Monday, February 8, 2010
Post 4: The Snags of Writing a Screenplay
No matter how well the image is branded into your mind, writing the script will always be difficult. The real challenge behind writing a screenplay is how to make your characters seem human, rather than written. Of course, a lot of this is on the actor to portray the character in a human way, but if it is not written in a way that seems natural, the actor can only do so much. And that is not much. So where I'm running into problems is I need to make a natural feel to my dialogue while also going moving the plot along. If something neither entertains you, nor progresses the plot, it's just filler. I want to avoid filler, but that is much, much harder than it seems. And this rule applies to more than just dialogue. I need to find a way to show the growing friendship of the boys before I introduce Izzy. Then I have to show THAT friendship growing, and then I need the conflict of Evan's problems, and then I need to have a reconciliation. Then Evan can die, and the rest can learn something, and the movie can end. This is a bit overwhelming. All right. I just need to keep the main points in mind. Fingers crossed.
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Who is going to be in the movie? Perhaps the relationships you already have with the actors will help make it seem more authentic. Maybe have an outline of a script with some general lines that your characters can memorize and work with, using some improv to give it a realistic feel. I think they do this on Curb Your Enthusiasm, so the actors have real reactions to their counterparts.
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