He’ s saved by the bell when he gets a phone call for his roommate from a snooty prep school looking for a substitute to fill in for a few weeks. Pretending to be his roommate, he takes the job. Now we have a great fish out of water scenario where sloppy Jack Black has to pretend to be a well organized and well educated teacher. But what does he know? Nothing!
I did a free class at the Screenwriter’ s Showcase a couple of years ago- I didn’ t get paid
to teach the class, no one had to pay to take it. So what’ s in it for me? You learn by
teaching. The reason for this website and script tips like this one is that I have to analyze films and scripts and then find a way to explain why something works or doesn’ t work... and * I * learn in the process. I think this is the key to improving the conflict in SCHOOL OF ROCK and making it more satisfying to the audience. Have Jack Black learn from teaching... and actually become the intelligent, well educated teacher the prep school thought he was when they hired him.
They had one quick mention of rock history, but why not a scene where Black explains how music history parallels political history? It’ s not like THE WILD ONE where the answer to what are you rebelling against is“ What have you got?”- rock music has been a voice of the people- discussing issues and taking on actual targets. He could have easily done a quick scene where someone asked what Kent State means in the lyrics- and he has to explain...
And that means Black has to hit the books, too.
SCHOOL OF WHAT?
School Of Rock( 2003)
One of the interesting things about SCHOOL OF ROCK is that there isn’ t much schooling( learning) and there isn’ t much about Rock & Roll music! Hey! That’ s false advertizing! I’ ve said before in a Script Tip that it’ s helpful to tape your logline to your computer monitor to make sure your story stays on course, and the same is true with * titles *. You screenplay’ s title is the story in a handful of words, so if your script is called THE OLD MILL, you want to make sure that it’ s about an old mill. Though SCHOOL OF ROCK takes place in a school, it manages to gloss over any actual learning... and gloss over Rock music as well!
How about a scene where one of the kids makes up a tune that sucks and Black has to explain WHY it sucks? Which means he has to study music and explain chord progressions in mathematical terms... and Black learns why his songs suck in the process and learns to be a better song writer. Even have the Song Writing Kid explain part of it to Black, so that Black must learn about the music / math connection just to keep up and communicate with grade schoolers.
And I would have had a scene or two about lyrics. There are some amazing lyrics in rock music- some tricky rhymes and unusual meters. So why not have Black break down some rock lyrics as poetry and show how clever the words can be? Again, he learns how to be a better musician through teaching. I don’ t know about you, but I have sat around drinking with friends and talked about the meaning of song lyrics before. This is something that occurs“ naturally” in real lifem, so why not make it part of the story?
When we get to Parent’ s Night things look bleak, then Black saves it by showing how much the kids really have learned. They do a“ poetry recital” and explain how the poetry works- all with rock lyrics... which make
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