John Truby photo courtesy of truby.com
Last year while on YouTube I accidentally stumbled across an interview with a man named John Truby, someone unknown to me then, but known worldwide for some time as “the best script doctor in the movie industry.”
I watched that first short video clip where he discussed how to write a great screenplay. Â I was completely captivated. I wanted more.
You know how it is on YouTube when you watch one video, and then a bunch of related videos magically appear on the page? That’s how I ended up clicking on one John Truby video after the other, Â watching them from start to finish.
The sun set. Â The moon rose. By the time a new day had dawned I’d watched pretty much every Truby video I could find, sometimes twice.
Truly, by then I was hooked on Truby. Â I found him smart and informative and inspiring. He was an incredible teacher, about not just screenplay writing, but storytelling in general. Plus, he’s cute. (And married. His wife — a writer — is svelte and gorgeous, of course.)
I’ve since learned that Truby is also a story consultant for major studios and production companies worldwide, and has worked as a script doctor on more than 1,500 movies, sitcoms and television dramas for the likes of Disney, Sony Pictures, FOX, HBO, Alliance Atlantis, BBC and MTV.
Tens of thousands of writers have attended Truby’s seminars around the world in such cities as Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, Vancouver, Sydney, Mexico City and Tel Aviv.
I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I’ve been chugging and chipping away on a screenplay for years, without much success. (Maybe if I spent less time watching YouTube videos …)
Blame sleep deprivation after a night of Truby binge-watching, but I actually looked up John Truby on Facebook. Sure enough, he had a page. I sent him a message (I know you’re busy, and you hear from lots of writers, but I love your work, so inspiring …).
To my total shock, I received a reply:Â Thanks for your kind words Doni. I’m so glad to hear you are committed to your training. I hope one day we can meet in person. John
Yes, that was my scream of elation heard throughout Redding from my Garden Tract home that day. (By the way, while it has occurred to me that perhaps Truby’s Facebook message was really written by his assistant, if you know that to be true, please keep it to yourself. Let me have this.)
Encouraged, I forged on with an idea that seemed wonderfully possible. I drew upon the why-the-hell-not spirit of John Mancasola, who ballsily contacted the great Santiago Calatrava and managed to get the world-famous architect to design the Sundial Bridge in Redding. In that spirit, I pitched an idea to Truby.
What if John Truby came to Redding and taught a one-day seminar? (I’d have preferred two days, but didn’t want to be greedy. He’s highly in demand.)
I pictured it in the fall (do you think I’d let him set foot in Redding in the summer!?), in our gorgeously restored historic Cascade Theatre. Of course, we’d wine and dine the guy to death. Maybe the nice McConnell Foundation folks would let him stay at their beautiful guesthouse. Let’s see, he’d need to see the Sundial Bridge, and would there be time for a houseboat spin around the lake? Whose houseboat? Beats me. I’d figure that out later. I have connections.
A News Cafe.com could sponsor the event, with some help from the Writers Forum.
I knew without a doubt the Cascade Theatre would be sold out, filled with writers from San Francisco to Medford, and from Eureka to Alturas; Â people who’d gladly pay to sit and learn at the feet of the gifted Truby. I’d be front row, center.
My pitch included a shameless name-drop of Redding’s own Kathleen Kennedy (my blushing apologies to the Kennedy family). I may or may not have also mentioned that Kathleen’s father, Don Kennedy, and my father, Don Chamberlain, were old poker buddies.
What can I say? What was I thinking? Desperate is as desperate does.
Once again, Truby graciously replied, but this time with a polite decline. He thanked me for the invitation, but said that for a long time, he’s only taught his 3-day story class in big U.S. cities like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. He added that if some event in the future were to bring him to Redding, he’d be happy to contact me and see about setting something up.
Sigh.
And if I go to the moon, I promise to bring you back a moon rock.Â
Crestfallen, it occurred to me that perhaps I should have mentioned the north state’s Clint Eastwood connection, but I changed my mind after I read Truby’s comments about “American Sniper” (see below). Either way, by then it was too late. Truby had said no, and, unlike in “50 Shades of Grey”, when someone says no, that means no.
I couldn’t blame him. I’m sure that far more influential people than Doni Chamberlain have tried without success to lure Truby to more enticing places than Redding, California.
Undaunted, I decided that although I couldn’t bring Truby to Redding (this year), I could bring myself to Truby come summer in Los Angeles for his three-day Anatomy of Story Master Class. I have registered. I have received a confirmation. I am beyond excited.
But enough about me.
The good news for all of us is that Truby agreed to another one of my smaller requests. As you know, Oscar nominations are out, which makes this a good time to review and learn from the best films of 2014. Truby kindly granted permission for A News Cafe.com to publish his 2015 Oscar rankings, where he crystallizes the essence of 17 top 2014 films hoping for Oscar gold, from best to worst.
Films that earned Oscar nominations for either Picture or Writing, Original or Adapted, have an asterisk (*). Some also include links to screenplays. (Spoiler alert:Â This breakdown divulges key information about films’ plots.)
I’m curious how Truby’s rankings compare with yours. Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts about the 2014 films. The best? The worst? (Of course, Redding is at a disadvantage because many of the Oscar nominated films often don’t even play here.)
In the meantime, I think I’ll see if John Mancasola is available for coffee. Clearly, I could use some pointers.
John Truby’s Oscar Rankings
*1. The Grand Budapest Hotel: A story within a story within a story about the wonder of storytelling in a magical hotel that time forgot, until now. Download the script.
*2. The Imitation Game: A conventional but beautifully executed script that goes in one door – cracking the Nazi code – and comes out another – a man tragically persecuted because he is gay. Classic storytelling in the screenplay form. Download the script.
*3. Nightcrawler: Horatio Alger from Hell. How to make it in America using the sleaziest tactics creative capitalism allows. Network for 2014, but darker.Download the script.
*4. Whiplash: A minimalist fight between player and coach perfectly focused toward the final knockout punch. Download the script.
5. Guardians of the Galaxy: The most entertaining film of the year is the result of writers who have mastered the craft of the comic myth.
*6. Interstellar: A post-graduate class in the cinematic plot of convergence, including some plot holes the size of the universe that prevent it from being a knockout. Download the script.
*7. Selma: The preaching in the monologues is powerful stuff. The preaching in the dialogue is not. A moving portrait of one of the great battles in the civil rights movement and the imperfect man who made it happen.
*8. Birdman: Structurally ambitious, but few things are as hollow or pretentious as an existential exploration of what it means to be an AC-TOR. Download the script.
*9. Boyhood: A hundred moments in a boy’s life, struggling to form a pattern, but the total is considerably less than the sum of the parts. Download the script.
*10. American Sniper: Portrait of a professional killer with the typical Eastwood bait and switch, bemoaning the cost of violence while wallowing in the pleasure of the kill. Download the script. (This is a direct download link.)
*11. The Theory of Everything: Although this film has real emotional power, the man against disease story has no dramatic engine, so it gets slower and more annoying as it goes on. Maudlin and on-the-nose, this is what’s known as an actor’s movie. Download the script.
12. Wild: an ultimately satisfying memoir-true story about a woman healing herself. But it’s all medicine. There’s no plot to make it fun. Download the script.
*13. Foxcatcher: A predictable, single-line descent about two nut jobs and the decent guy who gets caught in the middle. The fake nose doesn’t help. Download the script.
14. A Most Violent Year: A passive protagonist and a plot that hits the same beat until, suddenly, the movie’s over. Download the script.
15. Gone Girl: An absurd battle between a psychopath and an idiot, with one of the worst endings in years. Download the script.
16. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: thousands of onscreen deaths give undeniable proof that the monstrous Orcs are the worst warriors in history.
*17. Inherent Vice: An Oscar-nominated, endless, boring mess that cements Paul Thomas Anderson’s reputation as the most over-rated writer-director working today. Bad plot, bad characters, bad dialogue, bad acting. Bad.
For a complete list of Oscar nominees, please visit the Official Oscar Website. For more about John Truby, click here.
Independent online journalist Doni Chamberlain founded what’s now known as anewscafe.com in 2007 with her son, Joe Domke of the Czech Republic. Prior to 2007 Chamberlain was an award-winning newspaper opinion columnist, feature and food writer recognized by the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and E.W. Scripps. She lives in Redding, CA.
