Could It Be a Movie

by Christina Hamlett

  EXT. THE SCOTTISH COUNTRYSIDE—DAY.

  Epic beauty. Cobalt mountains beneath a glowering purple sky fringed with pink, as if the clouds were a lid too small for the earth; a cascading landscape of boulders shrouded in deep green grass; and the blue lochs, reflecting the sky.

  “If Mel Gibson didn’t have a problem with the way it was written,” my student protested, “ why can’t I get away with the same thing?”

  The short answer is that, well, Life isn’t fair. The longer answer is that, well, I don’t think Mel knows who you are (yet).

  Herein lies an important distinction for new writers who use downloaded scripts as a guide for writing their own. For screenwriters who have already established themselves in the industry and/or a financial commitment or talent attachment has already been made for this particular script, liberties can be taken in the writing that newcomers just can’t get away with. (Movies produced by James Cameron are another good example of this.)

  To break into the system and eventually become one of those people who can do whatever they want requires that you adhere to the rules at the outset, the primary rule being, “Don’t direct on paper.” Your job as the writer is simply to tell the story, people it with unforgettable characters, and leave the swirls of insect cyclones and azure skies to the vision and discretion of the experts.

  AND THEN WE’LL MOVE THE CAMERA OVER HERE….

  In earlier books on the craft of screenwriting, it was a popular practice to encourage the use of camera shots and angles throughout the script. Not only did this use up a lot of space but made scripts cumbersome to read.

  For instance:

  WIDE ANGLE on ESTHER and MELVIN.

  CU of Melvin, waving.

  MELVIN

  Hey, Esther!

  CUT TO:

  MEDIUM SHOT of Esther, looking around

  CUT TO:

  Melvin POV.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  LONG SHOT of Esther as a child.

  TRAVELING SHOT as Melvin moves toward her.

  ESTHER

  Oh my God!

  CUT TO:

  MEDIUM SHOT of Esther turning to run away from Melvin.

  CUT TO:

  Esther POV crashing through the woods.

  CU of Melvin, out of breath.

  CUT TO:

  AERIAL SHOT of the chase.

  Screenwriting texts today have taken the opposite approach, recommending that camera directions be used sparingly. That includes the often liberal use of the phrase “cut to” when used to switch to a different scene. Nor should you number your master scenes, as these numbers will have no relevance when the whole thing is turned into a shooting script.

  WE’RE WALKING, WE’RE TALKING, WE’RE MAKING A SEGUE

  Moving film characters from one venue to another is something that seems to stymie new writers. As a result, they err on the side of playing out transitions in real time rather than simply cutting to the next point of action.

  For instance, let’s say that co-workers Cindy and Allison have decided to go to lunch. The novice screenwriter would show them:

  Going to their respective cubicles to get their purses

  Putting on their coats

  Going into the hallway

  Pressing the elevator call button

  Riding in the elevator

  Getting out on the first floor

  Exiting the building

  Walking to the corner

  Waiting for the traffic signal to change to “Walk”

  Crossing the street

  Walking seven blocks….

  We can only hope these two have a really long lunch hour for as much time as it’s going to take them to reach the restaurant. It would be one thing, of course, if their noon-time journey were fraught with peril in the form of Ninjas, high-speed chases, a typhoon, and a runaway trolley. Even if the walk itself were a device to reveal character quirks (i.e., Allison never steps on cracks) or peel off another layer of the plot (i.e., Cindy divulges that she is sleeping with the CEO), its circuitous nature as currently written would take up more pages than a two-hour movie can afford to spend.

  A better approach, which cuts to the chase, would be:

  INT. CINDY’S OFFICE – LUNCHTIME

  Allison pops her head in, sees Cindy engrossed in work. She knocks on the door. Cindy looks up, startled to see her.

  CINDY

  Oh shit! Were we—

  ALLISON

  Uh-huh.

  Cindy scrambles to get her purse.

  CINDY

  I swear to God, it totally slipped my mind.

  ALLISON

  You want to know what I think?

  INT. – RESTAURANT – LATER

  The two friends are halfway through their Cobb salads.

  CINDY

  Seriously?

  ALLISON

  Is this the face of a woman who lies?

  CINDY

  It’s the face of a woman who can’t step on cracks. Jeez-Louise, you’re blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Rick and I are just friends.

  ALLISON

  Just friends, huh?

  Without having to spend a lot of time in transition, this example gets to the gist of the Allison/Cindy dialogue and keeps the plot moving forward.

  This same sense of scripting brevity should be applied to scenes in which the actors are required to engage in fight sequences… or in eating. Oddly enough, these are the two occasions when newbies feel compelled to spell out every single movement. In a bar-room brawl, for example, they go to great lengths describing whether the punch is done with the left or right fist, how many bobs and weaves are done by either side, and which foot the opponent steps back on before he crashes, bloody and battered, to the tavern floor. Because these scenes will be carefully choreographed by experts in order to avoid injuries, it isn’t necessary for the screenwriter to account in print for each blow. Simply say, “they fight” and leave the specifics to the pros.

  In restaurant scenes, the one page equals one minute rule is put to two extreme tests. In the first, the diners are shown to their table, given menus, place their orders, have those orders delivered, and then announce, “We should be getting back” — all in the space of about 45 seconds! In the second instance, I have a number of clients who go so far as to write in directions such as: Picks up fork, takes a bite of potatoes, switches fork to left hand and picks up knife with right, slices a piece of steak, chews thoughtfully, etc. etc., etc. Simply say, “they eat” and leave the specifics to the performers. Trust me. I have yet to meet a starving actor who didn’t know what to do with a plate of food in front of him.

  CHAPTER 15: FOREIGN EXCHANGE

  Or

  WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THEY’RE GOING TO LIKE THIS

  ANY BETTER IN CANADA?

  “My plot is dark and sort of creepy,” the writer explained. “It probably won’t appeal to American audiences so maybe you can use your contacts in the United Kingdom and try to sell it for me over there.”

  Suffice it to say, I knew before I even read page 1 that I was dealing with a loser.

  The assumption that a project which hasn’t yet ignited within U.S. borders will suddenly become a house afire overseas is one that, unfortunately, a lot of new writers seem to embrace. Certainly the encouragement of seeing fledgling rock groups from Bakersfield take Tokyo by storm or soap star extras stealing the limelight in Eastern European indies has fueled the conclusion that foreigners will buy virtually anything with an Uncle Sam label.

  Wrong.

  No matter the product, it still has to be good to begin with.

  The aforementioned story—a poorly stitched consolidation of themes liberally borrowed from Les Miserables, Paper Moon, David Copperfield, and Annie—was intended to expose a secret that most of us were probably already aware of: 1840’s London wasn’t a very pleasant place to be if you were an orphan in a workhouse run by cruel overseers.

  “British audiences will like it,” the author insi
sted, “because I’ve really captured the way things were.” The phonetic dialects, she further explained, were the product of years of renting English videos and copying down all of the nuances.

  I felt compelled to point out another fallacy in the strategy of mimicking accents in order to impress readers who were born with real ones. Just as the French can easily differentiate their own native speakers from even the most fluent graduates of Berlitz, so, too, can the nationals of other countries recognize when someone is appropriating their culture, history and speech patterns in order to pen a trendy script.

  I had encountered a similar situation myself in doing the initial research for a musical on Princess Kaiulani. “Haoles (non-Hawaiians),” I was informed, “have no understanding of what it is to accurately capture the essence of Hawaii.” Impassioned as a writer can be about a particular topic, it takes more than surface imitation to give a story credible depth.

  My client continued to assert that her work would be lauded as illustrating just how horrible, filthy, unscrupulous and debauched the Englishmen (and women) of the time could be when it came to the treatment of defenseless children.

  “And these,” I queried, “are the same people you want to sell to?”

  While this should not, of course, limit an author to just writing about his or her backyard, it does call to the fore the need for diplomacy when condemning the denizens of the very market you’d like to break into. It’s one thing, as they say, for relatives to trash their own but woe to the outsider who steps in and attempts to do the same.

  In keeping with the theme of courting foreign publishers, film producers, and theater companies, the following guidelines can make all the difference between making a sale and making an enemy.

  UNDERSTAND THE COMPETITION

  Just because your plot has been rejected by everyone you’ve sent it to in the U.S. doesn’t mean it will be gobbled up by a “lesser” entity abroad. The argument that foreign buyers ascribe to lower standards in evaluating creative material is completely unfounded. If anything, the rules are even more strict, given the fact that publishing and performance preference will be given to the writers who hail from their own country first. As an outsider, your work not only needs to be bulletproof in terms of quality and professionalism but make enough of an impression to rise above the talents of the existing local competition.

  Nor should you assume that because a particular genre is so saturated and overdone in the American market that you can go hawk it to foreigners who don’t know any better. One needs only to look at distribution sales in paperbacks, videos and Internet merchandising to realize that our global neighbors are just as abreast of entertainment trends as we are and—like everyone else—are looking for The Next New Thing.

  THE COLOUR/COLOR OF MONEY

  Whether your objective is to sell a magazine filler or a feature-length film, it pays to study the spelling, colloquialisms, and metric conversions of your targeted market before you submit your material. This accomplishes two things, both of which will endear you to a buyer. The first is a demonstration of having done your homework and learned what your virtual host considers to be “correct” usage. Too often, the arrogance with which a writer insists that everyone else is “spelling it wrong” results in a failed opportunity to make a sale.

  Likewise, the liberal use of American slang either poses a barrier to user-friendly understanding or suggests a meaning that wasn’t intended. (i.e., “We didn’t have dessert because we were stuffed.”) The second perk to abiding by foreign rules of usage is the amount of time an editor perceives he or she will ultimately save in having to edit the finished product. It’s easier to say yes to a work that requires little revision than one that assumes knowledge on the part of the reader or projects an ethnocentric superiority.

  ENLISTING FOREIGN AID

  When I began penning The Missionary Position, a stage comedy set in Australia, I thought the dialogue would be fairly easy. As a fan of Paul Hogan movies and a devotee of the late croc hunter, Steve Irwin, the liberal inclusion of “Crikeys,” “Mates,” and “Sheilas” seemed enough to capture the indomitable and fun-loving spirit and candor of the Aussies.

  Fortunately, I had the wits to share the script-in-progress with one of my associates in Adelaide before I submitted it into competition. “None of the rest of us talk like that,” she informed me, generously offering to go through the lines and “Aussie-ize” them for me. The play went on to win an award, something that would not have happened without the two cents of a native-born expert.

  This fact continues to be brought home as my list of foreign clientele steadily grows, the single biggest request for assistance being in the area of “Americanizing” the conversations. The best advice I give in that regard is something that I happily credit to the Vietnamese manicurists in the salon where I get my nails done: watch soap operas. The longevity of this genre—whether it’s in the U.S. or overseas—provides a training in dialogue that you simply can’t get from a class. Not only are the topics universal in nature but are delivered in a slow, articulate manner that enables those who are trying to mimic dialect, cadence, or “status” nuances to follow along.

  STAMP OUT LAZINESS

  While the Internet has been a huge bonus to those of us who grew up having to affix envelopes with sufficient return postage for our submissions, there are still markets in the world that do business by Snail Mail. There are also authors who assume that any country (1) sharing a border with the U.S. (Canada, for instance) or (2) sharing the same language (England, for example) uses U.S. stamps. Wrong. If you’re mailing a script overseas and would like a reply, you have the following options: (1) International Reply Coupons, which are subsequently traded at the recipient’s post office for the requisite amount of first class stamps, (2) Internet purchases of foreign postage, or (3) befriending a fellow foreign writer who is just as zealous about getting American stamps and setting up your own “swap meet.”

  Finally, there is the popular alternative of simply requesting that any communications regarding the project be sent to you via e-mail. You won’t get your submission returned, of course, but considering the length and path of the journey it would have to take anyway to wing its way home, you might just be better off saving that return postage and printing out a fresh copy for the next pair of eyes that will see it.

  CUSTOMARY HOMEWORK

  Last but not least, make sure that you’re targeting the right market for your work in terms of timeliness, social relevance, and universal truths. You wouldn’t, for instance, zero in on India as a top buyer for your documentary on “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner.” Nor would you send your R-rated screenplay to an independent production company in Germany whose past credits have all been after-school specials on famous composers. Not only are such scatter-gun tactics a waste of money but a demonstration that you haven’t bothered to research the buyer’s needs, interests, or current trends.

  To use a romance analogy, would you rather receive a Valentine that spoke specifically to you and, accordingly, made you feel as if you were singled out for special attention or one which was xeroxed and had all the prior recipients’ names scratched off? When you’re courting a prospective match for your submission either at home or abroad, nothing less will do than identifying all the things you have in common, playing to your strengths, and—oh yes—speaking their language, metaphorically and otherwise.

  SCOPING OUT FOREIGN MARKETS