How To Be a Latin Lover: Turning Sadness into Salsa

[spb_column width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]   By, Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [/spb_column] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [fullwidth_text alt_background="none" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] How To Be a Latin Lover: Turning Sadness Into Salsa Podcast Transcript: This week we’re going to be talking about How To Be a Latin Lover, by, Chris Spain and Jon Zack.  And, while this wonderfully silly screenplay may not teach you how to be a Latin lover, it will teach you a hell of a lot about screenwriting.   If you’ve seen How To Be a Latin Lover, or if you’ve read the script, you know that from page one, from the very first scene of the film, it’s easy to know if you’re going to love this movie or hate it--  if you want to go on the ride with these characters or if you don’t.   If you want to succeed as a screenwriter, the most important page you will ever write is your very first page.   And the most important page you will ever rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite, is also your very first page.   Your first page is the most important page in your screenplay, because the first page is the only page anyone is actually going to read.   Your manager, your agent, your coverage reader, your producer, your star-- everybody in the entertainment industry is overwhelmed with all the reading they have to do. They’re absolutely swamped, receiving screenplay, after screenplay, after screenplay. All these screenplays they have to read, stacking up on their desks or on their ipads.   And the truth is, everybody wants to read all those scripts, but no one actually does. Because reading every script that you receive is physically impossible.   Most of the scripts get sent out for coverage, and even the coverage readers can’t really, fully, read all of the scripts that are descending upon them.   A coverage reader makes about $50 a script. So, when you think about what it would take for you to read a whole script, write a good logline, a good summary, and a good commentary, you realize there is no way that a coverage reader can afford to actually read every script they're given. They’d be working for less than minimum wage!   Instead, what most coverage readers are doing is that they’re making a decision about whether to read or skim, and they’re making a decision on the very first page. Because what most of coverage readers read is bad.   Most of what coverage readers read is not exciting, not marketable, not producible.   And that means coverage readers are jaded.   They have a really rough job. They have to read bad material again and again and again. And that means that when they open your script, especially a script from an unrepresented writer or a writer they don’t already know, they’re already making an assumption it’s probably not going to be very good.   Because even the scripts they get from famous writers, from produced writers, from writers with big managers, and big agents-- oftentimes those scripts aren’t good.   So you’ve got someone who’s already feeling down before they even open your script, They’re already feeling jaded before they open your script.   And at the same time, every single one of those people desperately wants to find a diamond in the rough.   Because nobody wants to stay a coverage reader. Coverage readers want to become writers, or agents, or assistants, or development executives. And the way that you get there is by knocking the socks off of your boss with your incredible ability to find that diamond in the rough.   So there’s this interesting thing going on for coverage readers. On the one hand, they want to find a diamond in the rough, and on the other hand they all feel like they’re never going to see it, because if you read a 1000 scripts, 999 of them are bad.   Which means that if you want to win them over, you have to win them over from the very first page.   You can think of this like a job interview.   If you’re going for a job interview, and you show up in a really great suit, versus if you go in a job interview and you show up, and you look rumpled or disheveled, or you fly is undone, or your skirt is on backwards.   Even though you might give the best interview of your life-- even though you might eventually  win them over to considering you-- you can never erase that first impression.   The first scene and the first page of your movie, are the first impression that anyone will ever have of your film. And once you give that impression it is impossible to erase it. If you’re writing a comedy, and you make them laugh on the first-- or even better, the first half-page, the first quarter-page-- they will be inclined to laugh or the rest of your script. They will already be feeling the humor. They will be seeing everything through that window.   If you write a horror movie and you make them cringe from the very first page, they will already be inclined to cringe, to see your movie through that horror window.   If you’re writing a movie about family, and you make them feel that family connection in the very first page, they’re going to see your movie through that window.   If you’re writing a big ol’ Sci-Fi Epic, and you make them feel that Sci-Fi Epic feeling from the very page, they’re going to see everything through that window.   So this is what you’re looking for. You’re looking to create a first scene that captures the feeling of the script. You’re looking to create a first scene that announces your voice as a writer. You’re looking for a first scene that locks in exactly who this character is. You’re looking for a first scene that sets the world of your movie.   To say in it in a simplest way, you’re looking for a scene that grabs your reader by their designer lapels and says Look! You’ve got to pay attention to me! This one’s actually good.   The problem is you don’t find that by trying to be good.   And that’s the challenge that we have as writers.  Often when we try to be good or when we try to be impressive, we end up being showy, or we end up being false.   The way you write a screenplay that can demand that kind of attention is by understanding what your movie really is about. And sometimes it takes time to understand what your movie really is about. It takes time to fully connect, to fully get in there, to understand what your themes are, and you who your characters are, and how your characters are.   In fact, in How To Be a Latin Lover, the real theme, the real thing holding this movie together, starts to emerge pretty late into the movie.   For those of you who haven’t seen the film, Maximo, played by Eugenio Derbez, is the ultimate gold digger. At the beginning of the movie, as a dashing young man, he marries a wealthy old woman for her money. And then, after 20 years of the pampered life he’s always wished for, she ends up dumping him for a younger man, leaving him with absolutely nothing.   Now he has not reconnect with his sister Sarah, played by Salma Hayak, who he’s basically ignored for 20 years, in order to cajole her into giving him a place to live, and hopefully buy enough time to seduce another rich woman so he can go back to his old lifestyle.   So this is the premise of the movie, but this isn’t what the movie is about.   The movie is really about his relationship with his sister, and his relationship with his sister’s son, Hugo.   And pretty late into the script there’s a scene between Maximo and Sarah, where the real theme emerges, and the real emotional underpinning of this very silly script, gets established.   Sarah’s husband has died a short time before the movie started. She’s just been asked out on a date by her next door neighbor, and she is afraid to go on the date.   Maximo advises her to do what he does when he gets scared: get drunk! So, Maximo and his estranged sister get really, really drunk together.   And there’s a moment where Sarah tells Maximo that her favorite thing to do is to take really sad songs and turn them into Salsa.   And this is a funny little scene, as she takes the saddest song she knows, and turns it into a Salsa.   But it’s also the real theme of the piece. It’s really what the movie is about.   It’s about taking the sad things in our lives and turning them into comedy.   And, in fact, as anyone who’s written comedy professionally can tell you that’s what comedy is really about. Comedy is not about making the audience laugh. Comedy is about looking inside of yourself and making yourself laugh. Looking inside of yourself and laughing at the things that have hurt you: turning sadness into laughter.   And what’s really cool is that this theme gets established from the very first scene. One of the saddest events possible, the loss of a father, gets played in this very first scene for ridiculous comedy.   We are watching Young Maximo, as his voiceover tells us the story of his father, who always worked very hard, and who told his children you don’t get what you wish for, you get what you work for.   He talks about how his father, a truck driver, was always away for long periods of time. But he would drive all night to come home.   And there’s this adorable little scene, in which the whole family runs out of the house to wave hello to the father, who falls asleep at the wheel of his tanker-truck just a few yards from home--   The family scatters as he crashes the truck all the way through the other side of the house, out the back and into the desert. And as the truck rolls to a stop,