't have to throw away two years of your life as your soul project.

Charlie: Plenty of people do.

Chato: Plenty of people do. I'm working on fiction projects that are very personal things as opposed to screenwriting, where as a screenwriter I can work on two or three projects a year and make serious progress on them and do other stuff.

Tell me about doing your first script?

Chato: I tried a couple of things and got about 20 pages in. My first full one was around 1995. Terrible script. Structured all wrong. (Laughs) We started working together in 1997. Right?

Charlie: Yeah, what happened was... Chato interned for Jerry Bruckheimer films back in the mid ‘90s. Which by is a great in to Hollywood that I wasn't aware of in college. Production companies love free labor, so every summer we get the best and the brightest from colleges all around the country for "intern" college credit. You get to be an intern and see the inside blood & guts of a movie company. We get about a half dozen interns two or three times a year to help us out, copy screenplays, talk to the development executives, sometimes do coverage and get familiar with how a movie company works.

He (Chato) was an intern at the time, and we talked. He was one of those guys and we just clicked with and had a lot of the same interests, a lot of the same things in terms of subject matter. I found out he was a writer and read his material. I read his material and thought this kid's got a real clue.

So we started talking about working on something together.

Chato: By the time that happened I had written about four or five things. He had written about ten.

Charlie: I don't know what it is, but college writing…. I wrote a lot more in college and a lot faster. Even though I had a really full agenda, I could write screenplays in three or four days. I look at a lot of them now and wouldn't want to. (Laughs) But some of them sort of hung together if I recall.

But that was some of the most fun I remember. It was just this joy of writing and ideas but business didn't really enter into it.

Chato: And before we get to far away from interning... People who want to do that should get a Creative Directory, which is a phone list for the production companies, call them up, say "I'm looking to intern for your company. Where do I send a resume to?" They're usually looking for interns and if you present yourself well, you should do pretty well.

Charlie: Now, the criteria has gotten a lot more stringent since the mid 90’s. Then it wasn't as well known a way in. Now, it's Harvard, Stanford, Princeton… But there are all different types of companies looking for different interns.

Another way, is through a temp agency. There are two or three temp agencies that exclusively deal with production companies.

Obviously you have to be cool about it all. You don't want to show up with your script in hand, right?

Charlie: Yes, you have to be smart about it. You have to feel your way around. You can be assertive if you feel comfortable enough to be so. But you don't want to be out there on the first day waving round your screenplay. You'll get a lot of rolled eyes. Or a lot of maybe he's not going to work out for the company.

Chato: The reality is if you go into a situation looking at it like that, you are not going to get to the interview.

Charlie: Like everything else you have to be smart about it, friendly, eager, you have to be willing to stay longer than everybody else. Be courteous. If you click with certain people they will give you more responsibility. It's a give and take.

For legal reasons, a lot of times, people aren't supposed to read material that doesn't come in through a lawyer or an agency, because every movie Bruckheimer has ever done has been sued. I've been here long enough to see that a lot of it is nonsense. We've been sued for pictures that people say we've stole their ideas, and I've been here since the origin of the idea. Being in the room, seeing the idea come up, and then seeing how it evolved and seeing it finally get to the screen then seeing a law suit come out of nowhere. Knowing that it is complete 100% horseshit is irritating.

Sometimes it is true, but the reality is Hollywood has plenty of money. If they like the idea they can buy it. They don't have to buy it for a million dollars.

There is no such thing as a novel idea. Every idea no matter how specific you think it is, there are probably a dozen in development around town. That is absolutely true. If you are living Virginia or Montana and you think you have some brilliant idea for an action-thriller or some sci-fi adventure with a great hook that no one has ever heard of before, I guarantee it's in development somewhere or somebody else somewhere is writing it. It's just that you have to do the best job; you can't let that persuade you one way or the other. If you really have a passion for it and you think you can do a good job with it, you should write it. But don't automatically jump to the assumption that somebody stole your idea. Chances are they didn't.

Chato: What usually differentiates these things is the "name" of the writer and the subtlety of execution.

Charlie: A lot of it is about development in Hollywood. Your first draft is about the only time you'll have control over your content. Then once you get into the hands of readers, or friends or studio executives you are going to start hearing comments and chances are… ultimately you have to go with your gut over what you should change, but the more overlap there is in comments, say five people telling you "you are drunk" then you are probably drunk. You can be as defensive as you want but at the end of the day, if all these people are telling you the same thing, you might want to take it to heart.

You can't be that rigid unless you want to be an indie filmmaker. Film, to a large degree, is a collaborative medium. You are dealing with tens of millions of dollars, so you are going to have more input from a lot of people. The challenge is how you creatively pull it all together into a cohesive movie that still retains your original vision.

You'll like your spec script. Your agent or manager may have some comments you'll try to work those in. You'll get it out to a couple production companies they may have some comments, you'll work those things in. Then you'll finally sell it, and now you'll be at a production company with three or four production executives, who have to earn their keep, will throw in their two cents worth in – a dollar into the pot. Then they are going to hire a director or an actor. They are going to come on board, and they are going to have creative thoughts to put into the screenplay. Once you get the greenlight from the studio, the studio is going to have changes. Then you are going to hire the 900 lb gorilla, the $25 million Tom Cruise. Now you're not going to say no to his suggestions, because you are lucky to have him. That might change things dramatically. Something that you wrote for a woman becomes a man's role.

Chato: That's where the whole reality of production comes in. Extra costs. Logistics.

Charlie: Then you get to the set where suddenly it's a different set and you don't have enough time, you don't have enough time to do the sequence so you have to collapse it. You're going to have to change the screenplay to the conditions you weren't aware of. So it changes again. Then when it finally goes into editing the writer isn't involved at all.

Chato: Having been around a lot of ADR sessions, you'd really be surprised when writers get brought in to write or rewrite dialogue.

Charlie: Even after that there are preview screenings. The audience says we don't like this or that ending.

We did a movie called "Dangerous Minds" with Michelle Pfieffer. There was a whole 45 minute subplot with Michelle and Andy Garcia as her boyfriend, that was a major portion of the movie, that as we were editing it and previewing it, everybody realized we wanted to see her and the kids but the story went off track. We dropped the whole subplot. It just didn't work.

Until the print is delivered to the movie theaters…

Chato: In the process, he described you get a lot of input, but even with the "Mail Order Bride" script, we've been through the first two steps of that process, and in terms of the number of notes we've gotten, it's ten times more than what we described.

We shopped to five different agencies, trying to recruit an agent, and every agent gives notes.

Charlie: You take all that synthesize that and figure out what helps (you) and doesn't and then you try to rewrite your screenplay the best you can. Get it in the best condition possible before you start using whatever connections and resources that you have -- the important ones.

You're not going to get a second read from them. Do the best job you can. At a certain point you figure you've done the best you can do. But don't be so over eager to throw it out there before you make those changes. If you know it needs work, obviously they are going to know. If you didn't take the time to do it or feel it was important enough to do it, then how do you expect them to take you seriously?

Chato: One of the things we do is we go out for blind studio coverage. We submit under a different name, under a different author name to a studio see what the coverage kicks back.

Charlie: That's a little trick by the way, if you are going to try to get preliminary coverage to see what people think of your screenplay…

Chato: Change the name. Change the author name.

Charlie: You don't want bad coverage to haunt you. Dirty little secret, sometimes coverage from one production company, you have a friend at another company… they didn't have the script covered in time so "Can I borrow yours? Take the names off of it and sent it to me." So, coverage from one production company could be at twelve production companies and if it's preliminary script you sent out for a little bit of coverage it's floating around out there like a ghost in the machine and it can screw you later.

Chato: Every reader is just giving their one opinion and their opinion is based on a lot of things – they had a hang nail that day, or they are ticked off because your script is the fifth script they had to read.

Charlie: Or they broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend.

Chato: Right. We sent a script to a studio reader who didn't know us just to get some totally unbiased feedback. It was some of the worse coverage we've ever gotten. And we agonized over it.

Charlie: The truth of the matter is the same screenplay at two different companies could get wildly divergent coverage.

Chato: You have to have some kind of faith in the material after a while. You can't rework every scene based on coverage.

Charlie: It's a tight rope you walk. You simultaneously go with your gut but be open to other possibilities because you never know where a good idea will come from. Only certain people are going to matter. William Goldman was right. Nobody knows anything. Nobody knows if a huge movie will be a hit or not. They might try to act like they know and give out that air because that's part of it – you have to exude confidence.

The truth is we're all not sure of ourselves. But again, if enough people are telling you the same thing, from enough different sources, you have to regroup and think about it. Maybe what they are saying does have some merit and maybe there is some way to incorporate it into your ideas without shattering your vision.

Your vision can't be so precious you can't rework it to some degree. You don't want to bastardize. Trust me that will come in development later on when you're making the movie. (Laughter)

But in the early stage, it should be fun to write. Have a good time with it. It's the closest it's ever going to be to what you envision. Later on it is going to change.

If you are working in the studio system, you are an architect building a house for somebody and they are going to want an addition or might want to change this from a Tudor to something post modern, and it's your job to give it to them.

Chato: They are going to want a house. In terms of working in the studio system, take every idea you have and break them down into a 25 word log line, because that's how it's going to be sold. And if it sounds like any idea that's ever been out there, then forget it. It's already been blown at that point. You are either doing it for them or you're doing because you love it and you think you can execute it really well or because you just don't care.

Charlie: It sounds like a cliché but it's absolutely true. You really do have to boil it down to what the essence of the idea is and most big or good movies you can do it.

Chato: Often the people that buy it aren't going to say yes or no based on much more than that. They are going to hear that pitch.

Charlie: Sounds good buy it.

Chato: They may read the coverage. Their underlings will have read it. At the end of the day they guy making the decision is going to ask "Did you like it?" Yes. "Well, what's the logline?" He'll look at the logline and if it's a logline he's never heard before…

Charlie: Which is not to say that a non-high concept idea won't sell, but it doesn't hurt if you can do it. If there is some novelty to the premise, it will help. "Seven" is a conventional idea -- a veteran cop and hot shot cop are tracking down a serial killer. The novelty is the seven deadly sins, the plot the serial killer went through… that was the twist – and he executed it well. In the wrong hands, it could have been a Batman episode.

Chato: For unknown writers you really need something in the premise to grab people.

Charlie: You have to pop out from the "static."

And what about coverage in general?

Charlie: Agency coverage is generally more forgiving than production company coverage.

Chato: Production company coverage is much more targeted. They are only thinking what kind of movies do "we" make.

Charlie: Agency coverage is more about whether the writer has a clue or not and is the idea viable. So they are little bit more forgiving.

What about targeting companies to get them to read your material?

Charlie: If you write something that is supposed to be a Life Time movie or Sci-Fi channel, it's going to be frowned upon here (Bruckheimer) because that's not something we're going to make. That's not what we're known for. We're known for big summer event, tent pole, high concept, action, and or adult thriller movies.

We might go off and do a "Dangerous Minds" or a "Remember the Titans" if the material is really genuinely compelling.

So before you come call a Bruckheimer, don't come a pitch story that is so outside of the realm of the kind of movies we've done. It happens a lot. I try to be helpful and I'm like "look it might be better for you to target a production company that already has experience in making films in that vein."

Again, we are trying to broaden our horizons here. When you come to our company or Gail Ann Hurd's company or Ivan Reitman’s company, there may be certain things under development that are "unusual" but by and large they have certain sensibilities.

Chato: It's a question of resources. They can't possibly read and respond to everything that comes in the door here. There's just so much stuff out there.

And what about query letters, pitches? Likes and dislikes?

Chato: People send query letters to production companies but it's almost totally futile.

Charlie: Rarely will you get feedback. You can do it but be very nice about it. Don't be aggressive and over hype your project. A lot of times you'll get someone who writes a query letter that laid out the whole ad campaign, the ancillary rights, etc. You don't want to do that. Be courteous. Succicint. Give a big hook then maybe a little more detail that tantalizes (them) enough that they want the material.

But again for legal reasons, time reasons, and the fact we have a scale model of Manhattan of screenplays on our desk, it's very, very difficult for a query letter to work. The other restraints of the job means we can't always follow up.

Chato: The best query letters are… "Hello my name is so and so… I live here… I have an idea that I've written as a screenplay and it's about this." Describe in less than fifteen words. And don't give the whole idea. "If you'd like to read more about the script."

Charlie: You'd probably want to add a bit more. It shouldn't be more than a page. Get to the point very quickly. You've got half a minute to forty-five seconds at the most.

Chato: One of the best ways to make the sell as an unknown writer is to get a production company interested in your work. That comes generally from legwork, which means if you live in LA you start meeting people at production companies and you try to float them the (script). Once you get a company interested it's easier to get to agencies. That's really the way.

Charlie: The truth of the matter is the agency only wants you once you've created heat for yourself. They don't want to create the fire they just want to throw kerosene on it once it's started. Your job is to create heat through whatever way you can. Certainly, if you can get a production company interested in your material that will tell an agency that you are of attention. You've broke through and gotten someone interested. That means a lot.

The truth of the matter is they (agencies) aren't being jerks either. We get a lot of submissions, but they get even more. Practically every agent has got 20 or 30 clients they are trying to service.

If you want an agent, create your own heat -- create your own buzz. Trust me they will come to you. They want what everyone else wants. They want what's hot and they are constantly searching for it.

You can't get an agent to read you if you have no heat, no connections, no anything. It's so hard. Even if you get them to read it… When you are in a dry spell and you are literally cold, someone might read it then say, "Let me talk to the group." Which is their code they liked it but they need to wait to hear what their opinion is from everybody else. Then you go to the group and the group decides we have enough clients. That's usually death when you hear that. Then they come back and say, "We've decided that it's really not right for us at this time."

Then the moment that you have anything close to deal or interest in you, then five agents, ten agents show up. Suddenly everyone wants to rep you. Everybody wants to sign you up.

I've been in the business for over ten years, and you realize things are the way they are. They might not be fair and you might not like it but if you want to work in the business you try to learn it as quickly as you can. This is the mechanics of how it works. I do the best I can navigate within that system. There is a lot to learn.

You might be lucky and sell your first script out of college. That's not the norm. But you quickly found out there is no such thing as the norm. If you are looking for answers you can hear ten different people with ten different ways to the first sale of their screenplay. You can glean a lot from all those stories. But the truth of the matter is serendipity, luck, and perseverance is so important. The thing is you can be the most talented guy in the world but if you get discouraged easily you'll never sell a screenplay.

There are tons of writers who are just okay who are making a good living because they were perseverant, because they networked, they schmoozed, they had the right script for the right demographic at the right time that got made. The more perseverant you are the more lucky you will be.

Chato: Ultimately, everyone is doing it their own way. There is no one set of rules. We're saying query letters don't work but…

Charlie: They could. If you have no other resource, do it. If it works, fine. But if it doesn't work, that's fine too. You gave it a shot.

Chato: The best piece of advice for screenwriters that don't live in Los Angeles is, move to Los Angeles.

Charlie: That's true. You can be a script writer from any where once you've had a sale. Once you've sold a screenplay. But you predominately find of the working screenwriters that 95% of them live in LA. All the studios are here. All the lawyers are here. All the agencies are here. You want to be available for meetings.

Once you sell a screenplay you are in meetings. You've got to be physically in town. If you are living in Maine or Virginia be a novelist.

Chato: Productions companies predominately buy things from people that live in LA or New York. People that are connected.

Charlie: You never know what relationship is going to get you a sale. You have to throw out enough lines. You can't pin your hopes on one avenue. You've got to intern if you can. Do bunch of different things. If you are good enough writer, someone someplace is going to discover you. Good is relative. If you are writer capable of writing commercial mainstream motion pictures someone will notice.

Chato: Right.

Charlie: If you have the affinity for it someone will eventually figure it out. Someone will say this guy has what it takes to write dialogue or action or maybe all the above, which is rare. Most writers are better at some things than other things. Eventually talent will win out but you've got to stick with it long enough.

A lot of people I'm sure Chato and I knew when we came out from college have long since gone home -- year, two years, three years. Too hard money-wise. Too hard to keep their hopes alive. You expected your first screenplay to sell for a fortune. You don't write enough. You don't generate enough ideas. You spend three years on a screenplay that doesn't sell. You can't do that. Professional writers do not spend three years on a screenplay.

Professional writers spend twelve week to fourteen weeks on a screenplay they just got hired to write. You don't have more than that. You have a deadline. You have to write all the time. If you spend three years writing a screenplay there's something wrong. You shouldn't be doing that.

It's constantly changing. Read scripts. See how other people are doing it. Get a bunch of different writers’ screenplays rather than one writer's screenplays. Certain writers don't write like anyone else.

Chato: The other really big piece of advice is don't feel compelled to stick on that first script. You've got to learn to move off of that. Once you are done writing it and if it isn't selling, move on.

So along all these lines, how many scripts do you suggest a writer should have before starting out?

Charlie: You can't just have one.

Chato: At least two.

Charlie: One could be a fluke. If you are looking for representation with one script they want to know you can do it again. They want to make sure you have longevity. They want to be able to make money off someone in the long term.

You should have two or three. They all don't have to be comedies, for example.

Writers don't like to be pigeon holed but Hollywood loves it. Because again if you reinvent the wheel every time out and they have to look for different writers every time they are doing an action-comedy rewrite or a sci-fi rewrite it'd take a million years. Certain writers are good at bio pics, or broad comedy or action thriller. Yes, they may write something differently personally or they might want to write comedy if they are predominately a dramatic writer.

You are looking for an architect who does "this" well. I know you've built this before so I want a building in that vein. Can you build one for me?

Chato: People are hiring you to produce a specific thing. So if you've done things like that in the past you are more likely able to do it for them.

Let's talk about agents, managers and lawyers. What does a writer need?

Charlie: You can have an agent and a manger or one or the other or a lawyer and no agent and manager. A lawyer is the person you absolutely need. The lawyer is truly your friend. He is looking out for you.

Chato: He's going to deal with the contracts. If you have a sale you are going to need a lawyer. Before the sale, generally you either need an agent or a manager.

Charlie: An entertainment lawyer will have some of the connections that agents or managers do. The way it generally works is agents know of all the writing assignments around town. They are plugged into the studio system. So they are aware of all the work that is available and who's looking for what at any given time.

Managers are generally like personal coaches. They are looking to build your career, feedback, they are the ones in your corner rubbing your shoulders and trying to help you on a day-to-day basis. You'll probably talk to your manager more than to your agent.

Lawyers you talk to the least, but they are also one of the most important. They are there when there is a deal to be made. They are there to make sure all the "t"s are crossed and the "i"s are dotted. That you are not getting screwed and the contract helps you and you alone.

Chato: They are contract interpreters.

Charlie: Exactly.

Charlie: Generally it's easier to get a manager interested in you than an agent. Managers are again looking for talent to develop.

Chato: Managers will help you get an agent.

Charlie: And if you are really up there as a writer you can throw in there a business manager.

Talk about pitch meetings if you would. The good and bad, the right and wrong from your perspective?

Chato: A good pitch is always "it's about a guy who does this…" Stay focused on the character. It's about person. It's so easy for pitch meetings to become this exercise in firing off loglines.

Charlie: The truth of the matter with pitch meeting is like anything else, it's easier to sell a pitch if just sold a screenplay for a lot of money. If you are new writer and you are pitching it is a lot harder. They want to see that you've already sold something and that you already have the ability to execute it.

Chato: If you have a pitch as an unknown writer and it's strong enough that it will sell, then you should just write it. Because if it's going to sell in that room, then it'll sell for ten times as much when it's actually a script, plus you have so much more control over how it turns out.

It's idea and writer. That's the two parts of making a pitch work. If you are not a writer, a name, then it's really going to be hard for them to sign.

And again, if it's that great of an idea, lock yourself in a motel for four weeks and just write it.

What do you like about good pitches?

Charlie: It's about being articulate and be engaging. It's like telling your friends about a really great movie you just saw. You are obviously not telling every beat, you are just telling them the highlights.

Hopefully make it as engaging as possible so the people you are telling to "seeing" the movie. They are seeing the big beats, the hook. A pitch in the room is like when you write a story for a newspaper. You start out with the general stuff. The big idea, then you gradually get more specific which you gauge based on the reaction in the room.

The best pitches you are interacting with the people in the room. It's like you are starting a brainstorming session. The more they throw into the pot the more invested they are in the idea.

Then they will go and pitch it to their boss but now it's partly their idea in their mind. A

Chato: And it's really important to have more than one idea.

Charlie: You want to go in with three or four ideas. And they usually like the one they like least. (Laughter)

What's your day like as a development executive?

Charlie: The day is a mix on things. On Mondays, we generally have a development meeting to go over our slate of projects. What projects are we looking for writers on? Projects that we have writers on, when are we expecting the new draft in? If the draft is in, how is it? Is it better, worse, or about the same? What do we need to do? Do we need to hire new writers? Or what are the next set of notes? Which projects are coming together now? By the very end of the meeting, any new ideas? Has anyone read or heard anything?

There are pitch meetings we take. There are development meetings which are project specific where we go over the new draft that just came with the writer, what we liked, don't like, and what we'd like to see in the next draft. Throw out ideas.

We see the trailers or bits of the films we are working on. Watch director reels for possible projects we are working on.

At the end of the week, by Thursday or Friday we meet to prepare for Monday. Monday's meetings are with Jerry.

What are you guys looking for in a script?

Charlie: As a movie executive, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. You are looking for something that has a novelty of premise but has familiar enough elements that it isn't say "Blue Velvet" -- that it's not so far out of the realm of commercial films. You're looking for certain genres or spins on certain genres.

For Bruckheimer, for instance, specific to us are arenas. What are worlds we haven't explored? That we haven't seen before? What's the process of this world? How do we go about… in "Crimson Tide" the world of nuclear submarines… in "Armageddon" the world of NASA… in "Dangerous Minds" the educational system… in "Days of Thunder" car racing.

Great characters. People an actor would want to play. Is it a good role for Nick Cage? Tom Cruise? Someone who is interesting and well defined.

Really good character stories with a strong dramatic arc. The experience affects the character in some way so at the end of the movie they are a different character. They have experienced changes or progress.

I've seen certain books on screenwriting that actually scare you off. Charts, diagrams, dotted lines. Too many rules.

Chato: In terms of making your script marketable or getting it to an executive, few things convince an executive you are credible worth while writer as rapidly as having a good solid structure for your material.

Charlie: When you are a reader you really can tell in the first ten pages if a writer has a clue. It's pretty evident. You don't have a lot of time to convince a reader you know what you are doing. Not because they are trying to be jerks, but because there is something intuitive about it that when you are reading someone who is a good writer, being able to immediately. The tone is good. They say a lot with a little. Screenwriting is not prose writing. It's not writing a book. A script is a 120 pages. You have to tell a story with in that structure whether it be "Braveheart" or "Dude, Where's My Car?" You get the same 120 pages to tell the story.

You have to read other writers to see how to say a lot with a little.

Dialogue is very important. There are a lot writers who make it on dialogue. Great dialogue writers. Even by their own admission they are not necessarily big plot guys or idea guys. Great dialogue and great characters will go a long way.

If it's a comedy, it is funny? If it's an action thriller, is it exciting? Is it novel? Is it keeping me turning pages or am I slogging through it?

What is the movie within ten or fifteen pages? If I still don't know what it is then that's not a good sign – you throw it away. If you are fifteen to twenty pages into a screenplay and you are still lost as to what it's about, you haven't done your job as writer.

My time is too valuable. I might start skimming. Or just reading dialogue.

So what do you guys do to make sure all of that is in your scripts?

Charlie: Anybody who sits down with a vague idea of what you are writing… You gotta outline. It's only your friend. Again, it's not in concrete, but it gives you a road map so that you know where you are kind going. Now once you get to those beats you can change them. But outlining is one of the most time intensive acts of writing because you are laying it out.

Once you sit down to write it, if you have a good outline, you should be able to get through it a lot quicker.

Chato: The first draft certainly. I'm a big believer that the real work of writing is rewriting. Once you get finished with that first draft that's when the real work begins. You are going to go nowhere without an outline.

Charlie: We know people that don't outline and they usually run out of steam around page 70 or 80. They have a dozen half screenplays in their desk that they haven't finished. They had a novel idea but they didn't really work it through. When you outline it that's where you really get your structure.

Chato: Screenplays are structure. Structure comes out of an outline. When you talk about those first fifteen pages to hook people – that is structure. If you don't have it, forget it then you are wasting their time and yours -- especially your first act.

Charlie: And structure doesn't have to be rigid, it can be fluid.

And not to jump to far ahead the process, but how about the deal finally coming together?

Charlie: The first law of Hollywood is everything takes twice a long as you think it's going to take. And in reality it takes four times as long. That's the bottom line.

Even when you sell a screenplay the contract can take six months to do, before you actually see the money. It takes forever to do some of the deals.

You can sell something in January and not get something till October -- another good reason to keep your day job. (Laughs)

Also, what are your big do’s and don'ts for screenwriters that we haven't covered?

Charlie: Don't hand write your script. Don't add illustrations. Don't oversell yourself.

Chato: 25 five-word pitch. If you really want to be a pro writer, don't write things you can't sell. I know I used to throw away six month stretches writing a sci-fi movie that would cost $600 million dollars to make that can only be given to two people.

Charlie: And everybody coming out of college has their own autobiographical story. Everybody (writer) has one but no one wants to read it. You might think you have a unique take on it, but wait until you've written one or two commercial movies then be Woody Allen.

Chato: You have to write things that can be made.

Charlie: And people tell you to write what you know. They don't mean it literally. Emotionally write what you know. Make sure the characters are real characters. Take cues from your life and inject that into your story to give your story credibility and give your characters dimension. It doesn't mean that you can only write from your real life experiences.

Make sure it has a sense of reality. A big word Jerry constantly uses is "verisimilitude." Movies aren't real but the trick is to give it a sense of feeling of credibility.

Chato: The other great line is "reality only helps you when it helps you."

Charlie: If you are writing a story and you find out the reality is the exact opposite of what your story is suggesting, if it's not a well-known fact, forget about it. (Laughs) Your average audience member won't know.

There's something also that we call "refrigerator logic." I think it's a Hitchcock thing. It's the logic you will only remember late at night when you are going to the refrigerator to get a drink and you go, "Wait a minute. That didn't make any sense." But by that time it's too late. It's a logic slip you want notice during the real time of watching the movie. If it's immediately evident don't do it.

Chato: And this is a Charlie rule, the werewolf and the alien thing. If you're doing a movie and a guy walking through the woods is abducted by aliens, I'm with you. But if he gets up to the space ship and the guy becomes a werewolf, then I'm not with you anymore. You're taking two coincidental things and rolling together multiple aspects of genre science fiction or stuff like that, and not having one central coherent element that's the sell point for it.

Every time you introduce one of those things you lose your audience more and more.

Charlie: I'll give you one of those, but when you start putting two or three… then I'm so far removed that I cannot connect with you lose me. It's pure crap.

Chato: I swear, of the things (development executives) get, at least 25% break that rule. Maybe half.

Charlie: Right

Chato: People try to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the story, and then they shatter any kind of credibility or reality for the world.

Charlie: You have to swallow too many suspensions of disbelief.

What are you guys working on now and what is coming up?

Chato: We are buried. We're running between marathon rewriting sessions for "Mail Order Spy," as well as prepping two other new spec scripts for market. One is totally new, and one is a thing I wrote last year that had a lot of good ideas, but didn't really come together. Charlie came up with a great solve for it, so as soon as we finish "Mail Order," and the new spec, we may fix that old one too.