How to Ruin a Good Screenplay

As filmmakers, we're always getting great advice about how to do things right. Having recently encountered some great new talent stalled by amateur mistakes, I thought I'd talk a little bit about how we do things wrong in the film world. Earlier, I shared some of the worst abused film conventions that need to go away. Now, let's look at things we can do to ensure we never sell our screenplays to a major studio. Here ya go!

• Non-standard formatting. Just because you buy Final Draft or some other over-priced software (Word and a decent template will do), doesn't mean your screenplay follows industry standards. Invest $25 in a decent, recent book like "The Complete Screenwriter's Manual." Glue it to the back of your PC if needed, but keep it nearby when you're writing. Always. Check it often if you haven't been writing, and selling, screenplays for decades.
• Use the phrase "is ----ing" throughout your scene descriptions. Do it regularly. Okay, really you should use it seldom if at all. Screenplays are written in PRESENT TENSE. They should instruct your actors just like you might a group of kids in a classroom. "John walks to the blackboard," is always preferable to "John is walking to the blackboard," which indicates this action was already happening when the scene started.
• Throw timelines into a blender. Directors are always eager to guess at what you meant by starting a scene in one time frame then suddenly switching it to another. Here's a great example:

INT. JOHN'S CAR - DAY

John is texting and driving. 

EXT. STREET - NIGHT

John's car crashes into the back of another vehicle in front of him.

A simple "CONTINOUS" would rescue this series of scenes from certain disaster. 

• Include tons of secondary characters and extras but never capitalize them upon introduction. Or just don't introduce them at all and give them a line or two. ANY new character, even extras, should be included in their first scene description and capitalized. For example:

EXT. SKATE PARK - DAY

JOHN, a lanky teen in slacker clothing, and a group of SKATEBOARDERS gather around the half pipe and watch as LOIS, much younger than the others, prepares to make her first run.

Notice how key characters get descriptions and extras are introduced as a non-descript group. Even though the skateboarders in the crowd are extras, they need to be called out so the director can plan for them in the shot and the CD can cast them. They're also going to possibly need costumes and would affect how the shot is staged. 

• Go nuts with the slug lines. Personally, I think if you're using more than two or three within a master scene, it's time to "INTERCUT AS NEEDED". It's way too easy to lose track of where your characters are or what the camera is focused on when you over-complicate a scene with intricate slug lines. I was recently polishing a festival-winning screenplay that couldn't be sold and noticed that frequently the writer gave dialogue to characters he'd forgotten were off-screen based on his last slug line. No bueno! 
• Abuse the Caps-Lock key. Only new characters and important sound effects should be in ALL CAPS. (This does not include incidental sounds like footsteps created by characters walking on screen.) Just remember, the point of ALL CAPS is to get the attention of your casting director or sound editor. (Okay, you can use it for special effects, too.)
• Give lots and lots of shooting directions. Most amateurs precede each scene with "CUT TO," "FADE IN" or "DISSOLVE TO". If you're planning on selling your script, don't do this. FADE IN at the very beginning then let the DP plan his or her shots based on the awesome scenes you describe. All that fluff will also cost you an extra 5-10 pages, too.
• And, by all means, write in real-time. Here's a great example of marketability-destroying writing:

INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM - EARLY MORNING

John is asleep in bed when the alarm clock suddenly BUZZES. He sits up and rubs his eyes, then reaches over and hits the top of the clock, silencing it. He scratches his head, yawns, pulls the covers back and slides his legs over the side of the bed. He stands up, almost trips, then slips his feet into his slippers that are by the bed. He looks at the clock, reacts with panic, then runs to the bathroom, opens the door and goes inside... 

That scene description could be a lot simpler and more interesting:

John is in bed, sleeping peacefully. His ALARM goes off, sending him flying out of the bed. He nearly trips over his slippers, then stops to slide them on. He runs into the bathroom and slams the door.

• Use dialogue to explain everything that happens in your film. Be sure and have your characters talk about things that happened in earlier scenes to remind us what happened, just in case we've forgotten ten pages later. Also, tell us how your characters feel about everything through dialogue. In fact, have the characters explain their feelings to each other constantly. (You get where I'm headed here, right?)
• Over describe your characters with exact heights, weights, skin, hair and eye color. That will make a casting director ecstatic! (Just remember, character descriptions are to help the casting director find the best actor to play the part and the actor to understand who they're portraying. If the character's height isn't central to their behavior or motivation and has nothing to do with the story, leave it out. Same goes for all those other physical traits. And remember, not every character in your film needs to be attractive. That doesn't happen in the real world and shouldn't happen in your screenplay, unless you're writing "Zoolander 3.")
• Finally, make sure you completely ignore the three act standard when planning your film. Add lots of scenes that have nothing to do with the over-arching story simply because you want to use a specific prop, location or character. If you write an inciting incident, don't worry about the 10-page rule: just plug it in somewhere. It's all good. Yes, I'm being facetious. Your story should have an inciting incident - something that gets the ball rolling. It should have a discernible beginning, middle and end. Every scene should move the main plot or a key subplot forward. (Subplots should at some point have an impact on the main plot, too.)

Okay, that's quite a bit to digest in one sitting, so I'll shut up now. If you're a screenplay reader, polisher or writer and have a favorite rookie mistake or pet peeve to share, be sure and leave a comment. If you're new to writing or honing your craft, let me know what you think. Overall, remember that writing screenplays is more than the art of simply telling a story. Screenwriting is a professional skill that requires education and tons of practice to perfect.

 

Why Cutaways Matter

I recently spent a couple of hours filming a quick little silent cutaway for an acquaintance who was adding the finishing touches to his latest short film. (Laughably, he had asked this 40-something single mom to play a trophy wife. I should get an Oscar for that one, hee hee!) It took me longer to wriggle into the sparkly little black dress than it did to film my bit, but it got me thinking: cutaways are critical, but you don't hear much about them.
     If you're new to the industry, this might be a new term for you, so here's the short definition: a cutaway is a short deviation from or interruption to the main scene used to convey information not visually present in the main scene. Cutaways seldom have dialogue, though there are no hard and fast rules preventing it. They are seldom more than a few seconds long, maybe 15 seconds max, and should be carefully placed to avoid disrupting the point of the main scene. (Again, no hard and fast rules.) In general, a cutaway is used to provide insight into a character's thoughts, a break in a long sequence of action, to simplify special effects or just to make a scene more interesting.
     In the example of the bit I filmed last month, the two main characters are talking about the trophy wife and the cutaway is used to briefly visualize the topic of their conversation. Most of the short film takes place in the same location, so my friend used a few strategically-placed inserts and cutaways to add color to the film and break up the monotony of the confined location.
     Cutaways can be the difference in a boring film and a work of art. Take "American Beauty," for example. The cutaway to Lester's dream about Angela in a bath of rose petals became the iconic image of the movie.
     Since cutaways aren't really scenes themselves, they are generally represented by slug lines in your screenplay. Again, using my little bit as an example, it might have looked like this in the screenplay:

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CUTAWAY - JENNY PRIMPING IN MIRROR

She fixes her makeup and quickly adjusts her cleavage.

RETURN TO SCENE

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     A cutaway is continuous to the action of the main scene and brief enough to avoid busting the pace of the action. It should always supplement the action of the main scene and differs from an insert in that it shows something that is occurring outside the scope of the main scene. It can be the ticking clock of a bomb your main character is racing to locate, an eavesdropper on the other side of a door, enemies gathering outside the heroes' sanctuary, and so on.
     What's most important is that your cutaway is the same quality and feel as the rest of your film. Yes, there are times where the cutaway may be old stock footage or intentionally different, but such disruptions to the main scene should not jar your audience out of the world you have created.
     Your cutaway needs to make sense within the scene. If you're tracking the countdown on a bomb's timer, make sure the elapsed time makes sense with the pace of your scene, especially if you return to it. For example, if my character is running down the street and I cutaway to my bomb, cut back to see him cross the street, then cut back to the bomb and it's counted down 5 minutes, my audience is going to call foul. I remember watching a film about a year ago that blew it big time with the cutaways. The filmmaker showed his main character in his car heading to the site of an accident. In his cutaway from the car interior to the accident site, it was raining. When the character arrived at the site moments later, the car was dry and there was no sign it had ever rained. That little inconsistency was so disconcerting I lost the importance of the location. He would've been better off skipping the cutaway altogether since the weather hadn't cooperated between shooting times.
     Don't use bad actors in your cutaways, either. It may seem like a great time to give Cousin Bob a little moment in your film, but if Bob sucks, it can ruin the whole scene. The most common sin you see here are actors over-doing it in an effort to steal the scene or make the most of their little moment. As a filmmaker, your biggest challenge is to get them to act natural for 10-15 seconds. (Unless it's slapstick, then all bets are off.) Help your actors understand that their moment will have more weight if it's believable, not over-baked. Don't be afraid to spend time getting the shot just right and never make the mistake of assuming your actor won't need direction.
     With the exception of "American Beauty" your cutaway should never over-shadow the main scene. Think of it as an illustration in a chapter book. It supplements the action, provides insight that can't be conveyed in the context of the main scene, helps time elapse, even lets the watcher in on a secret. Take this scene as an example:

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INT. GARAGE - DAY TIME

A MYSTERIOUS MAN sits at a worktable built into an alcove in the over-sized garage, a myriad of bomb materials scattered around a shoe with a thick bottom, a small, almost flat completed device amongst the mess. He peels back the sole of the shoe and begins scraping out the inside of it.

CUTAWAY - CIRCUS SECURITY GATE

Security officers are inspecting bags on a table and using metal detection wands as families enter the grounds of the circus.

RETURN TO SCENE

The Mysterious Man inserts the small device into the hollow now in his shoe and carefully seals up the sole, leaving just a bit of fuse sticking out. He puts on the shoe, grabs a small camera bag and climbs into the car.

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     In this scene, the cutaway builds tension by revealing to us that the mysterious man is placing the bomb in his shoe with the intent of attacking a stadium full of children. Without the cutaway, the audience can only guess at where and how he intends to use the bomb and will likely assume it's an airport. As a screenwriter, I can choose to leave my audience guessing and surprise them with the target later, or I can warn them of the impending attack and up the importance of my hero finding the villain before he can carry out his evil plot.
     In short, don't forget to plan your cutaways when you start developing your screenplay. If you're working with a screenplay that has none or seems a bit dry, take advantage of this technique to spice it up.

    For a great list of cutaway scenarios, check out this 2008 article by Eric Ossohou: The Art of the Cutaway.

Deadlines Matter, Even for Indies

For me, one of the toughest things about independent film is the complete lack of studio-imposed deadlines. I know, you're thinking I'm completely nuts and you're just about to click that little "x" to close the window. Before you do, consider this:

1. Projects that take years to complete suffer issues of relevancy once they finally wrap. I had a friend who started a wonderful story about the Cold War in the 1980's. I heard from her recently: it was finally finished, could I read it? Sure! The writing was brilliant, for 1985. It now needs a complete rewrite because younger audiences won't connect and it's no longer relevant to those who lived through that era. While it could have a cool retro feel as a film today, the story has to include more exposition than it did when the writer started it because of the loss of relevancy.
2. Casting can become a major issue. A filmmaker friend obtained the film rights to a book and went to work writing his screenplay. He was able to find the perfect lead, a local unknown, to star in his project, and shot a few scenes to garner interest in funding the project. However, he kept putting the finished screenplay on the backburner as he worked on other projects. By the time he was ready to start filming, that perfect actor had been cast in a TV series and was no longer available. He's now having to start over with casting and still, more than a year later, doesn't have a completed screenplay ready to shoot.
3. Actors' appearances change over time. The headlining film at our local festival a couple of years ago took several years to complete. This might have been okay except that two of the main characters were young girls when the project started, teens when it finished. The story itself covered less than a year of elapsed time, so the change in the younger actors' appearances was jarring and left audiences confused.

     These are just a few real-world examples where the lack of a hard deadline undermined what might have been successful projects otherwise.
     As an independent filmmaker or screenwriter, it's important to set deadlines for yourself to ensure your project remains relevant, you keep funding you've secured and you don't lose resources attached to the project. Make sure the deadlines you set are reasonable - you don't want to rush the project and produce something crappy, but you also don't want to take so long to get it done that six other people beat you to the punch.
     If you're not sure what makes a reasonable deadline, I recommend choosing a film festival or contest to which you'd like to submit your work. (Don't pick one that closes entries next month.) Alternatively, figure out the pace at which you best work and approximately how long it would take to finish your project at that pace. (Tip: it shouldn't be more than a year out.) For example: if you're a writer, setting a goal of 10 to 20 pages per day would set the goal of first draft for you in approximately 1.5 to 2 weeks out. Factor in time for your detailed proof-read and three or four review passes, and 2 months may be a reasonable deadline for you to have a copy ready to pass around to others to read before your final copy is complete.
     All in all, a deadline should give you a reasonable goal to work toward and put just enough pressure on you to get the work done before completing the project becomes impossible or pointless. It will also show others you want to bring into the project that you are serious about getting it done and that you are a true professional, improving the odds that they will commit the time and effort you need from them to produce quality work.
     So, get to it! Whip out that smartphone and add an appointment, as well as a few reminders, to get that project done. As we all know, once it's in the smartphone calendar, it's real.

"Home" = The Perfect Screenplay

While many screenwriting gurus vary greatly in the advice they give, there is one thing they agree on consistently for a feature-length screenplay: plot structure. If you're a budding writer, hopefully you've seen this basic rule:

It's simple, tried and true...and often ignored by screenwriters and filmmakers, especially in the independent side of the industry. (Hey, sometimes this works, sometimes it leaves audiences scratching their heads.)

For a new screenwriter, sometimes it's difficult to see this structure in modern films. (Try watching action films - they usually throw it in your face.) Since I'm a mom, though, I was compelled to see "Home" with my daughter, who absolutely LOVED that movie. I will be the first to admit, I did, too. So we watched it again and to my everlasting surprise, I realized why: that writer was a genius when it came to adherence to classic plot structure. Okay, and the film was a lot of fun to watch in general.

Not only was the overall story an excellent blend of fun, silliness and heart-string tugging, but the plot was easy for both me and the 10-year-old I brought with me to follow. Our well-trained movie-loving brains subconsciously responded positively to the near perfect adherence to classic plot structure without the slightest thought the story might be formulaic in design.

Whether you're a new screenwriter or an experienced pro, try drawing up your chart (based on the above), pop "Home" into your DVD, and see if you can attach the scenes in this perfectly-designed kids' movie onto the right points in the chart. How does the timing align? (Tip #1: times in the chart are approximate but should divide your movie into thirds at each of the turning points.) Does the setup establish the rules of the world it creates? Does the story stay within those rules (to maintain believability)? Does the action build from each point to the next? Where does the action peak? (Tip #2: It happens twice, as formula demands.) Does the resolution actually resolve every open thread? Evaluate other screenwriting elements "Home" executes well: Does each character have a unique voice? Do we care about what happens to the primary characters? Can you identify the primary antagonist(s)? Does each primary character have a friend/advisor? If you don't find the answer to each question, I have a now 11-year-old who will be happy to help you. :)

If you're not a screenwriter but a burgeoning filmmaker, I encourage you to view this as a guide to identifying excellent screenplays. In the end, they should follow the formula without appearing formulaic. That, my friend, (along with a killer cast and toe-tapping soundtrack), is how you pull in a $54 million weekend box office with a kid-friendly film that doesn't feature a princess or well-known toy anywhere in the story.