by Jim Mercurio
Mainstream films rely on moments of recapitulation, foreshadowing, announcing, and clarifying. How many times have we seen the cast of characters in a heist film surrounding a map while the leader details the plan?
I am not encouraging you to create clarity with on-the-nose exposition in a line such as this.
ALLISON
So, what you are saying is that while you disable the security firewall, Joe, Theresa, Laura and I will hack into the mainframe?
However, the reframing in the above example with the Listener and the Speaker allowed them to organically express their conflict in a way that happened to clarify the exact nature of the Listener’s frustration. Your goal is to find language that has higher purposes but can simultaneously elucidate.
Think back to the Serpico lunch scene we discussed in Chapter 6, “Dilemma: Importance and Digging Deep.” Maybe some of the audience doesn’t understand why Serpico makes such a fuss over the fat on his sandwich. However, his partner Peluce senses the threat imposed by someone who is willing to rock the boat, here, for a sandwich or, for much greater stakes, with the corrupt police department.
When Serpico threatens to approach and confront Charlie the deli guy, Peluce stops him:
PELUCE
Frank, generally, you just sort of take what Charlie gives you.
In what seems like a throwaway line, Peluce reframes and clarifies his and Serpico’s diametric points of view on “rocking the boat.” The line contains considerable conflict and is a concise counterpoint-theme of the movie.
In the scene from Tin Cup we looked at in Chapter 5, “Exposition,” Tin Cup suggests that Simms loosen up or take off his jacket. It establishes the expectations that this will be a contest of physical athletic ability, and Simms’s refusal to do so is a setup for the frustration that it won’t be. The process of clarification leads to subtle but remarkable insight into the character.
Although he is a con man who is full of self-deception, in this surprisingly candid moment, Tin Cup reveals a genuine side of himself by proactively encouraging a fair fight. Deep down inside he wants to win fair and square, a reveal of a surprising opposite within the character.
You will be surprised by how attuned audiences are to the intricacies of your setups. Tailor their experience. Control the story that you tell.
Earlier I highlighted a moment at the end of Casino Royale in which the filmmakers showed water bubbling and spurting out from a submerged building to create a subtle expectation that Bond’s lover, Vesper, might not have drowned, that at any moment, water might be purged from her lungs and she might gasp for air. It creates a hint of hope and becomes a subtle contrast to the eventual action that does not come. She has drowned and does not spit out water and gasp for air.
I happened to be watching the movie on TV with my dad, a blue-collar cook who never went to film school but is a lifelong movie lover. I notice the spurting water in the shot, and I am having what I think is an intellectual film geek Eureka moment. Just then, my dad points to the spurting water onscreen and sarcastically blurts out, “I bet he wishes she would do that.”
Not all of your setups will be this subtle. But never underestimate the sophistication of the audience or the power of even the unconscious mind to pick up on such cues. Audiences are remarkably fluent in reading and even speaking the language of cinema.
One of the ways screenwriters can create clarity is with parentheticals, the short asides in dialogue that describe how a line should be delivered. Parentheticals have their place and can be used sparingly to ensure the reader and actor understand the meaning of a potentially ambiguous line. However, if you find yourself often relying on parentheticals, then most likely your problem is that you are not establishing setups and expectations effectively within the scene.
In other words, eliminate as many of your parentheticals as possible by establishing better context.
Consider a dark comedy in which two lovers exchange snarky banter:
Maria and Tony lie in the spoon position under the covers.
MARIA
Not that I mind your tighty-whities, but would you be offended if, for your birthday, I got you some CK boxers.
She snaps his waistband.
TONY
(sarcastic)
Screw you.
He chomps at her neck and she giggles.
Do we need a parenthetical like “sarcastic” or “playful” to clarify his line? Use parentheticals only if there is no other way to make the intention clear. Here, the underlined bits above in and of themselves should create enough context and clarity to make the parenthetical unnecessary.
Rule #4: Everything Must Be Logical
Hollywood narratives rely on an internal logic in which one action leads to another, which leads to another, with a chain of cause and effect. Although you can’t constantly rely on coincidence and random actions to propel your story, look for ways to surprise your characters (and the audience) by putting them in a place where they normally couldn’t arrive relying solely on logic. Remember, not all who wander are lost.
This idea of stumbling—literally and figuratively—is similar to wandering in fairy tales. It shows a character’s subconscious at work. Used cleverly, stumbling—coincidence or surprise combined with a bit of disorientation or even magical realism—can show that a character’s path is not being dictated by clear-cut logic or his conscious mind.
In Tangled, Flynn is unconsciously being drawn toward Rapunzel, who will be the only one who can appreciate him for who he really is. Maximus the horse chases Flynn over a cliff, where they fall through clouds to an unseen landing spot. Flynn hides behind a rock as Maximus passes him, and his hand accidentally slips into a green brush, where he discovers a hidden cave that leads to Rapunzel’s tower. The fall and slip allow him to get to a place that would have been impossible to consciously discover.
Stumbling often happens near the inciting incident or at a threshold such as entering into the first act because it allows us to immerse the character in a new situation, even if he’s not ready for it.
One of my favorite literal stumbles in a movie is in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, soon after the hobbits leave the Shire. A farmer, not coincidentally, chases them, which causes them to literally stumble down a hill onto the road. Seconds later, the Nazgul arrive on horseback, pick up their scent, and scare the bejesus out of them. We can cut the hobbits some slack for not being able to enter this new world from conscious effort alone.
In Tangled, Flynn and Rapunzel find themselves trapped in a sealed-off cave as water rises. They can’t see any chance of escape, and she breaks down and wallows in self-pity. Earlier, when Rapunzel asked about his real name, Flynn refused to open up (“I don’t do backstory”). In this moment, their dramatic need inspires an elegant reveal of the answer to her question.
Flynn shares his real name, Eugene Fitzherbert, a source of embarrassment, as a way to soothe and comfort her. She appreciates the unguarded honesty and responds by blurting out an equally embarrassing fact about herself: that she has magic hair and when she sings, it glows. Aha! This leads to them using the hair as a source of light to find a way out. His stumble triggered her stumble, which saves their lives.
The beats of comforting, sharing, and ultimately trusting each other advance both the relationship and the adventure story. One action changes both situations: they become closer, and they are able to escape.
Remember that the act of stumbling suggests that the characters are acting without willful intention. Here, their lines were not consciously directed at the goal of escaping the physical danger. If Flynn consciously chose to say his name in order to escape, it would seem contrived.
In Wonder Woman, while in the heat of battle training with Antiope (Robin Wright), Diana (Gal Gadot) instinctively crosses her armbands as a ward, which generates a powerful force that blasts Antiope back several yards. Diana wasn’t consciously trying to access those powers, but discovering them becomes a criti
cal part of the inciting incident: pushing her to want to leave her home and find her destiny.
Before she leaves, Diana is clinging to a rock wall when she slips and starts to fall. She slams her hand against the rock, trying to find something to grab and catch herself. Her fingertips break through the stone and create a “handle,” surprising her even more than it does the audience. It’s a nice, quick character touch.
Near the end of 48 Hrs., Reggie (Eddie Murphy) and Jack (Nick Nolte) are down, defeated, and drinking at a bar before Reggie must return to jail. Now that they’ve become friends, they sincerely commiserate over their loneliness and lady troubles, which leads to a “stumble.” Thinking about their own problems makes them consider that the escaped criminals would also be lonely and want to visit their girlfriends, which is where Reggie and Jack eventually find them.
Although a stumble can smooth over what might seem like a contrived moment, be careful with using coincidences too late in the story to solve major plot points. In general, coincidences work better earlier in a story, and then the narrative can logically explore the consequences by reverting back to the cause and effect typically seen in Hollywood narrative.
In 48 Hrs., their leap feels organic because it arose from the recesses of the character. Just as in Tangled, their discussion was not aimed directly at the goal of capturing the bad guys—their subconscious mind led them to the solution.
The fact that the characters in 48 Hrs. were drinking is not a coincidence. Being drunk is among the many conventions that storytellers use to allow characters to blurt something out or say something that emanates from their subconscious. Others include Freudian slips or actions taken in the heat of the moment (Flynn and the hobbits were being chased), while distracted or not thinking, while dreaming, or while under the influence of drugs, illness, or a figurative or literal curse.
Something Wild uses “sleep-talking” to allow LuLu (Melanie Griffith) to deliver a pretty poignant reframe about Charlie’s (Jeff Daniels) growth.
LULU
Charlie…
CHARLIE
Yeah?
LULU
What are you gonna do now you’ve seen how the other half lives?
CHARLIE
The other half?
LULU
The other half of you.
Without the caveat of the character being half-asleep, LuLu’s line to Charlie might come off as a bit on the nose.
Source of Stumbles
Stumbled-upon dialogue or actions must legitimately be something a character has the potential to say, justified by the recesses of his psyche. However, it’s not enough that it comes from the character’s subconscious mind. Although it might be true that all characters have powerful and repressed feelings that revolve around sex, an audience does not want to see Scrooge have a Freudian slip that involves sexual innuendo.
Remember, surprise comes from setup. Stumbles must align with a character’s shadow side, the specific repressed or denied aspect related to his dilemma and eventual or potential character arc. Scrooge is established in terms of his greediness and selfishness, so an appropriate stumble for him would be a gesture of altruism.
At the beginning of The Hunger Games, Katniss is not yet an adult, and she does not completely understand the roles and responsibilities of being a hero and martyr. When her sister Primrose (Willow Shields) is chosen for the hunger games and Katniss chooses to take her place, the script carefully highlights the nature of Katniss’s decision. It frames her first line as a “blurting” and the second line as if she were on “autopilot,” not acting from her conscious self:
Katniss slumps backward. ANOTHER GIRL steadies her. Everything is spinning.
…
WE PUSH IN on Katniss, the world crashing around her -- until:
KATNISS
(top of her lungs)
I volunteer
…
All eyes -- even those of the camera -- now find Katniss… whose voice seems to be operating on its own.
KATNISS
I volunteer as tribute.
Katniss fulfills her destiny and becomes a full-fledged hero over the arc of the film series. Given some time, she would have consciously made the choice to take her sister’s place. However, it’s a better storytelling choice for the inciting incident to be a spontaneous act of courage, a surprise that the character is not completely ready to handle. If we kick off the story with her calm and cool, in control of everything, it leaves her no room to grow as the story progresses.
Stumbling can be a powerful way to reveal characters’ buried feelings or allow them to surprise themselves and the audience with a revelation or unexpected action. Storytelling isn’t always about logical cause and effect. Keep looking to infuse some magic into your story whenever possible.
Yes, And…
Harkening back to Chapter 1, “The Story of a Scene,” screenwriters sometimes wish that all of their scenes were like the True Romance interrogation, but truthfully, most will be more similar to the short scene from Clear and Present Danger. However, you don’t have to avoid ambitious scenes that are longer than average, dialogue-heavy, or that have surprising complexity, subtlety, or depth.
All of the skills it takes to successfully write a concise and simple scene are relevant when writing a longer or more complex one. Start with the basics. Make sure that you don’t mistake complexity for ambiguity or vagueness. Create a strong scene structure that clearly tracks the throughline of the scene’s battle. Consider breaking the scene into a series of “movements.”
A cardinal rule in improv is to never say no. If a character offers you a premise or fact, you can’t dismiss it or morph it into what you would prefer that it be. You take what you are given and you run with it. Instead of “no,” improv actors always think in terms of “yes, and…” Apply this to your approach to challenging scenes.
For everything you strip away, replace it with something better. Essentially, this should be your mind-set when transcending the familiar.
If you want to write sublimely subtle conflict, serpentine scenes, or long dialogue passages, say yes to that. However, you will also have to say yes to other things, including higher stakes, clearer tracking, emotional depth, and surprisingly clever subtext.
There are no rules, right?
Yes, and…
Break them at your peril.
10
CINEMATIC WRITING: THE LANGUAGE OF VISUALS
As a blueprint for an eventual film, a screenplay should consist only of descriptions of what we actually see and hear. Our goal is to simulate for readers of the script the experience of would-be viewers of the film, i.e., both should receive the same information at the same time. If a screenplay included a character’s thoughts or ideas, it would upset that process of “viewing” the story and give the reader an unnecessary and undesirable advantage over a viewer of the actual film.
Writing only what we see and hear initially sounds like a reasonable task until you factor in an additional, and somewhat arbitrary yet universally accepted, assumption: a page of screenplay equals one minute of screen time.
The cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words” bears enough truth to remind us of the daunting task ahead. The page is at an inherent disadvantage. Words cannot keep up with images. This is why efficiency and clarity are two overriding imperatives in writing action description. You must fight for every chance to avoid redundancy and keep momentum going.
Prosaic approaches to writing action description prescribe a laundry list of grammar and language rules and guidelines such as…
• Don’t use passive voice.
• Don’t write a character’s thoughts.
• Don’t use sentence fragments.
These exist as overly rigid guidelines, borne from a practical English 101 mentality, which at best help with grammar, clarity, and possibly efficiency. But this strict notion of what is appropriate for screenwriting doesn’t actively help you know what to write.
Efficiency and Clarity
Every aspect of your action-description must pursue efficiency and clarity in service of the story. The goal is to guarantee that nothing in the script would give the reader a reason to stumble over a phrase, reread something for clarity, or stop completely.
Passive Voice
The suggestion to avoid passive voice like “the ball is thrown” is not borne from deep philosophical literary theory. It’s because it is inefficient and unclear. We waste words while not giving the reader the essential information of who is throwing the ball. In other types of writing, this can helpfully obfuscate who is the subject or culprit (“Hey, Mom, the lamp in the living has become broken”). In your script, however, challenge yourself over every use of it.
Adverbs
Avoid using phrases with adverbs, such as “he runs fast” or “he drives recklessly.” Why? Because it is inefficient. Why use two words when one will do? “He darts” or “He lumbers” also create a more specific image in the reader’s mind. Even better—include the character’s name to create a more specific image to accompany the action. “Donna runs.” “Jake lumbers.”
By wrestling with the choice of one simple verb—runs versus lumbers—you improve the way you tell the story. Picking the right verb—such as “careens” as in “the car careens”—makes the description more visceral. You have an opportunity to bring subtle insight into the character and her intention: “follows” evokes something quite different from “stalks.”
Fragments
Sentence fragments can help with efficiency. Fewer words on the page allow for a faster read. This excerpt from Lethal Weapon also shows how fragments can contribute to a more kinetic style:
