HOLLYWOODSCRIPT.COM NEWSLETTER
Welcome to the latest edition of Hollywoodscript.com Newsletter which is published by script consultants Craig Kellem, Judy Kellem (http://www.hollywoodscript.com)
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The purpose of this newsletter is to share information, ideas etc. concerning the fascinating (and elusive) world of screenwriting.
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Hi Folks-hot news of the moment is this--a new book, LIVE FROM NEW YORK (sure to be a bestseller) is about to be released. Written by The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize winning Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller (Little, Brown and Company), it's a very insightful oral history of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE from its inception onwards. It's absolutely fascinating. It definitely gets to the heart and soul of what went on (and goes on) behind this giant of a TV show. Since I was part of the original gang, I have the honor of being included. Check it out (due out Oct. 7). You'll enjoy it
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SCENES AS CONCEPTS
BY CRAIG KELLEM AND JUDY KELLEM
In the world of screenwriting the word CONCEPT is usually associated with the general idea of the movie. Once the CONCEPT is in place, scenes are then created to help tell the story. IDEALLY, the writer tries to come up with as many entertaining scenes as s/he can, scenes designed not only to further the story but INTRINSICALLY entertain us as well. But such seems to be the exception, not the rule. The predominant attitude appears to be one of getting by, plodding along by way of one SUPPORTIVE or TRANSITIONAL scene after another, preparing for that one humdinger just around the corner.
Not smart!
Professional writers understand that ALL scenes count. And there is no room for filler or bridges when true excellence is the standard. Each scene should have its own magic, raison d'être, veracity and power.
An effective way of keeping yourself honest in this regard is to consider scenes CONCEPTS UNTO THEMSELVES. Adopting this attitude as the assembly line prerequisite can prevent you from breezing through too many pages in order to get to the big moment.
As stated in another article, a scene in CITY SLICKERS exemplifies this when Billy Crystal and the boys were riding back to the ranch. What could have been just a "filler" scene was transformed, elevated to an indelible cinematic sequence. Instead of a perfunctory trot home, the characters are brought into deeper intimacy with one another and therefore the viewer, as they describe the best and worst days of their lives. This requisite, potentially mundane plot scene of "the return" was exploited and made a homerun opportunity to deepen and enrich the narrative. And instead of the viewer simply following another ride from a to b, we were given a memorable journey that will stay with us long after the credits have rolled.
Think of the unforgettable moment in the GODFATHER when Luca Brasi is REHEARSING his congratulatory speech to the boss, whose daughter is about to be married. He's not the brightest star in the sky and under-endowed in the genteel so he practices his short speech with great care and trepidation: "I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your house on the day of your daughter's wedding." In less than two pages, a volume of character portraiture is achieved, as well as general commentary regarding male pride and human vulnerability, as we are left with the very potent image of a Mafia tough unskilled in mannerly acumen, stiffly and earnestly trying to say the right thing. Folks, in good movies this kind of effort prevails. And believe me, it pays off BIGTIME in the long run.
Make your reader/viewer REMEMBER YOU IN THE DETAILS.
What do I recall of the movie WIT? The main character, Vivian, laying in the hospital dying of cancer and a sympathetic nurse empathetically offering her a Popsicle while reminiscing about her childhood when kids in the neighborhood would run to the jingle of the ice cream man.
In the movie AS GOOD AS IT GETS we touch the core of Jack Nicholson's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as he has a precarious "life and death" stroll down the street, avoiding sidewalk cracks as if they were mine fields. For many, this is where he wins our hearts forever.
Some filmmakers make a living from delighting their audiences with "small stuff." Check out the BIG LEBOWSKI. Every scene in the film is an event. For example, we all loved it when Jeffrey Lebowski, aka "The Dude," is in a supermarket buying milk. Not only does he come to the register with milk on his mustache, but he pays for the 69 cent carton with a check! All their scenes may not all work but many do and the Coen Brothers continue to thrive via appreciative audiences who expect them to push the envelope from start to finish.
We recently saw a play, an old chestnut called A THOUSAND CLOWNS. The best scene in the play was tiny; not at all major in terms of the main story. It was an amusing moment when an impatient theatrical agent, while speaking to an exasperating client, throws his speakerphone into the trash can while the client continues to squawk and render his complaints. What a metaphoric moment! The agent continues the conversation now impishly satisfied that the unknowing actor is speaking in effect from under greasy potato peels and coffee grounds..
Getting to the final draft may be endemic in our society and not conducive to the best creative altitude but I encourage you to resist the impulse to rush and do snow jobs. They cause avalanches in the end!
Take the time to make those extra touches because on a cumulative basis and in a quiet way it makes all the difference.
Big. Small. Scenes are the bread and butter of your mood, your tone and the emotional currency of the story you are telling. So beware and make every second, every frame, every line a meaningful experience, a drop of inspiration imbued with integrity, imagination and soul.
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GETTING OUT OF GASLIGHTS
BY JUDY KELLEM
There are numerous ways to "gaslight" (ie: in Hitchcock's terms make nuts) your reader but the most surefire ways have to do with being inconsistent and unclear in your material. We are a delicate breed, we humans, and non more so than your Hollywood producer who's sleep-deprived and ulcerating under an immense studio pressure to find good scripts.
Despite a universal delight in surprise, desire to shatter monotony, to innovate and ever invent, when it comes down to it, we all need a certain amount of repetition and order to maintain our sense of comfort, keep us confident that we are in some control. In life and art we rely on anchors, predictable and reliable structures we can hold onto that permit us to relax into an often chaotic and nonsensical reality. Screenplays demand that no matter how avant-garde, experimental or conventional your writing, there be some basic elements that hold us inside of your fantasy. You are inviting us into another space, another world and it is your job as the creator to make us feel safe about entering that dimension.
If your pages become convoluted and incomprehensible, chances are your reader will get a migraine and trash the lot. Friends, there are three particular areas that often break down and cause this feeling of disorientation in the reader/viewer:
A) TIME
B) POINT OF VIEW
C) GENRE
In the case of time, we often find that writers will forget to indicate the days or hours that have passed from scene to scene, whether a given sequence belongs to the present or future is a flashback or dream. Nothing is more alarming for your reader than having a character comment that a month has passed since the last time they saw another character, yet for the reader it was assumed the two chatted yesterday because no time tag has indicated the jump.
Re how to make clear time cues, I'd recommend you look at some professional scripts to see exactly how they've placed them, but as a rule of thumb best to:
A) Put it at the scene heading if the time lapse is very minimum (i.e. "three hours later"; "next morning"; "later that evening")
B) Build it into the dialogue and include some kind of montage to show us a time jump if some minimal time has past (i.e. image of Bob on a train pulling out of a station, disappearing into a fog followed by a living room scene where character says, "How was the trip, Bob, a week's a long time to travel")
C) Write in a title insert (so we read it on the screen) if years, decades or centuries have past (i.e. "15 years later"; "5 years earlier")
Remember, these time cues can also be used as a narrative convention, written into the dialogue or put in a screen title insert to evoke, for example, a sense of "countdown" or to make us jittery from a character's pathology when, for instance, you have someone ever obsessed and distracted, going mad even as they keep "slipping" into their worst memory. In such cases be sure to always introduce such with "flashback" and close it with "end flashback" before moving us into another scene. Otherwise, all the moodiness and tension built from these repeat recalls
will dissipate, the story will become jarring and your hurried producer will pop twelve aspirin and call it a day.
So too with shifting points of view. If you're writing a round robin type movie where the perspective is constantly changing, be very very clear about who is filtering the story at what point and be generous with your reader, hand hold us a bit, give a transitional image, a momentary bridge to alert your reader that we're moving from Jane's head to Jim's. If your script is well secured in an individual, be careful not to let other characters hijack the spotlight. Best not to close a scene, for example, between your hero and her lover on the lover's line of dialogue or walk through the door. Let him say what he needs, let him disappear through that door and then return to YOUR HERO and leave us with HER perspective on what just happened. Keep us trained on her experience of the story. Otherwise, your script will lose its muscle, will become cold and we will not only disengage, but go mad trying to figure out who's got the leading role, who in fact is the protagonist.
And lastly, if you really want to drive your reader MADHATTER MAD, shift genres on them! Write a serious country western and then have Darth Vader appear in full garb ready to chat; thrust us into a dramatic rendition of a Bible story but drag a gang of rifle weilding mobsters into the frame.
It happens, my word to God.
Yes, if you are clearly writing a satire or spoof such can work. If you are going the Wim Wenders route, creating a hyper real dreamscape built on a deliberate mix of familiar images, manipulations of archetypal symbols, then anachronisms and the like can work. But this kind of conceptual art, collage, eclecticism is a tough order to fill and takes much restraint and razor sharp intention on the part of the writer. Those who are able to pull off mixing vinegar and milk are able to do so because they have a very specific, meaningful reason for making the choice. They are using odd elements poetically to commentate or render a hightly crafted alternative reality to make very clear points.
However. If you aren't one thousand, five hundred percent sure of WHY your movie was a slice of life drama in act one and then turned into an E.T.-style science fiction fantasy flick in act two, DON'T GO THERE. Decide which kind of movie you want to write and stick close to your choice, be consistent and harmonious in the rendering.
Remember, we are all like children at heart. We love peek a boo and roller coaster rides, opening mysterious boxes and playing hide and seek. But when push comes to shove we want the routine of our oatmeal each morning and the certainty that our parent will arrive when they said they would. The second these staples change or are lost, we become nervous and suspicious, unsure if we can really trust our environment. And then we throw a temper tantrum while withdrawing.
My point (probably ad nauseam) is, write the wackiest world you can possibly imagine if it so pleases you, but make sure your reader has his or her spot at that narrative table. Otherwise, they will soon rise and change rooms, choosing another's place as a keeper.
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NICE MAIL
Hi Craig!
Our conversation DEFINITELY left me with a great mental high! Who needs drugs when you can write instead! ha-ha! Thank you for sticking with me and giving me the confidence to continue my quest as a professional screenwriter...Thanks for treating me so incredibly well... this is why I'll keep you as my consultant... pure honesty, no sugar coating along with amazing your ability to call bullshit when something doesn't work and needs to go, while at the same time, addressing the great points of the script that work!
SBM
JUDY,
First off, you should be an editor. Really, I find your editing to be so strong and feel that it really complements my work. Honestly, I am never offended by your suggestions, I think you actually get my mind as a writer and see where I am going. This for a reader is a rare gift. It is what makes the difference between readers and true editors. So, I don't know if it is a specific connection that you have to my work, but honestly, I have to pay you this very high and well deserved compliment.
My best, Jennifer Busch
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GOOD NEWS FROM HOLLYWOODSCRIPT.COM ALUMNUS, STEVE ALLRICH (A HOLLYWOODSCRIPT.COM CONTEST WINNER)
Hey Craig,
Thought I'd let you know that BAD KARMA made the finals of the Chesterfield Film Project - one of 55 scripts out of several thousand. They pick 5 winners who get $20,000 and a year-long mentorship in LA.
Not bad, huh?
Steve Allrich
(note-Winners to be announced in mid October. We're keeping our fingers crossed for a very deserving Steve.)
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Our MONTHY contest continues to thrive. As many of you know among a host of valuable prizes is a free listing on the WRITERS' SCRIPT NETWORK, a publication which provides loglines of scripts and goes to about 6,500 industry professionals. We wondered how this would pan out. This is to report that it's proven to be VERY effective. Movie execs truly respond. And if you don't win the contest, know that a listing is very inexpensive. We've been very impressed.
www.writerscriptnetwork.com
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