I'm not a big fan of writing games. There's one that's nearly unavoidable at screenwriting seminars. Drives me nuts. The guru du jour will walk among the lowly participants, asking us to close our eyes and imagine answers to questions like:
What's in your main character's pocket? Name five things.
What did your character have for breakfast?
Who is your main character's favorite person?
Et cetera. The guru then proceeds to have us read our lists out to the audience. While other writer's character's pockets are full of lockets with poems from their girls, bloody daggers, ransom notes, and secret codes for unleashing disaster, my characters have invariably chosen this day to carry a stick of gum, a bus transfer, half a movie ticket, some cookie crumbs. That's four things. And keys. Keys to unleashing disaster? No, regular keys.
The guru will then ask what my boring list tells us all about my character. When it's time for coffee and cookies, everyone oohs and ahs about how much they've learned about their characters. I stand aside, with my character smirking as I sneak a cookie into my pocket for later.
So no, I don't really like writing games. What I do like is work. Hard work. Lots of work. I don't think there's a way around it. Lucky for us, writing work is all about listening and noticing. It's about paying attention, getting it down on the page, then doing it again. It's about tweaking things until they work.
Think, tweak the scene, and LISTEN to what that tells you. And then do it again.
And so, a writing game, Scriptwrangler-style: PROPS MANAGER!
The goal of the game is to make the props guy on your set earn his keep.
1. Find a scene you're having trouble with.
2. Underline the PROPS (the objects in the scene).
3. Think about each prop. Come up with two alternatives, and tell your props guy to go get 'em! These can be the same object described with another word (say, 'six-shooter with mother-of-pearl inlaid handle' instead of 'gun'). They can also be completely new (say, 'banana' instead of 'wallet').
4. Now the important part: LISTEN to the scene. NOTICE what you've changed. Realize you do have the power to effect major changes with some fairly small moves.
You can do the same thing with verbs (call the game "Acting Coach") or adjectives (Art Director). And there's definitely a game called "Locations Managers".
One more thing. It's natural to help characters out by giving them the tools they need. But did you happen to notice that it can be a lot more interesting if you make it hard on them?
Showing posts with label scene work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scene work. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
A Question is Better than an Answer.
If you listened to the David Mamet broadcast from the last post, you noticed that he talks about the one central question in every movie watcher's head: what's gonna happen now? It's not about what's happening right now. It's not what happened in the backstory. It's a question that pulls the viewer forward into the next scene, and a good screenwriter knows how to work that question to his advantage.
Say your script is about a man who cheats on his wife but still loves her. Many screenwriters will go about this by having a love scene between the man and his mistress, with gasps of pleasure punctuating lines of dialogue like, "But, Bob, you do love me, don't you?" *gasp* "Of course, Martha. I love you with a passion I can't even understand!" *moan* "But your wife!" *frenzied panting* "I love her too, I can't deny it!"
Okay. We got it. Yeah. What's funny about that scene is that it actually works better without the dialogue, and not just as a sex scene. Bob and Martha have at it, and, when they aren't commentating, we, the audience can simply examine what really matters between them. Suddenly the scene becomes a lot more flexible. In the hands of capable actors, it can mean a lot more. And if the scene is successful, we'll be asking one question: what's gonna happen now? Will Bob leave his wife? Will Martha cause problems? These issues frame the material so much better than dialogue that tells us what we're supposed to be thinking about.
The screenwriter molds these questions by carefully choosing scenes, actions, and visuals. What if we cut to Bob at his child's baptism next? What does that say? Or Bob's wife alone in her hospital bed? Whatever she's doing will take on greater meaning when contrasted to the scene before it.
I've mentioned before that the screenwriter has a very important role at the beginning of a long, collaborative process. We don't tell actors how to act. We don't tell cinematographers how to shoot. But we create the potential for them to excel and tell the story themselves. We open up an empty space. For me, this is the big difference between screenwriting and novel writing. We don't get to describe the tiny nuanced shifts of a character's psychology. But we do get to build a series of scenes that bring it all home for an audience.
Say your script is about a man who cheats on his wife but still loves her. Many screenwriters will go about this by having a love scene between the man and his mistress, with gasps of pleasure punctuating lines of dialogue like, "But, Bob, you do love me, don't you?" *gasp* "Of course, Martha. I love you with a passion I can't even understand!" *moan* "But your wife!" *frenzied panting* "I love her too, I can't deny it!"
Okay. We got it. Yeah. What's funny about that scene is that it actually works better without the dialogue, and not just as a sex scene. Bob and Martha have at it, and, when they aren't commentating, we, the audience can simply examine what really matters between them. Suddenly the scene becomes a lot more flexible. In the hands of capable actors, it can mean a lot more. And if the scene is successful, we'll be asking one question: what's gonna happen now? Will Bob leave his wife? Will Martha cause problems? These issues frame the material so much better than dialogue that tells us what we're supposed to be thinking about.
The screenwriter molds these questions by carefully choosing scenes, actions, and visuals. What if we cut to Bob at his child's baptism next? What does that say? Or Bob's wife alone in her hospital bed? Whatever she's doing will take on greater meaning when contrasted to the scene before it.
I've mentioned before that the screenwriter has a very important role at the beginning of a long, collaborative process. We don't tell actors how to act. We don't tell cinematographers how to shoot. But we create the potential for them to excel and tell the story themselves. We open up an empty space. For me, this is the big difference between screenwriting and novel writing. We don't get to describe the tiny nuanced shifts of a character's psychology. But we do get to build a series of scenes that bring it all home for an audience.
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