Book to Screen

by Frank Catalano

  What about Slum Dog Millionaire (2008) which starts at end – where you find the main character in police station in trouble and then you find out the rest of the story – the how, the what through the telling. You find out the important parts that answer the questions that you as a reader or audience member want to know. What am I saying then? I will be struck by lightening when I say this. You have to write like a “salesman!” You have to sell your idea to the audience or the reader. Create a situation where they will come on the journey with you because they want to… because they have to.

  (Audience member asks: “What about television? Isn’t television written in a formula that would make it very difficult to start at the ending.”)

  Television is written in a rigid pattern of scenes and acts that must fit into a specific run time format. You have all heard the term “teaser” or “cold open.”

  (Audience members respond, “Yes.”)

  That’s how television starts at the end by going directly into the episode plot right at the opening of the show, before any opening credits. What do we see? A crime being committed, a murder, a UFO approaching earth from space, a young woman walking down a dark street at night and then the sound of someone following her – she turns back and sees no one, then starts to run but is grabbed from behind. We hear her screams echo out of the darkness as we cut to opening credits. The hope is, that we don’t change the channel and we’ll stay to find out what happened.

  You know, as I say this, I’m also thinking of the CSI shows, that usually open with a crime scene where they go through some basic plot points detailing the crime… and then the coroner says something like… “Looks like a drive by….” And then a close up actor David Caruso with sunglasses saying, “Drive by Miami style…” Beat, and then the opening theme music and credits. http://www.televisiontunes.com/CSI_Miami.html

  So in television, we can and do start at the end. However, what is different than film is that your characters and story unfold in smaller more specific blocks, which then take you to the resolution. Also, often in television, the characters are reoccurring, so their development is on going. We find out little bits and pieces about them over a much longer period of time if the format is episodic. Also while we are discussing other mediums besides novels and film, we should also mention the Internet.

  The Internet offers lots of opportunity for writers to create content for a multitude of platforms. However, in most cases, the format is interstitial and the segments that are written are often shorter – maybe two to three minutes in length. If you have a story either in novel for or direct screenplay, you will have to work within a format that is similar to creating a mosaic. You will work with smaller pieces which separately must stand on their own (with respect to character and story) but also fit into a larger picture when assembled. I worked on a series, years ago for Fox Television called The Adventures of Dynamo Duck - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289050/

  The story line as it appears in IMDB.COM is “The world’s smallest and most feathered secret agent takes on the forces of evil and saves the world while wooing women and creating chaos around the globe.” The show was actually a series of 2-3 minute episodes that Fox TV used as bumpers between programs. We had to create reoccurring characters out of little ducks and gerbils – but the stories would always be different. Each little episode, had it’s own story line with a beginning and ending. But all of the episodes fit together like a mosaic to tell a larger story.

  So think of your novels like food… (I love to talk about food)

  (Audience laughter)

  Your novel is Tuscany chicken.

  (Audience laughter)

  …and for an interstitial approach. You do it piece by piece. Here’s a pea… here’s a potato… just one… now a carrot

  (Audience laughter)

  You see, we are doing this piece by piece… and when we’re done… we will have the whole dish. The whole Tuscany Chicken. All of it. So, you have to take your novel and break it into smaller segments that could be read as an audio file or read or performed by actors. The artistic way of describing it would as if it were a mosaic. But remember it’s like eating Tuscany Chicken a piece at a time. Don’t do this now… but when you are home… alone… take your novel, your idea, your screenplay and break it down into one hundred one minute segments or fifty-two minute segments and see how it would flow. The good news about the Internet is you can create that on your own. You don’t really need someone to produce that for you. If you have a MAC (if you don’t I’m so sorry)…

  (Audience laughter)

  If you have a MAC, you can, using Garage Band and a nice microphone, create interstitial episodes of your work and then put it up on the Internet. Why would you want to do that? First of all, it will be fun and secondly it will showcase your writing. When someone asks you what have you done, you can point them toward your Internet series.

  21

  ROSEBUD

  Start Your Story at the End

  SO STARTING AND the end will help to create an interest in your work for the reader or the audience. We have also talked about writing for a particular medium whether it is cinema, television or the Internet. Also remember that all of these mediums are visual. Whereas theatre uses language to communicate its content and literature uses prose and metaphor, film and television are visual. So starting at the end in a screenplay may simply be showing a simple action. There is no requirement that there has to be a full- fledged scene with dialogue. In the classic film War of the Worlds (1953) – after credits the film opens with a large object crash landing near the small town of Linda Rosa. Once that object lands, strange things start to happen. So, we know all is not well and that something terrible is going to happen. But we don’t know what. Sometimes all you have to do is show a particular pivotal moment without dialogue or character.

  It could be a visual scene with a very small amount of dialogue. A man is led up the wooden stairs to a gallows and a noose is placed around his neck. The executioner asks: “Do you have an last words?” The man turns toward the camera and simply says: “You haven’t heard the last of me.” A black sack covers the man’s head; a moment later the executioner pulls the lever and the condemned man is dropped through gallows doors. His body jerks uncontrollably and then he dangles there in stillness. The executioner pulls back the black sack revealing another man’s face. Where did the condemned man go? Now a promise has been made here. What was it?

  (Audience member: “That the dead guy was going to come back.”)

  Okay, how?

  (Audience member: “Maybe as a ghost?”)

  We don’t really know do we? All we know is that he is coming back and if we want to know how and when, we will have to read the script or watch the movie. Think of the movie Citizen Kane (1941) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r0b_XeRkG4

  The film opens at the end of the life of a person – as ominous music plays we see the following images:

  A “No trespassing sign”

  A fence

  A larger ornate gate

  As the camera pushes in we see the tattered grounds of what at one time was an enchanted place, monkeys in a cage, a water playground with gondolas and in the background at the top of a hill an enormous castle. As we push in closer we see only one window lit which then goes of, it is lit once again and we realize we are now inside the room as we push in further to see falling snow. Then it is revealed to be snow falling within a glass globe held in a hand.

  Then a close up of Kane’s lips and the word “Rosebud” he draws his last breath. The globe rolls out of the hand and down a step then crashes into many pieces. Through the broken piece of glass, we see the reflection of a nurse enter the room, then gently place and cover the body with a sheet.

  Fade to black. This is what the audience experiences as they sit in a darkened theatre. Now what about the reader? How did the script written by Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz look?

  PROLOGUE

  FADE IN: />
  EXT. XANADU - FAINT DAWN - 1940 (MINIATURE)

  Window, very small in the distance, illuminated.

  All around this is an almost totally black screen. Now, as the camera moves slowly towards the window which is almost a postage stamp in the frame, other forms appear; barbed wire, cyclone fencing, and now, looming up against an early morning sky, enormous iron grille work. Camera travels up what is now shown to be a gateway of gigantic proportions and holds on the top of it - a huge initial “K” showing darker and darker against the dawn sky. Through this and beyond we see the fairy-tale mountaintop of Xanadu, the great castle a silhouette as its summit, the little window a distant accent in the darkness.

  DISSOLVE:

  A SERIES OF SET -UPS, EACH CLOSER TO THE GREAT WINDOW, ALL TELLING SOMETHING OF:

  The literally incredible domain of CHARLES FOSTER KANE.

  Its right flank resting for nearly forty miles on the Gulf Coast, it truly extends in all directions farther than the eye can see. Designed by nature to be almost completely bare and flat - it was, as will develop, practically all marshland when Kane acquired and changed its face - it is now pleasantly uneven, with its fair share of rolling hills and one very good- sized mountain, all man-made. Almost all the land is improved, either through cultivation for farming purposes of through careful landscaping, in the shape of parks and lakes. The castle dominates itself, an enormous pile, compounded of several genuine castles, of European origin, of varying architecture - dominates the scene, from the very peak of the mountain.

  DISSOLVE:

  GOLF LINKS (MINIATURE)

  Past which we move. The greens are straggly and overgrown, the fairways wild with tropical weeds, the links unused and not seriously tended for a long time.

  DISSOLVE OUT:

  DISSOLVE IN:

  WHAT WAS ONCE A GOOD-SIZED ZOO (MINIATURE)

  Of the Hagenbeck type. All that now remains, with one exception, are the individual plots, surrounded by moats, on which the animals are kept, free and yet safe from each other and the landscape at large. (Signs on several of the plots indicate that here there were once tigers, lions, and giraffes.)

  DISSOLVE:

  THE MONKEY TERRACE (MINIATURE)

  In the foreground, a great obscene ape is outlined against the dawn murk. He is scratching himself slowly, thoughtfully, looking out across the estates of Charles Foster Kane, to the distant light glowing in the castle on the hill.

  DISSOLVE:

  THE ALLIGATOR PIT (MINIATURE)

  The idiot pile of sleepy dragons. Reflected in the muddy water -

  the lighted window.

  THE LAGOON (MINIATURE)

  The boat landing sags. An old newspaper floats on the surface of the water - a copy of the New York Enquirer.” As it moves across the frame, it discloses again the reflection of the window in the castle, closer than before.

  THE GREAT SWIMMING POOL (MINIATURE)

  It is empty. A newspaper blows across the cracked floor of the tank.

  DISSOLVE:

  THE COTTAGES (MINIATURE)

  In the shadows, literally the shadows, of the castle. As we move by, we see that their doors and windows are boarded up and locked, with heavy bars as further protection and sealing.

  DISSOLVE OUT:

  DISSOLVE IN:

  A DRAWBRIDGE (MINIATURE)

  Over a wide moat, now stagnant and choked with weeds. We move across it and through a huge solid gateway into a formal garden, perhaps thirty yards wide and one hundred yards deep, which extends right up to the very wall of the castle. The landscaping surrounding it has been sloppy and causal for a long time, but this particular garden has been kept up in perfect shape. As the camera makes its way through it, towards the lighted window of the castle, there are revealed rare and exotic blooms of all kinds. The dominating note is one of almost exaggerated tropical lushness, hanging limp and despairing. Moss, moss, moss. Ankor Wat, the night the last King died.

  DISSOLVE:

  THE WINDOW (MINIATURE)

  Camera moves in until the frame of the window fills the frame of the screen. Suddenly, the light within goes out. This stops the action of the camera and cuts the music which has been accompanying the sequence. In the glass panes of the window, we see reflected the ripe, dreary landscape of Mr. Kane’s estate behind and the dawn sky.

  DISSOLVE:

  INT. KANE’S BEDROOM - FAINT DAWN -

  A very long shot of Kane’s enormous bed, silhouetted against

  the enormous window.

  DISSOLVE:

  INT. KANE’S BEDROOM - FAINT DAWN - SNOW SCENE.

  An incredible one. Big, impossible flakes of snow, a too picturesque farmhouse and a snowman. The jingling of sleigh bells in the musical score now makes an ironic reference to Indian Temple bells - the music freezes -

  KANE’S OLD OLD VOICE

  Rosebud...

  The camera pulls back, showing the whole scene to be contained in one of those glass balls which are sold in novelty stores all over the world. A hand - Kane’s hand, which has been holding the ball, relaxes. The ball falls out of his hand and bounds down two carpeted steps leading to the bed, the camera following. The ball falls off the last step onto the marble floor where it breaks, the fragments glittering in the first rays of the morning sun. This ray cuts an angular pattern across the floor, suddenly crossed with a thousand bars of light as the blinds are pulled across the window.

  The foot of Kane’s bed. The camera very close. Outlined against the shuttered window, we can see a form - the form of a nurse, as she pulls the sheet up over his head. The camera follows this action up the length of the bed and arrives at the face after the sheet has covered it.

  FADE OUT:

  This is a classic example of starting your story at the end. We can sit here today and know the significance of “Rosebud” the one word spoken at the opening of the story because we have the benefit of time. But let’s try to imagine what audiences in 1941 thought when the film was first exhibited. The film is called Citizen Kane and is about the life of a fictional character Charles Foster Kane an extremely wealthy newspaper publisher. So where does the story start? At the moment that Charles Foster Kane draws his last breath and dies. His whispers only one word “Rosebud.” If we want to find out why he says this word and about his life, we will have to invest our time in his story. Also, this is a perfect example of a “visual” way to start your story at the end. The audience and the reader are presented with a series of visual images which lead up to the one word spoken “Rosebud.” Remember also, that your opening set up (starting at the end) does not have to be terribly long. I don’t want you to feel as though you have to squeeze in an enormous amount of information up front. You are just trying to find the most pivotal moment and you will have plenty of time to fill in the blanks along the way with exposition.

  22

  WRITE LIKE A PAINTER

  Start Your Story at the End

  HERE’S ANOTHER WAY of thinking about it. Imagine yourself as a painter and you have an idea for a painting. Have any of you ever painted before? I don’t mean your house… a picture.

  (Audience laughter)

  Okay, so do we have any painters here today?

  (Several hands go up)

  Okay, so those who have painted did you have a visualization of how large or how small your final work would be?

  (Audience member: “Yeah, I had to buy the canvass.)

  So you had a general idea of how much literal space you would have to convey your idea. Whether it is large – the size of a whole wall or a small canvass – you had a pretty good idea of the amount of space you had to create your work. Now let’s move over to writing. If you are writing fiction do those limitations apply? Do you have a sense of how many pages you will require to tell your story?

  (Audience member: “For me, as long as it takes.”

  Okay, as long as it takes. Most of you agree?

  (Audience agrees)

  So you start to devel
op your story and you take as much time and page space as you need to bring it to its natural conclusion. However, when you transpose your story to another medium, you are suddenly confronted with specific formats and run time. You no longer can takes as long as it takes, you may have to make choices. Just like the painter who has to convey their work on the specific size of a given canvass. In this case, writing is just like painting.

  We are taking that fictional work and converting into another medium. It could be any of the mediums we have discussed – film, television or the Internet. Now, assuming you are starting your story at the end – which may be totally different that what you have within your fictional work, you also have to consider run time and format requirements. I want you to think of your specific work.

  Place your what is now the ending of your novel at the front of a screenplay. That’s easy enough, now all you have to do is fill in the important plot and character elements along the way until you get to the end. But wait, you are about half way through the plot and character points from your book and you are already at 115 – 120 pages, you have run out of time and space. What do you do now? You think to yourself, I can reduce the font size to ten and that might buy me enough space to bring this story to a conclusion.

  (Audience laughter)

  Then you think again. Not even bringing the font down to ten will be enough. Maybe I can bring it down to eight-point font? That should do it. The real answer here is that you have to write for the medium and more importantly make choices. You have to figure out what are the most vital parts of your character and story to include in a screenplay. Also what parts of your character and story are the most visual so that they will work best in a film or television medium? If you are writing for cinema, your book has got to fit into an approximately two hour or 110-120 page time frame calculated at one page per minute of screen time. You may be thinking, that’s not totally accurate. There have been films such as Gandhi (1982) at 191 minutes, Dances with Wolves (1990) at 236 minutes and Titanic (1997) at 210 minutes. There’s no hard fast rule just a general practice and expectation about how long a film or screenplay should be. We can expand this expectation to audiences as well. Most people expect to be told the story in a movie generally within a two hour time period. Movie exhibitors such as Arclight, Regal, Cineplex or AMC also want to have films that are not too long so then can get as many showings in a given exhibition space (movie theatre) in a day. In today’s market place when films or scripts go longer the run time is often cut down in their initial release and then the cut footage is put back after the theatrical release in DVD or streaming versions of the film. This works for a marketing standpoint as well because film companies can then take the cut footage and add it back in and sell us the same movie as what they call “the director’s cut” or “the uncut version.” Audiences wanting to see what was taken out, pay a second time for the same movie that had seen in the theatres. So this is a writing seminar about how to start your story at the end. What does all this have to do with my novel?