Usually, the premise of a movie will dictate -- in broad terms -- what its timeline should be.
CIA gunslinger tracks down nuclear terrorist. Probably not a ten-year saga.
Sweatshop toiler pursues an education and becomes a captain of industry. I don't see that one happening in real time.
But within that general framework, there's practically no limit to the freedom we have to fine-tune the temporal boundaries of a script. The amount of time a story takes to unfold (actual time, not screen time or page count), combined with the way we divide and compress that time to fit the length of our script -- i.e., pacing -- can greatly affect the storytelling tools we have available to us, as well as the way our story is ultimately perceived.
As demonstrated by the first hypothetical logline up top, suspenseful movies tend to demand a shorter timeline -- especially those that rely on the classic "ticking clock" element wherein the hero has a very specific amount of time to accomplish his or her task (find the secret formula, rescue the President's daughter, disarm the bomb, etc.). If the deadline is too long or too loose, the sense of danger will diminish and the audience will tune out. You don't see a lot of stories where the hero faces unspeakable danger, goes home and goes to sleep, then gets up the next morning to face more unspeakable danger. (Cop shows excepted.)
On the other hand, we also need to ensure that the audience makes an emotional investment in our characters; there's no suspense without that important bond. In order for that to happen, we need to let our viewers experience the protagonist's rhythms, rituals, and relationships -- which requires another "r" word: repetition. Showing the same character in the same setting repeatedly can be a valuable tool for making viewers feel like they're truly experiencing the life of that character. It's also a great mechanism for demonstrating change. Every week, Pete practices with his band... but this time we can see that his heart's no longer in it. Or: Peggy goes for her daily jog... but now that she's found true love, there's a spring in her step we've never seen.
But repetition takes time, and time drains suspense. How do we reconcile these apparently conflicting story requirements? For example, what if we want to write a really good, character-driven thriller (like I've been trying to do on and off for over a year now)? One solution is to use a sliding temporal scale. Nearly all movies employ this form in one way or another, but in this case we may want to be more specific and deliberate about it. The opening 10-15 pages could go through a week or more in the lives of the main characters -- setting the scene, building familiarity through repetition. Then we'd zoom in closer as key plot events occur more quickly and pressure on our protagonist to act increases; the remainder of the first act might only be a few days. From the second act onward, the timeline would continue tightening as the action picks up, and by the last 30-40 pages we'd be fully in real-time.
Of course, this is only one way to deal with the building suspense/building character dilemma. Time is on our side when we're writing a script (at least in this one regard!); we can bend it to our will. There are ways to pull off an utterly thrilling and engaging story where Act I takes place in real-time and Act II begins five years later. The Informant!, which I just saw last night, frequently skips a year or more between scenes but never loses its thread of intrigue. No matter which route we take, though, we must pay attention to the ways in which our manipulation of time affects the key elements of our storytelling. It's like sound mixing or color correction: no one notices when it's done well; everyone notices when it isn't.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Truth
There tends to be an assumption among both filmgoers and filmmakers that different genres of film are held to different standards of believability. If we were to put them in descending order, from most realistic to least, I imagine the results would look roughly like this:
1. Drama
2. Romantic comedy
3. Comedy
4. Thriller/Suspense
5. Horror
6. Action/Adventure
7. Sci-fi/Fantasy
Sound about right? We're demanding a lot more from Ordinary People or Slumdog Millionaire in terms of believability than we are from Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, whereas Saw or Ocean's Eleven can get away with a decent amount but not too much. We can quibble about the specific order of the list -- maybe horror films have gotten more realistic over the years, while rom-coms have gotten more fantastic -- but that's really not my point here.
My point is that the list is irrelevant -- and internalizing this sliding-scale system of realism can only hurt us as screenwriters, especially when we choose to write scripts that fall toward the bottom of the scale. We can trick ourselves into thinking that we can get away with all sorts of things just because we're writing in a "less believable" genre -- but that's not the case.
Truth applies no matter what, and it must be sacred regardless of genre.
OK, sorry -- that was a little Robert McKee of me, but I promise it was for a good reason. Because this concept isn't just something to worry about; it can also be very helpful. It's a powerful beacon that can guide us through the writing of some really out-there material -- enabling us to take the most far-fetched story imaginable and make it universally appealing and meaningful. It's what makes District 9, a shockingly violent and gory film about repulsive aliens, one of the most heartrending movies of the year (not to mention financially successful and very well-reviewed): every single moment of it rings true.
It's what accounts for the difference between a great superhero movie like Spiderman 2 and a terrible one like Batman & Robin. The former imagines what it would be really like to be a superhero -- focusing on all the worst parts of it -- while the latter uses the superhero/supervillain backdrop as an excuse to dump a bunch of visual nonsense on the audience, never showing us a single character with any recognizable human qualities. B&R progresses arbitrarily from ridiculous set piece to set piece; S2 spins a hugely entertaining story (with no shortage of amazing set pieces) that evolves organically out of decisions made by actual people, all of whom we sympathize with or at least understand.
The screenwriters who worked on Spiderman 2 had the unenviable task of taking a fairly absurd premise -- Web-slinging teenager takes on eight-limbed mad scientist -- and asking themselves, "What would this really be like? How would people really feel in that situation? What would they really do in response?" There's no trick to solving those problems. They're like multiple-choice SAT questions -- there's no right answer, but there's a best answer... and a bunch of wrong ones. Our goal as writers is to weed out the bad choices and zero in on the one that makes the most sense.
It's not easy.
It requires that we reject all the easy, facile solutions that pop up in our brains ("What if the hero just kind of stumbles into the control room where he can defuse the bomb?"). It demands that we crawl inside the minds of our heroes, villains, supporting cast -- even the ice cream cone guy who just has that one line -- and come out with truth. We may not know how to get there, but we always know when we've found it. So will our readers and audiences.
1. Drama
2. Romantic comedy
3. Comedy
4. Thriller/Suspense
5. Horror
6. Action/Adventure
7. Sci-fi/Fantasy
Sound about right? We're demanding a lot more from Ordinary People or Slumdog Millionaire in terms of believability than we are from Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, whereas Saw or Ocean's Eleven can get away with a decent amount but not too much. We can quibble about the specific order of the list -- maybe horror films have gotten more realistic over the years, while rom-coms have gotten more fantastic -- but that's really not my point here.
My point is that the list is irrelevant -- and internalizing this sliding-scale system of realism can only hurt us as screenwriters, especially when we choose to write scripts that fall toward the bottom of the scale. We can trick ourselves into thinking that we can get away with all sorts of things just because we're writing in a "less believable" genre -- but that's not the case.
Truth applies no matter what, and it must be sacred regardless of genre.
OK, sorry -- that was a little Robert McKee of me, but I promise it was for a good reason. Because this concept isn't just something to worry about; it can also be very helpful. It's a powerful beacon that can guide us through the writing of some really out-there material -- enabling us to take the most far-fetched story imaginable and make it universally appealing and meaningful. It's what makes District 9, a shockingly violent and gory film about repulsive aliens, one of the most heartrending movies of the year (not to mention financially successful and very well-reviewed): every single moment of it rings true.
It's what accounts for the difference between a great superhero movie like Spiderman 2 and a terrible one like Batman & Robin. The former imagines what it would be really like to be a superhero -- focusing on all the worst parts of it -- while the latter uses the superhero/supervillain backdrop as an excuse to dump a bunch of visual nonsense on the audience, never showing us a single character with any recognizable human qualities. B&R progresses arbitrarily from ridiculous set piece to set piece; S2 spins a hugely entertaining story (with no shortage of amazing set pieces) that evolves organically out of decisions made by actual people, all of whom we sympathize with or at least understand.
The screenwriters who worked on Spiderman 2 had the unenviable task of taking a fairly absurd premise -- Web-slinging teenager takes on eight-limbed mad scientist -- and asking themselves, "What would this really be like? How would people really feel in that situation? What would they really do in response?" There's no trick to solving those problems. They're like multiple-choice SAT questions -- there's no right answer, but there's a best answer... and a bunch of wrong ones. Our goal as writers is to weed out the bad choices and zero in on the one that makes the most sense.
It's not easy.
It requires that we reject all the easy, facile solutions that pop up in our brains ("What if the hero just kind of stumbles into the control room where he can defuse the bomb?"). It demands that we crawl inside the minds of our heroes, villains, supporting cast -- even the ice cream cone guy who just has that one line -- and come out with truth. We may not know how to get there, but we always know when we've found it. So will our readers and audiences.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Unsustainable
Earlier this year I wrote a lot about what not to do in the first ten pages of a script. Now I want to lend some balance to that by talking about what to do. That's more difficult to sum up, of course, since there are so many elements that need to fall into place very quickly -- and, seemingly, with little effort. But I think there's one concept that can guide us pretty well through that process, no matter what the genre or story.
Make it unsustainable.
Movies are a voyeuristic entertainment. We see them because we enjoy watching other people, and the theater or TV gives us a safe zone in which to do that. The opening minutes of a film must be especially aware of this concept in order to best exploit it, because for the time being, watching our characters is all we're going to let the audience do. That's not a problem... as long as we can demonstrate that something about our characters and their situation is unsustainable. This means planting doubts and fears in the minds of our audience: "There's no way they can afford this lifestyle," or "He thinks she loves him but she clearly doesn't, or "God, she's an inch away from snapping completely." If we start doing this right away -- and doing it repeatedly -- we will absolutely hold the audience's attention for the time it takes us to build up to the first major plot turn.
You Can Count on Me is one of my very favorite movies, and I believe Kenneth Lonergan's screenplay is one of the best ever written. The film opens with some brief flashbacks to Sammy's (Laura Linney) traumatic childhood, and then over the next several minutes it starts showing us her adult life: She's a single mom. She works in a bank. She has a sometimes-boyfriend. These scenes don't simply convey this information, but rather use it to demonstrate how Sammy is trapped in a variety of unsustainable situations. Her son is starting to wonder about the father he's never met; her only relationship with a man is boring and unsatisfying; and her job security is now being threatened by her need to take care of her boy. Although nothing melodramatic happens in these opening scenes, the message to the audience is clear: Something has to change here, or something is going to break -- very soon. That message keeps us in our seats, waiting to see what changes or what breaks, and how.
Nobody goes to the theater to watch happy people being happy, with only more happiness on the horizon. We go to watch people who are headed straight for a brick wall but either can't see it or lack the will and/or ability to change course. Think about it -- when someone tells you about their friends or family, which are the people you're most interested in hearing about? The well-adjusted successful ones, or the ones who are an inch away from a total meltdown? There's no contest. People we know are living unsustainable existences always make for the most interesting stories. So write about one of them.
Make it unsustainable.
Movies are a voyeuristic entertainment. We see them because we enjoy watching other people, and the theater or TV gives us a safe zone in which to do that. The opening minutes of a film must be especially aware of this concept in order to best exploit it, because for the time being, watching our characters is all we're going to let the audience do. That's not a problem... as long as we can demonstrate that something about our characters and their situation is unsustainable. This means planting doubts and fears in the minds of our audience: "There's no way they can afford this lifestyle," or "He thinks she loves him but she clearly doesn't, or "God, she's an inch away from snapping completely." If we start doing this right away -- and doing it repeatedly -- we will absolutely hold the audience's attention for the time it takes us to build up to the first major plot turn.
You Can Count on Me is one of my very favorite movies, and I believe Kenneth Lonergan's screenplay is one of the best ever written. The film opens with some brief flashbacks to Sammy's (Laura Linney) traumatic childhood, and then over the next several minutes it starts showing us her adult life: She's a single mom. She works in a bank. She has a sometimes-boyfriend. These scenes don't simply convey this information, but rather use it to demonstrate how Sammy is trapped in a variety of unsustainable situations. Her son is starting to wonder about the father he's never met; her only relationship with a man is boring and unsatisfying; and her job security is now being threatened by her need to take care of her boy. Although nothing melodramatic happens in these opening scenes, the message to the audience is clear: Something has to change here, or something is going to break -- very soon. That message keeps us in our seats, waiting to see what changes or what breaks, and how.
Nobody goes to the theater to watch happy people being happy, with only more happiness on the horizon. We go to watch people who are headed straight for a brick wall but either can't see it or lack the will and/or ability to change course. Think about it -- when someone tells you about their friends or family, which are the people you're most interested in hearing about? The well-adjusted successful ones, or the ones who are an inch away from a total meltdown? There's no contest. People we know are living unsustainable existences always make for the most interesting stories. So write about one of them.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
You, feeling something
Learning screenwriting for me has been kind of like learning to think like a machine. You take this free-flowing stream of thoughts and images and turn them into a highly specific document that is logical, precise, and organized -- in 12 point Courier, no exceptions. Everything about screenplay craft has a terse, businesslike, unemotional classification. Act I, Act II, Act III. Plot points. Character arcs. Sequences. Set pieces. Forget emotion; you need motivation. You don't write scenes about people feeling things; you write scenes about people doing things -- specific things, for specific reasons. You have to justify every scene in the script, every character, every plot element, in terms of the internal logic of the story.
It's exhausting. And I figured once I was able to sublimate all my creativity into this machine language, I'd be done. But, as it turns out, that's only half the journey.
The other half, ironically, appears to consist of putting back in all that sweeping emotion I've been suppressing up to now in the name of being terse and clinical and adhering to all the cinematic rules and regulations. Except, all the terse, clinical, objective stuff still applies.
Essentially, in other words, I have to think like a machine with feelings.
Sci-fi fans and technology buffs will be aware of the difficulty inherent in this proposition. A machine, by definition, is something that does not feel; and a being with feelings, by definition, is not a machine. Attempts to fuse the two have met with failure in reality and disaster in fiction. But this is exactly what you have to be, I'm convinced, if you want to write a really great screenplay. Logic, motivation, organization... it's not enough. A screenplay in which everything happens for a compelling and justifiable reason will fall flat 99% of the time if it's not also dripping with emotion at every turn.
Am I only talking about dramas, romantic comedies, bodice-ripping period pieces? No. (And I probably won't, because I don't have a lot of interest in writing in those genres.) I'm talking about Die Hard, The Fugitive, Terminator 2, Run Lola Run, Casino Royale, Kill Bill -- each one a great action film that packs an emotional punch into virtually every scene. These movies don't just work because they set up a compelling motivation for the protagonist; they work because they're constantly exploring the protagonist's feelings.
In Die Hard, for example, John McClane has genuine human reactions to every situation he's placed in. He feels pain, exhaustion, desperation, sorrow, panic, even fear. He performs superhuman feats, but we always believe he's human -- because his humanity is not merely implied by the fact that he's taking on incredible risks to save his wife; it's constantly demonstrated. The movie's tactically timed plot turns, efficient exposition, and methodically executed action sequences are all honed with a machine-like precision, and they are no doubt essential to its success -- but the emotions cement the film's status as a leader in its genre, even after 20 years of much more impressively-staged competitors. It's why a movie like Shoot 'Em Up can bombard the senses with scene after scene of ever-more-phenomenal action and yet fail to draw much of an audience even despite its A-list cast.
Don Draper summarizes the essence of advertising in the Season 2 opener of "Mad Men" thusly: "You are the product. You, feeling something. That's what sells." It's a valuable truism for screenwriters to keep in mind. If the writer doesn't feel anything about what he/she is writing, then the characters won't feel anything either, and neither will the audience.
It's exhausting. And I figured once I was able to sublimate all my creativity into this machine language, I'd be done. But, as it turns out, that's only half the journey.
The other half, ironically, appears to consist of putting back in all that sweeping emotion I've been suppressing up to now in the name of being terse and clinical and adhering to all the cinematic rules and regulations. Except, all the terse, clinical, objective stuff still applies.
Essentially, in other words, I have to think like a machine with feelings.
Sci-fi fans and technology buffs will be aware of the difficulty inherent in this proposition. A machine, by definition, is something that does not feel; and a being with feelings, by definition, is not a machine. Attempts to fuse the two have met with failure in reality and disaster in fiction. But this is exactly what you have to be, I'm convinced, if you want to write a really great screenplay. Logic, motivation, organization... it's not enough. A screenplay in which everything happens for a compelling and justifiable reason will fall flat 99% of the time if it's not also dripping with emotion at every turn.
Am I only talking about dramas, romantic comedies, bodice-ripping period pieces? No. (And I probably won't, because I don't have a lot of interest in writing in those genres.) I'm talking about Die Hard, The Fugitive, Terminator 2, Run Lola Run, Casino Royale, Kill Bill -- each one a great action film that packs an emotional punch into virtually every scene. These movies don't just work because they set up a compelling motivation for the protagonist; they work because they're constantly exploring the protagonist's feelings.
In Die Hard, for example, John McClane has genuine human reactions to every situation he's placed in. He feels pain, exhaustion, desperation, sorrow, panic, even fear. He performs superhuman feats, but we always believe he's human -- because his humanity is not merely implied by the fact that he's taking on incredible risks to save his wife; it's constantly demonstrated. The movie's tactically timed plot turns, efficient exposition, and methodically executed action sequences are all honed with a machine-like precision, and they are no doubt essential to its success -- but the emotions cement the film's status as a leader in its genre, even after 20 years of much more impressively-staged competitors. It's why a movie like Shoot 'Em Up can bombard the senses with scene after scene of ever-more-phenomenal action and yet fail to draw much of an audience even despite its A-list cast.
Don Draper summarizes the essence of advertising in the Season 2 opener of "Mad Men" thusly: "You are the product. You, feeling something. That's what sells." It's a valuable truism for screenwriters to keep in mind. If the writer doesn't feel anything about what he/she is writing, then the characters won't feel anything either, and neither will the audience.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Rewriting again
So, a little less than a year ago I had what I considered a pretty brilliant idea for a movie. A globe-trotting action/adventure ensemble flick with kidnapping, hidden treasures, puzzles, booby-traps, mythical creatures, perhaps even a dirigible or two. The summer movie to end all summer movies. I was in the middle of writing another script at the time, so I put it on the back burner until I was in a position to devote serious time to it.
When it came time to get to work on it, I realized I needed to make some significant changes to the characters and structure. Out went the ensemble cast, a chunk of the first act, and probably half the globe-trotting. The script just wasn't going to work that way, and it was painful to accept that fact since I'd had such a specific vision in my head for so long, but such is the nature of things. Anyway, I did manage to keep a lot of what inspired me to write the script in the first place, and I'm pretty sure that everything that I changed was for the better. I wrote the outline, cranked out the script, and now here I am again in rewrite hell.
Thankfully, though, it's not nearly as hellish as it once was. Confidence helps. Starting with better material helps. And, most importantly, having a real handle on your story and characters helps. (Successfully rewriting something you were never all that sure of is a near-impossible task. Believe me, I know; I've tried it. Multiple times.) After a while, it doesn't just start sucking less; it actually becomes liberating. The outline and first draft is largely a negative-feeling process (you have a great idea in your head, and your only real goal is to avoid screwing it up), but the rewrite process reverses that thinking: How much better can I do? How great can I make this? You realize you've blown the ceiling off and are now free to reach for the stars; you're limited only by your willingness to push yourself.
OK, all this hope and enthusiasm is a clear indication that it's been too long since I've done any actual writing. Better get on that.
When it came time to get to work on it, I realized I needed to make some significant changes to the characters and structure. Out went the ensemble cast, a chunk of the first act, and probably half the globe-trotting. The script just wasn't going to work that way, and it was painful to accept that fact since I'd had such a specific vision in my head for so long, but such is the nature of things. Anyway, I did manage to keep a lot of what inspired me to write the script in the first place, and I'm pretty sure that everything that I changed was for the better. I wrote the outline, cranked out the script, and now here I am again in rewrite hell.
Thankfully, though, it's not nearly as hellish as it once was. Confidence helps. Starting with better material helps. And, most importantly, having a real handle on your story and characters helps. (Successfully rewriting something you were never all that sure of is a near-impossible task. Believe me, I know; I've tried it. Multiple times.) After a while, it doesn't just start sucking less; it actually becomes liberating. The outline and first draft is largely a negative-feeling process (you have a great idea in your head, and your only real goal is to avoid screwing it up), but the rewrite process reverses that thinking: How much better can I do? How great can I make this? You realize you've blown the ceiling off and are now free to reach for the stars; you're limited only by your willingness to push yourself.
OK, all this hope and enthusiasm is a clear indication that it's been too long since I've done any actual writing. Better get on that.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Earning stuff
I always enjoy looking back at my notes from old writing classes. There's the nostalgia factor, of course, but it can also be quite useful because many of the ideas that I was merely transcribing at the time have much greater meaning to me now. One of the pages to which I often flip my notebook open begins with the line, "Have to earn big scenes." It's an extremely brief way of saying that the "big" scenes in your script -- the scenes that are the most pivotal, and hopefully the most memorable and satisfying -- will fall flat unless you build them up properly via good character work and plotting.
That's one of the most sacred tenets of good screenwriting, and there's little I can add to it (especially since I've covered it in some form many times before). I can, however, use it as a good jumping-off point to another topic -- because the concept of "earning" stuff is actually much more broader and nuanced than the one specific rule I was just talking about. It's actually not a rule at all, but a principle that -- when applied correctly -- can enable you to break all kinds of other rules.
Here's what I'm talking about.
Think about the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark wherein Indy and Marion climb out of the Well of Souls and race to commandeer a plane before the Nazis take off with the Ark. But not so much the second part; think about the specific moment when they make it out of the Well. Indy shoves a stone out of this rickety little structure thingy, they climb through the hole, and they're back on the road.
Now. Really. Think about it. Indy and Sallah had to dig into the sand for hours upon hours to find the entrance to the Well of Souls... but the exit turns out to be a free-standing, easily accessible stone building a few feet off the beaten path? And in thousands of years, no one else figured that out? That's not just a plot hole; it's a giant sucking vacuum. And yet, no one's ever seemed to care. I'm not even sure that many people have noticed.
Why do you suppose that is? Perhaps because that one improbable moment comes on the heels of the amazing scene in which Indy and Marion are trapped in the Well of Souls with all the snakes. If that's not the most frightening, thrilling, skillfully executed scene in the whole damn movie, it's certainly up there. And it's followed by the great fight scene between Indy and the tough but short-lived Nazi mechanic, which itself ends in a magnificent gasoline explosion. And in the final analysis, those two scenes are good enough that the small but necessary bit of connective tissue between them -- which is clearly a cheat by anyone's definition -- turns out to be not such a big deal.
It wouldn't have worked any other way, though. Imagine if Indy and Sallah had found the Well of Souls by wandering around the desert and bumping into that little stone building. "Hey, maybe this is it. Let's take a look!" Viewers would have checked out right then and there; it wouldn't have mattered how brilliant the ensuing scenes were. But by giving us so much great stuff first, the Raiders script earns its right to cheat a little. So, if we want to get away with bending the rules in our own scripts (and there are inevitably times when we need to), this is the way to go about it.
But earning the audience's goodwill isn't only necessary for papering over iffy plot points. (And really, we should endeavor to do that as little as possible so as to minimize the chance of it backfiring.) Consider a good heist movie like Ocean's 11 or Sneakers. These films require the heroes to perform all sorts of feats that the audience really has no idea how to gauge. Sure, everyone knows that it'd be pretty difficult to break into a super-secure vault underneath the Bellagio -- but virtually nobody in the theater knows exactly how difficult, or specifically what would be required to do it. That's okay, from the writer's perspective, because we don't know how to do it either, nor do we need to. We only need to make it seem plausible. And we do that by earning it.
At a crucial point in Sneakers, Robert Redford's crew needs to get past a door that uses a voiceprint identification system. Only the right person's voice, speaking his own name and a short predetermined sentence, will unlock the door. The solution they devise is fairly ingenious (at least it was in 1992; it's probably been ripped off by at least a dozen other movies by now): they send a female friend on a blind date with the man whose office they're breaking into, and through normal conversation she gets him to say his name and the words in the security sentence, all of which are caught on tape. The crew edits the words into the right order, and voila, they've got their way inside.
Would this really work? Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. It's incredibly clever, and therefore it earns its own plausbility. That's how things work in the movies. You could have a different solution to the same problem that was, in real life, a lot more accurate (maybe all that's really required is to bang the side of the voicebox a few times) -- and audiences would automatically deem it implausible, because the writer didn't do enough to earn their goodwill.
In Ocean's 11, it's the same thing. Who knows if any of the myriad schemes employed by the star-studded cast would actually be sufficient to penetrate a massive casino security operation? (My guess is that virtually none of them would be, or else Vegas would be a lot poorer.) All that matters is that each of them are clever and interesting enough for the audience to accept their plausibility within the context of the film. This principle works both at the micro- level as each feat is pulled off, and at the macro- level as the film concludes and the audience thinks, "Well, that was pretty impressive; I'll buy that they got away with it." Which means the writer got away with it too.
One final note: Tony Gilroy, current god among writers, toys with this principle self-consciously in one scene of The Bourne Identity. Outside of a hotel where Bourne had stayed prior to his amnesia, he and Marie discuss an almost tediously intricate plan for retrieving the necessary information about his stay. Moments later, as Bourne waits pensively in a nearby phone booth for her signal, Marie comes strolling back with a piece of paper in hand. She tells him she just walked up to the hotel clerk, pretended to be Bourne's assistant, and asked for a copy of his hotel bill. On one level it's a clever reversal of expectations of the type Gilroy is known for; on another, it's a subtle jab at the notion that every single plot point in a thriller needs to be suitably convoluted in order to be plausible.
That's one of the most sacred tenets of good screenwriting, and there's little I can add to it (especially since I've covered it in some form many times before). I can, however, use it as a good jumping-off point to another topic -- because the concept of "earning" stuff is actually much more broader and nuanced than the one specific rule I was just talking about. It's actually not a rule at all, but a principle that -- when applied correctly -- can enable you to break all kinds of other rules.
Here's what I'm talking about.
Think about the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark wherein Indy and Marion climb out of the Well of Souls and race to commandeer a plane before the Nazis take off with the Ark. But not so much the second part; think about the specific moment when they make it out of the Well. Indy shoves a stone out of this rickety little structure thingy, they climb through the hole, and they're back on the road.
Now. Really. Think about it. Indy and Sallah had to dig into the sand for hours upon hours to find the entrance to the Well of Souls... but the exit turns out to be a free-standing, easily accessible stone building a few feet off the beaten path? And in thousands of years, no one else figured that out? That's not just a plot hole; it's a giant sucking vacuum. And yet, no one's ever seemed to care. I'm not even sure that many people have noticed.
Why do you suppose that is? Perhaps because that one improbable moment comes on the heels of the amazing scene in which Indy and Marion are trapped in the Well of Souls with all the snakes. If that's not the most frightening, thrilling, skillfully executed scene in the whole damn movie, it's certainly up there. And it's followed by the great fight scene between Indy and the tough but short-lived Nazi mechanic, which itself ends in a magnificent gasoline explosion. And in the final analysis, those two scenes are good enough that the small but necessary bit of connective tissue between them -- which is clearly a cheat by anyone's definition -- turns out to be not such a big deal.
It wouldn't have worked any other way, though. Imagine if Indy and Sallah had found the Well of Souls by wandering around the desert and bumping into that little stone building. "Hey, maybe this is it. Let's take a look!" Viewers would have checked out right then and there; it wouldn't have mattered how brilliant the ensuing scenes were. But by giving us so much great stuff first, the Raiders script earns its right to cheat a little. So, if we want to get away with bending the rules in our own scripts (and there are inevitably times when we need to), this is the way to go about it.
But earning the audience's goodwill isn't only necessary for papering over iffy plot points. (And really, we should endeavor to do that as little as possible so as to minimize the chance of it backfiring.) Consider a good heist movie like Ocean's 11 or Sneakers. These films require the heroes to perform all sorts of feats that the audience really has no idea how to gauge. Sure, everyone knows that it'd be pretty difficult to break into a super-secure vault underneath the Bellagio -- but virtually nobody in the theater knows exactly how difficult, or specifically what would be required to do it. That's okay, from the writer's perspective, because we don't know how to do it either, nor do we need to. We only need to make it seem plausible. And we do that by earning it.
At a crucial point in Sneakers, Robert Redford's crew needs to get past a door that uses a voiceprint identification system. Only the right person's voice, speaking his own name and a short predetermined sentence, will unlock the door. The solution they devise is fairly ingenious (at least it was in 1992; it's probably been ripped off by at least a dozen other movies by now): they send a female friend on a blind date with the man whose office they're breaking into, and through normal conversation she gets him to say his name and the words in the security sentence, all of which are caught on tape. The crew edits the words into the right order, and voila, they've got their way inside.
Would this really work? Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. It's incredibly clever, and therefore it earns its own plausbility. That's how things work in the movies. You could have a different solution to the same problem that was, in real life, a lot more accurate (maybe all that's really required is to bang the side of the voicebox a few times) -- and audiences would automatically deem it implausible, because the writer didn't do enough to earn their goodwill.
In Ocean's 11, it's the same thing. Who knows if any of the myriad schemes employed by the star-studded cast would actually be sufficient to penetrate a massive casino security operation? (My guess is that virtually none of them would be, or else Vegas would be a lot poorer.) All that matters is that each of them are clever and interesting enough for the audience to accept their plausibility within the context of the film. This principle works both at the micro- level as each feat is pulled off, and at the macro- level as the film concludes and the audience thinks, "Well, that was pretty impressive; I'll buy that they got away with it." Which means the writer got away with it too.
One final note: Tony Gilroy, current god among writers, toys with this principle self-consciously in one scene of The Bourne Identity. Outside of a hotel where Bourne had stayed prior to his amnesia, he and Marie discuss an almost tediously intricate plan for retrieving the necessary information about his stay. Moments later, as Bourne waits pensively in a nearby phone booth for her signal, Marie comes strolling back with a piece of paper in hand. She tells him she just walked up to the hotel clerk, pretended to be Bourne's assistant, and asked for a copy of his hotel bill. On one level it's a clever reversal of expectations of the type Gilroy is known for; on another, it's a subtle jab at the notion that every single plot point in a thriller needs to be suitably convoluted in order to be plausible.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Writing vs. Typing
I still struggle with the issue of how much -- and what kind of -- pre-writing I need to do before firing up the screenwriting software and producing script pages. Certainly I'm doing more of it at this stage in my development than I ever have before. On the script I'm working on now, I did several pages of preliminary idea scribbles and research notes; three one-page character essays for the protagonists; and three progressively longer versions of an outline, the longest of which was ten pages.
After all that was done, and I'd shown the last outline to a couple of people whose opinions I value (fiancee; writing colleague), I typed FADE IN and went off to the races. As of this blogging, I'm 33 pages into the script. Much of the writing has flown quite easily because -- well, because it's not really writing; it's typing. I'm just giving new, more verbose language to the thoughts that are already in my head. And yes, there's a huge difference between the two concepts.
In previous scripts -- even working from an outline -- I ended up having to do a lot of actual writing during the scripting process. Sometimes it would be obvious that a necessary scene was missing; or a planned scene was unnecessary and needed to be replaced with something more interesting and useful; or an entire plot thread or character just plain didn't work on the script page. All of which frequently put me in the position of writing a scene, then staring at the blinking cursor until I could figure out what needed to happen in the next one. I'll be honest; sometimes this was fun. Because it was writing. It was creating something from nothing.
On the other hand, most writers know what generally happens when you create something from nothing. (Answer: it sucks.) In the pre-writing phase, wiping out the stuff that sucks and replacing it with stuff that doesn't is a fairly straightforward proposition. Why be wedded to the words you're writing in an outline? They're not for public consumption and you're not going to sell them. When you're writing real script pages, though, it's much harder to accept that a scene I've just invented and written needs to be scratched and replaced. For one thing, it's all formatted and pretty, with clever dialogue and description. It looks like a final product even if it's nothing resembling that. For another thing, I don't want to lose momentum. I can sort of take my time and get things right in the outlining stage, but writing the script itself always makes me impatient. When I'm on page 1, I want to be on page 10; when I'm on page 10 I want to be on page 30. By the time I'm on page 60, I desperately want to be done. So, even if pages 13-17 turned out to be absolute waste of time, I'm probably going to keep them and move on. Repeat that enough times and I end up with a final script that represents a writing exercise more than a workable draft.
Typing is better. Having already come up with the scene I'm currently writing, I can add nuances and thematic stuff to it as I go along; the dialogue is better because I've already thought roughly about what people are going to say to each other; and scene length stays manageable because I'm not spinning my wheels trying to figure out the point of the scene as I type. It doesn't have the same feeling of danger and excitement as off-the-cuff writing does, but I don't know of many writers who do it all for the sake of enjoying the process. Besides, any enjoyment gained from the actual keystrokes is fleeting; my true goal is to one day look at a finished product and realize that, for once, it doesn't suck.
After all that was done, and I'd shown the last outline to a couple of people whose opinions I value (fiancee; writing colleague), I typed FADE IN and went off to the races. As of this blogging, I'm 33 pages into the script. Much of the writing has flown quite easily because -- well, because it's not really writing; it's typing. I'm just giving new, more verbose language to the thoughts that are already in my head. And yes, there's a huge difference between the two concepts.
In previous scripts -- even working from an outline -- I ended up having to do a lot of actual writing during the scripting process. Sometimes it would be obvious that a necessary scene was missing; or a planned scene was unnecessary and needed to be replaced with something more interesting and useful; or an entire plot thread or character just plain didn't work on the script page. All of which frequently put me in the position of writing a scene, then staring at the blinking cursor until I could figure out what needed to happen in the next one. I'll be honest; sometimes this was fun. Because it was writing. It was creating something from nothing.
On the other hand, most writers know what generally happens when you create something from nothing. (Answer: it sucks.) In the pre-writing phase, wiping out the stuff that sucks and replacing it with stuff that doesn't is a fairly straightforward proposition. Why be wedded to the words you're writing in an outline? They're not for public consumption and you're not going to sell them. When you're writing real script pages, though, it's much harder to accept that a scene I've just invented and written needs to be scratched and replaced. For one thing, it's all formatted and pretty, with clever dialogue and description. It looks like a final product even if it's nothing resembling that. For another thing, I don't want to lose momentum. I can sort of take my time and get things right in the outlining stage, but writing the script itself always makes me impatient. When I'm on page 1, I want to be on page 10; when I'm on page 10 I want to be on page 30. By the time I'm on page 60, I desperately want to be done. So, even if pages 13-17 turned out to be absolute waste of time, I'm probably going to keep them and move on. Repeat that enough times and I end up with a final script that represents a writing exercise more than a workable draft.
Typing is better. Having already come up with the scene I'm currently writing, I can add nuances and thematic stuff to it as I go along; the dialogue is better because I've already thought roughly about what people are going to say to each other; and scene length stays manageable because I'm not spinning my wheels trying to figure out the point of the scene as I type. It doesn't have the same feeling of danger and excitement as off-the-cuff writing does, but I don't know of many writers who do it all for the sake of enjoying the process. Besides, any enjoyment gained from the actual keystrokes is fleeting; my true goal is to one day look at a finished product and realize that, for once, it doesn't suck.
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