Mind Your Business. Michele Wallerstein

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СКАЧАТЬ or rent the film on DVD, or purchase a copy to own. A great screenplay has meaning beyond the ability to entertain. Even romantic and teen comedies can have depth and wisdom without sacrificing humor.

      The secret for writing a great screenplay is not in finding the most unusual story — it is in writing up to the high standards described in the following pages.

       CHARACTER ARC

      No one wants to stay with a film or screenplay if the main character does not grow internally, does not learn something important about himself, and does not become a better, smarter, or more lovable person. Whether the film is Booty Call or Pride and Prejudice, you will notice the growth of the main characters and love them for it.

       UNDERLYING THEME

      A great movie is not about the plot. It is about what is going on beneath the surface. It is about something emotionally important or deals with a universal problem of great significance. Jim Carrey's Mask is about the insecurities of all people. It is about the main character's feelings of inadequacy and personal fears. You must find a way to touch something that can tap into the collective and often unconscious needs of people in general. Even the animated classic, Bambi, is about all of our fears of abandonment. As a writer you need to know what you are trying to say about the human condition. Without becoming preachy and pious you can impart wisdom and help people to understand themselves and others in a new and constructive way. You have the ammunition to educate as well as entertain. This will set your script apart from the masses of material that are spewed out every year. Take the time to understand your characters and know why they do what they do. The psychological aspects of a story need to be dead-on.

       DIALOGUE

      I heard that it was the great actress, Helen Hayes, who once said “If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage.” Nothing in a screenplay is as bad as boring dialogue. You must learn to write characters who speak with unique voices. They must jump off the page with personality, wit, and exceptionally clever ways of saying things. Each character in the piece needs to have a distinct personal quality and voice.

      I've always hated screenplays that make me go back and forth from where I am reading to the opening sequences that introduce the characters. If I can't remember which one is Sally and which one is Susan, you haven't done your job. Find the inner core of each important character and have them speak in their own distinctive manner.

       PACING

      If your pacing is slow, or worse, if it is repetitive, you will lose your reader in just a few pages. Keep moving the story forward like a shark in the water, never stopping, never holding back or over-analyzing itself. If the reader's mind starts to wander at any point in your story, then you have lost a sale. If you spend too much time describing where people are or what they are wearing or the weather, you will lose your pace. Let the characters maintain the pace through their interaction with one another.

       LIKABILITY OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS

      If readers care about the people in the story, they will want to go forward with the script. Likability is more difficult to explain than it appears on its face. Sean Penn's character in the 1996 film, Dead Man Walking, is an obnoxious murderer. By the end of the movie, the audience understands him and has some sympathy for the child he once was and the unhappy adult he became. Of course our real sympathy goes out to Sister Prejean, played by the great Susan Sarandon. There must be someone to root for in a film — a character whom the audience sides with, and in whose future the audience invests. This character need not be the lead. It may be a juicy character role — the protagonist's parent or even grandparent, for example. Anyone in the screenplay will do, as long as we care about someone.

       • • •

      Certainly there are more facets to a good screenplay than those I've just introduced, and those you will learn in film schools and books. The professional-looking format and the short exposition matter quite a bit. However, if you want to raise the standard of excellence in your writing, I suggest you concentrate heavily on seeing if the five points above are well covered in your next project. Go the extra mile. These five points will separate you from the crowd, and will turn a comedy, thriller, drama, family film, or love story into a great screenplay.

      

EXERCISES

      1. Write a history of each main character in your story or screenplay

      2. Write a description of the psychological makeup for each of these characters.

      3. Review your story to see what you really want to tell the world.

      4. Write what it is that your main character needs to overcome and how you will resolve his or her dilemma.

NO ONE TO BLAME BUT YOURSELF 4

      To have a successful career, a writer must make many decisions that have nothing to do with the act of setting down words on paper. These decisions have harmed and even destroyed the careers of some of the most accomplished talents. The potential problems may arise without your seeing them as problems at all, but if you make the wrong choice it may be catastrophic. I will try to help you avoid some of the major issues that you will face.

      Writers are terribly insecure when they put that first toe in the water. They often feel that it might be easier if they had a partner. You may think that by having a partner you will avoid dry spells, because when you are out of ideas, your partner will come up with some. You may hate the idea of sitting all alone every day and starring at that blank computer screen. Of course we have all heard the old adage that “two heads are better than one.” Well, think again.

      As an agent I always preferred writers who work solo. Early on in my career I learned that partnerships inevitably break up and it was usually impossible to get an assignment for one-half of a team, whether they were well-known or not.

      If you decide you really must work in a partnership, the best situation would be finding someone with similar likes and dislikes — someone with whom you can spend many, many hours within a closed room. It would also be better if you both smoked or hated smoking, if you both liked working all night or were both morning people. It would be great if at least one of you could make great coffee or repair a computer. Many things one needs from a partner seem inconsequential at first, but may become enormous issues after a few months. Sounds like a marriage, and in many ways it is.

      You also need someone with at least a modicum of discipline and who is in it with you for the long haul. This last point is crucial. During my agency tenure I represented a fairly successful comedy writing team of two middle-aged women. They were smart, funny, and actively involved in their sitcom-writing career. They were both married. One writer had been a comic actress and was married to a comedian. One was a little ditzy, the other was more grounded. They balanced each other quite well. I'll call them Mitzi and Fritzi. I loved them and was thrilled to be their agent. They had been together for a while but eventually things began to break down between them. Just when I thought we were about to break through and get them a staff job for a sitcom, they broke up their partnership. It destroyed both of their writing careers. No one, not even I, could tell whether it was Mitzi or Fritzi who had more of the writing chops. Neither of them would write spec scripts. They felt it was beneath them and that their “credits” were enough. Once a team is established, they are not trusted by anyone to write separately. I was so sorry to СКАЧАТЬ