Kent Lamm of Standard Story Company has a terrific video this week called “3 Traps of Short Film Writing” about the traps many filmmakers fall into when writing their shorts. They are, in brief:
1) Scope
2) Redundancy
3) Lack of “Dramatic Writing”
What’s he mean by all that? Check out the video here:
There are a finite number of story types. Which one is yours?
https://screencraft.org/blog/45-story-archetypes-screenwriters-should-master
This week’s Scriptnotes podcast is an interview with Linda Wolverton (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King).
Scriptnotes Podcast (356 – Writing Animated Movies
https://scriptnotes.libsyn.com/356-writing-animated-movies-encore
This is a great show for those wondering how animated features are written and produced. You don’t just walk in the front door at Disney and sell a spec! 🙂
They talk a lot about how animation writers are not part of the WGA. Good to know if you want to be a working writer with benefits and residuals.
How do you choose last names for your characters? Here’s a comprehensive list of surnames and what they mean.
https://babynames.com/blogs/nameinfo/1000-most-popular-last-names-in-the-u-s
How do you build an outline? Consider the Snowflake method.
https://kindlepreneur.com/snowflake-method/
This week’s Scriptnotes podcast talks about saying goodbye in screenplays. The shownotes for the episode include links to several video examples from the finished films. Check it out! https://johnaugust.com/2024/farewell-scenes
Excerpted from Gotham Writers at https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/ask-writer/in-dialogue-what-is-subtext
Subtext is the meaning beneath the dialogue; what the speaker really means, even though he’s not saying it directly. As humans, we often don’t articulate our thoughts exactly. We’re thinking on our feet as we talk, processing other stimuli, like body language, and struggling with our own concerns and emotions as well as those of the listener. In fiction, this kind of miscommunication can add authenticity, create dramatic tension, and even reveal deeper truths.
Here’s a sample of a conversation between a newlywed couple, written by Dorothy Parker.
See if you can see what the husband is thinking about but not saying!
“Well, you see, sweetheart,” he said, “we’re not really married yet. I mean. I mean—well, things will be different afterwards. Oh, hell. I mean, we haven’t been married very long.”
“No,” she said.
“Well, we haven’t got much longer to wait now,” he said. “I mean—well, we’ll be in New York in about twenty minutes. Then we can have dinner, and sort of see what we feel like doing. Or I mean. Is there anything special you want to do tonight?”
“What?” she said.
“What I mean to say,” he said, “would you like to go to a show or something?”
“Why, whatever you like,” she said. “I sort of didn’t think people went to theaters and things on their—I mean, I’ve got a couple of letters I simply must write. Don’t let me forget.”
“Oh,” he said. “You’re going to write letters tonight?”
THE CHALLENGE:
Write a scene in which the dialogue appears to be about one thing on the surface, but is really about something else.
How do you communicate that to the audience? Get them to read between the lines! Try to do this through dialogue, not relying on action or situation.
What’s the surprise in your story? When do you reveal the surprise?
Think of the theme of your screenplay as something the main character has to learn. Traditionally, they believe the opposite, then learn the lesson represented by the theme.
What is the essential question your movie is asking? Make your theme a declarative statement. The answer to that question.
One of my favorite examples of theme and anti-theme is in the recent Murder on the Orient Express. In the first act, Poirot states his world view. “There is right, there is wrong. There is nothing in between.” The anti-theme, because…
Poirot then spends the movie investigating a crime that puts his view to the test. By the end, he admits to himself that sometimes murder is justified. He comes to believe there IS a place between right and wrong, and acts on that belief.
So the essential question, “Is there a gray area between right and wrong?” is answered as “Yes”. The theme as a statement would be “Sometimes, murder can be justified.”
When I looked up this scene online, I found the dialogue quoted on IMDB (see below).
When I compared it to a PDF of the screenplay dated 2/20/15, I did not see that crucial line of dialogue. That tells me that the writer and producers at some later point decided that Poirot’s worldview needed to be spelled out more clearly for the audience. By doing so, it underlined the theme more clearly.
