For anyone not familiar with this blog, this post comes from “Secrets of Screenwriting,” my newsletter/blog on Facebook.  Please search for this group and join, it’s free.  I send out a post every week-end on some aspect of screenwriting.  These posts are much richer than anything you’ll find in a screenwriting class, screenwriting course or screenwriting workshop.  So check it out.

Hello, everyone.  I’ve been very pleased to see more and more of you taking advantage of the great Wall we have, posting opportunities and feedback to questions.  There is a lot of information that can be gained on our Board, including screenwiting contests and answers to vexing questions you might have about screenwriting programs, formatting, etc.

Here is a great example from one of our most informative and knowledgeable members, Sean Hood, who wrote this post last week:

“Ever consider converting your brilliant but unsold screenplay into a novel?!  Check out my interview with Ed Grey, owner of Aisle Seat Books.  It may be easier and poentially more rewarding than you think.”

http://genrehacks.blogspot.com/2012/01/converting-your-script-to-novel.html

This is a fantastic opportunity for those of you who have screenplays in your files, a story that would make a great book.  More and more books are being converted to ebooks and this company is doing just that.  Check it out.

Okay, let’s get back to “Hugo,” which has been nominated for best picture.

We discussed last week Hugo character diamond, a concept developed by David Freeman.  For all those who have never attended his Beyond Structure Seminar, please consider doing so.  I’ll let you know when he has the next one.

To really get the concept of the character diamond let’s look at another character in this film, Isabelle, the granddaughter of the Toy Store owner and Hugo’s friend.

What is her diamond?

Adventurer

Curious

Good hearted

Lover of words

These traits as you will see are all consistent.  Are any of these traits unexpected – a trait that makes Isabelle unique?

Let’s consider her love of words:  She’s always using colorful and unique phraseology to surprise and show off a bit:

Circumspect, appalling, doltish, etc…

This certainly gives Isabelle a unique quality and helps her to stand out.  She’s not just the cute and sweet romantic interest for Hugo.  She comes alive in her own right.  That’s what we’re trying to accomplish with the character diamond.

But is she as unique and interesting as the protagonist?  Not at all.  And that is classic story telling.  The protagonist should be the most interesting character in the film.  For both artistic and commercial reasons.

I can’t emphasize this enough.  The reason your movie is going to get made is because a star actor or a star director (in the case of Hugo) signs on to make the film.

So if you were the star and you knew it was your name that got this film made – wouldn’t you want the best part, wouldn’t you want to have the best dialogue and be in the best scenes?

I think so.

Give you secondary characters good diamonds but make sure the most interesting character and the most developed one is the protagonist.  Don’t allow a secondary character to steal the movie from your hero.  That is not good screenwriting and it will certainly prevent stars from wanting to play the less interesting role.

Let’s all work on our character diamonds and we’ll move on to other aspects of David Freeman’s insights on character in the weeks to come.

Until then –  KEEP WRITING!

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For those of you unfamiliar with this blog, this post comes from my Facebook group, “Secrets of Screenwriting Group.”  Search for this group and sign up.  I send out a post every week-end about some aspect of screenwriting.  These mini lectures are much more textured than anything you’ll get in a screenwriting course, screenwriting workshop and screenwriting class.  They come from years of my experience in the film business.  I hope you enjoy them!

Hello, everyone.  As you all may have discovered by now, the movie we’ve been discussing for weeks now “Hugo,” is up for best film.

What do you guys think?  Is it one of the best films of the year?  What are your picks?  For me, it was a very disappointing year.  I’ve seen most of the films except The Artist and Moneyball, both of which I’m dying to see.  But you know if one of the most highly praised films is “The Descendants,” we’re all in a lot of trouble.

So let’s hear what you guys think about this year’s selections, espcially when it comes to best screenplay and best adapted screenplay.

Now back to “Hugo.”

Now that we’ve started talking about Hugo’s character, let’s think about his character diamond and what is particularly interesting about Hugo and how he works as a character.

As I’ve written before, the character diamond is a concept laid forth by David Freeman, who teaches the “Beyond Structure” seminars in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

I particularly like this concept of his as it helps writers to flesh out their creations quickly and successfully.  And it insures that your characters will not be cliched.

A character diamond is basically taking 4 or 5 character traits of your protagonist and other major characters and seeing if their traits are consistent.

It also pinpoints if we have a cliched character or if we’ve created someone who feels fresh and original.  We’re looking for at least one trait of the character diamond to be unexpected, something we didn’t anticipate and that will insure your character is truly unique.

So, what is Hugo’s Diamond?  Let me take a look at that. He’s…

1) Industrious

2) Sensitive and emotionally generous

3)  Secretive & Serious

4)  A fixer of things (including people)

And this fourth trait is what makes Hugo unique.  It’s not something we’d normally expect in a character that has the first 3 character traits.  Hugo is someone who’s always tinkering with things – including the Automaton.  Hugo needs to make things right.  So if he sees something or someone that needs fixing, he’s compelled to help.  (Not unlike the Jack character in the series “Lost.”)

That’s his motivation in helping the Toy Store Owner.  He sees the man is in pain, he’s lost and sad.  Hugo takes it upon himself to reach out to him and help him find some sort of peace.

Try using the character diamond with your own characters.  Find the character traits that make up that character.  What is the one trait that makes that character unique – something we wouldn’t expect.  If you find that one trait, you will certainly have an original character.

We will look at other tools that will help us understand the character of Hugo and other characters in this screenplay in the weeks to come.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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For anyone coming to this blog for the first time, this post is from my “Secrets of Screenwriting Group” on Facebook.  I send out a post every week-end on some aspect of screenwriting.  This is much more detailed than a screenwriting workshop or screenwriting class or screenwriting course you may have taken in the past.  We analyze films and I elucidate fundamental aspects of screenwriting.  To join, please search for “Secrets of Screenwriting” on Facebook and join.  It’s free…

Hello, everyone.  And thanks to everyone who came to my “Writing A Great Horror Film” at the Writers Store in Burbank.  It was a great success and I hope to do more lectures at this venue in the near future.

Let’s look at another aspect of Hugo, which John Logan executed so well.  The building of Hugo’s character in the screenplay.

At first, we know very little about our protagonist – other than he lives in a secret world behind the train station in Paris.

We find out he’s also a petty thief, who snatches croissants or apples or anything he can get his hands on to eat.

We discover he has a notebook that is very dear to him – why that is, we don’t know.  But when it’s taken by the owner of the toy store, Hugo will do anything to get it back.

This mystery is very effective.  It causes us to keep turning the pages so we can find out the answer to what the notebook contains and why the boy is so determined to retrieve it, even leaving the relative safety of the train station.

So even though we are given small tidbits about Hugo, he is a captivating and sympathetic character.  Any child that lives hand-to-mouth without parents, having to survive in secret from the adults who control his world is someone we can root for.  As I mentioned last week, he is very much like an Dickens character, a waif who has to survive without the help of his parents.  Our heart immediately goes out to such a character.

This is what is called rooting interest and there are many ways to create rooting interest.  But it is important that we do so as quickly as possible so we are compelled to care for the protagonist.

Then gradually we find out more about Hugo – we learn in flashbacks about his father’s death, that he loved his father and built clocks with him.

They built the Automaton together, a human-like mechanical device.

We gradually discover Hugo lost his father and had to live with his alcoholic Uncle Claude. This is the Dickens world in which he now resides.

And as the mystery unfolds, we find out that the Automaton the boy has is connected to the Toy Store Owner and in fact the granddaughter of the Toy Store Owner wears a key around her neck that actually starts the Automaton and brings it to life.  The boy is now well on his way to finding out how this is all happening.

But what is important here is that you don’t need to tell us everything about your character all at once.  You can slowly reveal more and more.

As long as you have something solid to hook us to your protagonist – some kind of rooting interest – then you’re in good shape.  You can reveal more and more about him/her as the story unfolds.

In fact, this is a much better way of revealing character.  Because as more details about the protagonist unfolds, the more depth is created for your hero and the richer he or she becomes.  If you spill out everything at once, it’s not nearly as interesting.

We’ll talk more about Hugo’s character in the weeks to come.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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For anyone who is new to this blog, this post comes from my blog on Facebook:

Secrets of Screenwiting Group.  Please join this group and you’ll get a

post every week-end.  And now for the post:

Hello, everyone.  We are going to get back to our discussion
of Hugo, but before we do that,  this is your last chance to
enroll in my screenwriting course at the Writers Store in Burbank:
“Writing A Great Horror Film.”

The first lecture is sold out but they’ve added a second
screenwriting class on the same day, January 21 (Sat)
from 1:30 to 3:00 pm.  This is unlike anything you’d get
at a traditional screenwriting course or screenwriting class.
I’ll be exploring what makes horror unique, why it works or
doesn’t work, what scares people and the type of scares
a screenwriter can use.

There will be hand-outs and we’ll even read horror scenes
from the writers in attendance, so
if you’re coming and want to read any of your scenes,
please bring enough copies for the characters in the scene as well
as an extra one for the person reading the narrative.

To attend, go to the following link:

https://www.writersstore.com/writing-a-great-horror-film

See you there!

Now back to Hugo.  I always emphasize to the writers
in my professional screenwriting workshops how important
the read is.

In Hugo, John Logan does a great job in making us experience
the time period of 1930’s Paris.  The style is similar to that
of Charles Dickens and harkens back to the wonderful
stories we love so much – Great Expectations, and Oliver
Twist and David Copperfield.

Creating this world and this tone not only is very satisfying
for the reader, because it places us in the world of the story, but it’s
essential for the marketing of your screenply.

Why is that?  The reason a film gets made is either
because a star wants to do the film or a star director
gets attached to the film.

In this case, Martin Scorsese agreed to make this film
and that’s why it got financing.  We can see easily why
he would be attracted to Hugo – the theme of the film
is one of Scorsese’s big causes – the restoration of old or
forgotten films – and that’s what Hugo is about.  A great
director, the man who made Rocket To The Moon, is now
forgotten and has lost his passion and integrity, but a
boy discovers who he is and redeems him.

Clearly, Scorsese would love this idea.  But more than that,
I’m sure he loved the idea of re-creating Paris in the 1930’s,
the train station and the emergence of technology like
giant clocks and automatons that play such a big role
in the film.  Because this world is created so lovingly and
artfully by John Logan on paper, it made it that much easier for a
great director to get excited by doing the same thing on film.

So let’s all write our screenplays with great attention to detail and
really create that world that would attract new and upcoming
directors to our projects.  It will enhance our scripts artistically
as well as commercially.

We’ll continue to discuss Hugo in the coming weeks.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, everyone. And let’s all welcome in 2012.  We are going to have lots of fun this year learning great lessons about screenwriting – analyzing films and seeing what makes them work and what contributes to their failure as well.

I’m going to remind everyone in Los Angeles that I’m giving a lecture on writing great horror films at the Writers Store in Burbank on January 21, which is a Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. to Noon.  The seating is limited so you should reserve your place now by going to:

https://www.writersstore.com/writing-a-great-horror-film

I look forward to seeing you there!

As for great New Years Resolutions, on top of your list should be writing an awesome screenplay to launch your screenwriting career.  For anyone in Los Angeles, there is no better way to do that than to join one of professional screenwriting workshops.  I have two openings at present, one in my Monday night class in West L.A. and one in Thursday night class which meets in Los Feliz.  These screenwriting workshops are nothing like any screenwriting courses or screenwriting classes you may have taken at UCLA Extension or the American Film Institute.  They are small and give every writer a good amount of time to share his work and get feedback.  They are in 8 week cycles and run from 7:00 to 10:00 pm  Please email me or call ASAP if you’re interested:  (323) 912-9195/gbenest@pacbell.net

Right now we’re concentrating on “Hugo,” screenplay by John Logan and directed by one of the best directors in our generation, Martin Scorsese.

As we have already pointed out, the style of this screenplay is eye catching and the writer’s talents are considerable when creating great characters and images that capture our imagination.

Let’s look at how John Logan describes his characters when they’re first introduced:

The Station Inspector (our antagonist):  is a hulking man in a bottle green coat. He is a frightening figure without humor, without warmth. A creature of ice.

Uncle Claude. Unshaven. Greasy. Crude. Huge.

The receptionist: A stern dragon of a woman.

See how the writer doesn’t go into great detail about the physical attributes of the characters, that they’re tall, short, green-eyed etc but rather gives us the essence of who they are in a succinct burst of imagery.

Now let’s take a look at how he describes certain locations:

Isabelle’s apartment: Impoverished gentility.

The Clock Tower: An enormous clock. It is like something out of METROPOLIS.

Paris:  It is the spirit of the great city we see, not the real thing. Shapes and silhouettes of buildings. Architectural details. Sounds. Illusions. Like a lovingly crafted 1930’s movie set.

GRAVEYARD: Twisted trees. The shape of tombstones. Like Lean’s Great Expectations.

Uncle Claude and Hugo enter the secret apartment. It is filthy and rank. Dickensian.

Monsieur Rouleau’s Surrealist Painting: It has the crystal clear clarity of Magritte. The crisp, bold colors of Michael Powell.

You see how you can use a certain short hand to describe things, even referencing movies or painters or authors to quickly capture a mood or feeling.

Take time with your descriptions of places and characters. Make sure you set the mood so we can easily see the movie, feel what you’re going for.  Use the brevity of poetry to capture these elements.

It takes time.  You can write a long letter quickly but a short letter which really focuses on what you want to say and gets your point across quickly takes time and effort.

We’ll talk more about Hugo in the coming weeks.

Until then –  KEEP WRITING!

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For anyone new to these posts, they come from my Facebook group, The Secrets of Screenwriting Group. Go to Facebook and search for this group and then join. It’s free. I send out a new post every week-end about some aspect of screenwriting. Now for this week’s post —

Hello, everyone. As many of you know, I just gave a lecture at the StoryBoard Development Group where we had a lively discussion about “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” aka “HUGO,” a new film written by John Logan and directed by Martin Scorsese.

I wanted to share with all of you some of the lessons learned from analyzing this screenplay in depth.

But before we do that, I wanted to let you know about ANOTHER GREAT LECTURE I’m giving on January 21 at the Writers Store in Burbank at 10:30 a.m. to Noon.

We will cover material you won’t be able to get in any screenwriting course, screenwriting class or screenwriting workshop. I will be talking in depth about writing horror movies. I’ve written two horror films myself, both directed by Wes Craven, the master of horror.

Come to the Writers Store on January 21 and learn all the tricks of the trade I discovered from working with Wes. To join our discussion go to the following link and sign up. It’s only $45.00 for the class:

https://www.writersstore.com/writing-a-great-horror-film

I’ll see you there!

Now back to Hugo. This script is from a draft written in April of 2007 so I’m hopeful many important changes were made to the script since then. I haven’t seen the film yet (it opens on November 23, so I’ll know more when I get to see it).

But for now, let’s look at an early version of the script.

We all know who Martin Scorsese is and the amazing films he’s directed.

You may not know as well John Logan, the screenwriter, another towering figure in Hollywood. He’s written “The Last Samurai,” “Gladiator” (one of my favorite films of all time), “On Any Given Sunday,” and “The Aviator,” among others.

He’s one of the best screenwriters around – and that’s saying something.

So we have lots going for us when looking at this screenplay. It’s got Scorsese as director, John Logan as the screenwriter, and it’s got a great world in which the film is set – 1930’s Paris.  But as we shall discover, it’s not a real Paris – it’s an idealized Paris.

The style of the screenwriting is captivating – It’s a Dickens world adapted to screenplay style. It’s a dark, squalid world with Oliver Twist like characters.

Let’s look at the first page of the screenplay:

EXT. TRAIN STATION – GRAND HALL – DAY

From far above, it looks like a great clockwork.

We are looking down on the Grand Hall of the Paris Train Station.

It is crowded.

People bustle back and forth.

Like the gears and wheels of a clock.

A precise, beautiful machine.

We float down…

Under the iron girders…

Moving through the station…

Past Kiosks and shops…

Weaving among commuters…

We stop at a clock set into the station wall.

Behind the ironwork dial we see a face peering out.

HUGO CABRET looks at us. He is a serious-looking boy of around 12. Long hair.

It is 1931.

This is what I mean when I tell the writers in my workshops that I can tell just how professional a writer is by literally reading the first page of their screenplay.

These lines of narrative are beautifully crafted. The screenwriter did not just dash these lines down on a first draft but spent a good deal of time to visualize exactly how he wanted to convey the setting and tone of his story.

As you can see, there are no camera angles but the screenwriter directs our eye.

Every paragraph is a shot. We are watching a movie as we read this, just as we’re being seduced by the wonderful imagery the screenwriter is communicating.

Waldo Salt, the writer of Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home, explained how screenwriting is closest to poetry as an art form and we can’t have a better example than this.

This kind of abbreviated, intense writing takes time. It doesn’t just spring out of your head on a first draft. Though you might get some of it, it will take time and effort to nail the style and imagery you want your screenplay to convey. You need to hone your craft to achieve this kind of perfection.

And that’s not to say that every screenplay should be written like this. It shouldn’t. Every story has its own style, its own flow and pacing. Find that voice in which you want to tell your story and then perfect it by ceaseless toil and care. Go for greatness.

A NOTE: There won’t be a post next week-end because of the holidays. Have a great Thanksgiving!

We’ll spend more time in the coming weeks looking at Hugo. In the meantime, do your best to see this film. It will make these posts that more meaningful.

Until then – Keep writing!

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For anyone new to this blog, this post comes from ‘Secrets of Screenwriting,’ a blog I have on Facebook. To join this group, go to FB and search for the group. I send out a post every week-end on some aspect of screenwriting. Here’s the post:

“The winner ain’t the one with the fastest car. It’s the one who refuses to lose.”  — Dale Earnhardt Sr:

Hello, everyone. Let’s take that quote to heart. It’s not the most talented writers that make it in this business, it’s those writers who want it so badly they unwilling to give up. They postulate their films being made, they aggressively do whatever it takes to get them made, they never take no for an answer. That’s the way one succeeds in any business, and it’s how one succeeds in this business as well.

More of that later. For right now we’re going to talk about rewrites and other considerations we need to be aware of.

This is not stuff you normally get in screenwriting courses, screenwriting classes or even private screenwriting workshops like the one I teach. This just comes from writing lots and lots of scripts, some of which actually got made and learning a thing or two by producing a film as well.

But before I launch into that, this is your last chance to come to the lecture I’m giving at the StoryBoard Development Group at 20th Century Fox. We’re meeting a week from this Monday night on November 14th. The cost of the lecture is $35.

They will send you a hard copy of the script for “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” written by John Logan and directed by Martin Scorsese. John Logan is one of our greatest living screenwriters – He wrote “Gladiator,” and “On Any Given Sunday,” among others. It’s a magical script in many ways and I will have a great many things to say about what it does right and where it has problems.

The $35 also pays for the lecture and refreshments at the meeting. If you live in Los Angeles, this is a great opportunity to network with other screenwriters and film  professionals. You might very well like to join the group as an ongoing  member.

To come to the lecture, contact Scott Burnell ASAP at: sburnell@earthlink.net

If you do come, please say hi. I’d like to meet you.

Now for interesting information about doing rewrites.

We spoke last week about limiting the number of locations in your script. You do this obviously for financial reasons and time considerations. It makes producers happy! And it does not in any way make your screenplay less visual – as you will see if you have the opportunity to see “Paranormal Activity 3,” which takes place in 2 locations, and yet keeps you on the edge of your seat.

In keeping with this line of thought, you also might want to consider combining or deleting characters. When you do a first draft, you oftentimes create more characters than you really need. Some of them perform the same job plotwise as do other characters. So it makes sense to get rid of them – or fold them into other characters.

When I read a script and there’s too many characters – especially in the first 20 pages of the script – I easily get lost as to who’s who. Oftentimes an over abundunce of characters just confuses a reader or a development person as they’re trying to figure out who’s important and who’s not.

If you have characters that are relatively unimportant, you don’t need to give them dialogue or even a name – they’re just BODYGUARD or SENTRY. Then the reader doesn’t have to remember that person’s name or how they fit into the story.

Eliminating or folding two characters into one does a number of things. Yes, it reduces your budget as now as a producer I don’t have as many actors to pay, it makes it easier for me to follow who’s important in the story and who isn’t, and it focuses more attention and who is truly important in your movie and who isn’t.

I just did a script consultation where the writer has a dozen or more characters appearing in the first 10 pages of the script and as a reader I got totally lost regarding who was who. This is so crucial when you first open a movie and the reader is trying to figure out who the protagonist is, what is the genre, what is the central throughline of the story and what he should be paying attention to.  Don’t confuse people unnecessarily. Limit your characters just as you limit your locations.

Once again – in Paranormal Activity 3 – there are two locations and a total of 5 characters – not counting the entity that haunts the house.  Does it make it less interesting than a film that has 3 times that many characters and 25 locations? I don’t think so.

Okay, we’ll continue to pursue the aesthetics of doing rewrites and what you should focus on when you start your second, third and even fourth drafts.

We’ll be taking a week off next week-end so I can prepare for the lecture on Hugo. We’ll communicate more about rewrites in 2 weeks.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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For those of you new to this blog, this post comes from my Facebook group, ‘Secrets of Screenwriting Group.’ Go to Facebook and search for this group and join. It’s free. You’ll receive a post every week-end about some aspect of screenwriting.

Hello, everyone. And now let’s communicate about something you don’t hear about in screenwriting classes, screenwriting courses or even screenwriting workshops.

Something that is so obvious that no one seems to understand its true significance unless you’ve been a producer yourself and know how valuable this can be.

I decided a number of years ago to produce my own film because I hungered for total control of something I created. Before that I was an associate producer on another film I wrote but that only really meant I got to be on location and was able to shmooze with the actors and crew and have fun for a whole month.

But when you’re actually raising money for a film, getting the permits for the location, hiring the crew and cast and doing the hundreds of onerous chores that producing entails, you realize just how important and hard working the producer must be to bring a film to the screen.

Most people have no real clue what a producer does other than try and seduce actresses or go to the Polo Lounge to make deals.

It’s actually quite an education because you see exactly what goes into every phase of the filmmaking process.

And one thing that really helped me as a writer was the sudden revelation that once you moved all your equipment like lights and generator and cables to a certain location, you wanted to stay at that location for some time. Why? Because it saves lots of time and money!

The same can be said of a scene that takes place in a bedroom. If I have to take the trouble of setting up the lighting for the bedroom (which is the most time consuming thing on any film), then it would be a heck of a lot better if I had 2 or 3 scenes in that bedroom, not one. Because then I can save time and money. The scene is already lit and dressed.  And we can shoot one scene after another.

It’s obvious, right? But screenwriters don’t seem to understand this.

Most beginning writers think to be filmic you need to go to as many different locations as possible.

That’s dead wrong.

No, I want to go to as few locations as possible while still keeping the story visual and filmic. I can’t think of a better example of this than the new Paranormal Activity film that just opened last week-end, making 50 million dollars. The entire film is set in two houses! Scene after scene after takes place in the same rooms.

Now does that necessarily mean that the film is static because we are using the same locations over and over. Not at all. The movie is terrifying and completely delivers the goods. The producers and writers were inspired by staying in so few locations. On top of that, they used unknowns in the cast. The movie couldn’t have cost more than a million dollars tops and opening week-end they made 50 times that!

So, if I have one scene in the protagonist’s livingroom I sure would like to have a couple more.  If I open the film in the circus, I’m probably thinking it would be great to end the film there also as that would book-end the action – which is aesthetically pleasing and also it would save lots of time and money.  Because then we can move all the lights and equipment there and spend 8 days at the circus rather than 4.

So how does this go into my thinking when I’m doing a rewrite? I want to look at the number of scenes I have in each location and figure out how I can add more scenes to the locations I already have.

It won’t make your film less visual. It will simply make your film less costly to shoot. And when producers are reading scripts they are certainly thinking about how much this film will cost. And if the locations are used multiple times they will immediately see the value of that.

When you write screenplays you’re in effect the director, the producer and the actor(s) to some degree as well. You’re describing the action so the director can easily visualize how he will shoot a scene, you’re writing scenes that maximize the times they can be shot in one location so the producer has an easier job of it, and you’re writing dialogue that allows the actor to create a world of subtext underneath what is actually said.

Later we will spend more time with helping the director and helping the actors. But for now we want to be smart about the cost of our films. The less expensive they are, the more chance you have of getting them produced. There are other ways we can do this as well. We’ll discuss them in the weeks to come…

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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The following post is from my Facebook group, ‘Secrets of Screenwriting Group.’ If you’d like to join, please go to FB and search for the group. I send out posts every week-end about different aspects of screenwriting.

Hello, everyone.

I wanted to let everyone know who lives in L.A. that I’m giving a lecture at the StoryBoard Development Group on November 14th at 7:00 pm.

The StoryBoard Development Group consists of screenwriters who want to develop their craft by analyzing the latest films that are released. Guest speakers such as myself have included John Truby, Syd Field and Michaael Hauge, among many others.

The lecture will be something analogous to what I do when I’m lecturing at a screenwriting course or screenwriting class but will be in much greater depth, as I’ll be speaking for 1 1/2 hours.

I’ll be talking about HUGO, a new film that’s being directed by Martin Scorsese.

The group meets on the second Monday of every week at 20th Century Fox.

To attend this lecture please contact Scott Burnell:
sburnell@earthlink.net

Let him know you found out about the lecture from me. He’ll send you a hard copy of the script as well as a .pdf if so desired. It costs $35 for non-members, which includes the script, the lecture and refreshments at the lecture.

Who knows – you might enjoy it so much you’ll want to join the group!

Now, for a little more about rewrites…

One thing I haven’t gone into real depth about when talking about the protagonist is the subject of secondary characters. This can be a tricky area as you want to have really vibrant and interesting secondary characters but you don’t want them to be so interesting they take over the film.

Screenwriters also have the misconception that their secondary characters have to have the same character arc as the protagonist. That is not the case and in fact can hurt the film. You want all the attention really to go to your hero or heroine. They need a character arc, but you certainly don’t want them to overshadowed by the group of secondary characters surrounding them.

We’ve spoken about David Freeman and his use of the character diamond. You don’t want as rich a diamond around the secondary character as around the protagonist. You basically want one or two strong traits, something makes them stand-out and makes them a little different but not so rich a portrayal that it will steal the limelight from your main character.

A great example is the Ted Danson role in Body Heat. He was the prosecutor in the town and a good friend of Ned’s, the hero of the film. The part Ted Danson played was a jovial, nice guy who had a soft spot for Ned, they were friends. That’s all the character really was, but he had a little quirk of busting out into dance steps after a joke or a quip he made. It gave the character a nice, little idiosyncracy that made him special and unique, but it clearly didn’t overshadow the protagonist.

Find these unusual mannerisms, quirks, eccentricities, interesting ways of talking, habits, etc and you will populate your story with colorful secondary characters akin to what Charles Dickens does so artfully in many of his secondary characters in the novels he wrote like David Copperfield and Oliver Twist.

Remember, following this rule is not only smart artistically but it’s smart commercially as well.  The reason a film oftentimes gets made is because a star agrees to do it. The star needs to be protected and wants their part to be the most interesting role in the film – so make sure that’s the case. The star knows the power he or she has, they will not appreciate it if another actor has the ability to steal the movie from them – so make sure in the writing the potential of that happening is slim to none.

We’ll continue our discussion of doing rewrites next week.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, everyone. So we’ve been exploring how one attacks a rewrite – especially as it pertains to the second or third draft. I’m sure some of you have covered this in various screenwriting courses, screenwriting classes and if you’re lucky, if you’ve ever taken a professional level screenwriting workshop. But now we have the time to really explore these issues in depth.

We’ve already spoken about major issues – like focusing on the main emotional throughline of the story, the protagonist and the character arc as well as looking at the basic structure of our movie.

Now let’s explore secondary issues – which are just as vital, especially when considering how good the actual read of your screenplay needs to be.

When I first read a screenplay, one of the first things that attracts my attention is the actual read of the narrative and the dialogue. I can usually tell in the first page or two how experienced the screenwriter is. Anyone who reads screenplays for a living should be able to know this as well. That’s right, you’re giving yourself away in the first couple of pages of your screenplay.

How do I know how experienced the writer is by just reading the first couple of pages?

Well, obviously formatting is clearly a marker but most writers can at the very least format their screenplays correctly. And then of course there are typos and misspellings. Please don’t let me find any of those in your screenplay as that will inspire me to quickly move on to something else.

But beyond the obvious, there is the style. And what do we mean by style? How does the writer put together sentences in his narrative?  Meaning your description.  Is it written dispassionately – by the numbers?  When you describe some action is it simply “John picks up the ball and throws it and his son catches it, and they toss the ball back and forth?”

Or is there a greater precision and rhythm to the words being chosen and the pacing of the narrative and dialogue? Do we get a line of dialogue and then a line of narrative and then a line of dialogue and then a line of narrative? Or does the screenwriter know enough to just let the dialogue play, rather than constantly breaking up dialogue with description?

The read of the screenplay is everything. The choosing of the words is all-important, especially the action words (the verbs). Instead of saying he fell to the ground, you write: He’s splattered on the ground. We want words that are as visual as can be. We aren’t as concerned with adjectives or adverbs.

In fact, Stephen King in his famous book about writing, says when he does a rewrite he goes through all his prose and takes out as many adverbs as possible.  Instead of he strode (quickly) to the podium – it’s just he strode to the podium.  ‘Quickly’ is an adverb that can easily be deleted.

In a screenplay we’re going for succinctness, brevity that is powerful. We take out all that is unnecessary or slows down the action or pacing. This is why screenwriting is very much like poetry. We boil down everything to its essence. We literally go through every line of narrative, every line of dialogue, every scene and action and ask ourselves – if we cut that – would it diminish the screenplay?  And if our answer is no – we cut it.

Read your screenplay and see if there is poetry in the read. Does it sound good? Are you spending time on picking the exact best words to describe something? Is it flabby? Do you have big, thick paragraphs instead of 3-4 lines at most in most paragraphs?

Is it easy and fun to read?  Is there a rhythm in the narrative and the dialogue? We’ll actually get to dialogue later but right now we’re talking about the read. The read. Make it fun. I want to have fun reading your screenplay, I don’t want it to be a chore. Okay?

Next week we’ll go onto other important issues.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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