:: Christopher Nolan on what to expect from Batman 3

:: How to logline a dual plot story? John August helps.

:: Dick happy about Blade Runner (via Kottke).

:: Final word on the Oscars (and Karel agrees)

:: The North By Northwest shooting script for download

:: Charlie (and Donald) Kaufman’s Adaptation script

:: (we keep going…) The Shawshank Redemption script

:: Finally: Basic Instinct (for Forest Gump and MANY others, go to MyPDFscripts.com)

:: Hitchcock on Content vs. Technique (via Bill Martell)

:: To three-act-structure or free-form, that is the question.

:: Cultivating a following- writing for a TV series.

:: Advice: never send out your first screenplay.

:: Own up to your audience: your inciting incident.

:: What really goes on in act one?

:: Satire with a touch of truth: the Super Script

_______________________________

COMING SOON to the Story Department:

• The next week articles

With thanks to Sol.

Enjoy!

Karel

FINISH?

It seems significant that I would use the word ‘Finish’ in regard to games. As it’s the self-same word I would use for a book, it implies certain things. Chief among these implications are notions of linear Progression, Finality and Inevitability. For many game theorists these three concept terms are somewhat of an anathema.

Games are supposed to be non-linear, open-systems rather than closed ones, they are player-controlled and thus are distinct and apart from cinema and literature. Similarly, by nature of being player-controlled they are, in theory, without inevitability.

But there remains the fact that I ‘Finish’ games all the time and then converse with my gaming friends on topics such as “what did you think of the ending of…” knowing that there is commonality in the ending we all experienced. This tells us important things about games that perhaps position them far closer to cinema and literature than many may suppose.

This tells us important things about games that perhaps position them far closer to cinema and literature than many may suppose.

Despite player ‘choices’ and ‘actions’ the conclusion of a game is none the less pre-ordained. Just as a book or film a game has to be ‘authored’. There may be variations but even when multiple endings are available they are none the less pre-determined and pre-scripted. Are they really any different from alternate endings supplied as DVD extras?

Aside from being predetermined, game endings are also Inevitable. Leaving aside the idea that a player may quit and give up – which is no different to failing to finish a novel or walking out of a movie theatre – the player Will reach the conclusion as defined by the game’s creators. For all the threats of character death and dismemberment, failing and frustration, these only act in a temporal way, serving to dictate how long may take to finish not whether the player will or can finish.

IT’S INEVITABLE

So if games have inevitable, pre-determined endings and that they do not rely on ideas of ‘IF’ for ’success’ – what do they rely on?

If we look at long-form TV drama (whose dramatic duration, structure and complexity most closely resembles that of a narrative game – far more than the comparative shallowness and of feature film) the consistent is not as much IF a character/player will ’survive’ or ‘triumph’ (in whatever manner that may be) but rather HOW they do so?

The primary concern for the audience
subsequently is not so much IF Walt will escape
from his various predicaments but How…?

Take the superb American drama series Breaking Bad. An ordinary suburban science teacher is forced through illness (imminent death from advanced lung cancer) economic hardship and family pressure (a pregnant wife and a disabled son) to engage in the illegal activity of cooking crystal meth and entering the illegal drug trade. The character of Walt faces various trials and tribulations as he enters a world he knows nothing of as a classic fish-out-of-water narrative. The primary concern for the audience subsequently is not so much IF Walt will escape from his various predicaments but How…?

WHY?

There are many reasons for this perspective – particularly in character-drama – not the least of which being that the viewer is invariably aware that the season has numerous episodes still to play out and more whole seasons to follow.

So, despite how desperate the situation is for the character the viewer unavoidably knows that it’s not a question of IF. We watch to see the HOW; experience the solution-finding and circumstance-shifting that will (inevitably) allow the character to continue to progress.

Likewise in a game, the player unavoidably knows that ‘dying’ is simply a case of re-spawning and trying again, it has no consequence for ‘IF’. Indeed there are rarely narrative consequences for ‘dying’ at all and when there is they are largely inconsequential to the end result of ‘finishing’ the game.

This leads us to consider what non-linear in narrative gaming really means? On the surface it simply suggests that there is no pre-defined order of events. But this does not of itself mean that there is No beginning and No end. Non-linear doesn’t mean Non-progressive.

NON-LINEAR?

A game by it’s very nature must have a Beginning and an End and so there is linear progression. Even if there are multiple start points and multiple end points there is still unavoidable movement between a Point A and a Point B. Non-linear in gaming simply suggests that the order in which the steps are taken from natural beginning to unavoidable pre-defined end, has controlled flexibility.

And yet even this idea of a small amount of non-linearity is flawed as there is no modern computer game yet created that doesn’t require and insist on imposing certain events at particular points. In almost any major game the non-linear sections are simply the narratively inconsequential ones. The player may go directly to the next pre-determined and completely linear event or faff around with smaller events in whatever order they like before moving on to the progressive, linear ones.

Dare I be so bold as to suggest the idea of Non-linear in gaming is a myth altogether? Even so-called Sandbox games (GTA, Oblivion, etc) have a completely linear, pre-defined spine-structure to them that the player must and does follow (short of giving up). The non-linear illusion is in the busy-work, side-quests and preparation time that may or may not be spent before moving through the pre-defined linear phases.

Dare I be so bold as to suggest
the idea of Non-linear in gaming
is a myth altogether?

So if non-linearity is a myth, game endings are pre-determined and (short of the player giving up) completing the game is inevitable Why do we play..? For the same reason we watch long form TV drama – to experience the How…

What makes us play through to the finish is not so much a desire to see IF the player can be ‘successful’ (a test of skill more in line with sport than cinema) but rather to see and, moreover, experience How that end is arrived at?

BALANCE

So, we watch the character of Walt from Breaking Bad walk into a bad ass drug dealer’s apartment with total subconscious confidence that he will survive and triumph (because there are still 2 episodes yet to go). And in watching we worry, fret and feel dramatically tense not for IF he’ll survive but HOW he is going to turn the tables? The trick to crafting this kind of drama as a screenwriter is to strike a delicate balance.

On one hand the situation must be dire enough that the viewer can’t envision how the character can possibly survive/triumph? Yet on the other, when a solution/escape/victory is achieved, it is in such a way that, despite having not been foreseen, seems wholly plausible. Such dramatic situations are distinctly Aristotelian, the classic Reversal of Fortune, a feeling state for the viewer simultaneously startling yet (should have been) predictable as they slap their foreheads and remark “Bugger me, of course. I should have seen it but I didn’t until it happened!”

The trick to crafting this kind of drama as a screenwriter
is to strike a delicate balance.

Here Breaking Bad provides a perfect example of just this. The character of Walt – an ordinary man pushed to the edge by circumstance – marches into a violent drug dealers den to demand money. Seemingly a suicide mission. How will he triumph and escape? Then, when Walt holds up a handful of what we believe to be drugs, says defiantly “that’s not crystal meth” and throws it the floor creating an almighty explosion, we are immediately reminded of the key element we have forgotten.

Walt on the outside is a frail and sick middle aged man, but his secret power is in his mind and his knowledge of chemistry. The thrill of the scene is not in seeing IF Walt will escape but rather experiencing HOW he turns the tables. The clever craftsmanship of the scene is in the fact that the inverting event is entirely plausible, but not easily predictable.

EVALUATION TOOL

How this idea connects to gaming, and may be used to understand why too many games become dull and mindless, is to evaluate whether the game is relying on IF rather than HOW? I would suggest that shallow, un-effecting game experiences come when the emphasis for the player is framed on seeing IF the player can survive, IF they can get through? Whereas truly engaging games accept the premise that success is inevitable (because the player can and will re-spawn/re-start at will) and instead frame their drama and tension aesthetics around HOW the player might get through, the solutions, surprises and circumstances that may by open to them to explore? In this mode a real and tangible currency of engagement is shaped by the questions of What strategy will the player use? What unexpected things may happen? What skills will they employ? And, more importantly, What ethical judgement will they exert? What personality will they embrace in their actions?

This principle stands across genres of gaming. Whether it be the platformer puzzler of Braid where the much celebrated Reversal-of-Fortune ending is pre-determined and yet the thrill is in HOW the player manipulates time to get there.

Engagement is generated by detailed exploration, by
questions posed, by circumstance and problem solving exhibited;
not by end results or finishing points.

Whether it be a stock standard First Person Shooter such as Half Life or Fear where killing bad guys is inevitable but the experience is in the HOW of determining the manner by which bad guys will be dispatched – be it sniping from a distance, all guns blazing frontal assault, or surreptitious sneaking around avoiding contact altogether.

Whether it be large-scale RPG’s like Mass Effec and DragonAge where victory ‘saving the realm’ is inevitable but the game experience is forged by how skill-points are assigned to shape the avatar’s persona, how strategies are executed and how relationships are built between characters. Just as with long-form TV drama the experience of engagement is generated by detailed exploration, by questions posed, by circumstance and problem solving exhibited; not by end results or finishing points.

WHY CARE?

So in the end what’s all this about and why should screenwriters and filmmakers care?

My contention is really very simple. Rather than assuming games are unique, special and outside of traditional understandings, it is far more useful to look for the consistencies and similarities between games and other forms of cinema.

The similarities tell us more about what’s unique and special in gaming than the differences. Understanding the similarities allows us to see the trajectory of games as a branch extending from the known into the unknown, rather than the ignorant stumbling in the dark that goes on when games are viewed in isolation.

We have more than a century of understanding about cinematic storytelling, 2,000 odd years since Aristotle laid foundations of narrative and engagement; this is knowledge which is as much – if not more – about the human condition than it is about the aesthetics of screen media. It would be arrogant to disregard that understanding in an effort to reinforce games as unique and special. And by working from the common stem of understanding dramatic tension we prop open the door to bring that wealth of knowledge held by screenwriters and filmmakers into the gaming fold.

Cinema can really only be defined as the ‘art of the moving image’ and as such Gaming is Cinema; just another means to create and experience narrative through moving pictures. As screen-writers we should be looking to embrace gaming from a foundation of what we already know about how screen-stories work. We may find there is more common ground than we think.

—

Mike Jones has a diverse background in screen media, writing and academic research. He has nearly fifteen years experience in technical production and has written widely on screen industry trends, penning more than two hundred published essays, articles and reviews along with three books for students of screen media. Currently Mike is Lecturer in Screen Studies at the Australian Film TV and Radio School.

photo credit: RebeccaPollard (Gamer)

photo credit: h.koppdelaney (Journey)

Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio. 2000.

118 pages. ISBN 0-89879-974-0 Amazon Price: US $4.35

THE AUTHOR

In 1986 “Witness” won the Academy Award for the best Original Screenplay. It also won awards from the Mystery Writers of America and the Writers Guild of America and was named in the Guild’s Top 101 Greatest Scripts. It was the first screenplay written by Pamela Wallace and was rejected many times until purchased by the producer Edward Feldman when Harrison Ford agreed to star in it.

Wallace had published a number of novels, but says she “was a novice screenwriter who happened to capture ‘lightning in a bottle’.” While her co-writers, husband Earl Wallace and his writing partner William Kelly, were experienced television writers, Wallace was not, so she decided after “Witness” to learn the nuts and bolts of the craft of screenwriting. “You Can Write a Movie” is the result of a ten year education.

THE IDEA IS KING

She begins with a memo from Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the three owners of Dream Works, that he wrote when he worked at Disney. He told studio executives what they should look for in a screenplay. In essence he said, “The idea is king”. Stars, directors, writers and special effects can influence the success of a film, but these elements only work if they serve a good idea. The screenplay must be based on an entertaining, emotionally compelling original idea. This idea must then be translated into a riveting story by showing a central character who goes through a transforming experience with which the audience can relate.

Films that generate a strong return on costs are generally low budget productions with a basic concept that appeals to a wide audience. She gives the example of “The Full Monty”, which cost $3.5 million and was the top revenue-to-cost movie of 1997.

A BAD IDEA

The reverse of a good idea is a bad idea, and one of the worst ideas in the film industry is low stakes. Wallace goes right to the source to find why screenplays are rejected. “I’ve asked several people in the film industry […] what they feel is the single most common reason why a screenplay is rejected. They all agreed that it was simple: what was at stake in the story simply wasn’t compelling enough.”

Not only must the stakes be high, but the theme must resonate with the audience. “The biggest difference between a great film and a mediocre one is the depth of the theme.”

Wallace develops this idea in her discussion of subplots. “The plot,” she says, “carries the action of the movie; the subplot carries the theme.” She even invents a word to emphasise this point. “A subplot dimensionalizes a screenplay, making it more than just a linear progression of the plot.” In “Witness” the subplot is the romance between the two main characters. This makes the hero, John Book (Harrison Ford) vulnerable, sensitive and open to change.

The biggest difference between a great film and a mediocre one is the depth of the theme.

Romance has universal appeal, and Wallace points out that most commercially and/or critically successful movies have themes with universal appeal. “There’s something deeper than the plot that touches an audience’s heart and mind. The audience identifies with the characters or situations, usually because most people have had that same experience or wish they could have it.”

THE LISTS

While this is not a screenwriting-by-numbers book, there are a number of excellent suggestions. Wallace identifies:

• 4 fatal flaws in a premise.
• 6 strong elements in a premise.
• 9 fatal flaws that will kill the movie.
• 6 questions to ask when you have written your treatment.
• 18 things you must know about your character.
• 4 aspects of character.
• 11 questions to ask about the main character.
• 6 steps to create a character.
• 7 questions to ask about structure.
• 5 types of conflict.
• 8 questions to ask when blocking a scene.
• 4 components of scene design.
• 3 major mistakes in writing dialogue.
• 6 keys to good dialogue
• 4 signs of bad dialogue.

Her discussion of a character’s defining moment is very interesting. “One of the most insightful lessons I ever learned about characterisation is this: There is a defining moment in everyone’s life, usually when we are young, and often involving our family, that defines us for the rest of our lives.”

There is a defining moment in everyone’s life.

Her chapter on structure is a concise summary of “The Hero’s Journey”, the template she used for “Witness”, and provides an excellent breakdown of the various plot points.

ACTORS SPEAK: DIALOGUE

Wallace sought advice from actors when discussing dialogue and their observations make interesting reading for screenwriter.

Says Stanley Tucci: “I was encountering a lot of scripts where the dialogue seemed imposed upon the characters. It didn’t come from the characters – it was the writer stuffing these words into their mouths and they were forced to spit them back out again. Trying to act them was tortuous.”

I write for it to sound good when it’s said.

And from Billy Bob Thornton: “Sometimes words look really good on paper. They’re flowery, intense and just look great and when you read them, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s beautiful’. But then as an actor you try to say those words, and they don’t sound right. So when I write I don’t try to make it look good on paper. I write for it to sound good when it’s said.”

CONCLUSION

“You Can Write a Screenplay” is a concise, very readable book about the art of screenwriting that provides a wealth of tips and advice. Wallace has had an interesting career. She won an Academy Award with her first screenplay, spent ten years studying the craft she had already mastered, and has now produced a book for other screenwriters to share. The result is an excellent guide to the art of screenwriting from an industry insider who has a shiny gold statue on her mantelpiece.

- Jack Brislee

Jack Brislee is a business broker and property developer by day and a screenwriter by night.
He has written 12 scripts, one in pre-production in the UK and one in pre-production in South Africa.

He collects and dissects books on screenwriting.

And it works so well. By the time we hear the names mentioned, we are already wondering about them.

First we see the stranded group realize their situation, dumbfounded. Then they start interacting and some characters clearly take the lead. Only then do we slowly find out their names.

The writer waits for the audience to beg for the characters’ names.

This makes sense: by the time we really want to know the characters’ names, there’s a good chance we’ll remember them.

How often does it happen you’re watching a movie, you start wondering about a character’s name and it turns out you’ve missed your opportunity, because it was mentioned early on – and then never again?

Inexperienced writers often introduce their characters’ names without putting any thought into it. Or not at all.

I remember reading a screenplay where the main character had been around for NINETEEN PAGES  before the name was revealed. There was no sensible reason to withhold the name for that long.

In LOST, the names are also revealed naturally, i.e. in situations that make sense, e.g. characters introducing themselves.

The other extreme is dialogue such as this:

In natural speech, people hardly ever mention each other’s names.

Of course there are exceptions, e.g. when things get emotional. So the right time to introduce a character name would be in a situation where a character is trying to get another character’s attention. Look at the same scene again:

Admittedly, it’s not the most inspiring example but you get the point.

An inevitable sign of growth in a new writer – and we all go through this arc – is in the area of trusting the reader.

Newbies who haven’t developed the discipline of trusting the reader tend to over-explain simple things in the action lines or they over-explain obvious reactions in characters or they indulge in on-the-nose dialogue to convey obvious emotions we all know that particular character is feeling.

Over time, you’ll learn that you only need to explain something once (or not even explain it at all) and then move on because you know very well that your readers are with you, will get it without needing your help, and will appreciate you more for trusting them and moving forward. An example of this might be, like on pg 62, you mentioned that the gang saw “an ocean of trees.” Okay, great. But then you had to add, “Absolutely no sign of civilization, whatsoever.” Yeah. We got that with “ocean of trees.” Let’s move on. Do you see what I mean?

I also mentioned characters indulging in on-the-nose dialogue to convey obvious emotions we all know that particular character is feeling. This brings to mind the moment after Kevin sees [his best friend] Josh [kissing his girlfriend] Emily, and he’s all pissed off and he later tells everyone off. Well, we’ve seen this a billion times before. We all know exactly what Kevin’s thinking and feeling, and it’s moments like these where a writer has to find ways to show us something totally unexpected from a character.

What if he didn’t tell them off? What if he embraced Josh? Why would he do something crazy like that? What if, when Emily kisses him, he doesn’t push her away but pulls her in, and I don’t know, has angry sex? You lower interest by having characters play out in ways that are totally expected and you make people more engaged when they do the opposite.

Also -

You should also consider multiple setups in one scene. I’m a believer inhorizontal / vertical storytelling. I think a writer should work hard to give the audience a smooth, seamless, and efficient setup to the story. You establish many things in as few scenes as possible to quickly move us down that horizontal plane of storytelling. That is, until you get to those vertical moments, which is the reason we’re all there to see that film and the time when the story could slow down or briefly stop. In an action movie, it’s the action sequences.

In a comedy, it’s the big gut-busting moments. In a horror story, it’s the suspenseful moments of horror. So when you finally get to those moments, like when the engineer transforms and you have Angie on her way to see him, that’s when you should slow down, focus your creative energies in dragging out the suspense to excruciating levels.

I recently posted a murder scene on my blog that was actually written by Alfred Hitchcock from an unproduced screenplay. One murder scene took up 12 pages. Mind you, it wasn’t the greatest murder scene ever since Psycho but it was fascinating to analyze. It wasn’t about getting a murder scene done quickly in order to move the plot forward. It was about the EXPERIENCE of the murder scene.

It was about the characters and the question of “will he or won’t he commit murder” dragged out to excruciating levels.

That’s what horror does.

And I think almost all of your scary scenes, which were good, could have still been dragged out longer, could’ve been more intense to heighten the EXPERIENCE for the audience.

It’s not about volume of scares but quality of suspense.

- Mystery Man

(From a TS script review of mine.)

I’m famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. I’m a homebody who jetsets around the world. I’m brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.

I also write for Script Magazine.

Is this a memorable movie?
Is it memorable for the right reasons?

I’d love to hear your comments.

I have serious doubts whether most people who voted for the Best Original Screenplay actually did read it. It may be a truly gripping movie, I didn’t think the writing was exceptional.

As to its Best Picture win, by my standards great movies can be watched over and over again. I have serious doubts whether this is such a movie.

Was it ‘important’? In the sense that it is a sign of our times, that it makes a statement about war? Then what was the statement? The quote at the beginning about how war is a drug?

Then the statement has not been heard. Only a very limited audience has seen the movie and it surely won’t make a big difference for America. In that sense, the movie failed.

Again, I have serious doubts whether Oscar will change this.

Very keen to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Karel

_______________________________

With thanks to Sol.

Feel free to give your feedback in the Questions and Comments below.

Enjoy!

Karel

Before a film or television script can fulfill its destiny in front of cameras and on screens around the world, it must first succeed as a piece of literature, a document that captivates the reader before it delights the viewer. Since film and television are collaborative media, the first job of a script is to attract collaborators: producers, agents, executives, directors, actors.

These readers are a script’s primary audience. How to captivate them? A fresh story driven by compelling characters doesn’t hurt. But neither does a style of screenwriting that gets itself out of the way and allows the story to spring to life in the reader’s imagination. That style is possible when a writer has mastered the tools of script formatting.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Before we can become true masters of script format and style, we have to make sure we’ve got the fundamentals right. Because the last thing we want to convey to our readers is that the writer is an amateur. That means we must use:

• The right font: 12 point Courier, Courier New or Courier Final Draft.
• The right paper: White 8 ½ x 11”, three-hole punched 20 lb. bond.
• The right brads: Acco number 5 brass round-head fasteners, one in the top hole and one in the bottom.
• The right capping: All shot headings, scene transitions and characters names over dialogue typed in all capitals, plus all sound effects, camera directions and the names of speaking characters when they are first introduced.
• The right margins: Software like Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter can help you here.
• The right page count: For screenplays, no one wants to read more than 120 pages (105 is better); TV scripts for one-hour dramas should run about 60 pages, for sitcoms between 40 and 45 pages.

Learn the simple rules of industry standard formatting. Then you’ll be ready to move to the next stage: harnessing these rules to suck the reader’s eye down the page, and after that to keep the pages turning.

TOO MANY WORDS

Writing for the screen requires great economy of style. That means choosing the fewest words possible to suggest a screen filled with images, actions and emotions – and then getting rid of all the other words. Almost universally, we writers for the screen use too many words. They slow the reader, clog the page and distract from the real meat of what we mean to say.

So the first, simplest and most painful secret to developing a crisp, powerful and professional style is to cut, cut, cut. Here’s an example of how it works, beginning with an overwritten passage.

Now we cut, cut, cut, and here’s what remains:

The second version is a fraction of the length of the first, contains everything essential, and is greatly strengthened by being concentrated in fewer words. Hack away the redundant and nonessential and the read instantly improves.

USE SENTENCE LENGTH TO CONTROL PACE

Short sentences convey a sense of speed. Long sentences slow the pace. If you’re writing an action sequence and you want to create a feel of events cascading rapidly one upon another, use a series of short, simple sentences:

You can slow things down with longer, more complex sentences:

USE PARAGRAPHING TO CONTROL PACE

Paragraph length is another way to control the reader’s sense of pace. Long paragraphs read slowly. Shorter paragraphs read more quickly. An action sequence written as a single fat block of description doesn’t convey the appropriate sense of action. However, a series of short paragraphs, each one suggesting a shot or image, propels the reader through the scene:

CONSTRUCT SENTENCES TO CONJURE IMAGES

When you’re writing descriptive passages, you’re describing the images you hope to create in the mind of the reader.

These images consist of characters taking action or feeling emotion, settings, animals and props, among other concrete items that can be photographed or otherwise put onto the screen:

In order to suggest an image immediately, the sentence begins with a noun, the thing we’re seeing, the subject of the shot, followed by the verb, the action the subject of our shot is taking. When we read the sentence above, we can immediately picture Oliver, then imagine him dancing across the sand to the cool ocean water.

But let’s say we wanted to get creative with our sentence construction and we wrote the following instead:

Can you see the problem? The entire time we’re reading the first clause, “After dancing across the hot sand,” we’re forced to suspend our visual imagining, because we don’t yet know who is doing the dancing. The screen goes blank while the reader waits for the subject of the shot to be presented. Avoid this problem by constructing sentences in simple subject-verb-object order.

MAKE PARENTHETICAL CHARACTER DIRECTION WORK FOR YOU

Writers often hear that they should never use those little bits of character direction enclosed in parentheses and embedded in a speech:

It’s true that parenthetical character direction can be misused or overused. For example, writers often indicate the emotion with which a line is spoken (e.g. “angry” or “surprised”) when context makes the emotion obvious. However, parenthetical direction can be used to positive effect in three important instances.

First, use parenthetical direction to clarify a line reading that would otherwise confuse or elude the reader:

Second, use parenthetical direction to create white space by breaking up long speeches:

And third, use parenthetical direction to control the pace of a speech or to create a sense of poetic rhythm:

An important caveat: While it isn’t true to say that parenthetical character direction should never be used, it is true that it should be used in moderation and only when it’s performing an important job.

AND DON’T FORGET THE STORY

We write, and read, and watch the screen because we love great stories. Great formatting will never make up for a lousy story. But a mastery of formatting – and the professional style that results – can absolutely help a great script become a faster, more enticing, more enjoyable read. And in a town like Hollywood awash in scripts, that’s got to be a good thing.

Christopher Riley is the author of “The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style”. Along with his wife Kathleen, he is the screenwriter of the award-winning film “After the Truth” and has written scripts for Touchstone, Paramount, the Fox television network and Sean Connery’s Fountainbridge Films.

ISBN 2-910606-04-X Amazon Price: US $159.96

THE AUTHOR

Yves Lavandier took a degree in Civil Engineering, then studied film at Columbia University, New York, between 1983 and 1985. One of his tutors was Frantisek (Frank) Daniel, the same teacher who inspired Paul Gulino, author of “Screenwriting, the Sequence Approach”. During this time he wrote and directed a number of shorts, then returned to France and embarked on a full time screenwriting career, mainly for television.

In 1987 he established a number of writing workshops, and produced a 12 page handout on the theory of screenwriting. When the handout grew to 100 pages he decided it was time to write a book. “Writing Drama” is the result of twenty years of film study, writing and teaching.

EUROPEAN BIBLE

With 595 pages, 23 chapters (with an average of over 20 sections per chapter) and references to 1,467 different films and plays, “Writing Drama” is one of the most comprehensive books ever produced on the subject. It has become something of a bible for filmmakers in Europe and, since its translation into English in 2005, is now available to non French speakers.

“Writing Drama” is one of the most comprehensive books
ever produced on the subject.

He begins with the essence of drama – conflict – and provides an exhaustive examination of the subject. Here are just a few of the subtitles in the “Conflict” chapter – how conflict arises, conflict and the prospect of conflict, emotion, on the nature of conflict, conflict and plausibility, spectacle and unreality, drama as a critique of spectacle, conflicts without identification, ineffective conflict.

His 35 page chapter on obstacles poses interesting questions, such as “can we do without a villain?” and “what are inadequate obstacles”.

CRITIQUING THE EXPERTS

Lavandier has so many ideas, theories and observations that it is impossible to agree with everything he says, but I doubt whether any reader will fault his diligence and scholarship. He is a great fan of Hitchcock, but is also very critical where criticism is required (Hitchcock was also quite critical of Hitchcock). In a recent interview he set out his ideas on critiquing the experts.

“…I believe there are no untouchable works or writers….Many buffs tend to set up a shrine and cling to it. Then they go out on a limb to justify it all, weaknesses included, and forbid anyone to touch their holy space….I think it’s healthy to be (intellectually) free to express reservations about the classics.”

I believe there are no untouchable works or writers.

For the record, Lavandier is quite critical about the one feature he wrote and directed – “Oui, Mais..” – readily conceding that it was not a box office success.

There are so many well presented ideas in this book that it is impossible to do it justice in a short review. However, a selection of quotations will provide some of the flavour of “Writing Drama”.

UN PETIT GOUT DE LAVANDIER

On structure: “…no work of art can be created outside a system. Drama is language; a language is based in grammar, and grammar means rules.”

On conflict: “…the eternal fist fight is rarely the most interesting aspect of conflict in a given situation. We see this clearly in ‘8 Mile’: five-year-old Lilly is a terrified witness to family arguments and the beating up of her brother (Eminem). Her distress is more intense than the conflict she is watching.”

On American writing: “Excess is undoubtedly one of the secrets of the success of American cinema. This is not something that the Americans decided on consciously; simply excess is part of their culture. Everything in the United States is on a large scale: canyons the size of the Grand Canyon in Colorado, waterfalls the size of Niagara. Streets, buildings and motor cars that are all larger than life. The Americans do not do things by halves: when they are racist, they create the Ku Klux Klan.

What is a deficiency in other areas
can be a huge advantage in cinema.

When their police want to stake out and raid a drug trafficker’s home, it is a whole Washington district that goes up in flames. Militants against abortion do not stop at murder. There are psychoanalysts for dogs, clinics for plants and kindergartens for adults. Only in the United States are preachers so crazy, the television reality shows so mindless, the criminals so monstrous, the creationists so utterly convinced they are right, the rallies so over-the-top, the believers in political correctness so unbending. But what is a deficiency in other areas can be a huge advantage in cinema.”

The best way of getting a spectator to share
their concern and love for their protagonist
is precisely to spare them nothing.

On the protagonist: “…a good playwright or scriptwriter must know how to be cruel. Like judges, surgeons or referees, writers of drama are natural born persecutors. Some writers refuse to be cruel to their protagonists. It is simply beyond them. They identify so much with their characters that they suffer if they have to make them suffer. They fail to realise that the best way of getting a spectator to share their concern and love for their protagonist is precisely to spare them nothing, to laugh at them (in comedies) and to hit them when they are down.”

CONCLUSION

I began underlying Lavandier’s pearls of wisdom and quickly found entire pages covered with underlining. (Actually, I hate defacing books so I photocopied “Writing Drama” and underlined the photocopied pages.

It is more like an encyclopaedia of the craft of screenwriting
than a Hollywood style “how to” book.

Try photocopying a 595 page book in Officeworks under the eagle eye of a junior assistant who is just dying to read the Copyright (and Riot) Act to you). There is so much information, so many different points of view presented, and so many ideas forcefully argued that Lavandier’s opus can be quite exhausting. It is more like an encyclopaedia of the craft of screenwriting than a Hollywood style “how to” book. It covers so much ground and presents so many examples – from “Antigone” to “Zulu” – that it must be one of the most comprehensive works on the subject.

For all serious screenwriters, this book is highly recommended.

- Jack Brislee

Jack Brislee is a business broker and property developer by day and a screenwriter by night.
He has written 12 scripts, one in pre-production in the UK and one in pre-production in South Africa.

He collects and dissects books on screenwriting.

It looks unprofessional.

DUSK and DAWN are not used in spec scripts by beginning screenwriters unless the kiss by sunset is essential to understanding the story. Filming exteriors with this light is just too expensive because the window of opportunity is so short.

Using the scene heading to help the reader understand when exactly in the day the scene takes place, is really cheating.  How do you SEE the difference between MORNING and LATE MORNING on the screen? If the viewers can’t tell, the reader shouldn’t either.  If it is essential to the story, present this information visually or in dialogue.  The audience won’t see your slug line after all.