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Doing lunch with'Jungle Fevert starWesley Snipes

ospielberg

bought ourascript!'

How

How do you get the ear

of a Hollywood big shot?

There's the usual way,

and then there's the way

these three girls did it.

Just ask Steven Spielberg.

SCENE lzA panoraruic shot of Los An-gela. Close-ups of Rolls-Royces, mouielots, bottles ofEvian, spindly palm trees.

'lVelcome to Hollywood, not somuch a place as a state of mind. Lalaland. The Dream Factory. Tinseltown.Where fame is king, money is queenand the most inspired idea for a movieis whatever Tom Cruise is in themood to do next. Where the world re-volves around the car phone, the poolat the Beverly Hills Hotel, the donedeal and contacts, ba\, contacts.

Where, if you have access to noneof the above, 23-year-old assistantswho seem to have been bom with onename - Dana, Todd - put you onhold, then say Mr. or Ms. Big is ukinga meeting, taking a call, doing lunch.

And where the Inner Sanctum isAmblin Entertainment, home toSteven Spielberg, the most successfuldirector of all time, master of the HighConcept: "Kids Befriend Alien.""Professor Seeks Holy Grail." "SharkMenaces Beach Town."

"Amblin has this gorgeous enclaveon the Universal lot," says Peter Mar-tin'Wortmann, a screenwriter who hasworked for Spielberg on three projects

4 USAVEEKEND . Juru 7-9, 1991

g ets its ideas

(none of which, typically for Holly-wood, has seen the light of day). "It's a

litde adobe village. Very high security.You're on the ouside until rftel, callyou."

SCENE 2: Waynesboro, Va,, home to17,000 and a vast Du Pont plant, nestled

at thefoot of the Blue Ridge Mounuins.

It's Thursday,Jen. 17, the first fullday of the Gulf 'War. So why are acamera crew, a producer and a reporterfrom ABC hovering over tfuee eighth-graders walking down a school hall?Because tomorrow Renee Carter andher friends Amy Crosby and SarahCreef are going Hollyrood, meeting

with Spielberg about their story idea.This is news of man-bites-dog

magnitude, and not just for Waynes-boro. People magazine has been totown. Tiffie has called. EntertainrnentWeekly is meeting the girls for theplane ride, their first.

"I just got another call a few min-utes ago," sa)rs a secretary in the prin-cipal's oflice. "They said they wereproducers for the Ceraldo show. I toldthem to call Renee's mother."

And all because the three took a

fancy to a cartoon show, Tiry ToonAd-ventures, which airs weekday after-noons in syndication. They drew theirown 120-page cartoon script Gaturingtwo of the charactbrs - "Babs &Buster Go Hawaiian" - 31d sent it tothe show's producer, Spielberg. Al-though as a rule unsolicited man-uscripts are automaticdly retumed, thescript was opened accidentally andwound up on Spielberg's desk

He pronounced himself amazed bythe effort thatwent into it and the feel-ing for the show's characters. Thescript is passably drawn, cleverly plot-ted and remarkably hip in a self-con-sciously zany way that Spielberg-the-overgrown-kid loves.

(For instance, there's an interrup-tion in the plot for "The HistoryofQ-Tips," narrated by a prototypicallyboring teacher: "One of man's mostpractical inventions. Here is a diagramof a Q-Tip. Notice the 50 percent or-tra cotton at the tip. Also, notice thedelicately crafted. . . " At that point, a

"spokesrabbit" for Tiny Toon Adven-,ilres screarns, "Get offthe air!!!!")

Spielberg decided to make thescript into a Tiny Toorc episode andinvited the girls and their families tosign a contract and see Hollywood.

Photographed by Bonnie Schiftnan, Onyx

Spielberg sits stillfor some aduice on his 'Tiny Toon Aduentures' cartoon show

from Aruy Crosby, U (leJt); Renee Carter, lj; and Sarah Creef, li

BY DAN OLMSTED

\

On this Thursday at Kate CollinsMiddle School, the girls are takingtests a week early and being followeddown the hall by a crew from 20/20.But they seem to be keeping theirheads even as they become the story

- a predicable tum in the publicity-go-round that keeps Hollyvood andthe news media happily hooked.(Timq Entertainment Weekly and People

are, in fact, owned by Time'WarnerInc., the same conglomerate that co-owns Tiny Toon Adventu ru. )

"Didn't Andy Warhol say that ev-eryone will be famous for 15 min-utes?" muses the girls' history teacher,

John Pierce. "They seem to be takingit, I wouldn't say with a grain of salt,but they know it's their moment in thesun." The rest of the kids at schoolseem pretry media-sawy as well: "Ev-eryone says (Renee's) probably not go-ing to get as much publicity because ofthe war," says Sarah Honnoll, 15.

When Renee's schoolmates askedher to get Spielberg's autograph, shesaid sure: "On the contract."

SCENE 3; Hollywood again. The fol-lowing Monday, Martin Luther KingDay, the fifih full day oJ the Gulf War.(At lunch, people huddle around the

"20/20" cdmera crew's tiny TV set,watching a Scud attack. Banner head-line in today's "Variety": "ShowbizShell-Shocked: Shoots stalled, execs

grounded, festiuals in limbo. Industryasks: Will war haue lW?")

In the world-unto-iself of AmblinEntertainment, life goes on.

Spielberg, characteristically dresseddown in ajeanjacket, is holdinga storyconference witti the three girls arounda huge table, surrounded by writers,executives and the media. Even as theyalk the publicity mill cranks: a Warn-er Bros. publicist hands out a press re-lease reporting that the girls "receivedthe thrill of their young lives whenthey met Tiny Toon 'Mventura execu-tive producer Steven Spielbed'to dis-cuss their idea for "the No. 1-rated animated children's series."

The girls, who spent the first 2days of the trip publicly speechless,except for group grggles, have recov-

_ered their poise under Spielberg'sdisarming guidance; Renee positive-ly blossoms. Smart, with a natural witand a thick Virginia accent, she drewmuch of the "Babs & Buster" story -and does most of the talking for thegirls. The discussion wanders betweenthe focused and the loony.

Rence: 'Ne got into a conversationonce about what would happen if itwere possible apd socially acceptableto marry a cartoon character. I'd beenwatching 4 hours of Loor ey Tunu."

Spielberg: "Let's figure this out. Canthey wer be married? My philosophyis that the reason Buster and Babsaren't married is they're too young toget married. And B, you never reallywanted Bruce Willis and Cybill Shep-herd on Moonlighting to get married.The pursuit was more fun than theactual, you know, arrival."

Renee: '\le got into this long con-versation about who we'd marry."

One character no one would marry,Spielberg says, is Plucky Duck "IWe allbelieve that Plucky is married to him-self. His ego is the size of . . ."

Renee: ".. . Cleveland."Spielberg: "See? You're funny. It

wouldn't have been funny if you'dsaid Las Vegas, but Cleveland's fun-ny." He tells the room: "They some-how know - and I think that's whatwe responded to, just that idea thatCleveland's funnier than las Vegas."

The gtrrls' scnptsends

Bwter Bunny, ,lrght,

andfiailBabs on a

dkutrous Hawaiian

vamtion,Ihe

caftoon airs

inNwanbq

As the conference progresses, ittums out that Spielberg's scripnrritershave added a couple oflayers ofplot.One layer: The whole frealsy improb-ability of anyone - Buster and Babsor Renee and friends - gettingthrough to Spielberg.

Scriptwriter: "As you know, it's hardto get into Amblin. Well, actually, youdon't know that."

Spielberg: "First it was hard to getinto MCA (which owns (JniversalStudios). Now you've got to get pastMatsushia (which has bought MCA)to get to MCA to get to Amblin."

Scriptwriter: "So getting in the gate

at Amblin is tough."Spielberg: "My mother can get in

to see me."Scriptwriter: "In the caftoon, Babs

and Buster finally do get in to seeSteven, and what is he doing, playrngpaddleball or something?"

Spielberg: "I think the way I really

Spielbag-produced

want to be portrayed, if we all get toportray ourselves, is I'd like to havean anteroom Iilled with a lot of peo-ple waiting for meetinp, and I'm inthe video game room and playing'Tiny Toons' or something."

Now we're really getting dizzy. lsit any wonder that sometime-screen-writer Aldous Huxley called Holly-wood that "adult toy palace"? Or thatthreejunior-high kids, once they getin, seem to belong there?

SCENE 4; The nelct morning, Registra-tion Department, Writers Guild ofice,Wut Hollywood.

To understand the novelty of yes-terday's event, it helps to see how allthis usually works - how adults withideas get Hollyrood's ear.

At this office, an averege 100 peoplea day stop in to pay $10 ($20 for non-Guild members)_to register a copy oftheir screenplay, teleplay, story outlineor idea so no one can steal it.

A nervous woman has brought inan idea for a television game show.("I can't tell you what it is; they hap-pen too fast.") A man has written a

screenplay celled War. ("It's about mychildhood.") A typist registers a

script about prison for a manwho couldn't come in person

- fus's in prison. ("Needs tobe grittier," she offers.)

Jeff Stuart, 39, came to theregistration office deprived of

sleep but wired from being up allnight finishing his first screenplayafter a decade in television. ("It's

aboutjunk: junk bonds, junk atti-tudes, junk politics.") He could

offer Renee, Amy and Sarah a

short course in Tinseltown, mi-nus the tinsel. 'You have to get

used to living life in clumps. If you'relooking for a steady paycheclg forget it.You're going to go dry for a whilc,then you're going to get a $eat biglump, and you have to learn how touse that. A lot ofwriters don't."

As story editor for Trapper John,M.D., Stuart says, "I used to play a

game whe;e I would keep the origindscript in my lap when watching (anepisode) on television and raise myhand when I heard a line I had actudlywritten, as opposed to one somebodyin the cast or the director had rewrit-ten. My hand didn't go up that much.

"It is a rough thing. You must bepsychologically prepared for some-body to use (your work) as Kleenex.But if they pay you, the way it worksin this particular industry, they havethe right to use it as Kleenex. . .. As awriter, you can be just paid off andsent away and they can have five or six

Continued on Page 6

GETTINGHOLLYWOOD'S

NUMBER

Number of scriptwritingjobs available in Hollywood

in a year:3,500

Number of membersof the Writers Guild living in

L.A. County alone: 5,500

Writers Gulldmembers who work in any

given year:5096

Itledian annual incomeof those who actually work:

$50,000

Payment to three glrls fromWaynesboro, Ya., for tBabs

& Buster Go Hawaiian':

$3,900, the standard ratefor a half-hour TVanimation script

\Minlmum payment for a

half-hour TV comedy script:

$ I3,969

Minlmum for a l -hour drama:

$20,665

Number of unsolicitedscripts received annually by

L.A. Low: about 1,000

Average number used by

L.A, Low during a

22-episode season: 5

Mlnimum paymentfor a TV movie script:

$41,144 (the going rate iscloser to $75,000)

Higheet price for abig-screen script (paid to

loe Ezsterhas forBasic lnstlnct, later sent to a'script doctor' for rewrite):

$3 million

Typical paymentper week to a top-notch

script doctor:

$20,000-$30,000

USA WEEKEND . Junc 7-9, 1991 5

; -s't,16%l

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Continuedfrom Page 5'script doctors' hammer it intowhatever they think is their shape."

It.makes you realize how unusualit was yesterday when one of theTiny Toon scriptrrriters, telling thethree girls how the plot was beingrevamped, said: "If it's not what youguys want, please tell us, because wewlll definitely change it." Or whenRenee told Spielberg not rc cut thescene featuring the Q-Tips, andSpielberg readily agreed.

But what is only too typical isa studio glomming onto an idea.

"The first thingabout Hollywood -particularly TV, butmovies and TV both

- is they consumeideas. They just de-vour them," says

John Boorstin, theauthor of a recentbooh T/re HollyuoodEye, and a veteranscreenwriter andproducer. "'Whenyou're working ona TV series, you getdesperate for stories.You try to get themhowever you can. Iknow that peopleworking on Againstthe Law (on the Fox network) havelegal researchers go and lookthrough old law cases trying to findmaterial. The material has been soheavily mined already, you're waydown to the 5,000-foot level. Some-times they come from newspaperclippings; peoplc read the papersvery carefully. They reed Publishers'Weekly; they make abstracts."

Or they turn on the blender."One way people do it is (to) com-bine genres, combine ideas. For ex-ample, Predator is the bring-out-the-POW idea combined with theAlien idea. Outland was described as

High Noon in space."But with so many clever, articu-

late people trying so hard, the ques-tion has to be asked: Iilhy aren'tmore good stories made into goodmovies and TV programs? Money.'l0ith the typical Flollywood moviecosting $26 million, it's risky to trysomething completely different.

But even screenwriters admit itisn't just the studios' fault. "Thereare a lot of unoriginal scripts," says

Worrmann, the Spielberg collabora-tor. "There is an enormous amountof looking at what-worked-this-week It's about to happen in Holly-wood along the lines of family-ori-ented and feel-good-romance kind

6 USaWfffenD. Jrtc 7_9, t99t

of movies, because of Home Aloneand Preny Woman and Ghost."

Boorstin looks at the same stateof affairs more optimistically. "Bigstories are doing better than the bigstars without a good story. TomCruise in Days of Thundu didn't doas well as Patrick Swayze in Chost.The conventional wisdom was topay any amount of money for a TomCruise or Eddie Murphy movie.Now, the lesson of this year is thatit's better to invest in a good story.

"That was always Steven Spiel-berg's approach."

A crewfrom '20/20' inuades the noisy lunthroomat the girls' school in Waynesboro, Va.

SCENE 5z The Carter home, ontsideWaynesboro, April 25. Spring hdsco,ne to the Blue Ridge; the USA'stroops are returningfrom Kuwait; thereal world has come horue to Sarah,Amy and Renee. They got the $i,900Spielberg inuested in their story -diuided by three, less taxes.

"A lol less," Sarah says. The girlsgo into a virtual "Talkin' TaxesBlues Rap," egpng each other onin the top-this style that must haveproduced the script in the first place.

"Federal tax, carpet tax, SocialSecurity targ thumb tal three-hds-who-sold-a-script-to-Spielberg ta<."

"Brown-eyed ta:<."

"We're-going-to-take-some-more-money tax."

Still, there's the halGhour car-toon episode - scheduled forNovember - to look forward to.

And the next night, Renee wouldwatch herself on 20/20. Amy andSarah, on a church retreat, wouldape the show. The three had beenready once before, but their segmentwas pre-empted by Barbara Walters'Norman Schwarzkopf inte-rview."The giris can handle that," jokesAmy's mom,Wanda. "Butwhen theyget bumped for an exorcism . . ."

Hmm. Exorcism. Could be a

script idea. Let's do lunch.

Photographed by Skip Brown