To examine beauty / ugliness:

To illuminate a glance we would not have seen (as in Lady Snowblood):

To establish an essential prop in the narrative (thanks to Keith Uhlich):

To insert an important text or image that pushes the story forward:

To inspire using a much-loved visual symbol:

To convey non-verbal emotions (like confusion and embarrassment):

To emphasize a word(s):

To make us face a face that we may not wish to see:

To intimidate:

To emphasize power, influence, obsession, or one individual’s absolute resolve to stay the course:

To create a feeling of unease and paranoia:

To punctuate the severity of a tragedy (as in Battleship Potemkin):

To convey isolation and emptiness:

To show a different side of a character, such as an army leader’s personal, private breakdown:

To terrify (as in Opera):

To disorient (thanks to Jonathan Lapper):

To tantalize (as in Malena):

To show a moment of extreme intimacy:

To make a visual statement about a character (as in Miller’s Crossing thanks to the Opening Shots Project):

To reveal a sought-after MaGuffin:

To capitalize on a heightened emotional near-death climax:

To provide a moment of humor:

And to give resolution to a conflict:

– Mystery Man

In his own words, Mystery Man was “famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. A homebody jetsetting around the world. Brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.”

MM blogged for nearly 4 years and tweeted for only 4 months, then disappeared – mysteriously.

The Story Department continues to republish his best articles on Monday.

Here, you’ll also be informed about the release of his screenwriting book.

The Story Department continues to republish his best articles on Monday.

Here, you’ll also be informed about the posthumous release of his screenwriting book.

“Let’s go back to New York City. Consider this monolog, called, I’m a Type. In a perfect world, this should not be watered down for mainstream consumption. As far as I’m concerned, a good actor should be able pull it off in a way that everyone can understand and enjoy:

He was givin’ me a one-two look with his eyes. “Look-” I say to the casting director. “I’m a type person that’s a type, believe me! You want a college type? So I’m a college type! Look what I can do with my Adams. See? A squeeze and it’s a collegiate hat. I got talent. How do you want I should convince you – show you where I was initiated? You want I should show you where they tattooed the fraternity pin on my chest? Want my report card, maybe? I didn’t save it. So how should I know I’d want to become an actor.” Now he’s smiling. Look how the jerk is smiling. If I had his set of teeth I’d sew up my lips. What are you smiling at, Jerk, if you’ll pardon the expression? What’s funny? What do you see – a guy with two heads? Personally, on him it wouldn’t look bad. “Look-” I say to the guy. “So, you put out a call for collegiate type. All right – that’s me. Ask me questions. Go on! Anything. What do you want I should tell you about college? City College is on 23rd Street. You know something! I can love better than a certain party that his name is Gable. Gimme a football and I’ll make like Frank Merriwell. How’s about trying me out on dancing? Waltzes, foxtrots, anything. I got tempo. Timing! Wait a minute, fella – I’ll make like I’m cheerleader – Gimme a break, will you you? Ricky-Coax, Ricky-Coax! Look – For Christ’s sakes, look – I’m doing a sommersault!”

Hehehe… Both of those monologs come from two books I love:

American Dialects: A Manual for Actors, Directors, and Writers

Foreign Dialects: A Manual for Actors, Directors, and Writers

I’m not a believer in realism in dialogue in screenwriting. What’s the point of hearing thoughts we hear every day? I’m a believer in a drama. High drama, if you can achieve it. I’m a believer in heightened realism, in dialogue that has a poetic quality that elevates it above realism, that operates at a theatrical level. It’s like The Godfather. They were able to take ethnic dialect and elevate it to this syntax of opera librettos, which no one else has been able to achieve at that level. I’m also a believer in hearing words that are fresh and different, if possible. It’s about fictional words that stir the heart and soul in some fashion. We read these scripts to feel something. We go to the movies to feel.
I love, for example, the opening lines by Booth in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog / Underdog. This, I swear, soars to the heavens on the page and in the theater. (Booth’s practicing a 3-card monte scam.)

Booth:
Watch me close watch me close now: who-see-thuh-red-card-who-see-thuh-red-card? I-see-thuh-red-card. Thuh-red-card-is-thuh-winner. Pick-thuh-red-card-you-pick-uh-winner. Pick-uh-black-card-you-pick-uh-loser. Theres-thuh-loser, yeah, theres-thuh-black-card, theres-thuh-other-loser-and-theres-thuh-red-card, thuh-winner.
(rest)
Watch me close watch me close now: 3-Card-throws-thuh-cards-lightning-fast. 3-Card-that’s-me-and-Ima-fast. Watch-me-throw-cause-here-I-go. One-good-pickll-get-you-in, 2-good-picks-and-you-gone-win. See-thuh-red-card-see-thuh-red-card-who-see-thuh-red-card?
(rest)
Don’t touch my card, man, just point to thuh one you want. You-pick-that-card-you-pick-a-loser, yeah, that-cards-a-loser. You-pick-that-card-that’s-thuh-other-loser. You-pick-that-card-you-pick-a-winner. Follow that card. You gotta chase that card. You-pick-thuh-dark-deuce-that’s-a-loser-other-dark-deuces-thuh-other-loser, red-deuce, thuh-deuce-of-heartsll-win-it-all. Follow thuh red card…
I love when writers break-up the dialogue so that they’re not all complete sentences. Or shift gears mid-thought. I love the opening (and very Chicagoan) lines in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross:

Levene: John… John… John. Okay. John. John. Look: (pause) The Glengarry Highland’s leads, you’re sending Roma out. Fine. He’s a good man. We know what he is. He’s fine. All I’m saying, you look at the board, he’s throwing… wait, wait, wait, he’s throwing them away, he’s throwing the leads away. All that I’m saying, that you’re wasting leads. I don’t want to tell you your job. All that I’m saying, things get set, I know they do, you get a certain mindset… A guy gets a reputation. We know how this… all I’m saying, put a closer on the job. There’s more than one man for the… Put a… wait a second, put a proven man out… and you watch, now wait a second – and you watch your dollar volumes… You start closing them for fifty ‘stead of twenty-five…
Let me end with this one. How about the funeral in the opening of Kushner’s Angels in America? Here, Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz speaks “sonorously, with a heavy Eastern European accent, unapologetically consulting a sheet of notes for the family names.”

Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz:
Hello and good morning. I am Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz of the Bronx Home for Aged Hebrews. We are here this morning to pay respects at the passing of Sarah Ironson, devoted wife of Benjamin Ironson, also deceased, loving and caring mother of her sons Morris, Abraham, and Samuel, and her daughters Esther and Rachel; beloved grandmother of Max, Mark, Louis, Lisa, Maria… uh… Lesley, Angela, Doris, Luke and Eric. (Looks more closely at paper) Eric? This is a Jewish name? (Shrugs) Eric. A large and loving family. We assemble that we may mourn collectively this good and righteous woman.
(Looks at coffin)
This woman. I did not know this woman. I cannot accurately describe her attributes, nor do justice to her dimensions. She was… Well, in the Bronx Home of Aged Hebrews are many like this, the old, and to many I speak but not to be frank with this one. She preferred silence. So I do not know her and yet I know her. She was…
(Looks at coffin)
…not a person but a whole kind of person, the ones who crossed the ocean, who brought with us to America the villages of Russia and Lithuania – and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home, so that you would not grow up here, in this strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted. Descendants of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names. You do not live in America. No such place exists. Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes – because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Concourse Avenue, or in Flatbush, and she worked that earth into your bones, and you pass it to your children, this ancient, ancient culture and home.
(Little pause)
You can never make that crossing that she made, for such Great Voyages in this world do not any more exist. But every day of your lives the miles that voyage between that place and this on you cross. Every day. You understand me? In you that journey is.
So… She was the last of the Mohicans, this one was. Pretty soon… all the old will be dead.”

– MM

In his own words, Mystery Man was “famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. A homebody jetsetting around the world. Brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.”

MM blogged for nearly 4 years and tweeted for only 4 months but his passion and insights will forever leave an undeniable mark on thousands of followers all over the world.

Hehehe…

All the boys are here, too. They’re watching football. I probably shouldn’t say which game. They scream a lot and jump around like monkeys. I know nothing about sports. I do enjoy the cheerleaders, though. Someone usually elbows me when they come on TV.

I come here not only for the great smokes (San Cristobals today) and the free cognac (Hennessy), which someone always brings every weekend, but also to observe some rather crazy real-life characters. I will happily use them in any story I see fit and never tell them.

If I’m lucky, I might hear good dialogue. You see, this is a tough crowd. You gotta keep your wits about you to survive, especially if a “hot chick” is present because every guy will try to outwit each other to prove, I guess, (pardon the expression) who has the bigger dick.

We boys are so dumb, aren’t we?
(Paintings by Todd White.)

Anyway, no one is safe. There have been some good zingers today. One man tried to give another man grief for drinking a Corona without a lemon. “Hey, if you’re having this just for the lemon, go drink lemonade.” I like this line, but I believe they usually put lime in Coronas, don’t they? I didn’t have the heart to point this out.

A short yet well-built New Yorker (who is quite the player and has a new “hot chick” sitting next to him) was giving grief to a New Englander about his sweater vest because it had noticeable lumps on the shoulders from being on a hanger. “What do you do? Hang that thing in the bathroom closet?” This went on until the New Englander said, “Shouldn’t you be in the North Pole making toys for Santa? Hey, my kid wants a fire truck. While you’re at it, carve your initials on the back, will ya? Initial ‘LF.’ Little Fuck.”

Hehehe… This I have mentally noted.

Of course, I have not gone unscathed. That I’m sitting here writing on my laptop while ignoring a big football game has been ripe for jokes. New Yorker said, “What are you doing? Looking at gay porn?”

I told him I’m okay with gay porn, especially if there are lesbians.

A few jokes and he said, “Yeah? I’m the one sitting here with a chick.”

I said, “So is she.”

Set and match. Now he won’t bother me for about half an hour. I actually love Mr. New Yorker. He’s hilarious. By the end of the night we will hug, as we always do (and truly mean it) despite all the insults, and talk about how we can’t wait to do it again.

We boys are so dumb, aren’t we?

Listening to these guys from different parts of the country throw zingers at each other brings to mind the subject of dialects. I’m a purist. If a character’s from the south, he/she should talk like a southerner. But I wouldn’t write-out pronunciations like, for example, the jailhouse locutions in Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full: “Look, bruvva… I ain’t tryin’ a disrespectchoo… I ain’t tryin’ a sweatchoo, an I ain’t tryin’ a play you. So whatchoo doggin’ me for?”

The key, I believe, is to keep the dialect very light. Of course, many in the industry would disagree, I know, as most prefer generic lines regardless of location so that the widest possible audience can understand the dialogue. Bleh. I’ve heard it said, “Just write the line and let the actors add the dialect.” I’m sorry, but that’s just a ridiculously ignorant thing to say. People do not speak the same sentences with different accents. The actual construction of those sentences in dialogue varies greatly according to the region.

People do not speak the same sentences
with different accents.

For example, in the south, they wouldn’t say, “Nobody went,” which is a proper sentence. Instead, they might say, “Didn’t nobody go.” Instead of “I only have thirty cents,” they might say, “Ain’t got but thirty cents.” Instead of “That was very nice of you,” they’d say, “That was right nice of you.” Same goes for something pretty: “That’s right pretty, isn’t it?” Instead of “It’s a very big fish,” they might say, “It’s a powerful big fish.” “She cooked a lot of bread” might be spoken as, “She cooked a mess of bread.” Or instead of “I might be able to help you,” they’d say, “I might could help you.”

Of course, in Louisiana, it’s different still. I love how some sentences end with the name of the person they’re talking about. Like, for example, instead of saying, “My uncle always smokes,” they’d say, “He all the time smokes, my uncle.” Of course, how well they speak, depends upon education level, but even educated people like to hang on to flavors of dialect that distinguishes them from others.

How about foreigners? I remember writing in one of my first script reviews on TriggerStreet about the Irish dialect found in a story about Charles Stewart Parnell, which I really enjoyed:

I think one is first drawn into this story by John Browner’s wonderful rendition of the Irish dialect, not to mention the speech and mannerisms characteristic of the late 1800’s, no small feat that. You almost can hear the infectious Irish lilt in Parnell’s voice.

There is peppered throughout this spec the famously characteristic and highly-colored Irish hyperbole, the flowery exaggerations – “It is a good sign that this masquerading knight-errant, this pretended champion of the liberties of every other nation except those of the Irish nation, should be obliged to throw off the mask today…”

And there is also a taste of some vivid simile filled with a soulfulness that would typify a sentimental Irishman – “The National Land League is fraying apart like an old blanket.” Aye, lad, it’d scald the heart out of ye.

“I will most definitely and with great pleasure
accede to your wishes.”

I also loved the etiquette. “And to what, Mrs. O’Shea, do I owe the honor and pleasure of your summons?” “I was hoping, sir, that you might be persuaded to join my husband and me at a small dinner at Thomas’s Hotel in two nights time…” “I will most definitely and with great pleasure accede to your wishes.” At a time when our loved one would say to us, “Don’t be such an ass,” Katie would ever so politely say to Parnell, “Pray be not petulant, Sire.”

How about Italians trying to speak English? Consider the monolog below. I love the hell out of this monolog. To set it up, a young Italian immigrant nervously paces the floor in a hospital waiting room. He looks at the clock. He looks at his nails. He looks at the nurse. And the man finally gathers up enough courage to speak to her:

My wife, she make the bambino and the doc, he tell me to wait right here. Is all right with you? I no can sit still. Oh! I no afraid, oh, no! Is just I kind of nervous, that’s all. Is not I think anything she happen to my Rosa. She so strong like the horse. She no got no operation – she no sick all her life – you bet my life, no! Say! What’s the most kids born? The boy or the girl? I want the boy. You bet my life! Rosa, she want the girl. Son of a gun! What is she be twin? When is more is all right, too. Oh! Excuse me! Please no mind! Is because this is my first one. Is make me excite. Say! Is lots… what I mean… sometime, something happen… they… they die, no? Sometime… no! My Rosa, she no die! Is no good she die! I go in, nurse! We so happy all the time! Whyfor we want the bambino? Let me go in, nurse! That’s all right! I go in! Help my Rosa! Whyfor she must got all that hurt? She very fine woman! I no let her die! You got to let me in to her, nurse! She hurt! She want me! She need me! …eh! What’s that? You hear that? Is bambino crying! Son-of-a-gun! Is my bambino! Is my kid! Some yell, no? What he is, nurse? Boy or girl? I think is boy! What the difference? Is girl, so we get the boy next time! Oh boy! I’m papa! Here, nurse, have a cigar!

Hehehe…

And you know he doesn’t say “cigar,” he says, “sEEgahruh!” But you see, one doesn’t write-out how it’s pronounced. One simply writes “cigar.” Some might object to the above dialect – I love it.

– Mystery Man

(continued next week)

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.

This is common. And editing is just as important when you write your script. Consider the way Tarantino used editing through his action lines to maximize the tension in the syringe scene in Pulp Fiction. Everything is on the line here, not just the life of Mia but Vincent’s as well. Notice the implied close ups and tight shots in his action lines and the way he dragged out this short moment:

FRAMING OF THE ACTION

And finally, one of the other elements of suspense discussed in the Hitchcock thesis is the framing of the shots. As I mentioned before, I’m a believer in writing the shots, and there are just some scenes and perspectives that get you no matter how many times you see it. Bordwell wrote, “the sight of Eve Kendall dangling from Mount Rushmore will elicit some degree of suspense no matter how many times you’ve seen North by Northwest, and that feeling will be amplified by the cutting, the close-ups, the music, and so on. Your sensory system can’t help but respond, just as it can’t help seeing equal-length lines in the pictorial illusion. For some part of you, every viewing of a movie is the first viewing.” Consider these images.

First, North by Northwest:

I love this. Here’s a shot from Saboteur:

And Vertigo:

Below, the camera famously zooms out (toward wide angle) while tracking in. Note Scotty’s (James Stewart) hands on the railing and how the railing changes shape as the focal length changes from the first photo to the second photo. Although you wouldn’t write camera angles, you can certainly write about a character’s changing perspective of his/her environment for whatever reason.

Not long ago, an artist did a practice exercise of storyboarding the opening sequence in Vertigo (below).

I wonder if it would be helpful for us to write out our favorite scenes and compare them to the finished scripts? Would we learn that we tend to over-write or under-write?

(continued from Part 1)

– Mystery Man

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.

Indeed, variations abound in its definition:

“A genre with an opposition between good and evil, in which good prevails.”
https://method.vtheatre.net/dict.html

“An extravagant comedy in which action is more salient than characterization.”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

“A play characterized by stereotypical characters, exaggerated emotions, and simplistic conflict.”
www.northern.edu/benkertl/drama_dictionary.html

Most horror movies and detective thrillers.

“A film or literary work marked by ‘good guys’ vs. ‘bad guys,’ unexpected plot twists, surprise endings, action and suspense. Examples: Most horror movies and detective thrillers.”
www.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/awtech/lexicon.html

“Exciting, emotional story. Often unsubtle and romantic.”
www.fisicx.com/quickreference/art/literature_glossary.html

“The dramatic genre characterized by an emphasis on plot over characterization; typically, characters are defined as heroes or villains, conflicts are defined along moral lines, and the resolution rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Spectacle and action are important to the melodramatic effect.”
filmplus.org/thr/dic4.html

“n. a play in which there are so much violence, feelings and exaggerations that it does not seem to be true.”
station05.qc.ca/csrs/bouscol/anglais/book_report/glossary3.html

“A play which suspends the audience through action and tension but contains the conventional ‘happy ending.’”

www.bucks.edu/tutor/literms.html

“Melodrama is a rigidly conventionalized genre of popular drama, theatrical rather than literary in appeal, characterized by rapid and exciting physical action, sharply contrasted and simplified characters, and colorful alternations of violence, pathos, and humor. The central situation in melodrama–victimization of helpless innocence by powerful evil forces–gives rise to four basic characters: the hero and the heroine, a comic ally who assists them, and the villain against whom they are pitted…”
www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/glossary.html

“A melodrama in a more neutral and technical sense of the term is a play, film, or other work in which plot and action are emphasized in comparison to the more character-driven emphasis within a drama. Melodramas can be distinguished from tragedy by the fact that it is open to having a happy ending.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama

A few other definitions:

Houghton Mifflin: “A play or film in which the plot is often sensational and the characters may display exaggerated emotion.”

Britannica: “Sentimental drama marked by extravagant theatricality, subordination of character development to plot, and focus on sensational incidents. It usually has an improbable plot that features such stock characters as the noble hero, the long-suffering heroine, and the hard-hearted villain, and it ends with virtue triumphing over vice.”

American Heritage: “A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts.”

Let’s look at the word itself.

Melo = From “melos,” Greek word for song (melody).
Drama = Greek for action, literally means “to do.”

Essentially, the word means “song-drama.”

A brief history: melodramas began in the 18th century theatre when they introduced music into plays, which was generally thought to have begun with Pygmalion (not the one by George Bernard Shaw, but Jean-Jacques Rousseau). Music was eventually used to make statements about the characters (i.e., this one is “good” and this one is “bad”), which had inadvertently simplified and weakened the characters.

According to Wikipedia:

“By the end of the 19th century the term melodrama had nearly exclusively narrowed down to a specific genre of salon entertainment: more or less rhythmically spoken words (often poetry) – not sung, sometimes more or less enacted, at least with some dramatic structure or plot – synchronized to an accompaniment of music (usually piano). It was looked down on as a genre for authors and composers of lesser stature (probably also the reason why virtually no realisations of the genre are still remembered). This was probably also the time when the connotation of cheap overacting first became associated with the term. As a cross-over genre mixing narration and chamber music it was eclipsed nearly overnight by a single composition: Schoenberg‘s Pierrot Lunaire (1912), where Sprechgesang was used instead of rhythmically spoken words and which took a freer and more imaginative course regarding the plot prerogative.”

I’m always surprised when I see current definitions involving violence, comedy, characters of the “good vs. evil” stock, and stories with happy endings. I get the impression that when critics today label something as “melodramatic,” they are usually referring to exaggerated emotions and weak characters. I don’t recall anyone labeling Star Wars or Raiders as “melodrama.” I have a feeling that most contemporary thought about melodrama revolves around exaggerated emotions.

Personally, I assume something is “melodramatic” when I’m sitting through the kind of movie that’s filled with characters who are so sensitive to their plight that they’re ready to burst into tears at a moment’s notice. Do you know what I mean?

Most contemporary thought about melodrama
revolves around exaggerated emotions.

I’ve been trying to come up with definitions lately that satisfy me personally and also help me to avoid this pitfall:

• When the emotions are high but the stakes are low.
• Sometimes it’s not a character’s over-expression as much as it is under-motivation. The motivation has to match the expression.
• When you rely too heavily on music, clothes, sets, etc, to define the main characters.
• A scene with high emotions that feels weak because of its poor treatment, perhaps there’s too much on-the-nose dialogue.
• When the emphasis in the narrative is on something other than the characters.
• When characters are highly emotional about something that doesn’t directly affect their lives.

A few examples off the top of my head:

• A scene early in Act One in which two characters who have just been introduced into the story are having a highly emotional argument about their PAST relationship, which was done solely to establish a backstory.
• Or it’s a dramatic treatment of a political, social, or health-related event and you have a lawyer or physician who gets involved in this event and goes on to make passionate, grandiose speeches about a cause that doesn’t really affect his/her personal life.
• Or, say, a dramatic treatment of something historical, where a character is used to be a prism to view those famous historical events and the emphasis in the narrative is on the events and not the character.

Am I wrong? Can anyone else give examples or definitions?

– Mystery Man

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.

photo credit French title: jon rubin

Okay, a question for all the scribes:

Must a thriller be totally plausible in order to be entertaining?

Many film critics and TS reviewers behave like merciless logicians

by pointing out each and every plot hole and logic flaw and thereby rejecting entire stories because of said plot holes no matter how small they might be, as if that’s the only thing that matters in a movie.

Well, it all depends upon the size of the holes, doesn’t it?

Most film students know that almost every thriller under the sun has plot holes and flaws in logic in them but they are still accepted and beloved by many because of so many other elements of quality craftsmanship.

Well, it all depends upon the size of the holes, doesn’t it

I think there’s a sliding scale involved. If a movie takes itself seriously and yet you can’t buy into its incredibly flawed plot, then yeah, it officially sucks. Unless, of course, it is a movie that doesn’t really take itself too seriously and is INTENDED to be wildly impossible but entertainingly so, like, say, a James Bond movie, then okay, no problem.

If a serious thriller can hold water for the most part (or not leak too quickly), I won’t condemn a movie over a few minor leaks…

…I also think you guys offered a huge volume of characters because you’re not yet disciplined in the difficult task of exploring (and exploiting and giving arcs to) just a few characters with depth. I would’ve preferred fewer twists and stronger scenes and more attention to a smaller number of characters who have more depth.

I won’t condemn a movie over a few minor leaks…

I’ll praise a movie even if the story parts do not fit the whole so long as the scenes play strongly on their own and the parts work together even if the whole leaves me a little uncertain. A lot of movies are certain about their story as a whole but are made of careless parts, which is what I feel like we have here.

Forced to choose, I would take the strong parts over the whole…

– Mystery Man

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.

His work is full of power and majesty and inspiration.

I love him for his contribution to the great discussion on the craft of storytelling.

However, McKee is a flawed greek god who has his problems. He was wrong about Characters Arcs. Plus, he made all the newbie screenwriters hysterical about voice overs. What was it McKee said in Adaptation? “…and GOD HELP YOU if you use voice over in your work!”

Of course, the brilliance of that moment is that McKee says those words right after we hear Kaufman say to us (in a voice over), “It is my weakness, my ultimate lack of conviction that brings me here. Easy answers. Rules to short-cut yourself to success…”

Hehehe… I love that scene.

In his book, Story, McKee went so far as to say, “the trend toward using this telling narration throughout a film threatens the future of our art. More and more films by some of the finest directors from Hollywood and Europe indulge in this indolent practice.”

Let it also be said that McKee’s all-time favorite movie, Casablanca, his great exemplar for screenplays, opens with a voice over that was, let’s face it, completely unnecessary. Everything the narrator tells us about all the people waiting and waiting in Casablanca for exit visas to America can be easily discerned through the STORY.

Generally speaking, I am opposed to voice overs. They should be avoided if possible. You gotta show, don’t tell. I am ALL for that. Pass the clipboard and sign me up. Yet, there are still plenty of great films out there in which voice overs were used quite masterfully. Can you name a movie in which there was an effective use of voice overs?

I offer you six:

• A Christmas Story
• Adaptation
• Apocalypse Now
• Goodfellas
• Fight Club
• Thank You For Smoking

– Mystery Man

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.

Patrick Garson wrote, “Analysing any film by Akira Kurosawa is a joy. The sense of care, placement and thought lying behind every shot is an unspoken guarantee that nothing on screen is accidental.” I couldn’t agree more, as I had once analyzed Ikiru, which broke my heart.

We are also reminded by Dan Harper that, “Despite his unarguable success, Kurosawa was, in fact, one of the greatest risk-taking filmmakers in the history of international film (many of those risks, I might add, didn’t pay off). Every one of his world-renowned films was either preceded or followed by a film more experimental in form or more difficult. You can even argue that some of his greatest successes (Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai) were enormous risks for Kurosawa’s career – the ones that did pay off…”

Kurosawa was, in fact, one of the greatest risk-taking filmmakers in the history of international film.

Of course, Kurosawa was heavily involved in the screenwriting of his films with a handful of writers he used throughout his career. So this begs the question: what did the renowned risk-taker, ground-breaker, and masterpiece-maker, have to say about screenwriting?

These quotes come to us from Akira Kurosawa’s book, Something Like an Autobiography. Hope you enjoy them.

‘With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.’

With a bad script even a good director
can’t possibly make a good film.

In order to write scripts, you must first study the great novels and dramas of the world. You must consider why they are great. Where does the emotion come from that you feel as you read them? What degree of passion did the author have to have, what level of meticulousness did he have to command, in order to portray the characters and events as he did? You must read thoroughly, to the point where you can grasp all these things.

You must also see the great films. You must read the great screenplays and study the film theories of the great directors. If your goal is to become a film director, you must master screenwriting.’

‘A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony, with its three or four movements and differing tempos. Or one can use the Noh play with its three-part structure: jo (introduction), ha (destruction) and kyu (haste). If you devote yourself fully to Noh and gain something good from this, it will emerge naturally in your films.

A good structure for a screenplay is that of the symphony,
with its three or four movements and differing tempos.

The Noh is a truly unique art form that exists nowhere else in the world. I think the Kabuki, which imitates it, is a sterile flower. But in a screenplay, I think the symphonic structure is the easiest for the people of today to understand.’

‘Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation to the descriptive passages of a screenplay is the most dangerous trap you can fall into.

It’s easy to explain the psychological state of a character at a particular moment, but it’s very difficult to describe it through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not impossible. A great deal about this can be learned from the study of the great plays, and I believe the “hard-boiled” detective novels can also be very instructive.’

‘I began writing scripts with two other people around 1940. Up until then I wrote alone, and found that I had no difficulties. But in writing alone there is a danger that your interpretation of another human being will suffer from one-sidedness. If you write with two other people about that human being, you get at least three different viewpoints on him, and you can discuss the points on which you disagree. Also, the director has a natural tendency to nudge the hero and the plot along into a pattern that is the easiest one for him to direct. By writing with about two other people, you can avoid this danger also.’

In writing alone there is a danger that
your interpretation of another human being
will suffer from one-sidedness.

‘I‘ve forgotten who it was that said creation is memory. My own experiences and the various things I have read remain in my memory and become the basis upon which I create something new. I couldn’t do it out of nothing. For this reason, since the time I was a young man I have always kept a notebook handy when I read a book.

I write down my reactions and what particularly moves me. I have stacks and stacks of these college notebooks, and when I go off to write a script, these are what I read. Somewhere they always provide me with a point of breakthourgh. Even for single lines of dialogue I have taken hints from these notebooks. So what I want to say is, don’t read books while lying down in bed.’

‘A novel and a screenplay are entirely different things. The freedom for psychological description one has in writing a novel is particularly difficult to adapt to a screenplay without using narration.’

‘Characters in a film have their own existence. The filmmaker has no freedom. If he insists on his authority and is allowed to manipulate his characters like puppets, the film loses its vitality.’

‘At some point in the writing of every script I feel like giving the whole thing up. From my many experiences of writing screenplays, however, I have learned something: If I hold fast in the face of this blankness and despair, adopting the tactic of Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen sect, who glared at the wall that stood in his way until his legs became useless, a path will open up.’

‘Those who say an assistant director’s job doesn’t allow him any free time for writing are just cowards. Perhaps you can write only one page a day, but if you do it every day, at the end of the year you’ll have 365 pages of script. I began in this spirit, with a target of one page a day.

Perhaps you can write only one page a day,
but if you do it every day, at the end of the year
you’ll have 365 pages of script.

There was nothing I could do about the nights I had to work till dawn, but when I had time to sleep, even after crawling into bed I would turn out two or three pages. Oddly enough, when I put my mind to writing, it came more easily than I had thought it would, and I wrote quite a few scripts.’

– Mystery Man

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.

I don’t know how or why this happened, but a lot of newbies seem to think that a scene is comprised of two or three things only.

.

1) a Master Scene Heading (such as INT. MYSTERY MAN’S KITCHEN – NIGHT) and 2) they should just add some action lines to describe the room, the characters, write a bunch of dialogue, (and quite a few more action lines to describe even the slightest gestures of characters, which we call incidental actions), and 3) move on to the next scene and repeat this process for 120 pages.

Wrong.

How did they get so far away from the core principles of screenwriting? Were they mislead? I don’t know. Even by the very low standards described above, some newbies can’t even get that right and they fill their action lines with what we call unfilmables – sentences in action lines that are not visual, such as backstories of characters, author’s intrusions, inner thoughts, questions to the reader, etc.

We ARE meant to describe the setting,
characters, or actions of those characters,
but these sentences must be very lean and mean.

Now, what do we know about action lines?

With Trottier’s Screenwriter’s Bible, we know that we ARE meant to describe the setting, characters, or actions of those characters, but these sentences must be very lean and mean. We write only what we see on the screen and only the most essential elements using the most minimal words. We have to provide a framework of visuals that tell the story so the reader (and audience) can put two & two together and visualize what’s happening on the screen.

Action paragraphs should be 4 lines or fewer. You typically write one paragraph per beat of action, and they should be important actions. I loved what Trottier said about incidental actions: “If your character raises her cup of coffee to her lips, that’s not important enough to describe… unless there’s poison in the cup.”

Hehehe…

Always, always err on the side of brevity.

Screenwriters are filmmakers, too,
and we have to think like filmmakers
and endeavor to render our stories CINEMATICALLY.

Now let’s take it to the next level. The only way you can truly excel at writing cinematic stories (on a par with or surpassing the pros) is to elevate your craft to a level where you can (without using camera angles) WRITE THE SHOTS.

Bwaaah! You’re SO wrong, Mystery Man! Yes, I can hear you balking already and screaming at your monitors that, dammit, man, you can’t describe the shots because it’s up to the director to decide how that scene will be filmed and thus, all you can do is just tell the story – what happens to what character and then move on to the next scene.

Wrong.

That’s completely and absurdly wrong.

This kind of hands-off thinking about filmmaking has harmed more screenplays, prevented more writers from getting sales, and generally lowered the quality of contemporary films.

It’s not enough that we, as screenwriters, must have a god-like knowledge about the story we wrote and about the art of storytelling, characters, dialogue, and structure. Screenwriters are filmmakers, too, and we have to think like filmmakers and endeavor to render our stories CINEMATICALLY, which means that we should write the shots.

This does not, has not, and will not ever offend directors or anyone else. On the contrary, reading a truly visual, cinematic screenplay that really feels like a movie on paper INSPIRES readers, INSPIRES producers, INSPIRES executives, and yes, directors, too, and those are the scripts that GET SALES.

I mean, come on. The way to get a director onboard is to get him/her excited about the story and the visuals. And your screenplay is essentially the first grouping of cinematic ideas, the first shot across the bow about how to render this particular story cinematically. It’s the springboard for what will be many future creative discussions about turning your script into a film.

The way to get a director onboard is
to get him/her excited about the story and the visuals.

Conflicts between screenwriters and directors have more to do with a screenwriter not thinking like a filmmaker (and wanting to tell instead of show) than it is about a director not recognizing how brilliant the dialogue is.

Rules about not writing the shots so as to avoid offending directors are so absurd, because, like everything else in life, this business is about relationships. It’s ALL about the relationships you build with people in the business. Period.

If you walk into a room and say “this is the way it is and to hell with what you think – no one big or small can change one word or comma of my screenplay,” yeah, everyone will hate you. If, on the other hand, you walk into a room and you’re capable of having a creative discourse and engaging people who have different ideas and calmly explaining how and why and what you were trying to accomplish with each moment of your screenplay, you’ll go far.

Like everything else in life,
this business is about relationships.

Establishing good, working, creative relationships with people is, umm, a good thing for your career.

With some directors, that’s impossible, but that’s another article.

(continues)

– Mystery Man

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.

I’ve said so many different things about Secondary Headings in so many different places that I’ve been wanting to put it all together in one comprehensive post.

Amateurs and pros alike hardly ever use them, which I cannot fathom. I do not see how any truly devoted craftsman can live without Secondary Headings. They are nothing less than your golden ticket to freedom in screenwriting.

And there is just no excuse for pro readers to not know what they are and how they work. Because if Trottier says it can be done, Screenwriter’s Bible, well, it CAN be done. Period.
So let’s take a look at them. As I’m sure you know very well, STUPID BORING Master Scene Headings usually look like this:

INT. LOCATION – DAY

Trottier is pretty strict about how Master Scene Headings should look. It’s INT. or EXT., LOCATION, only ONE DASH, and then DAY or NIGHT (or CONTINUOUS or SAME or LATER). There are very few liberties you can take with Master Scene Headings.

You can, at times, have two dashes in the event of a FLASHBACK SEQUENCE, but that’s about it.

All the great movies I’ve seen are FULL of movement.
Thus, I love so very much Secondary Headings

Master Scene Headings have always felt so confining to me and so full of limitations with the way they force you to be stuck in one location until you move on to the next Master Scene Heading. Does that not feel completely wrong to you guys?

All the great movies I’ve seen are FULL of movement. Thus, I love so very much Secondary Headings, which is a perfectly groovy and acceptable industry standard technique.

If you have different scenes taking place in the same building (or general location), all you need are Secondary Headings.

For example, if you have, say, early in your script, one big talkative 6-page scene with 5 characters in a kitchen, you’re running a huge risk of losing the reader and the audience.

However, you could (through Secondary Headings) break up that monster conversation into short vignettes that take place in, say, the Family Room, Master Bedroom, Back Patio, and Garage.

Plus, in the process of breaking up that long talk, you can eliminate all the non-essential lines in that one scene and shrink those 5-pages down to maybe 2 good, tight pages full of movement.

break up that monster conversation into short vignettes

Spacing wise, you should treat Secondary Headings as you would Master Scene Headings. They’re painless, too, because all you have to type is the location:

Or (praise the movies gods) Secondary Headings can also be prepositional phrases:

Secondary Headings can also offer movement:

Let me ask you – how would you handle multiple conversations taking place in different locations at the same party? Like, for example, the wedding reception at the beginning of The Godfather? Secondary Headings – BY THE BUFFET TABLE, ON THE STAGE, IN THE PARKING LOT, etc.

How would you handle long tracking shots like the great ones we’ve seen in Stanley Kubrick’s films? Secondary Headings. (I love long tracking shots. There was always a point to Kubrick’s tracking shots, too, you know. Kubrick was, in essence, marrying his characters to their environment and saying, “Hey, look, these characters are products of their environment” or “They are being horribly affected by this environment.”)

How would you handle the third act dogfight sequence in Top Gun? Start with EXT. BLUE SKY – DAY and then fill it with Secondary Headings – INSIDE MAVERICK’S TOMCAT, ABOVE THE SEA, INSIDE MIG TWO, etc.

Secondary Headings have had a long and treasured history in cinematic storytelling. There was Lawrence Kasdan with Raiders (I’ll never forget those Secondary Headings in that famous opening sequence like “HALL OF SHADOWS” and “CHAMBER OF LIGHT” and “THE SANCTUARY” – didn’t know those rooms had names, did you?).

Spielberg also used them prolifically in Close Encounters. And there was Ted Tally with Silence of the Lambs (probably the most famous and chilling Secondary Heading in screenwriting history – “DR. LECTER’S CELL”).

There was William Goldman with All the President’s Men, and John Milius with Apocalypse Now, and Robert Towne with Chinatown, and Paul Schrader with Taxi Driver, and Randall Wallace with Braveheart, and Scott Frank with every script he’s ever written but lately Minority Report and The Lookout, and of course, a classic – Herman J. Mankiewicz & Orson Welles with Citizen Kane.

Secondary Headings are so popular right now amongst the pros that some ONLY write Secondary Headings and NO Master Scene Headings AT ALL. Like the Coen brothers. Fargo is one that comes to mind. Or take, for example, their latest script – No Country for Old Men. It’s so downright minimalist without any primary slugs at all that it’s just plain weird-looking. (I can’t say I approve of this, but hey, they’re writing for themselves nowadays.)

Secondary Headings are so popular right now amongst the pros
that some ONLY write Secondary Headings and
NO Master Scene Headings AT ALL.

I recently did a review of a Billy Mernit screenplay. I didn’t mention this in the review, but he didn’t use ANY primary slugs either. This is the trend. (Of course, this means nothing to us. We have to continue to follow industry standard format as outlined in Trottier’s Screenwriter’s Bible and prove to all those intelligent industry people how well we understand how a screenplay FUNCTIONS. Once we become “established,” THEN we can take a left turn at Albuquerque and do crazy things like not write any Master Scene Headings.)

Of course, like everything, there can be pitfalls to Secondary Headings. One can have too much movement, movement that makes no sense, too many quick scenes in a row, etc. It’s a technique that, like everything else, has to be mastered. But, ohh, how fun it is when an artist masters the form and delivers a truly great cinematic experience.

– Mystery Man

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.