Complications Ensue: The Crafty TV and Screenwriting Blog

Monday, May 19, 2008

"When you are trying to kill a man, it costs nothing to be gracious."?
Labels: apropos of nothing at all

9:48 PM

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

Brendan Kelly's On the Scene

Montreal Gazette writer Brendan Kelly is now blogging about the Montreal showbiz scene in Showbiz Chez Nous. Who's shooting, who's premiering, who's going to Cannes. And lots of links, especially to his Gaz articles. Go Brendan!
Labels: Quebec

1:46 PM

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Can I Use an Hour Sample for Half Hour?

I am an aspiring comedy writer, but have chosen to write one of my specs on the NBC show "Chuck" because I know and love the characters. It is an hour long, but entirely different from most dramatic television, it's more of an action-comedy. Is this spec useless to me as a comedy writer even though it has so many comedic elements? Should I not show it to people interested in my work and just crank out a "Two and a Half Men" like so many other people in LA?
Think about it from the showrunner's point of view. If I'm hiring comedy writers, and I get a stack of 12 sitcom scripts, and an hour comedy, who am I going to pick?

Right now there is no shortage of qualified staff writers. You're competing with writers who have credits. You have to really grab people to break out of the pack. Anything short of "you nailed it" equals fail.

That's not to say you can't send it out. A great CHUCK is better than no script. A great TWO AND A HALF MEN (if that's what people are speccing for half hour) is better with a great CHUCK than without it. Your agent might know about a relatively more action-y, more dramatic half hour. And of course, your great CHUCK will be useful for other comic hours.

And maybe you don't want to be a half hour writer, y'know? Maybe if you love CHUCK so much you should consider yourself an hour writer. John Rogers worked on COSBY, and now he's running a one hour heist drama. I guarantee there are laughs in it. I wouldn't worry about CHUCK being sui generis. BUFFY was an action-comedy, too. If you can write action and laughs, there may be hour jobs out there for you too.
Labels: spec scripts

7:50 AM

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

But What Do You Do With All That Money?

Build a trebuchet to hurl flaming pianos, of course.

Makes perfect sense to me.
Labels: apropos of nothing at all

12:20 PM

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Monday, May 12, 2008

And Do It Again

Q. I come from an Improv and sketch comedy background, I've written 3 TV spec scripts that were good. For some reason the ability to plug into voices of characters created by others comes fairly easily to me. However, my 2 original feature scripts and my pilot were all severely lacking, there's obviously a hole in my writing education somewhere when it comes to creating original characters and stories that have legs. I've read all the usual suspects: McKee, Vogler, you...any pointers as to where to look to fill these holes?
I don't think you need to read any more books. I think you just need to write more scripts. Looking back on all my scripts, the first feature spec I'm still willing to show people comes in around #15 or so. It takes a while to learn how to write screenplays.

To write great characters, try writing some screenplays that depend entirely on their characters. Stretch in the direction you're weakest. If plotting was your weakness, I would say write a closely plotted thriller. If people are saying your dialog is too flat, try writing a script about bitchy fashion people, or create a character who speaks outlandishly, or has Tourette's.

I wouldn't expect you to be able to write a good pilot after writing only three TV specs. Everyone's asking for spec pilots these days, but it used to be you were expected to put in three to five years on staff before anyone wanted to see a pilot from you. You need that long to learn your craft.

The key to becoming a better writer is writing, and rewriting, and rewriting, for years. Do you think people would get paid so much if it was easy to learn how to do it?

As to characters, it's not enough to plug into the voices. You're using the preset characters as a crutch; you know how they sound, and you're making them sound like that. But you don't want to just write lines that Phoebe on FRIENDS could say. You want to write lines that only Phoebe could say: "I wish I could help you, but I don't want to."

Similarly, character isn't writing things that your character would do. It's writing things that only your character would do. Dr. Richard Kimble is a fugitive on the run. He sneaks into a hospital to investigate the one-armed man who killed his wife. He notices a kid has been misdiagnosed. Most people would ignore the kid; there are doctors for that. He scrawls a new diagnosis on the kid's chart and rolls him to where he can get the help he needs -- nearly getting caught in the process.

Character isn't about character bios, which I find vastly overrated. It's about giving your character things to do and say that only they would say and do. And then doing it again.
Labels: character, craft

7:43 AM

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Sunday, May 11, 2008

Write an Alternate Finale?

Q. As a fan of the show Stargate Atlantis, I wasn't entirely happy with the recent season finale. I'm thinking about writing an alternate finale as my submission to the ABC/Disney Fellowship.
This is risky for a couple of reasons.

One, Stargate: Atlantis is not a show you can count on anyone having read. It's just not one of the shows that show people are watching. That's why you call agents' assistants to ask what shows people are speccing. You should spec one of the shows everyone's speccing, because those are the shows people are watching.

Two, it's really hard to write a satisfying season finale. Much harder than writing a "center cut" episode. There's just a lot more work to do resolving story arcs and tying up loose ends, while creating a convincing hour of television. So you're raising the bar for yourself.

Finally, the season finale is the culmination of the whole season. You're trying to show how you can pay everything off better than the showrunner. But the reader may not have even seen more than one or two episodes of the show you're writing. You can rely on any decision maker to have seen BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, but you can't count on him knowing every last detail of which Cylons are "out" as Cylons to the humans, and which are secret, and what Baltar did on New Caprica, etc. A season finale is more dependent on detailed knowledge of the season than any other episode. Readers who aren't fans won't get it; readers who are fans may have very strong opinions about whether your approach is canonical or not.

Now these are only risk factors. If your Stargate:Atlantis alternative finale reaches a big S:A fan, and it sings to him, then you have broken out of the pack. High risk can bring high gain. A highly competent CSI may not grab anyone who's had to read twenty other highly competent CSI's. Anything you can do to set yourself apart can work in your favor.

(But I still wouldn't do this for S:A. I just don't think it's got enough buzz.)
Labels: spec scripts

4:26 PM

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Saturday, May 10, 2008

I'm Going to Be on KPFK

I'm going to be jabbering away on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles tomorrow, Sunday, from 2-3 PM PST. I'm appearing on SAMM BROWN'S FOR THE RECORD and talking about "The Craft of Film and Television."

I'll be appearing with former movie exec Rob Tobin, who wrote John McTiernan's upcoming CAMEL WARS, and has a bunch of DVD's and books on screenwriting.

If you're out of town, you can listen to the show online at KPFK's site. You can also listen to it on audio archives for the next 90 days.
Labels: Alex, craft

10:07 AM

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Thursday, May 08, 2008

Playwrights

Aaron C asks if he should hire playwrights rather than TV writers for his internet series:
Because my season is already pretty much outlined, dialogue and character are most important to me. My hunch is that playwrights tend to be better at dialogue, and get into writing more for the love of writing than for fame and fortune.
I could not disagree more.

Plays and TV are entirely different media. Plays can have action, but the characters can't go far. Editing is limited to scene changes. The frame never moves in a play. There are no closeups. All you can do is move your characters around the stage. The audience sees the players from various different angles depending on where they're seated. So, plays are about the words.

TV is about the words, the action, the framing, and the editing.

They are different media. And therefore, they use different flavors of dialog.

So play dialog tends to be expansive and wordy. It is often stylized. Mamet's characters all speak Mamet-speak.

TV dialog is terse. If a character has more than three sentences strung together, it's a big deal.

Plays have huge ole chunks of dialog, character arias, often about the past. TV rarely describes the past, and tries to avoid referring to it. You can go hours on TV without hearing a character say, "You remember when...?" and then recounting an event in it its entirety that both characters remember perfectly well.

A great play creates a ritual space; the dialog is the words of that ritual, in which the audience is a celebrant.

A great TV show brings you into a world, and makes the characters a member of your family.

Playwrights aren't better at dialog than TV writers. They are better at play dialog. On TV, play dialog would sound stilted, portentuous and gassy; just as, in a play, TV dialog would sound bloodless and mundane.

Playwrights are also not used to necessarily doing what they're told. David Mamet refuses to take network notes at all. That comes from being a playwright, where you can simply refuse to change a line if you don't want to.

I wrote a play once. It even got a reading at a playhouse. I learned how different playwrighting is from screenwriting, and that plays are not my medium.

No, I wouldn't hire a playwright to do a TV writer's job; unless that playwright also happened to be a pretty good TV writer.

And the play? Now a pay cable series I'm developing for The Movie Network.

Oh, and Aaron ... all the good writers, in any medium, get into it for the writing, not for the fame and fortune.
Labels: craft

1:32 PM

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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Fancast

Just got this press release, and my mind has been in Gary, Indiana, so I'll just lay it on you:
TV addicts now have a one-stop online destination where they can watch full episodes of current and classic TV including "The Office," "24," "Lost in Space," "The 50th Annual Grammy Awards," and more for free.

With entertainment content from over 100 providers including major television and cable networks, Fancast.com takes out the guess work for users looking for their favorite shows by allowing them to find it, watch it and manage it 24-hours a day – whether it's on Fancast, TV, online, on demand and more.

One of the site’s many features is the “Watch List” button that allows users to organize and catalog upcoming programming, set a personalized play list and send reminders to themselves about what they should watch in the future - creating an easy-to-use, personalized entertainment guide.
Let us know how it works for ya!
Labels: TV distribution tech

9:43 AM

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Monday, May 05, 2008

Slow News Day

Matt R writes:
Q. You may not remember me... But I'm the cool, young, attractive dude who writes dark/funny/hip television (x2) and film (1) scripts.

So, my question is: is there a place for a Cool, good-looking dude amongst the Geeks?
I'm not sure I understand your question. Is it that you think you're too handsome and attractive to be a TV writer?
Q. No, I mean because I'm not a geek. Are there many non-geeks out there in Canadian (and American) television?

Please trust that this is not tongue-in-cheek, but do you think I would be discriminated against for being a cool, good-looking, heterosexual dude?
Um. ... No. You'll probably want to have written more than three scripts in your life before you worry about being discriminated against. But I would say that the average TV writer is more attractive than the average, say, car salesman.

Not only does creative fulfillment does a lot for a person's attractiveness. But there's a lot of selection going on. If you're not a smart, funny, attractive person, you're probably not going to be too busy in the TV world.

Bear in mind that our standards are skewed by working alongside actors, who have unnatural levels of charisma and beauty and coolness. So we call ourselves "geeky" in a sly, self-deprecating way in order not to feel embarrassed. But it's a front, just as TV writers tend to affect extremely casual dress, but it's all carefully thought out. All show people tend to burn just a little brighter.

Real nerds rarely make it in the biz. You can have a successful computer programming career without social skills. You can live in a treehouse and email in your work. Show business is just as much about the show off the screen as it is about the show on the screen.

The rest of the response is left as an exercise.
Labels: breaking in

4:35 PM

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Thursday, May 01, 2008

Because I Said So, That's Why

The Tories have obviously got sick of hearing how Bill C-10 is a bass-ackwards way of imposing censorship while crippling the whole tax credits system on which the Canadian motion picture industry relies. So rather than fixing the bill, they just made it a confidence measure in Parliament:
OTTAWA — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is declaring film tax-credit legislation a matter of confidence in the Conservative government, meaning MPs could land on Canadian doorsteps this spring to debate the line between art and pornography.

Mr. Flaherty said the legislation, known as Bill C-10, contains a range of important tax measures and changes will not be tolerated.

"The bill should not be amended," he told reporters yesterday. "A tax bill is a confidence bill. We all know that."
A confidence bill (for those of who you are subjects of the Unitary Executive) means that if the opposition votes it down, the government falls. The Liberals aren't ready for an election, so they probably won't have the balls to vote C-10 down.

So we'll get sneaky, bass-ackwards, financially crippling censorship.
Labels: Canadian politics

4:28 PM

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Digital Media

I read in today's Playback that Stratford, known for its theatre festival, is launching a digital media festival. Banff keeps sending me promo material about their digital media festival. Is anyone actually making money off digital media? I mean, aside from people in the festival business?

Part of the problem is, presumably, that people expect things on the Internet to be free. They'll tolerate banner ads, and even ads at the beginning of a video, if they have to. But advertising doesn't scale well. The really lucrative ads are corporate sponsorships, and you have to be a smash hit, à la Têtes à Claques or 30 Second Bunny Theater, to get it.

People also seem to want things on the Internet to be short. Anything longer than, say, 6 minutes feels interminable on the Net. I hate to watch TV shows on my computer, though I'll happily watch the same shows on my TV. On my computer, I keep wanting to go check the Wikipedia or read news articles about Miley Whatsername that I don't even really care about. It's like the computer actually hurts my attention span.

Lots of producers are out there trying to figure out the Internet. They rarely intend to pay you. Because it's a new business, they generally want you to "invest" your time in the project, so that at some later date you'll get a chunk of the huge windfall your little flash animation or whatever will generate.

Sometimes old school producers will try digital media just to show they're hip. The results are often Quarterlife.

There doesn't really seem to be a business model here, is there? Just wildcatting.

Anyone know anything different?
Labels: media

12:26 PM

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Monday, April 28, 2008

Telephone Dialog

I could swear I'd written up a whole post about this, or possibly read one, but I can't find it, so...

JDC asks me how to format telephone dialog when you aren't meant to hear the offscreen character's voice.

Really, this is all about making sure the reader feels the amount of time your onscreen character isn't speaking. I'll usually go with something like this (and forgive the HTML):
Joe picks up the phone.

   JOE
 Yo.

He listens.

   JOE
 No, I don't think so.
  (...)
 I SAID I didn't THINK so!
He listens, pacing, getting progressively more nervous.

   JOE
 Can't you for once gimme a break???

He slams the phone down.
You can use a line of action just to delay ("he listens") or to characterize the delay ("getting progressively more nervous").

If you just want a little delay, use a parenthetical -- (beat) or even just an ellipsis (...) works fine.

Note that just embedding an ellipsis in the dialog itself doesn't work well:

JOE No, I don't think so. (...) I said I didn't THINK so.

It doesn't really hold the eye long enough to give the effect of someone else talking. One key to writing transparently is not requiring the reader to think too much. He should just be swept along in the read. So often you'll find yourself unpacking moments on the page just so that they take longer to read -- white space is your friend there. When it comes to dialog, don't be afraid to make pauses where you need them. The reader isn't acting the lines out for you in his head, he's just reading like you'd read a book. So you have to make the performance happen for him in the blacks.

UPDATE: Ahhh ... alert reader Jason Sanders points out that John August recently answered this very question. And with much better formatting than I, I must say.
Labels: format
3:29 PM

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Saturday, April 26, 2008

Old Bailey

The Old Bailey, London's famous Central Criminal Court, has posted four centuries of trial records online, including transcripts. Want to read true stories of very, very bad people? Check it out.
Labels: research

9:10 PM

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Fast and Cheap

"Fast, cheap and good: pick two" runs the proverb.

John Gaspard likes to focus on the fast and cheap, and he's written two books interviewing quick'n'dirty moviemakers. Now he's got a blog where he does more interviews. He's got Roger Corman, one of the Blair Witch guys, and some low-down filmmakers you may never have heard of ... but they make films.
Check it out!
Labels: blogs

6:24 PM

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Friday, April 25, 2008

All Broke Down

I just handed in about 60 pages of story: breakdowns for all ten episodes of my pay cable series (including the three I've already written), averaging about six pages each. That's four stories per episode (one for each of the core cast), so 24 fairly detailed story breakdowns. They're not technically breakdowns since I don't have everything split into acts -- which I would normally do even though there are no acts in pay cable. But if you are the network, and you want to know what the series is, it's all there.

(And if you are not the network, alas, I can't show it to you.)

This is not how shows are done in the States, of course, or even in Canadian broadcast. If you've been reading Rogers' blog, you know about shooting a pilot, getting a greenlight, then hiring yourself up a writing room. Our process started with a pitch bible. Then the network kindly commissioned a pilot script, then two more scripts. Then we had a three week writing room with two other writers and a writing assistant. Then I spent another month or so reworking the stories we'd come up with in the room. The point of this unorthodox system is to allow one writer to write all (or almost all) the episodes of a short season of television himself. I am constantly amazed at the networks' faith in me on this series.

Now if you will all just kindly say a little prayer for me, or chat up Lady Fortune, or sacrifice a black lamb to the Joss... one day I may be turning these breakdowns into scripts.
Labels: Alex

4:23 PM

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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Walla

Mostly I'm stressing about Pennsylvania, but a reader writes in:
Q. How detailed do you have to be when describing small talk going on around your protagonist, but that he is not involved in?

For example, I have a character sitting at his desk, with co-workers talking just outside his cubicle about what they will be doing on the weekend. The character can overhear it all. The point I want to get across is that the character at his desk is not involved/included or sociable with anybody at work, and that he has nothing to do on the weekend.

Do I actually have to write out what each co-worker will be doing on the weekend, AND all their small talk to establish how well connected they all are? Or can I just write in the pros "they discuss their weekend"?
Really it depends whether you, the story teller, consider what they say to be important to your story.

If we're supposed to know what they're saying, then write it out. For example, if your character has just found out he has cancer, then we probably want to hear the co-workers talking about their summer vacation. You know, for irony. In your example, you're trying to build counterpoint between your hero and his co-workers, so you ought to write it out.

If we don't need to know what they're saying, then it's fine to say, his co-workers babble on AD LIB about their vacations.

If they're talking on-screen, you probably need the former. If they're offscreen you have a choice: write out the dialogue (with (O.C.) after the character name, on the same line, thus: KERMIT (O.C.)); or write AD LIB.

If it's just background walla, then you don't need much at all: The crowd BUZZES in the b.g.

(Walla is the term for indistinct noise of people talking.)

Remember, in all these cases, make your choice according to what you want the reader to absorb. If you want them to hear what people are saying, you have to give them dialogue to read. If you just want them to know that people are talking, then just say that.
Labels: craft

7:07 PM

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Anyone Reading This in New Jersey? Or, Help Me, Hive Gut!

We're seeing the grandparents Monday, on our way back up to Montreal from New York, crossing the George Washington Bridge on our way up to I-87.

Can anyone recommend a yummy family-friendly restaurant not too far from the Palisades Parkway, anywhere North of the GWB, or anything off the 17? Anything in Fort Lee, Teaneck, Paramus?

Spicy and non-chain is a plus.
Labels: Alex

3:33 PM

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Telling Your Story, a Variation

As you know, one of the Three Most Important Things I Teach is how to refine your story by simply telling it out loud.

I was mentioning that advice to someone I might story edit, and she mentioned recording it.

I think telling your story to someone is still probably the best way to do it. If you tell your story to a tape recorder, you may get hung up on how stupid you sound to yourself, or how you're phrasing things. It might be easier to simply tell it out loud to yourself without recording it.

But this is a blog about writing tools, and this is a variation on the tool. Try telling your story to people you know. Try telling it to yourself. And try telling it to a tape recorder and then listening to it. (No doubt there's some way you can use your computer, right, Hive Mind?) See which works best for you!

And then do it.
Labels: craft

10:41 AM

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Timing is Everything

Q. How much time is there between the end of taping an episode of a single camera, half-hour comedy, and the point in which it airs?
I turned this question over to comedy maven Ken Levine, who writes:
A. The actual answer is it depends on the air schedule. Sometimes you have months, other times mere days (with people working double overtime). It's faster now because the editing is all done digitally but for a single camera comedy I'd say five days minimum from when it wraps. A multi-camera show -- three.
So there you go.
Q. Speaking of hiatus, do you think that most shows will cut into the start of their vacation time to finish episodes ordered by their network to complete the season?
Well, of course. In show business, "vacation time" just means "when they're not paying you to work." If the network orders more episodes to finish the season, you keep working on them, and if that means working straight through to next summer, then you won't be summering in San Miguel.
Q. I was curious about this because now that the strike is over, I'm trying to pinpoint the time a particular show's staff will go on summer hiatus.
You might try calling the production office. Call the studio that produces the show. Ask for the "OFFICE production office" if that's the show you want to talk to. The studio receptionist will direct you to the production office receptionist. He or she may very well know when the hiatus is. I don't think it's a big secret; he or she may very well tell you even without an explanation.
Labels: Le Quattro Stagioni

8:25 AM

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

How Do I Set Myself Apart -- in a Good Way?

Q. I am a screen writing major currently writing cover letters to apply for internship positions on a few television shows. One of which is a very popular cable series, and I find myself cramming in the most cliche comments. How can I market myself with out boasting, how I can show I'm a fan with out totally kissing up to the produce?
I am not sure the produce minds being kissed up to. Vegetables so rarely get any respect.

(And there's a gay joke in there too but I'll leave it as an exercise.)

There are some departments I can't entirely help you on. For example, how to write a respectful, enthusiastic, stylish letter. If you know how to express yourself, express yourself. Commit some of your personality to the letter. Make sure there's a person in there. Put some thought into it. Saying "enthusiastic" is not nearly as impressive as showing your enthusiasm by crafting the perfect letter for each position and each production company.

Do your research. Google the recipient. Cater to their extra-curricular interests.

Shotgunning resumes is almost never effective. To break through the crowd of letters and emails, you need to find a way to set yourself apart without seeming goofy or sophomoric.

Remember, you are writing to a human being who is trying to find another human being to spend a great deal of time with. It ought to go without saying that coming across as sloppy (manual spell-checking is crucial) or annoying won't get you the job. But you can also fail by being too formal -- by treating your addressee as a potential employer, not as a human being, or by coming across like a job candidate rather than a human being.

Good luck!
Labels: breaking in

2:33 PM

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Monday, April 14, 2008

Meanwhile, Back at the Dawn of Time

Q. How do you deal with FLASHBACKS that are more then one scene? In the scene heading for the first scene, you would write FLASHBACK. But when it transitions to the next scene, would you write FLASHBACK in the scene heading again?
It's all about the clarity.

In some screenplays, where I have only one or two flashbacks, I might just use the FLASHBACK TO: transitional, and not mess with the slugline.

I have a screenplay with five timelines, where the timelines are critical and complex. So I use two devices. I use FLASHBACK TO: and BACK TO: as transitions between scenes in different timelines; and I put the year into the header, in bold, e.g.:

EXT. JACKIE'S STREET - FORT POLK, LOUISIANA - DAY (1971)

Note that like most people these days, I don't use CUT TO:'s. So any transitional stands out.

The rule of thumb as always is: what makes your story clearest without slowing down the read?
Labels: craft

7:06 AM

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Sunday, April 13, 2008

Off to TO

I'm off to Toronto tomorrow morning, to attend the WGC Awards and have a few meetings. If you're going to the Awards Monday night (and if you're in Toronto, you really should), feel free to come up and say hi!
Labels: Alex

6:05 PM

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Saturday, April 12, 2008

Long Time No See!

Q. How should you handle characters who have been in the show before, but only briefly? Do you need to remind the reader how they fit into everything, ie:
Jake walks over to Ellen, the waitress/one-night stand who is now carrying his baby.
Should I try to find a way to fit it in the dialog?
No, actually, I think what you've done here is the Right Thing. It's concise, it doesn't derail the read or slow it down. Don't put exposition in dialog unless you think the audience won't remember her, either. Clarity and precision are good. Don't be afraid to do anything for clarity so long as it doesn't bounce the reader out of the read.
Labels: action, blog fu

2:12 PM

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Friday, April 11, 2008

Howevs

A reader responds to my earlier post on how to ask your boss to read your script:
I think on the whole, you are right. Asking questions to pique someone's interest into reading your stuff is a good way of going.

But having worked on a TV network show and gotten a freelance script out of it, nothing beats being direct with the writers on staff that you have a good relationship with. The whole point of having a showrunner read your stuff isn't so he can give you notes - when he reads your stuff, you want him to have no notes, and you want him to like it so much that he will consider you for a freelance spot or staffing. There is no other point to a showrunner reading your stuff - because good notes can be had from other sources without the high stakes.

My advice to your reader would be to make sure the the script is in tip top shape, and then pass it along to whomever he gets along best with on staff (and if that's the showrunner, even better). Being direct and saying "I would like to be considered for the freelance spot" also helps people gauge where your interest lies. If the relationship is good and the boss is cool, they will not feel threatened and will want to give you an opportunity.

The key in all of this, however, is to be ready to show good material and ready to pitch.
I guess there's a difference between being a p.a. and being a writer's assistant. As a writers' assistant, you're entitled to ask someone to read a script of yours, so long as they're not too busy. Writers' assistants are supposed to be writers themselves. If you're a p.a., you're a step further away from the writing room, and it probably pays to be a little bit less in people's faces about getting them to read stuff.

Patrick is definitely right about getting having a great script ready to show. With most people, you get one read. One. It better be good.
Labels: breaking in

7:21 AM

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Smart Characters

Q. How do you make a character super-smart, supposing for the moment that you are not yourself super-smart?
Well, you have the advantage over him. You can take the time to think things through. Just have him do things instinctively that you would only think to do after some thought. Have him say things it would take you time to think of, and so forth.

You can also have him set up elaborate plans that most of us wouldn't have the confidence to try, and have them work. In real life, intelligent people usually try to make things as simple as possible. But a sure sign of high intelligence is elaborate plans that go off the way they are meant to. E.g. the D-Day deception, the maneuvers at Cannae, the landings at Inchon, the Great Train Robbery, the rescue at Entebbe.

You can also demonstrate high intelligence by having the character able to draw conclusions from his keen powers of observations, whether of forensic detail (see Holmes, Sherlock) or of personality (see "I did not have sex with that woman").

A great rabbi was once asked how he always had the perfect anecdote to illustrate his judgments. He said, "I went to visit a man who had targets painted on the walls of his barn. In the middle of each target was an arrow. I asked him how he became such a good archer. Simple, he said. I shoot the arrow, then I paint the target." You're telling the story, so just pick the situations in which he can shine.
Labels: character, craft

3:11 PM

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What Else Should I Study?

Q. Are there classes other than screenwriting that will help my screenwriting career?
I discuss this in my books, but the two most useful classes I ever took were:
An editing class with editing great Richard Marks; and
Acting training with the brilliant acting teacher Joanne Baron.
Editing teaches you what you really need in a scene. Acting teaches you to live the characters as you write them.

Generally, shooting your own short films is a good idea. You get a real sense of how your action and dialog translate from the page to the screen. You learn how a character sometimes needs to say in dialog; and conversely, you learn where you really need to make sure the audience is clear on what's going on.
Labels: breaking in

8:52 AM

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