Are you sure you want to write for movies? It sure isn't the easiest industry to break into. You better have very tough skin, and handle rejection well.
In the previous article we discussed "The Initial Idea" but are you sure it's a movie idea. Is it suited to cinema or bookstore? Maybe it's a poem or a TV drama. The lines between these mediums blur more often than not, and they require different writing techniques.
A script writer must look at the world with different eyes to that of a novelist or a poet. A script writer must see everything in visual motion. All action and details must be moving images in your head. Novelists often see the scene in their mind's eye and they write what they see, feel, think. A script writer must show this in pictures. Images the audience can identify with.
Roughly 80% of reading is books, stories, news, etc. Reading for pleasure is usually done with a book in hand, not a movie script. We are accustomed to fiction novels for that is what we know. Very few people pick up a movie script to relax at night. This is a habit I've just started. There are online places where you can download and print out a script (to save trees, please consider getting a PDA or ebook reader of some kind for these scripts, they are lighter and you can carry an entire library in your pocket) to read at your leisure.
Take your initial image and picture it in your mind. For example: An early twenties lady rushing along the street, barely misses being hit by a couple of cars rushing across the street. Her coat is flapping out behind her, the sky is overcast, a light drizzle falls. She rounds a corner and there is a flight of stairs to the Subway.
Cut to train doors closing, she jumps in as the doors slide shut. All seats are taken. She leans against the opposite door and holds onto the hand rail. In the reflection from the door she notices a man staring at her. He is scruffy and unshaven. She gulps and looks away. But she is visually concerned and her eyes keep flicking to the side in a downward motion to the floor. Obviously checking to see if he has moved.
Take the above and keep going until we reach the final image -- the initial idea.
We know a lot of these scenes won't make it in the final edit unless we change the man on the Subway into more than a nervous suggestion, which creates endless ideas for a script writer.
The example I gave you is the opening to a movie (I like it, feel free to pinch it). Ideas are the property of no one, but the way that idea is used that cannot be "borrowed". It's a thing called style and you will find your own. Once you start writing you will probably be (unknowingly) copying a series of scripts you've read (you are reading scripts for fun, aren't you?) and the style and the way they flow, but you'll soon find your own way as the images move, shift and mould into fresh and interesting directions.
Take the above example and play with it. What direction are you taking it in? Where is she going? The script writer would know all this already, because you would have written a Synopsis. All writers hate writing a synopsis (there have been times when I have not submitted to publishers because they want a chapter by chapter synopsis) but it must be done.
A synopsis must be tight and concise and can be difficult to master. You must define your movie on one page. It is best to have this idea down on the page in this way as a guide to follow so you won't go off track. This is an easy thing to do as fresh ideas pop into your head.
My way of doing this is a long and hard way but for me it works -- it might not for you. In fact I suggest you don't copy my way of doing things, it might disillusion you as the fantasy of being a writer breaks down and the realities come into focus.
I use a notebook and write down ideas and characters as I work my way through the first draft. I then use the first draft as a road map and the notes I've taken are typed into Freemind and the result is printed out (sorry trees, can't be helped) and positioned next to the laptop on one side and the notebook is one the other side. The roadmap? That's been transferred to the pda and rests on top of the note book.
What's your style?
How will you do it?
