 |
|
|
Scifi and Fantasy Forum: Writer's Discussion: Questions :
Script writing
Script writing
We have moved to new forum software and posting here is closed!
PLEASE BOOKMARK THE NEW FORUMS
dang what a boring job. how does FC do it? i once wrote thirty pages in fifteen minutes and by the time the day was done had almost a hundred and some pages in my novel but last night i got tired out just writing two pages!
oh my! angers me beyone all belief! Anyone have any tips to make it easier or at least funner?
Posted By:  RongFo Jun 27, 2003 - 09:01 am |       | Get a screenplay writing tool, like Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter. If you're short on $, search around for some free- or demo-ware. Writing screenplays is a craft wholely unique from most any other medium. Formatting software *really* helps.
Also read *everything* about screenplays you can get your grubby hands on. There's a lot of stuff you have to absorb to write an effective screenplay these days.
Start here:
http://www.wordplayer.com/
And good luck. Screenwriting is harder to break into than novel writing, but the money can be much better.
Simple answer: It's not boring for me.
Not-so-simple answer: You have to be a certain type of writer. You have to be a visually-oriented one, or be able to turn that part of your brain on overdrive. (If you can't do that, but can write awesome dialogue, try stageplay writing, which I've done too - even produced one of my plays for my sophomore-year honors thesis at the place where I got my AA. And it incurred the wrath of many a conservative faculty member, heh.)
You also have to be able to sustain interest in your story. Contrary to what you might've seen in dreck like Dude, Where's My Car?, a screenplay has to be tight. Every word has to count. If you find yourself writing the screenplay just for the sake of writing it, skip it and come back to it later. There's even less leeway for that sort of thing than there is with novel-writing.
You also have to have a knack in you for writing salable stories. Contrary to all that 'dream the impossible dream' crap, a screenplay that doesn't have anything hook-wise in it, that's entirely polemics, or entirely static, won't get sold, no matter how good it is at being static. You have to be able to think in terms of action, to drive a story forward using as little space as possible.
Remember, too, that 1 properly formatted page of script equals 1 minute of screen time. If you wouldn't keep your interest on what's going on in that one minute were it up on the screen, if you'd instead be rifling through your pockets for your smuggled packet of M&Ms or checking your watch and thinking about the drive home, (say it with me, kids) you shouldn't be writing it.
As for screenplay books and programs, my personal bibles:
- Screenplay, Syd Field. The seminal work. If you get only one book, it should be this one.
- The Screenwriter's Problem Solver, Syd Field. Helps you work your way through various screenwriting problems.
- How NOT To Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make, Denny Martin Flynn. Shows you, obviously, where screenplays Go Wrong, and helps yours avoid the same fate.
- The Script is Finished, Now What Do I Do?, K. Callan. More of an agent book than a writing book, but it's proved invaluable, because it doesn't try to sell the 'everyone can be a screenwriter, and everyone will get optioned/produced' myth that you'll hear if you choose to seriously pursue this line of work.
- Screenwriting For Film and Television, William Miller. More theory than writing, but it analyzes several different genres of films and where the screenplays differ.
As for software, the heck with expensive programs like Final Draft. I use Sophocles, which is every bit as useful, and about $200 cheaper (the asking price is around $130-ish last I checked.) There's also a cripple-ware free version, but true to the cripple-ware philosophy, it doesn't allow you to print your work without a huge, ugly watermark or export (including copy-paste) to other programs to print sans watermark. Still, if you're just starting out and don't want to think about formats, it's a good program to try.
Some of the best features:
- A tabbed scene index on the same screen as the script, so (opposed to Final Draft etc.) you don't have to jump around to see it.
- Adjustable screen colors so you can quickly glance at how much dialogue/etc. you have in certain scenes.
- The best (and clearest) analyzing tools I've ever seen for character frequencies, dialogue amount, slug line frequencies, dyads (when two characters speak to each other), et cetera.
- Quick, automated transition between working and final drafts.
- A fifteen-second clock so you can keep track of what part of what minute you're on to a painstaking degree (crucial to certain scenes).
The program may not work for you, but I'd still say give it a try, if only because I have tried the other, more expensive programs, and I'm still partial to this one. It can be found here.
Oh yes. Before I forget: If you want to be a good screenwriter, watch movies with good screenwriting in 'em, heh.
Some personal favorites of mine from the screenwriting angle are In the Company of Men (drama, though a rather vicious one), Croupier (crime drama/novelist's woes), Reservoir Dogs (action), A Fish Called Wanda (black comedy), Wonder Boys (college comedy/drama), Falling Down (drama, plus violence), The Last Temptation of Christ (religious drama), The Producers (screwball comedy), Smoke Signals (road movie/comedy) and, last but not least, M. (my favorite movie ever, crime).
All of these except The Producers and M. are (intentionally) quite recent; all of these films are also easy to find at your local Blockbuster - I didn't want to name a lot of classics, since Blockbuster doesn't carry many, or a lot of more obscure films since (again) Blockbuster doesn't carry them, and I don't know what your local video store is like.
As for SF films that have good writing, if you're interested solely in the genre: See the topic on good SF movies. As well, not-yet-mentioned stuff like Repo Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Videodrome aren't bad, and I have a soft spot in my heart for The Arrival, a relatively recent ('95-ish) SF film that's as intelligent as Contact, and much less boring for an action fan like me. 
| Posted By: Ding_man Jun 27, 2003 - 02:17 pm | | For a small town of 11,000 we have about 10 video stores! Its crazy we have more video stores then the fairy large sized city close to us AH! Anyways you can find anything in my town. From classics to B movies that two people other then you have seen in the entire universe... lol.
As for screenwriting. I love it but I dont think I'm that great at it so just practice and read!
one of my biggest problems is i was told not to describe action very much in detail and it just hangs me up when i'm writing because i'm always thinking 'dang, i could write that better'
(Please allow for the bad formatting below. I'm too lazy to bother with a bunch of tabspaces.)
FADE IN:
INT. GAME SHOW SET - NIGHT.
Glitzy, gaudy, ghastly. The HOST steps onstage, wearing an outfit that would embarrass even Liberace.
HOST
Thank you, thank you, and welcome to _That Screenplay Sucks!_ Let's meet our contestants, who are both wannabe screenwriters. Ron, from Sioux City, Iowa...
RON has buck teeth and bad fashion sense. He seems to be shrinking from the camera.
HOST (CONT'D)
And Debbie, from Portland, Maine...
DEBBIE has long, purple fingernails - and, to go with it, a bad purple dyejob.
Canned applause sounds.
HOST (CONT'D)
Thank you, all, and welcome to _That Screenplay Sucks_. Let's start with Ron. Ron, how long should an average action description be?
RON
Uh... six lines?
HOST
Oh, no, I'm sorry, Ron. Debbie? ... Well, looks like Debbie doesn't want to try. The proper answer is: Your descriptions should average around three-five lines. If you average more than that per action, your reader will lose interest.
Canned applause, again.
HOST
OK, the next question's for Debbie. Debbie, which of these is the better screenplay section? FIND Johnny and Susie. This is a ritzy restaurant, called La Belle Epoch, with waiters who speak with affected French accents and offer Godiva chocolates after the meals in place of Andes mints. They're eating: She has sauteed clams with a nice side wine of Chablis; he has a filet mignon, delicately cooked, with petits pois and a red wine of some ilk. Neither seems to be very happy; indeed, Susie is frowning, and Johnny is darting at his steak with a distinct degree of hesitation. At long last, after a few more bites, Susie sets down her fork, a piece of clam still on it, and turns to Johnny to speak, her face screwed up in despair. or Johnny and Susie are eating dinner at a classy restaurant, awkwardly. Then: ...?
DEBBIE
Um, the first. It's better-written. So I guess that means it's good.
HOST
Sorry, Debbie. Screenwriting should not be prose. If your actions describe more than what the fly on the wall can see, then you're writing a novel, not a screenplay. Also, FIND and other ambiguous directions thrown in not because of the importance of the shot, but merely as directions to the cameraman, are unnecessary and redundant.
Fake lightning sound.
HOST
That means, it's time for our lightning round. In this round, the competitors have ten seconds to answer a bonus question. In return, they will be able to declare to the other out-of-work screenwriter...
AUDIENCE (OS)
That screenplay sucks!
HOST
Good. Now, Ron and Debbie, today's lightning round question is: What is the best description possible for a fight scene?
Silence. Then, the timer buzzes.
HOST
Oh, I'm sorry! The correct answer, folks, is 'They fight.' That's because the fight coordinators will decide any unnecessary particulars. They don't need to know who throws a punch and when, and neither does the college intern reading your screenplay. The only thing anyone wants to know out of a fight, is that they fight, and that one person or the other wins.
Theme music starts.
HOST (CONT'D)
That's all for today from the UCLA parking lot. Catch us next week, broadcasting from the basement of the Tisch School of the Arts. And remember: You should always be able to say to yourself: That screenplay sucks! Or else someone else might have to instead.
Theme music and applause both swell.
FADE OUT.
| Posted By: Ding_man Jun 27, 2003 - 04:41 pm | | lol I love it Filmchick. Did you write it?
Yup. Off the top of my head. The best way I could figure to describe good screenwriting/bad screenwriting effectively was to actually frame it in that context.
| Posted By: Ding_man Jun 27, 2003 - 05:00 pm | | Cool.
| Posted By: RongFo Jun 27, 2003 - 05:15 pm | | FC: Freakin' high-larious. That sums it up well for me, except to point out that there are exceptions to most of the rules. You know that, but I thought I'd point it out anyway.
Also, as your example demonstrates, nothing shows you how to write a good screenplay like reading a good screenplay. If you hunt around on the net, you can find dozens.
| Posted By: manji Aug 03, 2003 - 10:09 pm | | thank you filmchick.
i cam across this site not to long ago and came across this particular thread. well i read the heck out of it and you have helped me alot, as has rong fo's link. i can actually have FUN writing now.
thank you both.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion
