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Lecture Week 6

The document provides guidance on writing screenplays, including formatting, structure, style, and common mistakes. It discusses using economy of words, showing rather than telling, using active voice and simple sentences, and avoiding excessive adverbs, adjectives, and long blocks of text.

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Ntsakisi Makondo
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29 views23 pages

Lecture Week 6

The document provides guidance on writing screenplays, including formatting, structure, style, and common mistakes. It discusses using economy of words, showing rather than telling, using active voice and simple sentences, and avoiding excessive adverbs, adjectives, and long blocks of text.

Uploaded by

Ntsakisi Makondo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Digital Med

ia Design 2

Scriptwritin
g
Writing Vis
ua lly
0 Screenplay narratives must convey motion, events and
emotions with an almost poetic economy and force, and
feed the readers imagination.

0 Try to get reader to experience not only sights and sounds


but also excitement of the story

0 Requires brevity, clarity and pace.

0 Don’t focus only on dialogue as the bulk and subtext/


subtlety of the story could be in the action
Paragraphs
0 Avoid large blocks of dense narratives dominating the
page.

0 Lengthy paragraphs make the narrative hard to read


and, usually, are indicative of too much time spent on
unimportant details that must be sifted through to get
the gist of the story.

0 If page takes too long to read, reader looses a sense of


the stories movement.
Paragraphs
0 No paragraph should be longer that four or five short,
uncomplicated sentences.

0 Mini-slug lines can be used to refocus the readers


attention on what each character is doing within a
given scene.

0 Place in caps the characters name followed by a dash


and then the narrative
Paragraphs
0 A DARK FIGURE - - Ski mask, surgical gloves, holding a
Louisville slugger

0 SMASH - - The baseball bat shatters the window. A surgical


glove reaches in and unlocks the door

0 THE DARK FIGURE - - bat raised, enters and glides towards


Mike. The broken glasses twinkle on his ski mask.

0 MIKE - - backs away in terror, closes his eyes and with a


flinch squeezes the trigger. CLICK.
0 Sentences
0 Describe action and imagery with economy
0 Simple sentences (subject, verb, object) should
dominate the text.

0 Tense
0 Write in present tense
0 Avoid mixing tenses
0 Active voice
0 Easier to understand and more immediate than
passive voice. (Present Progressive tense)

0 Energizes the narrative by focusing on verbs that


emphasize the performer of the action

0 More direct and dramatic and importantly uses fewer


words
0 The car is slammed into reverse by Sam
0 Sam reverses the car

0 The gun is aimed by John


0 John takes aim

0 Mother is kissed by Sandra


0 Sandra kisses her mother
Show, Don’t tell
0 Write only what can be seen or heard

0 Class exercise
0 The stone faced members of the parole board huddle behind
the huge oak table. Nearby, Nick waits for the verdict. He
misses his wife and child. He wants to forget all this and relieve
happier times. He loved his wife and son so much. They were
the light of his existence. Now they seem a world away.

0 The stone faced members of the parole board huddle behind


the huge oak table. Nick’s haunted eyes drift down to his
manacled hands; he clutches the tattered photo of himself with
KEVIN (3) and SALLY (29) in happier times
Show, Don’t tell
0 If the visual is strong, it might not be necessary to hint
at what Nick is thinking.
0 Scenes preceding and following may provide
necessary information
0 Describing characters
0 When introducing a new character, you’re allowed a
few words of description in the narrative.

0 Just give reader first impression any further character


information can come from dialogue and action.

0 CAPTAIN BARTS one and a half metres, 150 kgs, dark


hair, blue eyes, short stubby features …

0 CAPTAIN BARTS too fat to be a cop


0 THE MAN (38) tall and powerfully built, moving with
graceful precision. His facial features reiterate the
power of his body and are dominated by the eyes,
which are intense and depthless. This man is the
TERMINATOR
Describing location
0 Avoid emphasizing details of the environment at the
expense of location.

0 Also don’t ignore the environment all together if it’s


necessary in understanding narrative.

0 Avoid non-specific, clichéd descriptions. Story


appears generic and reader can’t visualize the image.

0 If it does not apply to the character or the story then it


must be left out
0 Use picture making words

0 INT LIVING ROOM – DAY


0 The room is old. An eccentric lives here. There is a
door to the kitchen and windows to the front porch.
It’s a scary place.

0 INT VICTORIAN LIVING ROOM – DAY


0 A faded shell of it’s former glory. Thin sunset light
leeches through the crud on the cracked windows. In
the shadow sits SPIKE, the family dog, fangs bared.
But he’s dead and dusty. Stuffed like the furniture
Similes and metaphors
0 Evoke visual images and emotions in the reader.

0 Must be original, clichés do not evoke emotion – he’s


as strong as an ox.

0 Must be simple and concise


Similes and metaphors

0 INT. JOHN’S ROOM – DAY


0 John enters. His room is a mess. Paper, garbage,
clothing are spread about. The bed is not made,
cookie crumbs are everywhere, and the lamps are
broken, the window shades bent.

0 INT. JOHN’S ROOM – DAY


0 John enters the wrecked garbage truck of his room
Trim Adverbs

0 Words or group of words that modify a verb, adjective


or another verb. They answer the questions how/
when/ how many. Usually end in “ly” and can be
moved to different places in the sentence without
changing the meaning.

0 Could slow and weaken narrative.

0 Are often redundant eg The old man inches slowly


towards the electric chair.
Trim Adverbs
0 Mary looks at John closely
Mary inspects John

The police quickly stop the riot


The police crush the riot
Trim Adjectives
0 Modify nouns. They answer the question which one,
how many or what kind.

0 As with adverbs, too many will weaken the narrative.

0 Find stronger descriptive nouns to replace the


adjectives
0 Jerry enters his cool, masculine, sexy apartment
0 Jerry saunters into his bachelor pad.

0 May, an old, ugly and witchlike woman, looks angrily


at the abusive young gang members who are yelling
obscene insults at her.
0 May, a crone, scowls at the gang who sling curses at
her.
Commonly made mistakes

0 1. Repeating verbs: run, jump or look – use a thesaurus to get


appropriate synonyms.

0 2. Improper spelling, punctuation and grammar: These will


sink a script.

0 3. Incorrect formatting: lack of professionalism and creates


impression of incompetence.

0 4. Too many words: Be brief. Only details that provide unique


and necessary imagery and that advance the story of the
characters should be included.
Commonly made mistakes
0 5. Too few words (vague/ non specificity): Result of
insufficient research.

0 6. Camera angles: Avoid camera angles.

0 7. Too much description in the 1st few pages: Don’t


start screenplay with long narrative/ VO/OS unless there
is a long and involving action sequence that will keep the
reader engaged.

0 8. Long chain of dialogue exchange without action:


Always have some action after a few dialogues exchanges.
Remember we watch movies we don’t listen to them.
0 Booker, Christopher. The seven basic plots: why we tell stories.

0 Campbell, Joseph. The hero with a thousand faces.

0 Dancyger, Ken & Rush, Jeff. 2007. Alternative Scriptwriting: Successfully


Breaking the Rules (Fourth Edition). Oxford: Focal Press.

0 Field, Syd. Screenplay: the foundations of screenwriting.

0 McKee, Robert. Story: substance, structure, style, and the principles of


screenwriting.

0 Vogler, Christopher. The writer’s journey.

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