Screenplay Analysis - SHARON - Blacklist.
This script finished at number 70 on the 2018 Blacklist.
Written by Ryan Jaffe.
logline: Biopic of Sharon Osbourne - wife of Ozzy Osbourne.
THE STORY...
We first meet Sharon in Wimbledon, England, 1970.
She's socialising at a grand party at her father's house filled with artists, rockers and grim faced mobsters. Sharon excels in her role of hostess.
Upstairs, we find Don Arden negotiating with the manager of The Small Faces.
Don wants to take over the management of the group. The manager says no and Don retorts by having his 'Heavies' (English parlance for 'goons') grab the manager by his ankles and hang him over the edge of the balcony.
Sharon joins her father as this 'negotiation' is taking place. She's not shocked at all. Don gives Sharon a cigar and tells her to put it out on the manager's eyeball if he refuses to give up management of The Small Faces.
Needless to say, the manager finally signs them over to Don.
This opening scene sets up the main storyline - Sharon's battle with her father - Don, her struggle to free herself from his tyrannical rule.
Next, Sharon discovers the English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and their lead signer Ozzy Osbourne, whom Sharon will eventually marry.
At first, Sharon is complicit with her father in running his stable of musicians in a dictatorial manner.
Very early on Sharon finds herself pregnant. She has an abortion and soon learns that her father is more interested and concerned about money than he is for her emotional and physical well being.
The day after her abortion, Don asks Sharon to convince her boyfriend to sleep with Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, so he can try to take over their management.
By chance, Sharon overhears that Black Sabbath are looking for new management.
In a heartbeat, Sharon packs a bag, flies to America, meets with the lead of the band, a guy called Tony, and talks him into letting her be their manager.
Sharon is very pleased with herself, she's just single handedly taken over the management of one of the world's leading bands!
But as she soon discovers, her father Don is not going to let her manage the band in her own right, he wants a cut of their money, and when he says ‘a cut’, what he really means is all of it.
The story from here goes where you might expect it to.
Sharon fights with her father.
There is infighting in the band. Ozzy's partying becomes a liability and he's kicked out of the band.
Sharon and Ozzy form an unlikely alliance, and as history shows, their bond and teamwork is powerful and magical and violent and destructive and creative all at the same time.
The ultimate question becomes, will Sharon ever be able to get out from under her father's shadow and soar with Ozzy?
WILL THIS FILM MAKE MONEY?
While I loved this screenplay and it was exceptionally well written, I'm not sure there's enough of an audience waiting to see this movie.
Having said that, I believe if you angled this story in the right way you could find an audience. At its core, this story is about a woman overcoming and escaping the oppressive and destructive relationship with her father.
It is a story well worth telling. Also, that this is a story about the rise of Ozzy Osbourne, you have an inbuilt audience - those who love Black Sabbath and Ozzy.
So, while I'm not certain this film could make money, if you tapped into the die-hard Ozzy fans and pushed this film as an empowerment piece you might just find enough people excited by this story to turn a profit.
WHAT IT DID WELL
The world created in this screenplay felt very real. Often screenplays feel manufactured. While being a biopic obviously lends a sense reality, the interactions and the characters really feel like they're alive here.
How can you make your script feel real? How can you make it feel alive like Sharon?
It comes down to realistic dialogue and three dimensional characters.
Dialogue is hard to get right.
The worst kind of dialogue is On The Nose. This is when a character speaks verbatim thoughts.
This might happen in real life sometimes, but mostly people are cryptic. Think about yourself, how often have you felt a certain way but instead of saying exactly how you feel, you expressed yourself indirectly?
This is the nature of all relationships. This is how you make dialogue interesting.
Next time you're writing dialogue, try this process...
Write your scene in the most boring and literal on the nose way you can imagine.
Now, go back and rewrite every piece of dialogue in an indirect way. Think about how you convey anger instead of saying 'I'm angry'. Think about indirect ways your characters could express that they're feeling lonely instead of simply saying, 'I feel lonely.'
Use the On The Nose dialogue as a launching off point to ensure you know what it is your character is trying to convey in that moment, but have them do so in an indirect manner.
Another way to make your dialogue more interesting is with metaphorical dialogue. This is where your character makes a point by way of metaphor.
Example: your character wants to say that life is ever changing and in a constant state of flux. Rather than just saying that verbatim, perhaps they could talk about waves, and how no wave from sea to shore ever stays the same. All waves are constantly merging with other waves, or separating and forming new waves. In this instance your character has used a wave as a metaphor for what they were trying to say about life.
When your audience gets a chance to think in a film it engages them cerebrally and you will maintain their attention.
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