FADE_IN how to write for the film business and how to cope with the business of film Written by Jon George Copyright: 1994, Jon George, J & J ent..... All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction "written by..." 2. Beginnings "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful..." 3. The Concept "You're the writers. You figure it out..." 4. The Paper "Get me something on that by next week..." 5. The Story Structure "You gotta hit the ground running..." 6. The Back Story "This is your life..." 7. Essential Parts "All Cinecitta is divided in three parts..." 8. Sequences "No matter how you slice it..." 9. Characters "There's these two guys, see..." 10. Dialogue "Bullshit, bullshit, my line, bullshit, my line..." 11. Context "I see everything in greens..." 12. Description "Where less is often more..." 13. Revision "Give 'em what they want..." 14. Cutting Room Floor "And the answer is..." 15. The Biz "Hello, he lied..." 16. Getting More "It's a go? It's a go..." FADE_IN INTRODUCTION Many people want to write scripts for motion pictures. Many more would like to understand what makes the movie they pay good money to see worth seeing. And some of both types secretly wish for the fortune and fame that belong to the select few who make their living in "show business". For all of these, the following material can offer something of value. It presents the essentials that a beginner must know in order to write a good screenplay. It also provides some insights into how to create a script that will be accepted as a professional read in the business. Even if you have no interest in creating films, by reading the material you will discover what to watch for and how to criticize the films you pay to see. While FADE_IN/FADEOUT might not be your only route to fame and fortune or even to the modest success in the business I have had, I believe the information I am passing along will help the beginner in climbing that slippery- runged ladder to the stars. And in addition, later on through direct contact you can pick my brain for whatever else it may hold that will help you as a budding screenwriter. Other than the material I have given on writing films, and watching them, in sequences rather than scenes, a fair amount of what is in my book does not claim to be especially fresh and different. All of the good books on screenwriting as a craft, as well as the many instructors who teach aspiring writers, cover much the same ground that is found here in FADE_IN/FADEOUT. Knowing this, one of my former co-writers who also teaches screenwriting at UCLA asked me why in the world I was continuing the effort. "Everything has already been said a hundred times over," he told me. Yeah. This may be true, but... In FADE IN, the free book, I get to tell beginning scripters my own version of the eternal verities, which in a number of instances are at odds with conventional wisdom. Second, I believe that beginning screenwriters often need encouragement and guidance as much as they need a grounding in the principles of the craft. I try to give that encouraging word here and there in what follows, and unlike some other purveyors of film wisdom I am accessible and available via cyberspace whenever you need that pat on the back or that "keep writing". Finally, I began this exercise with a clear agreement with myself that I would not stop with the essentials of how to write a script, but continue on, providing my own insights and experiences in writing for film as a sort of map through the wilderness for the nimrod, the neophyte, and most of all, the nervous. That material will be found in FADEOUT, not so much a sequel to the present work as an expended version. It is there that the reader can possibly learn some things he never knew about both the craft and the business of screenwriting. In addition to elaborating upon the essentials found in FADE_IN, new sections have been added which cover subjects such as breaking in, the players and the power structure, agents and repping, the WGA, legal and ethical implications of scriptwriting, freelancing and assignment work, among others. There, too, I also answer some general questions about writing and about the biz. As you might have suspected by now, FADEOUT is not freeware. Information about its cost, how to order, and additional services will be found elsewhere in this package along with several ways to reach me directly. But what you have in FADE_IN is my gift to everybody who has slid into an empty seat in the nearly empty mid-day theater wreathed in the reek of popcorn and anticipation, who has settled down in front of the VCR with a Ben & Jerry's and a couple of fresh videos, who has ever felt a kinship with the old storytellers around the campfire. If you know nothing about the form, the format, and the formulas of screenwriting, read on. Even if you do, read anyway, and maybe you'll discover a surprise or two. BEGINNINGS I usually start my writing classes and seminars by asking the attending hopefuls why they want to write a script. Their answers range from the expected -- money, fame, Oscars, mingling with the beautiful people, and making the world a safer place for their own particular subset of beliefs -- to the utterly bizarre. One woman wanted to tell a probably apocryphal family story with details that would have shamed most tellers; a man was clearly looking for a more graphic resource for living out his questionable and outré fantasy lives; another man was responding to voices he had been hearing in his head since a child telling him to write, write, write; a last insisted throughout the seminar that both she and her therapist agreed that a film-writing career was her best hope to avoid being immediately institutionalized. But the essence of wanting to write a script is to see it come into its final form as a completed film. Unless you can envision your words on paper as moments experienced in a darkened theater, you may still write screenplays, but you probably won't enjoy the process. I have managed to steer a number of soi-disant screenwriters into the more welcome arenas of novels, newswriting, poetry. For many, writing for film just doesn't provide the kind of creative outlet with words they are searching for. But, quite obviously, those who have thought about it have discovered their own reasons for writing. Below, I have listed a few of those motivations that I feel compel the beginning screenwriter to move out along his path with some clarity of purpose and reasonable dispatch. Some possible motivations to be a screenwriter: (a) You have something to say and need the broadest possible audience to say it to. For example, my wife and a friend became producers on a project about the life of a remarkable woman called "Peace Pilgrim" because they both believed in the message the woman was conveying to the world. Even though the project was never made, two producers never worked so hard to get something off the ground; (b) allied to this is the political motivation, as when the material is merely the medium to take a political stand on an issue the writer wants to change public opinion about, to force social change through the power of the medium. While many television MOWS take this route, usually the underlying lack of true motivation dooms them as far less successful than, for example, the politically motivated films from Eastern Europe in the sixties and seventies; (c) writing a screenplay because of a genetic predisposition to be a storyteller. It is true that many of the successful writers in the business today write not because they want to, but because they have to; it is built into their very nature. They probably lied to parents and at school, their conversations are embroidered with extra twists and turns, and the ordinary events of their lives when depicted for friends often take on the proportions of saga. This bred- in-the-bone consummate teller of tales may do very well or terribly in the cut-and-thrust of LaLaLand. Many times he makes a fantastic pitchman, but is unable to subsume the raconteur's urge in his scripts; the push of the innate storyteller to captivate an audience is very visible, too, in the highly successful work of writer/directors like Kasden and Milius; (d) egotism drives many to succeed as a screenwriter. In an ego-driven business like film, writing is one way to see one's name in twelve foot letters. It is also true than many with weak or no talent for the writing game leap into it because it is one of the surest means for rapid ego-gratification in the business in that the aspirant needs nothing more than a script to be noticed; (e) some writers write out of a sheer sense of aesthetics, seeing the beauty and charm of the arrangement of ideas and words, in the rhythm of a story, in the way the parts get fitted together. So long as this doesn't descend into an urge to make the script a work of art, it is a very strong and useful reason to get involved in writing; f) some write a script because there is no other medium as effective for getting across their ideas. Remember, film is visual, it is plastic, and it is relatively time-flexible; therefore, it is perfect for the expression of concepts that fit within these boundaries, but only for those concepts; (g) and, of course, for the same reason people bet the Big 6 at the Vegas crap tables or take a flyer on a bangtail in the eighth at Santa Anita. Though it's a longshot, there is always the potential to make a killing with one play. As Dr. Johnson observed, "No one but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Here are some other precepts that I mention to my classes as worthwhile guidelines for beginners: (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) THE CONCEPT Every film and every screenplay begins with an idea about a story. For want of a more all-inclusive and unequivocal term, I will call this the concept. If you get into the business you will hear it called many other things, including the "story" and the "film", and often just the "idea". I believe that it is as important for the beginning screenwriter to recognize what a concept is not as it is for him to know what it is. Below are some instances of the non-concept masquerading as full-fledged script material. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) The concept is something that should be figured out before you actually begin to write... not only the screenplay, but begin anything at all about your story. In other words, think about what you want to say before you start trying to say it. This is so basic, but so often overlooked -- even by me sometimes -- that I can never stress this point too strongly. A few hours, or dozens of hours spent thinking about your material at the concept stage will save you weeks of agony later on in the writing process. For make no mistake about it, writing is a process, and its first step, whether you are writing for films or composing a note for granny, is the thinking stage. In effect, the concept asks and then answers a few very basic things about your story. Who are the principals? Notice that this is not the same thing as saying "who is your hero or protagonist?" which is what many say is a prerequisite for the screen story. I think that you should not only have a fairly good grasp on your hero, but on the opposition, cohorts, fellow-travelers, and equals in the events of his story. Too often people spend a lot of time developing a concept around a terrific character only to learn too late that they have what amounts to a one-role movie on their hands. So , in your concept, be able to identify all of the principal players, their relationships, and where each fits in the world of the story. The second question is what is the world of your concept? To answer this question clearly is to recognize where you see the sphere of action that will occur in your script. This is more than just being able to identify place and time; it has a great deal to do with the "sense" of the film you are about to write, too. The third question is what are the goals of the characters? You must look for what it is that your characters are striving to attain in your concept. These may be physical, social, emotional, or even psychological goals -- but they should be very clearly defined in your head before you begin to write. Amorphous goals for vaguely defined characters do more to destroy good ideas at the concept stage than any other single factor. The last question to be asked regarding your concept is what is the outcome? Without knowing where your story will ultimately lead, you will almost invariably lose yourself somewhere along the way. It is like starting a trip without a destination. The going may be a lot of fun, but a major disappointment is in store for you when you finally realize that the journey has no end. When you can answer all of the above questions with fair clarity, as well as any others that may have risen during this long-think step, you may believe that you are ready to plunge into the script. Wait! You aren't ready yet. The first and best piece of writing you can do, and this is the first thing I ask of all my seminar students, is to write out your concept in a single sentence. Granted, the first few tries may create sentences Henry James would have been proud of, but your own goal is to create an acceptable 'log line' for your concept. You know; the type of thing TV GUIDE might be writing about it in their listings a few years down the line. But you should be clear that your own one-sentence concept answers most or all of the questions I outlined earlier. This is a tough job. I know. But I make a habit of doing it for every concept I'm even lukewarm about working on, including assignment work on somebody else's already written material. If a concept cannot be stated succinctly, it usually means either the writer hasn't a firm grip on its essential elements or those elements are missing from the concept itself. In either case, it's a good thing to know before beginning to write a script, because your material will ultimately demand these answers. Believe me. Making it up as you go along is not a good way to approach screenwriting. THE PAPER CHASE Most beginners in this business think only of writing the script. However there is a lot more to the "documents of the case" than the script itself. The following material outlines some of these forms and makes some initial comments about the screenplay itself as a selling document. Generally, producers, financiers, and others who listen to your pitches look for one of three types of "paper" on the project you are trying to sell: the short form notation of the concept itself, a longer prose version of the story you just told them, or a complete sequence-by-sequence writing out of that story, including shot headings, descriptions of the actions and background, and dialogue. First, and not necessarily the least important is the concept sheet. Whatever it is named, this document should be little more than a very short retelling of your pitch. More than the one-sentence log line I suggested you write, but less than a full-fledged story, it should cover the essential points of the concept, invariably including protagonist, his goal, his impediments, and the outcome. It is never a good idea to "cheat" in the concept sheet by omitting one or more of the above items in an attempt to encourage interest in the project, a bad habit I have only lately begun to break myself of. At its simplest, when the concept sheet is requested the requesting person is looking for a brief mnemonic on the pitched material, something that will help him make a decision later on about the worth of pursuing the project. First-timers should always practice writing out concept sheets for every piece of material they will ever possibly pitch. In fact, putting together the essential story elements in such a short form is an excellent discipline for writers who tend to let their material get away from them. The second possibility is that form of storytelling dreaded by the pro writers known as the treatment. The treatment, a bastardized third-person historical present tense prose rendering of the major sequences of your script, is often awkward, and sometimes unreadable even when written by otherwise competent writers. Beginning treatment writers should not worry unduly about the innate limpness of the form. Most of those who read treatments regularly are aware of the limitations of the format and are inclined to be lenient critics. But this is no excuse for sloppy storytelling. What those who call for treatments are looking for is a straightforward expression of the central points of your story. Leave anything out that is an integral part of your scripted story at your own peril. What may also be included in treatments, especially those running over the fifteen to twenty page average scale, are snippets of dialogue, more detailed description of action sequences, and, occasionally, direct instructions as to how a particular bit must be presented for it to fly. Some writers are confident enough in the story they are telling to also include brief advertisements about the work, citing marketability, demographic hits, and so forth. Although probably not a good idea, particularly for beginning writers, I don't believe I have ever heard negatively on this from any producer, Studio readers may be another case, however, as this can usurp some of their own prerogatives. Finally, and the document that screenwriters should be prepared most often to offer at the end of a pitch, is the script itself. Accompany the script with your own synopsis, if you prefer; but have the script available. Asking for a completed screenplay, as opposed to requesting concept sheet or treatment, is sometimes a good indication of the degree of interest on the part of the potential purchaser. Remember that the material that you have ready should be a complete selling script, professionally bound, and with either your own or your agent's contact clearly visible on the title page. Incidentally, do title your screenplay; even if it changes -- and it may very well change -- before production; you have given the principals a convenient "handle" to use for reference, rather than them resorting to "...that project about the dwarf, the goat, and the strawberry jam." If the party you are pitching to requests more than one copy of your material, don't apologize for having a single copy; offer to leave extra copies later, or suggest that a minion make additional copies then and there. And, do not expect to get your script back, at least any time soon. Most screenplays that are left after pitch sessions either are dropped into a great hole in the fabric of the universe, or must be retrieved later with a good deal of effort and at the risk of alienating the production entity for subsequent pitches. In short, do not let five bucks worth of paper make you appear a piker to your principals. Later, if you are represented by a large enough agency, you will find that they will absorb the losses of unretrieved scripts. Formatting and stylistics for the three essential documents -- concept sheet, treatment, and script -- follows some generally accepted lines in the business, although there is enough variation to allow some flexibility. The material that follows is intended to serve as a general guide for formatting, and writers should be aware that as times change so do the vagaries of formatting faddism, in the major studios especially. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) STRUCTURE Get any three screenwriters together talking about their craft and sooner or later the conversation will inevitably get around to structure. The structuring of a script is of paramount importance to the writer, usually because the structuring of the script is inextricably woven into the structuring of the story elements, and both are sunk within that often swampy area called plotting. First, in the question of screenplay structure, I refer you to the chapter of this book titled SEQUENCES. As you will find there, I make a correlation between the structuring of the script and the structuring of the story that is told within the script form. However, some discussion of the structure of the story in its own right can be useful both as a way to look at the purer storytelling elements of the process, and as a way of connecting both script and story structure to plot. Though it took me an inordinately long time to recognize the patterns, far too long for one who was schooled in formal literature, story structure in film is really no more nor less than the structuring of story material in any other literary form. Now let's be clear on one point; I am not calling any script literature. I don't think that any screenplay could ever be accurately designated by that name, at least as the term is understood by the academics of the discipline. But it is the job of the screenwriter to try to tell a coherent story within the peculiar limitations of the medium he has chosen to write in, and when attempting that job he can and should make use of the same basal storytelling structures to be found in any other primarily story material in literature, be it the narrative prose of anyone from Fielding to Joyce, the fabliaux of fifteenth century jongleurs, or the recent romantic maunderings of a Harlequin paperback. The stuff of the story remains fairly constant: a focal point, most often in the form of a human figure to follow; the evocation of an environment to place him in, a world peopled with similar beings who surround him and provide substance for him to interact with; often a charge or goal to pursue, though sometimes this is ignored and we unfold the story without any discernible purpose; and finally a solution or end point to the narrative thread. How this material becomes structured in the particular form in literature, and how these literary forms become, if not paradigms, at least functional patterns the script writer may apply to his own material formulate the essentials of story structure. I believe that there are only three basic story structure types that a screenwriter should be concerned with. They are (a) narrative, (b) episodic, (c) epic. The narrative structure is the classic storyteller's method, a tale told in linear form, with one event following another along a chronologically stable and logically valid line. In the narrative structure, the viewers are taken from sequence to sequence by their own perception of how time passes and their tacit agreement that causality is a universal force governing the world and all who live there. Although many conventions have evolved in film around this fairly strict temporal ordering of events -- storytelling techniques like flashbacks, compression, and simultaneous actions -- the essential thrust of the structurally narrative screenplay is to tell the story by moving it through the passage of time in an order of logically connected events that is accessible by the audience. However, although creating your screen story along a temporal and logical narrative line is probably the best choice for beginning screenwriters, narrative scriptwriting is not nearly as easy as many imagine. One problem I see more than any other in beginning scripts that choose to employ narrative structuring is one that doesn't even appear to have anything to do with structuring the story, because it relates to choice as well as time and causality. What neophytes don't always recognize is that the problem lies not so much in keeping their causally related story points fairly spaced along a temporal spine as it is a matter of not understanding the incredible number of time choices in any given story material. If you were to graph out any recent narratively structured film using time as your baseline for the sequences of events, you would probably be surprised to discover how unsymmetrical and erratic the spacing of sequences and events would appear. This is because any story, even one that attempts to follow Aristotle's skimpy but virtuous time-frame, can encompass massive amounts of film-world time. With narratively structured screenplays, it is not so much a question of "did I put my story in the right order?" as it is "did I make the right choices of items to put into some structured order?" I believe that finding where to place the decimal point is the most difficult job for beginners in creating a narrative structure. And the key to this is allowing the logical half of the formula to dictate the temporal choices. If you can recognize and make use of the causal connectivity of your events, then it simplifies enormously the task of winnowing from the vast array possible those events which are best suited to completing the sequential ordering of a narrative screen story. In short, choose wisely. The episodically structured script derives from an equally long and established literary pedigree. Episodic tales make up some of the seminal stories of every culture. Episodics are really a series of linked events, each one essentially complete in itself, that are combined through common theme, world, or character. From Smollett's novels to the British comedies of the sixties, the structure of episodics remains fairly constant: episodes are roughly equal in length, and tightly compressed with events; there is an assumption on the part of the storyteller that the audience will pick up and follow the sources of linkage between episodes; and the stories generally have rapid pacing of all the material making up each episode. One can see episodic structuring in many of the big action pictures of recent years. Each set of action sequences constitutes an episode in the peripatetic adventures of the hero; all episodes are about the same in overall content and screen impact (or they try to be), and the material whips right along, rarely pausing to flesh out a linear storyline. A specialized form of the episodic script seems to be gaining acceptance with producers, although it is met with somewhat less enthusiasm with audiences and certainly with little by me. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) The last basic type of story structure useful for the screenwriter, the epic form, is used less often for films than many mavens of scriptwriting might have you believe. Epic structure also has its paradigm in literature, but many tend to confuse the structure with the common story elements found in epic literature. Yes, the Poetics does use the term "myth" as a referent for plot or narrative structure, but the mythic really has little to do with structuring out a script. Certainly the "hero" may be of a particular type, with a particular background; the events of his story may involve a quest, a search for a particular object upon which certain events will turn (what the Medievalist would call a fylfot, perhaps; we can call it a McGuffin); he may even meet his end in a certain fashion. However, all these are trappings of epic poetry, and have little to do with structure. Epic structure, though, has a few elements that speak directly to con-structure of the form itself. To be epic, a screenplay must align itself along a central theme as securely as a narrative structure uses time and logic. Epic structure is the logos, or orderly structuring of material through idea. The epic theme is embodied in a single character whose passage through the events of the epic story is measured solely by the relevance to the theme. That is, you make choices as to what parts of your character's story to tell in epic structure based primarily on how well they illustrate the theme you have chosen to present. Epic structure is, by definition slowly paced, almost serene in its use of sequence. Events within epic structure can almost invariably be graphed on an ascending order of impact; they crescendo, like grand opera. Film does not lend itself well to epic structuring. Occasionally, in material where the underlying structure was already in place, as in MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, or several of the early Kurasawa pictures, it can work very well. But if we remember that all the great epic literature was a reflection of the central cultural zeitgeist, how little epic material we have to work with today becomes a bit clearer. If you believe that you have story material that is epic in nature, I can offer the following sincere advice. Do not attempt to write your script using an epic structure. You will in all likelihood fail. Instead look again at the concept and try to isolate why the thematic aspects are so important to what you are trying to say. Many times, you can subsume these elements and go on with a regular narrative structure. I honestly believe that any truly epically structured screenplay would be a very hard sell today. For one thing, epic, as the term implies subjectively, suggests "on a grand scale". And it is all but impossible to write an epic script that doesn't scream for a huge budget to realize its thematic importance. I suspect also that not too many studio people will respond to the dynamics of epic storytelling. They all too often equate thematically epic material with a "message", and overt message movies are anathema at major studios. Presented with an epic structure these producers will probably try to recreate it as episodic, because they are much more familiar with this form, and the two methods usually do have some things in common, such as impressively dimensioned heroes. To me, plot is one of the greatest joys of the writer. Plotting out the events which make up the sequences of your screenplay is primarily a matter of making the most felicitous choice from among an incredible number of available choices. For example, your screenplay is pretty much a straight-forward narrative about the tribulations of a beat cop, brought on by his own dogged determination to remain loyal to the people he encounters on his daily rounds. You decide a critical sequence in your narrative will be made up of the betrayal of his trust by the one he has been closest to in earlier street sequences. Now, you may plot. You can try out any number of patterns of logical events, preferably causally related, occasionally serendipitous, that will serve to illustrate your story point and fulfill the sequential requirement of that portion of your screen story. If you plot well, you will try a myriad of possibilities before settling on the one which satisfies all of the narrative necessities and is aesthetically integrated into the whole of the script that you hold in your mind. Plotting is an exercise for the good writer; what follows is one of the best ways of running the scales writers can use in improving their plotting skills. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) BACK STORY Back story is a term given for anything that occurs, in the movie time, prior to the opening of the script. In other words, anything that happens to your characters in the world you have created before you write FADE IN can be considered legitimate back story. More to the point, perhaps, back story in anything that happens before FADE IN that your audience must know in order to understand what is happening on screen. Back story includes such stuff as character background, the prior history of your world, single events or actions that were causative factors or shaped later on-screen events or actions -- in short, back story within the script is anything that clarifies present screentime reality for the viewer. The problem is not so much with identifying what part of your back story needs inclusion in your script, but getting it in there without its intruding on the present story you are telling. Classic methods include telling back story over heavy actions, as when during the fistfight between the principals we might get told about how their fathers began the feud in the first place; presenting back story elements visually, as when a film begins twenty years in the past, then title cards us into the present movie time; back story can be suggested by letting the audience make backward inferences from present events, as when the series of strange doings inevitably lead the kids to conclude that the house has a haunted history; and of course the all too often used but ever-popular "face the camera" and read out the what happened before method. In some cases this kind of blatant expression is okay; certain genres accept it as part of the traditional baggage of the form -- historical yarns, for example -- but, on the whole, a little attention paid to trying to be more subtle in the introduction of the needed back story points in your screenplay will make you a craftsman instead of a journeyman. Because back story is so intimately related to how the screenwriter works time in his script, it is probably worthwhile to read, or re-read the chapter of this book which deals with that subject. But, briefly, you should remember a few precepts on film and time as they relate to imparting back story into your script. Avoid moving forward and backward in the movie time of your script; keep the duration of your overall movie time as short as your story will allow; make every point outside of movie time -- as any unavoidable time slips for back story presentation -- very clear as a time break to your audience; and, finally, be constantly aware of how real time plays as movie time. Back story elements should not violate your movie time, with the possible exception of the flashback or flashforward dictated by your story. I believe that choosing flashbacks to tell back story is a poor choice, particularly for beginners. Flashbacks force audiences to concentrate on the movie time rather than forget it, and therefore interrupt the flow of the story. For a real example of how back story can intrude on the movie time of a film look at any of the BACK TO THE FUTURE films, but particularly at the first one. The filmmakers tried to cram so much of what they knew the audience would need to know in the forepart of the film, especially the material setting up character relationships, that it becomes top-heavy and ultimately confusing in a film whose main thrust is playing around with time itself. On the other hand, notice how subtly Bolt sets up the Lawrence character's background in a single scene in the maps room at the beginning of LAWRENCE. This is efficient back story presentation at its best. Ultimately, as with everything else in your script, you will have to decide how much back story you must tell to your audience and how to go about telling it. There are some things to pay attention to while you are doing this. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) ESSENTIAL PARTS Like Gaul all scripts are divided into three essential parts: the shot heading, the description, and the dialogue. Each of these parts is an integral part of the finished screenplay, but in terms of those who will be reading your script each part is vital to different people for different reasons. The shot headings -- those elements that always begin with INT. Or EXT., continue with the briefest possible notation of locale, and conclude with either DAY or NIGHT -- are of most interest to the readers who are parsing your material looking for potential costs. How many location shoots are we looking at, as opposed to how many built sets on a sound stage; how intricate is the location to be found/built, and how many day, night, or day-for-night shooting sequences are we plucking out of the material. This is why you, as the writer, should only be concerned in your shot heads with the same kind of information they were designed to impart. In other words, do not try to tell parts of your story through your shot heads. One sure sign of a neophyte is an extended descriptive passage in the center of a slug line, something that might read A SMALL ROOM OFF THE MAIN BEDROOM IN JOHN AND MARTHA'S PALATIAL ESTATE. Come on, guys. All you need is A ROOM. Incidentally, I do not subscribe to the school that adjusts the last item in a slug line to indicate more subtle elements of time; as in EVENING or DUSK or JUST BEFORE DAWN. Hey, the primary purpose of the information you are imparting is merely to tell somebody if its a day or a night shoot. That's all. If you want to finely hone your movement of the sun across the sky in your story, do it in the description, not the shot head. These shot headings can give valuable information to the writer as well as the potential producer. I discovered some time ago an incredibly useful little program that can help show you what your shot heads are saying about your script. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) The second essential element of the screenplay, the description, is of paramount interest to the most important group of your potential readers -- the agents, producers, and financiers who will be deciding on the merits of your story as possible film. For me, the descriptive parts of a script are the most important parts. Even given the peculiarities of the medium, the vagaries of formatting, and the sometimes stringent rules that govern how the material is presented, it is in the description that the storyteller can really get his story told. Despite its name, description is not merely describing what is actually going to be seen on the screen in any given sequence. Good descriptive writing in a script means providing the basic elements of this envisioning, but also means adding nuances to the events and characters described that will awaken the interest of the reader and make him want to know what is going to happen next. In fact, finding the proper balance between the pure description of what will be portrayed on screen and the elements of story that must be told to make an effective narrative is probably the toughest job any screenwriter, new or experienced, must face. This is where, I believe, talent enters the equation and ultimately makes the difference. One suggestion I give my students may help the rest of you as well. Try and find a copy of a selling script for a recent film. Read the descriptions within a particular sequence while, at the same time, you are unspooling the sequence on your video tape player. Usually, the difference between what is seen and what is said on the page are enough to underline what I point out here. Good scripts are sixty to seventy per cent description, a figure which may seem heavy to some who can be fooled by the necessity of breaking up long descriptive passages on the page with dialogue bits or shot heads. There is a technique that can help new writers cope with both underdone and overblown description. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) The final essential element of any screenplay is the dialogue. While the whole matter of dialogue is treated in a separate chapter, I think it is valuable to note here that most of those who will be concentrating on the written dialogue in your script are those who will be most intimately involved with it, namely, the director and the actors. Thus your dialogue should speak to them as the primary audience. It is possible to put material in the mouths of your characters that might otherwise be off- putting to potential buyers of your screenplay. Most of my "in jokes" or little polemics get stuck into dialogue lines in my scripts, largely because I know through experience that there they are relatively harmless and not destined to destroy interest or a sale. Some fellow writers believe that it is possible to angle dialogue in such a fashion so as to imply a certain actor or actress as suitable for the role. I have never had much luck with this technique; my Clint Eastwood lines seem to end up in much wimpier mouths, and any impassioned speeches I tailored just for Meryl Streep get altered during production to fit within the mouths of some producer's bimbette. But, if you want to try, feel free; but remember that your character is the seminal source for the lines, not whomever acts him. SEQUENCES If in my years of work I have come upon something new in all of the process of screenwriting, sequencing is my contribution to the craft of writing the film. I believe that too many screenwriters, experienced ones as well as beginners, try to write their stories in scenes rather than another more "story-friendly" division. In a very real way, this is letting the format dictate the storytelling. It is as if we all were trying to write our scripts in blank verse, or even worse, in camera shots. And those who define the "master scene" as the critical division of a script, while they may be headed in the right direction, are still bound by their insistence on format-driven and rather arbitrary initiating and end points to quantify their master scenes. After a good deal of trial and error, what I discovered writing scripts, reading them, and viewing a vast number of films over and over again was something I really should have known all along, given my education and background in the study of literary forms. The story transcends the form through which it is told! Sounds simple, doesn't it? But if you will follow through on this idea, you will discover that here is the heart of finding the natural break points in your film narrative. Literature is full of examples of the literary form leading the story around by the nose, which is why you will find so many otherwise excellent storytellers working the nether regions of the august body of the literati, writing detective fiction, science fiction, thrillers, and other so- called inferior types of literature. But what these writers have learned is that the formulas of these genres never inhibit the craft of the first-rate storyteller because the forms are already set in the formulas and thus do not interfere with the business of the storyteller which is telling his story. As an aside, I would like to explain to why it has become almost impossible for me to read much recent science fiction. Most younger sci-fi writers seem to me to have discovered the power of form in dictating how their work will read on the page. Thus they are turning out works of undeniable literary merit that are so thin in sheer storytelling technique that they don't hold the interest of a reader like the older material of the fifties and sixties. While this has accomplished wonders for the prestige of science fiction in the lit departments of major universities, it hasn't helped many of the newer authors learn how to tell their stories unencumbered by the forms that have dazzled them. Although you may think that this isn't about writing scripts, there is a lesson to be learned here; if screenwriters start concentrating on the configuration of their work rather than the story it tells, because filmmaking is so collaborative, the failure to hold their audiences will be even more dramatic than the decline of science fiction novels. I am always hesitant to use finished films as examples of good scripts, because, as we already know, the on-screen vision is the result of a collaborative effort by many people. But if we look at a movie as a series of sequences, great chucks of the storyteller's "stuff", I believe we can begin to learn a lot more about how to put together our own blueprints for making good screenplays for great films. Defining a sequence has always been for me a daunting job. Frankly, in my classes sometimes I succeed brilliantly and sometimes I fail miserably. Possibly the best gloss I can put on how I use the term is to make the analogy with those wonderful headers some eighteenth century novelists like Smollett or Sterne set at the chapter beginnings of their work. You remember: the "In which our hero loses his chastity while winning his heart's desire" kind of thing. So often we are not told of the actual happenstances of the events unfolded in the chapters, but instead are told the essential story elements being covered. Hero meets villain; hero is defeated by great odds; hero discovers truth about self, and so on. There are commonalties in almost every story, and certainly within genre forms of story types; these commonalties are the stuff of sequential story- telling. There are several things you must look for in defining sequences in a script or a completed film. First, that segment of the material which I am calling a sequence has nothing at all to do with the actual format used in the script or the directorial techniques in a film. A sequence may begin with a slug line and end with a cut to a new venue -- it may just as well begin in the middle of a traditional scene or end on a dialogue line somewhere in the middle of a short passage. For example, when Roy Scheider types the word "shark" into the accident report, that sequence of JAWS is completed; the protagonist has met the enemy through his work. Sequences are not dependent on formal starts and stops. They begin and end where that part of their function in telling the story is required. A sequence is determined by what it must do to further the story. If the writer is crafting a mix of action and dialogue whose primary story purpose is to introduce the protagonist to the antagonist for the first time, that is basically what he should concentrate on. This story function may well cross several traditional "counters" of scenes, locations, time patterns. It may take for your particular story ten or a dozen pages of script, or it may take half a page. The sequence remains the constant... it is that part of the script where the writer tells a discrete and identifiable part of his story. The particulars of the events which make up that sequence is a matter of plot, not structure, and plot is the variable factor. A curious thing happens after you have lived with this way of looking at films for a while. It begins to color your perspective of the medium. My wife tells me I am not a lot of fun to go to the movies with any more. Maybe it's true. I tend to laugh, cry, groan, or cheer at peculiar intervals in the screening. I am responding to what I see going on in the actual mechanism of the storytelling craft. For example, in one of my all-time favorites, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, I no longer am as awed by O'Toole's grand gesture of returning across he desert for the lost Arab as I am by how well the whole magnificent sequence is defined by Bolt and delineated by Lean -- Lawrence gives the Arab army not just Aqaba, but pride, a sequence that begins with the protagonist's gorgeously framed all-night introspection and concludes somewhere in the "camels in the sea" scene. There is one thing that can help screenwriters more than anything else to begin to recognize this different perspective on films, and to learn how to make use of it in their own work. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Another element of the sequence is its tendency to exhibit a discernible beginning, middle, and end -- regardless of its location within a script. Sequences, because they are distinct portions of a story, have a kind of symmetry to them. This is, unfortunately, more often noticed in its absence than seen accomplished. A sequence that has not fulfilled its story requirement will appear incomplete and, finally, unsatisfying. One way to help keep your sequences entire is to constantly test what is happening on the page against what service the sequence is supposed to perform. For instance, you might look at a part of your script which deals with the relationship between the protagonist and his soulmate, just to see if that is indeed what is being portrayed, or, as often happens, you have fallen into the typical "love montage" trap. If your material is not doing the job, it will more often be because something is missing than because something is wrong. Finally, I think that at the concept stage of your work you should try a rough organization of your material by sequence rather than by (master) scene. Doing so will give you greater flexibility later on in that, since you know what part of your story that sequence is trying to get across, you will not be so locked in to how you are trying to make your point. For example, say that you have a sequence planned early on that you know is your protagonist's discovery of his central dilemma, and you have this marked out as a series of events where he learns about his ignoble birth, confronts his putative father, and is thrown off the estate. If you remain constant to your storytelling focus, you can trade off that whole set of events for another that will accomplish the same thing. This is what I mean by sequential flexibility. Sometimes it is difficult for the beginning screenwriter to distinguish between film sequences, film scenes, and film shots. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Remember: the shot is the individual camera focus or movement in the scene, which is a specific set of actions and dialogue common to a single point of your story, and in the aggregate these form a sequence, a major dramatic segment of the story you are telling. Sequences are generally (a) composed of a number of specific scenes; (b) relatively complete entities with discernible beginning, body, and completion; (c) transcend location and time; and (d) are intimately related in both function and design to your core storyline. The final thing you should know about sequences, and something that will be covered in more detail later on, is there relevance to the overall pacing of your script. Sequential rhythms are a significant part of pacing, and I believe that the relative duration (not length per se, but the actual screen time taken up in telling that particular sequence) of the various sequential patterns of the screenplay form an integral part of its general readability. That is, your sequences should contribute to the sense of story being told in your script, as well as presenting its content. Not everyone I've tried this information out on agrees with the importance I give to understanding and using sequence as a method of scriptwriting. I do know that forcing myself to carve up the material in this new way of seeing the film story has improved my own storytelling techniques in scripts I have written, and it has also allowed me to become far more attuned to knowing how and why a particular part of a script, my own or another's, is not working. I believe that recognizing and using sequential storytelling in scripts is a very necessary part of being a good screenplay writer. CHARACTER Although I firmly believe in almost all film that drama is action, there still must always be someone to act. Knowing your characters is one of a beginning writer's most important jobs, after working out the story sequences. As you begin to flesh out your concept, you will probably come to have some understanding of your protagonist, and possibly his antithesis, the antagonist. But in the process of writing your script you will have to get to know all of your characters, major, secondary, and peripheral. Advice on building characters in films generally takes the form of compiling a list of a character's salient characteristics, physical, mental, and psychological. This is an old pattern, a la Lagos Egri. And there is certainly nothing wrong with beginning a character list by jotting down as many of these traits as you are comfortable assigning to your characters. But it is important to continue from there, because a good, workable character is far more than just an aggregation of characteristics. A good character must have depth and intensity, and evoke a patina of reality that generates sympathy or empathy in the audience. If the audience recognizes those elements in your characterizations that approximate their own experiences, elements that are validated by the reflection of reality in the characters' actions, dialogue, demeanor, and sensibilities, then they will engage your characters, relate to them, and accept them within the reality of the film story your have created. Remember, your characters are presumptive people, and as such should have verisimilitude with those other presumptive people, your audience. In film, a character is defined by his actions, and confirmed by his dialogue. This is very important to remember. You should not let your characters explain themselves, except when the explanation is illuminating a prior or pending action. And even then I suspect that it's not always a good idea; the character then too often takes on an added and unwanted characteristic of moodiness, or introspection, or even sheer talkiness. The use of interior monologue, a mainstay of character revelation on stage, doesn't really work very well in film, probably because the direct expression of inner self violates that sense of filmic reality that creates the world of the picture. And scripters should also recognize that action that defines a character does not necessarily imply the purely physical action generally associated with the term. An action evoking character can be a look, a stance, a grimace or a gesture -- any physical manifestation of attitude or personality that is graphic and visual rather than verbal in form. Remember that incredible framing of Lawrence atop the wrecked train in Lean's masterpiece; or the even more subtle method by which young Lawrence extinguishes a match. Sometimes even the failure to act tells us more about character than an overt action. The distinction I want to make clear in this passage is between revealing character through what we actually see on screen as opposed to attempting to tell us about character through letting that character speak or others speak about him. The latter is a wonderful technique in prose; in film it evokes immediate qualities of amateurism. And there is another distinction, one that many newcomers to script writing never quite get under control. You must never, never tell your readers in the character descriptions who you think the characters are. I have read many many first time screenplays with overblown character analyses immediately appended to the first mention of a character. If your initial thumbnail of a character in your script can be clever and succinct, terrific -- but the character will ultimately become known to the reader by what you have him do, not by what you say he is. A character must act, rather than react. By this I mean that when you place your principals within your story sequences, you must give them the room to determine their own behaviors and to accept the consequences of their actions (just like real life, isn't it?). If you are constantly meddling in their actions, placing improbable impediments before them and then waiting for them to respond, you may be creating a hell of an exciting interactive computer game, but you are probably also creating bad characters. It is a truism in this business that, somewhere in the second act, characters begin to take on life outside what you have set for them in the script. I think that this is a true truism. It is validated by how often inexperienced writers let their principal characters get away from them in the middle part of their screenplay. You look up and suddenly discover that your hero has gone off on a tangent of his own, and you are way, way off your story spine. Even with these alarms, internal character vitality is something you should watch for and exploit. At best, it opens entire new vistas in your sequences; at the least, it is a clear indication that your characters are becoming strong and well-realized. It is important, particularly in today's climate of filmmaking, to create characters who express emotion and "feel" things. Because of my own shortcomings in this area, I recently came on a trick that can be extremely helpful to other writers whose characters have forgotten the emotional side of life. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Ideally, your characters should have several lives. They must live within the confines of the world you are creating with your film story. They should also be capable of living within another story. An excellent test of your principals is to place them in minor roles in another script. Do they behave correctly; i.e. within character? Are their actions and speech consistent with who they are? Or, as we often discover to our dismay, are they only workable as the leads in their own dramatic circumstances? A character who is fully realized should be able to go out to dinner with you, to fill out a job application at a local business, ask a friend for a date. If you have trouble envisioning your characters performing any of these actions, or anything else you can think up to stretch the vitality of your players, then, quite possibly, your characters are not real enough to exist without the twin underpinnings of your story world and your story sequences. Another good measure of whether you have created really good characters is your own willingness to live with them as real people, particularly within their own stories. Who of us wouldn't relish going along with Danny and Peachy to Kaffiristan, now? In fact, it sometimes useful to place yourself in some minor role in a sequence, merely to see how involved you can become with the other players in your script. If you have trouble talking with or relating to your principals, they may not be real enough to work. Good characters are well-motivated characters. This almost goes without saying. But so much is made by others of the super-significance of motivating characters adequately, I must put my two cents in. Sure motivation is important. But overt motivation is, I think, always a poor idea. Your expression of motivation should probably not be explicitly stated, but be inherent in the totality of the character you have created. To have your principal explain, even through how he behaves, his burning desire for revenge is always less effective than to create him with the kind of personality who is innately revengeful. In my own experience as a script analyst, editor and doctor, I have generally found characters in screenplays to be over- motivated. That is, many writers appear to try and openly state character motivation as if this were the way to realize the character himself. It just doesn't work that way, folks. The obviously motivated character is a character who will appear flat, underdeveloped, and weak to your audience. Better by far to exhibit no motivation for your principals at all other than what the audience may infer from their actions than to try and cram character motivation down your audience's throats. As a corollary, I must discuss the recent phenomenon of "internal growth" as the mark of quality characterization and, in many cases, screenplay quality itself. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) It is an inevitable phenomenon of the movies that they make characters either big or small. Although much of this lies within the purlieu of the director, a screenwriter does get first crack at exploiting this phenomenon in the service of character generation and development. Especially in that first evocation of your character, you have an opportunity to give your audience a mind-set on where the character fits within the reality of your film world. For example, the opening sequence can depict your principals as marginal, ant-like beings in a vast universe (note how the hardware dwarfs the human figures in the space shuttle sequence of 2001); claustraphobes clawing their way out of their environment (the first, sleeping pod sequence of ALIENS); or looming over and overpowering their circumstances (the beginning sequence of MAGNIFICENT SEVEN). You don't have to strive too hard or make too much of this quirk of the medium; but note it and use it if it fits within your film structure. Even if you only suggest the opportunity, a clever director can pick up on cues you have placed and make this work toward better characterization. Characters may be functionally classified as either major, secondary, or peripheral. Major characters, and of course this will vary according to the story you are telling, the budget you have in hand, and your own professional stature as a scriptwriter, should generally number no more than five or six. The protagonist, his antagonist, a foil for each, a love interest, and perhaps a mentor are possibilities out of a much larger canon available to the writer. Secondary characters are usually a factor of three of your majors; that is, with five principals, you can conveniently have as many as fifteen secondary characters. Peripheral characters are virtually unlimited in number, though anything upwards of fifty to sixty better be both a significant contribution to story and part of a major production. Too often in first-time screenplays, all three categories are unnecessarily high. You really do not have to make that Waitress or that Bell Boy a day player; in many cases you do not even have to reference a character there at all. As a rule of thumb, writing economically in the use of actors for your script equates with a professional understanding of the cost of what can become one of the larger budget items in a production. Here are some additional points on characterization which can aid screenwriters in creating the right kind of people to inhabit the film world of their story. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) DIALOGUE Dialogue for the screen is significantly different from dialogue for the stage, though many writers never figure this out. Stage dialogue is meant to tell the story; screen dialogue merely supplements the storytelling. A little application of this rather simple principal will do wonders in changing how you go about writing a screenplay. One weakness I consistently find in the scripts I am asked to make better is a writer trying to tell his story through dialogue rather than description. For starters, I believe that any script that is more than one third dialogue is probably trying desperately to be a stage play. There simply isn't room for long, windy passages on the screen. People may talk up something like GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, but, at heart, it isn't a film but a filmed stage piece. In fact, many of the most vocal of our films have their origins in the theater. Once the beginning scripter recognizes that he rather than his characters is the storyteller, he can get on with letting them talk only as an adjunct to the actions they perform in the story. Some things that dialogue will not do for your script: It will not solve your story problems. The days of an audience accepting the Inspector summing up the evidence in the drawing room at the picture's end are long gone. If you have not worked out your plot sequences, you cannot expect your audience to swallow any deus ex machina verbiage to cover your shortcomings. Certainly you can confirm story elements; this is actually a very appropriate use for dialogue for a screenwriter. But you should not either set up or try to get across essentials of your story in spoken words. At best it is awkward, "stagy" and often obtuse; at worst, it is a vital turning point of your tale lost on the lips of an actor. Similarly, dialogue is never a very effective substitute for the visuals of your script. Show it, don't say it is the watchword. Believe me, your audience would much rather see someone go over Niagara Falls, with or without barrel, than have the best actor in the world tell them about it. Also, I do not believe that you should allow your dialogue to be the primary vehicle for expressing the inner feelings and attitudes of your principal characters. Soliloquies worked fine for Hamlet; for film they are a weak substitute for actually seeing the outward manifestations of a character's emotional take. Some might disagree with me here under the impression that I am somehow discountenancing ever having a character say a word about how he might be feeling. Not so. If there is an appropriate time and situation for a character to say something self-revealing, by all means let him say it. But think how much more effective an "I love you" is when accompanied by a hug and a kiss. The physical expression of internal emotions is much more accessible on film than it can ever be on stage -- remember the close up? -- and it is especially satisfying to the audience to have this intimate view offered to them. Please. Please never let your dialogue preach a moral message or put your own point of view in the mouths of your characters. If you really have something important to say in your script; don't worry, it will be in there in the overall imprint of your authorship; and, besides, the audience probably won't get it anyway. If a screenwriter wants to use film as his medium to change the world, more power to him. But he better find an altogether congenial group of collaborators to work with and he better find an entertaining way to put his points across, and having a character preach to an audience is never entertaining, except maybe for Orson Welles in MOBY DICK. Finally, and I find that this is a constant problem with beginning scripts, do not let your dialogue fill space. New screenwriters quickly get enamored of dialogue once the see how rapidly it uses up pages, and forget that a movie is supposed to move, not talk. In my seminars I use a flip test to illustrate how dialogue can get away with a writer who isn't keeping strict control of his medium. Thumb rapidly through a completed script; if there is a good deal of right-margin white space showing, there is probably too much talk relative to description. One of the first things to cut in revision is dialogue; and it is surprising how much unnecessary garrulity goes into a script, even for experienced writers. The touchstone here is to only let your characters speak when the speech fits the action. Characters who describe themselves for us, who spout inconsequentials, or who labor the obvious (like repeating what we are actually witnessing on screen, as in "Oh, there's a knock at the door. I better answer it.") are not saying anything worthwhile, and it is your job as writer to shut them up. Essentially, good dialogue must be clear, fast, appropriate to the character, speakable, and real. Let me explain what I mean by each of these points. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) What, in the final analysis, does dialogue really do in a script? It helps... THE CONTEXT The context of your film, the mise-en-scene as some term it, is essentially the world of the story you are telling. It is where, when, and how the story gets told, especially in the sphere of time and space. It is also how the filmic experience of the story is expressed, with regard to time, style, and the overall sense of the story itself. Because a movie is made up of pictures, unlike, say, a theatrical drama which is largely told through dialogue, how you express the bulk of your context will be found in the blocks of description that you use in the screenplay to tell your story. Clearly, description must also add to the creation of the world of that story while never losing sight of its primary objective, the expression of the events which make up your film story. Shot heads, while they may center a particular scene's actions in both time and space, are not particularly evocative of context; nor do they relate to the real manner in which the story is told, which is through the use of sequences which often transcend particular scene divisions. Similarly, while dialogue can sometimes indicate both time and location and even at times evoke some of the atmosphere of your screenplay story, dialogue that works toward these ends rather than its own innate purpose is usually stilted and unreal. I believe that context is terribly important in a good script. The ability to express the totality of the world of your story while working within the rather strict stylistic confines of the medium requires a lot of hard thought and even more revision. The physical context of the film is both the whole world the writer is creating -- a scatter of rebellious planets chafing under a dictatorship at some far point in the future -- and the invocation of particular parts of that world -- the farming planet, the death star, the garbage disposal shaft. In describing those individual venues where each sequence of actions will play itself out, you must always be aware of how the parts fit the whole, and whether any single element will violate the rules of your creation. For every film context must have its own set of laws as absolute as physics. What distinguishes the failure of many thriller movies, including at least one of my own, is a failure to maintain consistency in the laws of the world of that movie. You simply cannot have a villain that is superhuman and invincible in the forepart of your picture suddenly become an easy mark for your feckless teenage heroes in the final sequence. Generally, the audience is quite aware when you violate the integrity of the world you are making. This can be seen easily as in the dropping in of temporal anomalies in a piece which is expressly set up for a particular period of time; i.e. a current slang phrase in a "sand-and-sandals" epic. But it also can appear as a much more subtle mistake. Because a good part of the overall context of a film is its presumptive tonal sense, to ignore this aspect is virtually as glaring as to park a new Mercedes in a forties street scene. For instance, if your overall world is one of anticipation of something terrible in the offing, a sense of dread, and you drop in a character doing a comic turn right out of a youth movie, you have broken the rules of your own world as thoroughly as you do when you add gravity to a hitherto weightless world or slip an anachronistic phrase into the mouth of a character. Also part of that physical context is the duration of event that makes up the time factor in the story. The whole question of how time works within a story is so complex that to fully explore it deserves a separate book. For beginners, it is enough to mention that the closer your story stays to real time, the more it will be acceptable to your audience. Obviously, a story whose scope surpasses the approximate two hour time limit of the film itself is going to have to discover ways to move the audience through time without giving them temporal vertigo. A little later, I will talk more about how time works in the medium. For some of us, the trouble with handling context has some ready-made solutions. Genres usually deal in a sort of pre-set context; that is, the world of a western genre, cattle drive sub-genre, has its world already fairly well created for the writer -- and it is a world that the audience is quite familiar with. The predisposition of genre forms to carry their own method of story-telling and to hold their own context within their form can make life a lot easier for many scripters. Think for a moment of any John Ford western, or even CITY SLICKERS. There, once we are past the set-up, we are plunked into a very familiar world, our context is set, and we can get on with other things the storytellers want to do. Occasionally, you might want to go against the genre's traditional context; it might work, depending on your story, but be warned. Going against the form is taking a large chance that the audience will follow you away from the well- known world you have initially suggested by invoking the genre. And once they have followed you, you better be a very clear guide to the new and unfamiliar world you are assembling for them, and you also better have a good reason for dislocating them from the familiar. The discernible parts which make up a screenplay's context include the following elements: the physical world, as we have seen; the temporal world, or the time both of your physical, that is, the movie's world, and the real-time expression on the page; the pacing of the events of the script; and what I call the mental aspects of context, the mood that rises from your screenplay like a suite of rich, expressive smells over a city. Making the context apparent without forcing it down your audience's throat is one of the more difficult jobs a beginning screenwriter must face. A more detailed examination of how these elements work within a script may help the beginning screenwriter apply them to his own work. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Finally I suppose that the best lesson to learn about the mise-en-scene of a film script is consistency. The world -- physical, temporal, and mental -- that you are bringing into being must have a verisimilitude approaching our own reality. The movie audience will stand for quite a lot, but it will not stand for unreasonable incongruities, except to stand up to leave the theater. DESCRIPTION Description will make up the bulk of what gets written in a screenplay. As mentioned elsewhere, I think that a good script should be at a minimum sixty-five to seventy per cent description. Yet I have found this to be one of the shortest chapters in this book. It is, I believe, because once I have suggested that you describe clearly and eschew figurative language, maintain the historical present tense in your descriptions, omit everything in your descriptions that is not pertinent either to the events of your story or to the creation of its world, -- there is little more than can be said about good screenplay description. However, at the risk of being windy in a chapter that is attempting to persuade you of the virtues of brevity and absence of clutter, I will add a few of my own quiddities about this business of describing what goes on in the movie. Certainly a lack of clarity is what spoils most of the scripts that get sent down the pipelines to agents, actors, producers, and financiers. Let me be clear on this myself. Many of those who will be reading your material and deciding whether it warrants developing into a motion picture are not very discerning readers themselves. Some are, but a lot of the people I have come across in my years in the biz simply "don't get" a lot of what they read. And, after some years of blaming them for shortcomings in education, taste, or choice of parents I have decided that the fault more often lies with the writers of the material, and more precisely in the descriptive passages of the scripts the writers write. If you do not describe clearly and without room for misunderstanding what it is you are trying to describe, you should not then blame someone reading your description if they fail to see your events unfold, or your characters act, or your world come to life. Many writers, and not only beginners, use far too many modifiers when they write. The qualifying word or phrase is more often in a descriptive passage an equivocation on the part of the writer, who either does not see clearly what he is trying to describe or who doesn't have the necessary skill with words to define it precisely on the page. Let's face it: expressions of the surf as "gigantic, cerulean Neptunian farts" (I'm not kidding; that is a direct quote) may be on the way toward making a fair sea poem, but it does not simply say "waves". When in doubt, simplify. Some people write screenplays the same way they would attack telling their story in a short story or a novel. The descriptions in a script, though, are not at all like descriptive material in those other prose forms. Using a prose model, and attempting to indicate the time relationships of various events by way of using the rich tense sequences that are available in English will always create confusion in the readers of a script. Descriptions of events in a screenplay demand the simple historical present tense, and writers stray from it at the peril of losing their readers. I have found that even in dialogue layering anything more than simple past, conditional, or future into the tense sequences runs the risk of creating a misunderstanding by the audience as to when events mentioned by a character have occurred in film time. Because time itself is so elusive in film, verb references to time are also slippery beasts. Ergo, stay in the here and now as much as you can. Finally, descriptions are the single greatest source of fat in a script. This is true of virtually every screenplay that I receive from a beginning writer. Usually it is because they aren''t all that clear on the two essential jobs their descriptions must perform -- primarily to present the events that make up the story being told, and secondarily to define the world that story takes place in. Everything else is probably superfluous. Of course, nitpickers can point out the necessity of using a part of descriptions to, for example, intro the principal characters; I think this is an essential part of the second task of good description, though. And, incidentally, it is a good place to test for obesity in your material. I believe that any character intro that takes more than a single descriptive sentence is overweight and destined for later trimming. Yet beginning scripters persist in blocking out whole paragraphs of information about their principals, a practice that not only slows the reading pace of the script, but in many cases also reveals far too much at once about their characters. In all your descriptions, work toward a leanness of prose style that would make a city editor proud. In short, cut out everything which does not do what description in a script is supposed to do. REVISIONS Nobody really likes to revise. It is tough, demanding work, and if, as is so often the case, the revisions are being done to your own work, it sometimes appears that you are engaged in a Sisyphean task and your screenplay will never be finished. But revising a script is more than just an unpleasant but necessary chore in the list of things that have to be done. I believe that revising is virtually as important as writing the material out in the first place. As I tell my clients, if you aren't willing to change what you have written, you will never be successful in the business. Actually, screenplays are much easier to revise than other forms of literature. Ask anyone who has labored over a six hundred page prose manuscript, and see if I'm not right. Because a script has such discrete parts, and because each of those parts involves a particular element of the storytelling, revising a script can be almost a modular exercise. That is, you can attack dialogue one day, sequencing the next, your descriptions the day after. While eventually you will have to integrate all of your changes back into the coherent whole, this divisibility does ease somewhat the daunting mountain of that twenty-second revision. That last wasn't a misprint either. For many reasons, some of which I go into later, you should expect to write more than a single revision of your script. My experience is that the heavier revising comes at the early stages, when you are making changes to satisfy your own sense of what is right or wrong in your material; later revisions can become progressively minor, ending with perhaps adjusting some dialogue lines to suit the exigencies of casting or smoothing out a transition between two sequences you never expected to be juxtaposed in the original. And even though you may reach a point in your own work where you are absolutely sure that not another word needs altering, others will not be so kind -- nor should you, for that matter. These are some of the basic reasons for revising a script you feel is already at its peak. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Along these same lines, I think that the revising process can be conveniently divided into two basic parts; revising done early on at your own insistence on quality in your work, and revising done later after the input of others. In the first stage revising, I would check every single sequence of the first draft screenplay against the original concept. Does each sequence perform its required job in the storytelling process? Are your principals set sufficiently in the opening sequences of your script? Is the world of the story clear enough, and if a particular genre is being followed, have you dropped the right clues as to genre? Is there a "hook"? That is, is there something in the initial sequence that generates audience, and reader enthusiasm and makes them want to continue with your story? Is the primary conflict set, including its sources? Examine the pacing of your sequences. Does it fit the story line? Are there places where necessary exposition or back story is slowing down your events? Which sequences seem to be slowing the momentum of your narrative. Are the transitions between sequences effective and efficient? Do you see alternative ways to solve the same story points? Where have you made the throughline of your story too hard (or too easy) for your audience/reader to follow. Where are your sub-plots? Have any sub-plots intruded on the thrust of your main story? Are any sequences merely repeating the same story information? Does the story "build" in the right places? Which of the individual scenes in your sequences of events could serve as "popcorn scenes"? These are the places in a movie -- and in your script -- which are so meaningless that half the people in the audience end up out at the concession counter. Look at your characters. Is each of your principals, and perhaps even some of your secondaries, a separate relatively complete individual? Do your characters act and speak consistently with the concept, the world, themselves? Is their motivation clear at each character shift in the story? Is each character's content -- the actions they perform and the dialogue they speak -- in balance with his relative weight in the story? Are all of the relationships between the principals clear? Do the characters talk like their world talks? And, can someone cast them? Play them? Read all of your description at once, omitting all shot heads and dialogue. If you can, pull this out as a separate document on your processor. Does this description tell your story? Where does it appear excessive or redundant? Where are the dead spots, those places where physical description of setting overwhelms physical description of event? Beginning anywhere in your description, read it aloud. Is it difficult to read? Does it sound "artsy-fartsy"? Does the prose style you are using reflect the story and assist in setting the mood? Read over the dialogue, deciding with each speech if it contributes to the story or is merely "fill". What is the balance between dialogue and description? You can use what I use in my seminars, the dreaded flip test. Grasp your script firmly in the brad sides and rapidly flip through the pages from front to back. How much fat margin did you notice? If you noticed much at all, go back, flipping slower, until you find those places in your script that are dialogue-heavy. Separate out the dialogue for each of your principal characters and read it alone. Does it sound like it was said by one person? Do various characters talk similarly? Count your shot heads. Do they seem excessive for the story you are telling? What is the ratio of heads to sequences? Does it fit with the number of individual scenes? Look at each head? Does it tell you what you need to know about each shot in the most efficient, that is, the briefest way? Go over the mechanics of your writing. Clean up grammatical bad manners, misspellings, and typos. Make your revision as clean as possible before you think of giving it to even a fan of yours. At the same time you can examine the stylistic. Are sentences short? Are you almost always using active voice? Using historical present tense? Is your vocabulary expressive without being excessive? Is the formatting acceptable, with no page breaks within your description or dialogue blocks? Finally, at this early stage of making your script better -- for that is what revision is all about -- do not be afraid to rewrite whole sequences or even to throw them away altogether in favor of something that works better in telling your story. It is not uncommon to have to scrap as much as one-third to one-half of a first draft, although this ratio begins to get appreciably lower with greater experience. For the pros much of the editing and revising at this first stage level is done in the head, and what actually makes it into written form has already undergone a number of changes before a key is struck. The second opportunity to revise your screenplay comes, as I mentioned, as a result of your asking for it or because it is thrust upon you. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) The real mark of a good screenplay writer, I believe, is his willingness to continue making seemingly endless revisions to his work to make it a better piece. It is more than, as many see it, just a matter of editing and proofreading. It is a labor of love. THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR I feel I have named this chapter appropriately because it contains bits and pieces that either do not fit comfortably within one of the other sections or because portions might be considered a tad esoteric in a work designed primarily as a guide to beginning screenwriting. As so much of the material in this chapter derives from questions asked me while I was teaching screenwriting or other forms of creative writing, I have decided to retain this format. Internet cognoscenti can think of it as sort of a "frequently asked questions" about anything and everything pertaining to the craft and the art of writing for film. Question: Why can't I get my script sold when everybody that reads it says it is "brilliant"? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: How much time does it take to write a script? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: What are the clues that readers of my script will see that I am not a professional? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: What are your solutions for writer's block? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: Do you believe that a screenwriter has a moral or ethical obligation to his audience? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: What are some common mistakes that a beginner makes in writing a script? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: How much credit should I give my audience for knowing what is going on? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: How do I know when to end my script? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: Are any parts of a screenplay more important than others? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: How can you possibly live on selling only one script every three or four years? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: A producer has read my script and is now asking for changes; what should I do? (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) Question: Is there one thing you try to keep in mind when you are plotting out the events in your screenplay? Yep. "Irritation generates action, and action always follows the line of least resistance." This dictum and its variations are a real tonic for knowing where to go next. I'd also like to add another quote here: "Sooner or later we must learn all knowledge. It is therefore necessary to begin. And for a beginning much may be learned from this: that men in pain and men in anger are diverted from either sensation by a song -- and very readily." This is more about screenwriting than you might think... THE BIZ This chapter does not purport to cover in detail all of the aspects of an industry that is in its own way as complex as aerospace or automobiles. What I do here is provide for the beginning screenwriter some foretaste of: (a) who the principal players are in the business; (b) the procedure of what actually can happen to a script when it is sold; (c) some elements of what goes into that other, more ignoble half of the screenwriter's trade, selling what you write; and (d) some tips on keeping busy and keeping up with the business. (NOTE: This material is only available in FADEOUT) My only other advice regarding working your own deal is to get very clear in your head what it is you do want before you go into the negotiating session. Some may be after the money; others the glory. I know one writer who traded off the whole back end, except for ancillaries (he thought one character in his script would look cute on a lunchbox) for the right to be "present and consulted" during the shoot. It's whatever you want, you know. The reason somebody is sitting down with you or your agent is because they are genuinely interested in making your screenplay into film. That represents power on your side; know what you want that power to buy for you and do not be afraid to ask for it. The real power in negotiating is the power to walk away. This was brought home to me several years ago when a friend of mine, a producer, picked up his twenty months in development project from one studio, returned the huge advance payment to the studio, and walked away from getting the picture produced there -- all because the studio was trying to renege on their agreement to film one sequence the way the producer wanted. Now that is negotiating power. And if you think the producer was crazy, maybe you didn't like the final sequence of TOTAL RECALL as much as I did. A final word here about the world of the biz. As I suspect most writers are, I have never been much of a herd animal. Yet an enormous amount of what gets done in the making of movies is decided through close personal interaction occurring between groups of individuals at large industry gatherings. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile the solitary work done with computer and keyboard with the massed masses of a typical LaLaLand show biz party. My advice: learn as best you can to adopt the protective coloring of the naturally outgoing, gregarious, chit-chat loving, people-pleaser. You may not like the role, but eventually you will be required to play it to the hilt. And, too, recognize that some genuine friendships are to be made with genuine human beings. Allen's gnat's navel is bigger than he, or we would ever have thought. And Hollywood is both the dream and the reality for those who dare to try her. GETTING MORE If reading FADE_IN has inspired you or, better yet, if you have ordered and read the industrial-strength FADEOUT, by now you may have written all or part of your own screenplay. If you are sure that it is the best you can do, I want to congratulate you and encourage you to start working to generate interest in it by using some of the tips I gave in FADEOUT. However... I would like to tell you about another service I provide aspiring screenwriters. I will read your complete or partial script and, at one of two levels, provide professional assistance in giving your work the best possible opportunity for serious industry consideration. At the first level, I will read your work, analyze fully its strengths and weaknesses, and create a detailed, sequence-by-sequence report that you can use to improve your script before you place it in the hands of agents or producers. At the second level I will undertake whatever significant revisions we both agree are necessary to make your script a marketable one. This is not a formal collaboration. You simply will be hiring my writing and editorial expertise, and this will require a contract between us to determine my participation in the project and clarify writing credit in the event that your material is produced for film or television. A copy of this contract is available for you to read before committing to this level of service. My fees for these services are commensurate with those charged by others who offer similar services. But because you may send me your material on disk and receive my responses the same way, and because you may access me directly through my e-mail addresses for additional explanation and assistance, I believe what I provide will be of much greater value to you. Please contact me at one of the e-mail addresses listed elsewhere for further information on these services.