All is in The Name

                Your Script, The Name Game


    There is an expression that many Christian ministers use, “Name it and
claim it.”

    Many of use start a script with Untitled written at the top. Looking back on the scripts that I have finished and the ones that I have not, the ones with a name reached the finish line far more often than the one’s without.

    But the title will change many times once it is done.

    Yeah and so what. That is the future and this is now. Living in the now you need to consider the name game. One of my favorite saying of all time from a really bad movie is spoken by a knight. When it is suggest that he may get lost in this new strange land he is visiting his response is that a man with a purpose can never be lost. The name is the purpose, the direction that your script is going to travel.

    During those muddy thirty to fifty middle pages of your script that name is
the true north that you will travel toward.

    The Sicilian sounds like a nice name for a film, but can that title steer your on a true course as easily as The Godfather. When in doubt, what is this movie about?

    The Godfather?

    Who is under attack?

    The Godfather.

    Who must hold the family and the business together?

    The Godfather?

    Who are they trying to kill?

    The Godfather.

    If the family is to survive who must Michael become?

    The Godfather.

    After all the bullets stop flying and the smoke and dust clears who is left standing?


    Love him or hate him. See him as a villain or hero. What is his name and the name of the film?

    The Godfather.

    Do it with most great films or even good films.

    The Exorcist, The Birds, Titanic, The Jerk, The Hangover, The Artist, Dumb and Dumber, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Avengers, Alien, Unforgiven, The Sixth Sense and countless other films.

    You are stuck in the middle of act 2 of your screenplay and Dorothy, the Scarecrow and Tin Man are standing around wondering what to do next. That is easy. There is a yellow brick road. Get back on it and sing that song again. We are off to see Tokyo? New York? The sales at Target? No. The Wizard. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.