A few years ago I had a student who kept repeating a word I had never heard before, until I realised he was concatenating two familiar words into something quite bizarre. I am aware that I do something similar, when I bunch together the phrases “you know” and “I mean” into “ya-meen”. I don’t know anyone else who does this, so I’m proud of my idiolect.

In movie dialogue, we distinguish characters among other things by their native language, dialect, and idiolect. And even though you rarely need to specify all this in the screenplay, it is good to have an understanding.

So, let’s look at a few ways of dealing with accents and foreign language, without hampering the read.

Leave it to the story

In Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges – one of the scripts we studied in Immersion – the characters each speak with their respective accents, but it’s never mentioned in the script. We assume that Ray and Ken are British from a line in the opening monologue “Get the fuck out of London.”

The lead characters ended up being played by Irish actors, but McDonagh has said that this was a happy coincidence more than anything else. When Ralph Fiennes’ character of Harry enters the film with his thick Cockney accent, you’ll find that this is not mentioned in the script, either.

Character introduction

By far the easiest way to set up how a character speaks, is in their first introduction.

If PAUL (28) is a pudgy Liverpudlian, we may assume this comes with the appropriate accent. You can specify whether the accent is slight or thick.

This technique avoids any possible annoyance with the reader, as nobody likes reading accent quirks throughout an entire script.

Scene Notes

Sometime characters change language in the course of a story. In this case, a SCENE NOTE right after the slug may indicate that “The entire scene is in Russian, subtitled in English”, or “During the flashbacks, everyone except our hero will speak Klingon.”

This avoids having to write a whole bunch of parentheticals. Speaking of which —

Choice Of Words

The characters in the world of the Coen brothers often speak in quirky ways. This never hampers the ease of reading their dialogue, as the accent is usually only apparent in the choice of words. A good example is Marge from Fargo.

MARGE [on the phone]: Oh my. Where? Yeah? Aw geez. Okay, there in a jif. Real good, then.

Parenthetical

When a single line, or a few lines are spoken in a different language, you have two options: either you want the audience to understand it, or you don’t.

If you do, the foreign language lines will be subtitled in the film; and if you don’t, they won’t.

Write the lines in English with a parenthetical, e.g. (in Italian) to show they need subtitles. In this way, the reader has the same experience as the audience: it’s a foreign language but they understand what is being said.

If you’re using a simple word or short phrase (ciao, nyet, or ‘dio mio’) and you trust your audience will understand it, just print it verbatim.

Original Dialogue

Sometimes the language is foreign to the main character, and we want the audience to feel just as confused as them, by not translating. In this case, you write the dialogue in the script in the original foreign language – without parenthetical.

This means there won’t be any subtitles, keeping the audience in the hero’s POV.

Do you know of any other ways of dealing with accents, dialect or foreign language? Or do you have great script examples to prove or disprove any of the above, please tell us in the comments.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Steven Miao created the opening video sting and Mukul Kandara helped with setting it all up. Thanks, guys!

The channel had been in the making for a long time, but I just have been too busy with clients, teaching and workshopping awesome projects. What I was planning on doing in January 2017 has finally come to fruition. Will I be able to keep it up? We’ll see.

In the first video, I talk briefly about the correct way to format audio and voice over on a black screen. So many times I have seen this done improperly in screenplays. Yet it is so easy…

Of course, something went wrong during the filming of that first YouTube video, so you couldn’t see the example I was talking about (you can see it below in this article).

I didn’t want to fix the video.

Why not?

The hunt for perfection had been a curse for too long. An excuse for continued procrastination. It was time to ship.

In a way, your shipping is writing; sitting down to commit words to paper.

If you don’t write, great ideas won’t happen. If you don’t believe me, watch that TED talk with Elizabeth Gilbert again.

Okay, back to the formatting class.

Audio Over Black

The example I give in the video is from The Big Sick.

In the YouTube video, you can’t see it. My mistake. But here it is:

As I said above: it is so simple! You just write ‘OVER BLACK’, and then you describe what we hear. At the beginning of a screenplay, this will be printed BEFORE the slugline that introduces the first scene visually.

Easy, right?

Superimposed Text Over Image (Super)

The other thing people often ask me about is how to correctly write a title in the screenplay.

First, you don’t really call this a TITLE. We reserve this for the OPENING and CLOSING TITLES, like you will see in the example.

When you want to indicate where we are (e.g. Paris, Texas), or the time/date (The 18th of December, 2017), you use a SUPER (as in ‘superimposed’).

Mostly I see beginning writers open a scene with the slugline (or scene heading), and then immediately print the Super.

I don’t particularly like this, because the slugline doesn’t give me enough information to visualise the background that the title will be sitting over.

Mostly you will have a shot held for a few seconds before the Super comes in, like in this example from The Disaster Artist:

In the YouTube video, I mentioned that the slugline is imperfect. It should have a full-stop after “INT”, and ideally you also print the time of day at the end of the slugline, e.g. “INT. JEAN SHELTON’S ACTING STUDIO – DAY”.

Then again, my video wasn’t perfect either.

With all this talk about imperfection I may have given the impression that your script doesn’t have to be perfect.

Well, it doesn’t. Until you send it out…

But that’s a different video altogether.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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:: Following up on a script submission, the protocol.

:: Cut out the ‘hello how are you,’ caller ID in screenplays.

:: Consider your kind of story – now compare with those similar.

:: “Speccability”: what to write.

:: Based on a true story: the problems you may encounter.

:: The golden rule, always be entertaining.

:: Format it right: cont’d v. continuous.

:: The secrets your language may hold.

:: David McKenna’s “Blow,” the script.

_______________________________

With thanks to Sol.

Enjoy!

Karel

Keep informed by following me on Twitter (bottom of left sidebar).

And don’t forget you can subscribe to our posts so you don’t miss any of this, ever.

• Bill Martell celebrates 50 years of NORTH BY NORTH WEST
• Take some time out at film school with Mystery Man
• Download American Beauty and Chinatown screenplays.
• How to make a Charlie Kaufman movie (if you really wanted)
• A movie is ultimately made in the edit. Why not write for the edit
• How to sell? Here’s the answer. Or rather: 101 answers.
• Pitch to yourself! After all, you are your worst critic.
• Did you ever stop to think the villian thinks he’s the good guy?
• Dropping product names, okay?
• Your first draft always sucks. Finish what you started.
• Where Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer went wrong, so wrong
• Pixar writer/director Pete Docter: “A completely messy hodgepodge”
• How to write for editors: the last rewriters of the show.

With thanks to Sol.

Enjoy!

Karel

Can you abbreviate “Mister” into “Mr.” in a film script?

Answer:

Abbreviations are allowed in character headings (names) and Action, but not in Dialogue.

Any spoken words need to be fully printed, to keep an approximate page count/screen time ratio of 1p/min.

Question:

Does that mean I have to use ‘Missus’ instead of ‘Mrs’?

Answer: Well, err… Technically, yes. But I agree that it may distract from the reading, which may be good enough reason to keep “Mrs.”, even though it takes proportionally less page space than it should.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Some call it retail therapy.

You are not a screenwriter until you have made that sacrifice, until you have invested money in your career, right?

I call it a waste of $250.

Your first draft should be a quick and dirty braindump. “Don’t get it right, get it written,” dixit Art Arthur.

Of course, it has its advantages to write your first draft in some sort of a script format. See it as an exercise in format and style, plus you have a rough idea of the screen time.

However, for this they have invented free MS Word templates, style sheets or even better: Celtx.

Format and style are totally irrelevant.

If you are fiddling to get the wording of your action right, to make your characters sound like ‘real people’, to come up with really cool visuals, you are wasting your time.

If this is your first draft, nobody will ever see it, except your story editor or script consultant. And if the first script feedback is all about format, style, dialogue and scene construction, you haven’t given the editor the right brief.

Or perhaps you should change editors.

You should be working on that story, which currently may not even be a story yet. If McKee’s statistics are right, ninety percent of what you have written will go. Won’t make it to the screen. At least not for this film.

Now, because of my emphasis on story, it may seem as if I think the presentation of the screenplay is less important.

But can you afford to shop around an excellent story but scripted in a way that looks sloppy and rushed?

Of course you can’t.

I was talking about early drafts.

Once you are sending a script for consideration to producers, studios or talent, it has to be immaculate. Nothing must distract from a smooth read.

Your formatting has to be completely in line with the standards of the country (Letter format if you’re based in the US, A4 elsewhere), the company (if it’s a major studio) or even the person (if it’s, say, Spielberg) you are sending the script to.

Why am I so paranoid about this?

Because others are.

Imagine this: a reader or executive has just read an ‘okay’ story. But it was a terrific read: an elegantly flowing script, no typos, great style, a fast read with “lots of white”.

Your script is next.

Your story is on par with the previous one, but by page 10 this reader has found three typos, a couple of “we see”‘s and some awkward sluglines.

Your story may have had the same potential. Yes, it could have been produced for less money and audiences might have loved the movie better.

Still, you’re out.

The other writer might have been equally talented; he was more professional. If you want to play with the pros, you’ll have to be ready to write fast, re-write fast, and keep the same level of professionalism. If you can’t even get that first spec script right – which they know you have laboured over for years – you’re not up for the challenge.

And guess what: in the books of this reader, producer or company, not just your script but even you may be history. They probably have a sufficient amount of fresh offerings every day so they feel perfectly happy to bar you from ever submitting anything ever again.

If you are serious about earning six or seven figure fees in your new career, prove it. Before you send out your script, invest a few hundred dollars in having it read and polished by a pro.

Now…

Did you just realise your script has gone out to more than one company? Like… all of them?

Bad format and style can kill your career.

Better start thinking about a cool ‘nom de plume’.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Otherwise, here are some tips to save you the money and frustration I sacrificed on my way to stardom.

Being a decent citizen, I buy after I try. So I replaced my “trial” version of Final Draft with a legit copy, hoping the bugs would go. It turned out to be the equivalent of going to see THE DA VINCI CODE in the cinema. I felt I had been caught in the trap of some excellent marketing. But what should you expect from a screenwriting package? Let’s put things in perspective.

The last time I checked, Final Draft cost AUD$569, or roughly the same as the entire Microsoft Office Suite. All that, while some simple MS Word macros or style sheets can achieve what Final Draft does? Plus: you have the wildest flexibility in terms of backups, tracking changes, spell-checking, saving online etc. If you don’t have MS Office or you hate Bill G.: OpenOffice. Free.

If you’re really dying to part with your money on a script package, explore Movie Magic Screenwriter (formerly: Screenwriter 2000). Cheaper than Final Draft and better value for money in my view.

But why pay if your writing isn’t earning you any money (yet)? No, I’m not referring to BitTorrent here. A new, totaly FREE piece of software is called Celtx. Still in its infancy but growing rapidly, with a smart development team behind it and community-oriented.

Celtx intends to go a lot further than just the screenwriting bits: it aims at becoming the central command post for your film’s entire project management. If they manage to stay afloat, it may well become a filmmakers’ software of choice.

Now, if you believe that any of the above will help you writing better scripts, you have fallen prey to the Film Industry’s Greatest Con. These are all just word processors with serious formatting limitations. Jazzed-down versions of MS Word if you wish.

Here is my advice for the cash-poor: don’t spend a cent on script formatting and save your money for software that helps you with the hard work. Instead labour on the story using Dramatica Pro, John Truby’s Blockbuster, Movie Outline or Powerstructure.

I used to use the last one, as it distinguishes itself from the others in pretty much the same way MM Screenwriter does among the script software. Powerstructure has immense flexibility, allows you to write full scenes, just one liners, or whatever in between you feel comfortable with.

You can customise it to your own favourite structure, be it three acts, sequences or Vogler’s THE HERO’S JOURNEY, then export directly to a text file or into whatever script software you use. If you’re a member of that circle of writers who first write their entire first draft before starting to outline, you can import your existing script to reshape its structure. Admitted, I’ve had a few quirks doing that but the PS support team helped me out.

Powerstructure makes a lot of sense, as it works in the way most movie decision makers think. It is being distributed by the wonderful guys at WriteBrain, where you can download a trial version.

Even better than burning your money on software: give it to a human story/script editor who could really make a difference for you. ;-)

DVD COMMENTARY: McCABE AND MRS MILLER

I found a downright great commentary on this unsung masterpiece by writer/director Robert Altman, in which Warren Beatty opens a whorehouse in the Old West.

Although thirty-five years old, this movie could be seen today alongside the razorsharp doco THE CORPORATION and – to a lesser extent – AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. It ultimately tackles corporatisation and if you wish globalisation within the genre of the western. And as the commentary puts it: Altman won’t give you a John Wayne type of Western hero. No. Warren Beatty’s protagonist will shoot you in the back if his life depends on it.

The voice recording of this commentary track is so crystal clear you can literally hear producer David Foster’s watch ticking in the background as he explains why every man and his dog in Hollywood wants to work with this director. I agree: Altman has a vision and integrity that is so rare you won’t even find it with masters like Scorsese. Unlike the latter, Altman will NEVER make ‘one for the Studio’.

My favourite bits are the account of Leonard Cohen’s musical collaboration, Altman’s hilarious tirade about western’s big hats and the master’s view on dialogue:

“The dialogue in these kinds of films […] is part of the character […]. It is not the words that are important. […] That’s too related to theater, where you […] advance plot with the words. When you have close-ups of people and faces […], it’s just better that the words come from the moment or from the actors themselves.”

Altman makes this statement in the context of Beatty’s soliloquies in the film. He asked Beatty to mumble to himself inaudibly before actually delivering the crucial lines in soliloquy. As a result, the audience is used to the character talking to himself in a more or less natural way. And here is the mark of a good commentary: the director sharing with us his struggles to make the movie work.

DVD COMMENTARY: ANTZ

Recently I consulted to a team of comedy writers, which was a completely new and refreshing experience to me. As I’m not a comedy expert, I focused on the (lack of) drama in the script and afterwards the writers were happy enough about the outcome to hire me again for a look at the next stage.

Comedies that don’t work often still work on the scene level but they have issues with the overall story arc. Situations and dialogue may be absolutely hilarious. If there’s no dramatic undercurrent, the audience WILL switch off.

I found a quote on the commentary of ANTZ that makes the exact same point about the input from Jeffrey Katzenberg (photo), who was uncredited producer (and the “K” in Dreamworks SKG):

“We added a lot of comedy kind of after the fact. It’s one of the things that Jeffrey Katzenberg really pushes hard: get the drama to work because if you’re rely on the comedy, you’re gonna loose the audience’s interest in the characters. So sure enough we really focused on the drama and afterwards we […] ended up upping just the silliness of it, the humor of it.”

This charming animation, in which Woody Allen voices the neuroses of the ant “Z”, dates from the turbulent days when Dreamworks went head to head with Disney’s A BUG’S LIFE. Ironically it was Katzenberg who had sealed the deal between Pixar and Disney.

Directors Johnson and Darnell don’t deliver by far the cutthroat commentary we’re used to hear from the Pixar guys, but they do give some insight in their struggles during the development. Notably their work on the character of Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) and her relationship with the protagonist are interesting from a story point of view.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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