Screenwriting Tips from a Screenplay Contest Judge
After cracking hundreds of screenplays sent into the BlueCat Screenplay
Competition, the same problems in the execution of the story
and script continue to emerge. Here is a general overview of
these persistent issues.
Do you realize what you're saying?? In the theatre, they
read plays aloud over and over in the process of script
development, and one of the reasons they do this is to hear the
dialogue. When I hear dialogue in my head, it might sound very
good, but then when I hear a person actually speak it, I often
have an impulse to jump in front of a bus. And over and over and
over and over, when I read screenplay entries to BlueCat, I am
immediately dismayed when the characters start speaking.
Excellent everything else, awful dialogue. And I often wonder if
the writer has actually heard the lines they have written for
their characters out loud. Either read the whole thing aloud to
yourself, or even better, get a group of your friends to read
it. You do not need professional actors to evaluate dialogue.
Just people excited to help. Videotape it. I have videotaped
readings, and then sat down and worked out an entire rewrite off
the tape, addressing every single line that bothered me. Which
leads me to another thing.
Ha. It's hard to pass a screenplay on to industry
contacts if an unfunny joke is sitting in the middle of page
two. It's highly difficult if there's twelve by page five. You
might have a payoff in your third act that would break my heart,
but if your jokes are poor, the heart of your audience will be
shot, probably resentful, and your work will be recycled. Please
try your humor out. If your beats aren't funny to some people,
rewrite. Trust a truly hilarious bit is coming. Think of the
patience you need to muster through this writing process as
courage, because it is.
If you find you are not funny, write a script that is not funny.
Many, many great scripts are not funny, as we all know.
Mispellings. Do you think the development people in Los
Angeles, basically the smartest people in the film industry,
will not be annoyed and continue to read your script when you
have misspelled three words in the first five pages? Perhaps.
How do you feel when you're reading something and you find
misspelled words? How does your attitude shift towards the
author? Exactly. If you don't think many scripts have this
problem, start a screenwriting competition.
OKAY, WE GOT IT! Try to limit your scene description.
When a person opens your script, how many INCHES of action slug
are they looking at on page one? Is there anyway you can convey
what you want us to SEE with less words? I always go back and
CUT CUT CUT to prevent my screenplay from fatiguing my reader
with excess words as they try to listen for my story. Do we need
to know what necklace someone is wearing? We all understand
making motion pictures is collaborative. I strive to let the art
department and the costumer and the prop master and so on DO
THEIR JOB by not making their decisions in the screenplay,
because I have little passion for it and don't do it well. They
will make their own choices, and most likely better ones, so why
bother? Always use fewer words to say the same thing.
It's not show and tell, it's show not tell. I constantly
find myself being told something by the screenplay the viewer of
the film will not be aware of. Screenplays are not literature.
They are words assembled to describe what motion pictures will
play out on the screen. Telling us a character is a jealous
person is passive and dull. Showing a character in an act of
jealousy is more effective and essentially cinematic. Let the
words and actions of your characters carry your story. This is
not easy. You want the actor or director to understand what you
want and what you mean. Allow the description of physical
actions and the recording of spoken words reveal the narrative
to the filmmakers. The script will read faster and offers the
reader a richer opportunity to imagine and discover.
The Joy of Making Things Up. I really cherish the idea,
that as a writer, I can make things up. If I want the guy to say
something, all I have to do is type it. But I have to fight
against creating characters and interactions amongst characters
derived from movies I have watched and television I have seen. I
often find myself writing a scene only to realize I'm not
drawing from my imagination or my own life experience or my
observations of people, I'm drawing from the millions of hours
of observing actors play human beings on television and in movie
theaters. And because I'm writing a "MOVIE," it is even more
difficult, because I'm fighting against a subconscious or
unconscious observation that this is "how people act in movies."
Stop yourself and ask, would this happen on planet Earth? Do I
know how people from Miami really speak? What would a person
actually say if they had a gun in their face? Can you possibly
imagine what could happen? This is your opportunity to be truly
imaginative. Answer your own expectations of original work. A
mature writer develops a strong capacity to recognize and reject
the false.
Ouch. Forced exposition. This is when a brother tells a
sister on page two that he will be attending a school which dad
wouldn't pay for because he bought a farm that the whole family
will be moving to tomorrow because he found that the city was a
really bad place to live in after mom was really scared because
of that mugging thing that happened after they came back from
the sister's graduation from high school. When characters engage
in an unbelievable conversation about matters in which they
would be familiar with, or when they proclaim something
completely out of nowhere simply to inform the audience of key
facts crucial to their understanding of the movie, you have a
problem. This awkward exposition will not be seen as genuine
human behavior and will detach your audience from the emotional
current of your story. Exposition is necessary and difficult to
execute. Be careful how you offer information crucial to your
story at the start of your screenplay. This is a common problem
in early drafts. Exposition needs to be seamless and graceful.
Format. You know what? Go get a script and copy what you
think it looks like and you'll be fine. Trust me. Spec scripts
are sitting on desks all over Hollywood and their format is not
consistent at all. Getting crazy about format sells
screenwriting software. I use two tab settings and copied stuff
from a book and not one person in the film industry has ever
said a thing to me in ten years. But if your script looks like a
book, or a poem, or a magazine article, your screenplay format
is wrong. Just make it look a little like a movie script, and if
it kicks ass, guess what.
So do you.
Article URL address:
www.bluecatscreenplay.com/About/advice.php
About the Author Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting
Award at Sundance Film Festival for LOVE LIZA, Gordy Hoffman has
wrote and directed three digital shorts for Fox Searchlight.
Made his feature directorial debut with his script, A COAT OF
SNOW,world premiering at 2005 Locarno Intl Film Festival. Also
founder of BlueCat Screenplay Competition, which provides
written screenplay analysis on every entry.Gordy acts as a
script consultant for screenwriters, offering personalized
feedback, www.screenplaynotes.com.
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