39 Steps to Better Screenwriting. Paul Chitlik
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Название: 39 Steps to Better Screenwriting
Автор: Paul Chitlik
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Музыка, балет
isbn: 9781615932122
isbn:
No one has ever been accused of having too little description. Screenplays should be terse, filled with short phrases emphasizing verbs always — always — in the present tense.
Connor drags himself to the bed. Falls. Checks his arm. Blood spurts out of his wrist. He slams his other palm on it. Nearly faints.
Short declarative sentences. Fragments. Lots of verbs. But the scene is clear as a bell, isn’t it? You can see it, can’t you? You don’t need to know what kind of bed it is, or even what Connor looks like. You see the action, and that’s what counts. Let the makeup artist, the set designer, the production designer, the wardrobe designer, the director of photography, and the director fill in the rest. Let them do their jobs. Your job is to make them see the film, see the action, and move on.
Now take a five-line paragraph of description (and you know you have one) and turn it into two and a half lines. Take out thoughts, feelings, extra adjectives, adverbs, and even nouns if need be. Leave action words. Now compare it to the original. Isn’t it better?
Step 6
It’s often said that the key to life is balance, and I know that I’ve certainly tried to live that way. Too much partying leads to a desire to do good in society to balance things out. And it works the other way, too: Too much doing good means it’s time to party!
Balance also applies to your screenplay. A student of mine recently asked if it was okay to have a 30-page first act, a 30-page second act, and a 60-page third act. In a word, no. Of course, there are no rules in making movies. But there is a guideline here that is very important to follow.
In a 110 page script, you should have about 25–30 pages to set up the character and what s/he is going to do (the first act), and about 40–50 pages in the second act where the movie really gets going (i.e., your character goes after his/her goal). The third act is when your character faces himself and his final challenge, and it should be about 25–30 pages (all figures are fungible and are kept in proportion for longer stories). If you keep the audience waiting, they’ll get impatient.
The last act is usually the shortest act, and audiences expect that once your character pulls out of the funk he found himself in at the end of Act II, he’s going to do some ass kicking. You want to get to that, the most exciting part of your story, the one with the most tension and the most riding on it, as soon as you can and you want to make the final challenge the best and biggest scene of your film.
Does that apply to romantic comedies? Biographies? Action/adventure? Yes. It’s when the central character has to eat dirt and run across Manhattan and beg for forgiveness in a romcom; it’s when the biopic protagonist faces his greatest challenge; it’s when the action hero faces down the villain and the big fight takes place. If you keep your audience waiting for 60 minutes, you might as well kiss your word of mouth goodbye. The story will drag. It’s impossible to sustain a 60-minute final act. If you don’t think I’m right, go see Artificial Intelligence again.
If you find that you have too much in the last act, the likelihood is that much of that material should have occurred before the low point. Move it to the second act. If that doesn’t do it, cut like mad. Keep the balance.
Step 7
Conflict and Scene Construction
In my seminars, I usually mention two or three times per session that there must be conflict in every scene because it’s the one thing that new writers almost universally forget. In expository scenes, they just figure that getting the information out there is enough, but it’s not really. The basic rule (and this is one of the few rules in screenwriting) is that there must be conflict in every scene.
The element most new (and many experienced) screenwriters leave out of their scenes is conflict. Without conflict, there is no drama. Without drama (even in a comedy), there is no story. Without conflict, there is no movement. No change. Conflict is the key element of the scene.
The central characteristic, the one element that every scene needs, is conflict.
Okay, I have said it more than three times, which is the minimum number of repetitions for something to sink in. I’ll probably do it again by the end of the chapter, just in case.
Just as there are barriers (conflict) for the protagonist to overcome over the length of the film, so, too, there are smaller conflicts in each scene. In the beginning of a scene, somebody wants something. Somebody else either tries to prevent him from getting that, or wants something in opposition. The scene, then, is about the struggle. Learning what each one (or more) wants is the beginning of the scene. The struggle to get it is the middle. One or the other wins the struggle. That’s the end of the scene. Somebody’s got to win, somebody’s got to lose. Even in a comedy. Especially in a comedy.
Every major player in a scene has an objective — he/she wants something. Usually, each character wants something different. Hence the conflict.
We must also know what the emotion of that character is at the beginning of the scene, what his/her attitude is, what’s his long term goal. There’s a helluva difference between a scene that starts off with everyone pissed off at each other from the get go and one that starts with laughter. If you know your characters, you’ll know what their emotions are at the beginning of the scene — are they happy, sad, angry? — and what will happen to them during the scene. Unless they have cause to change (they may or may not), they should maintain that emotion throughout the scene. Actors look at scenes this way (or the good ones do), and they look for hints the writer has given them.
We also need to know what the subject and purpose of the scene is. Yes, it’s to move the story forward, first and foremost. But it may also be to shed some light on a character, to reveal information, to provide an obstacle. Know what you want to get across with your scene.
Then, and most importantly, know what each character in your scene wants to achieve. There’s the writer’s objective and the character’s objective. If you know exactly what each character wants and how he needs to try to achieve that, you will achieve your writer’s objective as well.
How do you do that in a scene which is wholly expository? Use exposition as ammunition. Aaron Sorkin is a master at this, as anyone who watched The West Wing knows. How many times did we see two characters walking down a hallway arguing about something, trying to prove their point, while at the same time giving the audience a shit load of exposition? Rhetorical question. Answer — hundreds. There was a lot of data to be thrown at the viewer. If you don’t do it in an interesting way, it will cause the viewer to “click!” to another channel.
Same for a movie.
What about a love scene? Is there conflict in that?
Ever been in love? Of course there’s conflict there. One person wants to move at a certain pace, the other has a different pace in mind. One wants to be on top, the other prefers that position. One wants to go to bed, the other can’t wait for the bed. You figure it out, but, trust me, the more conflict in the love scene, the hotter it’s going СКАЧАТЬ