Adding Scenes To Beef Up A Script?

M

Michael Bay

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Hi, I'm Michael Bay and I demand things to be awesome. My action script named "Krauss" is coming along fine but it's maxing out at around 75 pages. This is way to short for me so I went back and noticed that there were very few scenes that weren't just rapid fire plot moving or action. How can I add character development scenes here and there to help beef the script up? This is so hard for this film because it's gonna be an over-the-top, cartoony film like The Spirit or Sin City.
 
Don't add character development, no one really notices that anyway. How long are your action scenes? I'm willing to bet the answer right now is 'not long enough'. Blow up some more stuff. It doesn't matter if the things blowing up are targeted by anything or even combustible. Do you have another script that has any vague similarities? If so, just mash together a couple of stories. If the two stories you start with are pretty good, obviously putting more stories and things in one movie will make it twice as good.
 
Have you integrated a 'B' story, inner motivation for your hero, in addition to the main outer motivation ('A' story)? Do you have a romantic subplot 'C' story? Even violent action stories need pacing imho, B and C subplots. Just watched 'Get Carter' last night, touch action Sylvestor Stallone flick-- but even that film has slower, tender moments between Stallone and his niece, and a small romantic subplot between his character and a gf back in Vegas, albeit all over the phone.
 
Hmm

Hmm

I think the main issue here is probably you are not describing the action scenes for as long as they will take place on screen. If you just write, "Amazing explosions as everything on the screen blows up in a series of spectacular shots," that's just a tiny one line action that could actually last a minute when you make the film. So that 75 pages could easily be two hours, considering how little plot development there probably is in your script, just judging by your past masterpieces.

LOL, no in all seriousness though this thread is totally awesome, hahaha.
 
Actually, at least 40-50% of the script is action scenes. I want the audience to care about my characters. I don't have a real subplot so I should add one but I don't know what it should be as the cast is very small and the story is almost too goofy to have any serious romantic plots in it.

I also have come across another problem. Since locations are very limited, most of my action scenes seem to be the same thing over and over. Is there anyway to, in a low budget, add little things in them to make the scene stand out?
 
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Even Sin City had romantic subplots. The reason audiences like a romantic subplot is it is so universal, we all search for love, even in the midst of gunfire and bombs exploding. The romantic subplots do not have to be serious dafodils and candlelight dinners -- heck Bonny and Clyde was about romance all in the midst of gunfire and mayhem. :) r

Michael Bay said:
Actually, at least 40-50% of the script is action scenes. I want the audience to care about my characters. I don't have a real subplot so I should add one but I don't know what it should be as the cast is very small and the story is almost too goofy to have any serious romantic plots in it.
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I'm really not thinking that the romance subplot would work. It wouldn't fit the character. He's a loner who only uses assistance from anyone when necessary.
 
No problem, do what fits your story. The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns) rarely had any romance subplot, at least with Cliff, although there sometimes where romance subplots between other characters in those movies, or sometimes a vague unrealized romantic subplot between Clint and a gal so as to not ruin his loner character motif.

Michael Bay said:
I'm really not thinking that the romance subplot would work. It wouldn't fit the character. He's a loner who only uses assistance from anyone when necessary.
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Maybe the character is a loner because of a romance that went awry. Put it all into flashbacks showing how he gave up on love because his girl left him or died or whatever. Maybe even include flashbacks to the flashbacks, showing the misfortunes in his parents' lives. (In sepia tone, of course.)
 
KMR said:
Maybe the character is a loner because of a romance that went awry. Put it all into flashbacks showing how he gave up on love because his girl left him or died or whatever. Maybe even include flashbacks to the flashbacks, showing the misfortunes in his parents' lives. (In sepia tone, of course.)
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That's not bad. I might use that but I was really hoping to stray away from the usual "main character finds love in the end after a struggle" type sub plot. I really want the sub plot to be an inner problem with the protagonist but I don't what it should be. The characters flaws are that he is too easy to jump the gun on things. I may use this at the end where he takes the live of a friend accidentally.
 
I hate throwing in a romantic subplot when it isn't needed. I remember seeing 'The Power of One' in movie form. They even threw one into that when the book worked great without it. There's no point.
 
Cassius said:
I hate throwing in a romantic subplot when it isn't needed. I remember seeing 'The Power of One' in movie form. They even threw one into that when the book worked great without it. There's no point.
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Exactly. If it's unneeded then leave it out. I'm looking at you Pearl Harbor [Which was my own movie]
 
KMR said:
Maybe the character is a loner because of a romance that went awry. Put it all into flashbacks showing how he gave up on love because his girl left him or died or whatever.
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Excellent advice I think. This idea was used very effectively for Mel Gibson's character in "Lethal Weapon" (and IMO that's no reason not to do it again as long as it's done in an original way). Loners can be very, very interesting characters if you're allowed a glimpse into how they got to be that way, and not nearly as much so if you aren't. "Carrie" is another film (and novel, of course) where this was handled extremely well. Also "Unforgiven" (Eastwood) and "King Of Comedy" (DeNiro).
 
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Uhh

Uhh

No thanks to romantic subplots, and NO, we are NOT all "looking for love," I have nothing in common with mediocre plots like that. It's just really a drag, it's very disturbing, just in general it's crap. The last thing I want to see when I watch a great action movie is some stupid love story. Leave that crap OUT of my manly movies, put it in the chick flicks. I don't mind if my action star gets some tail on the side, but it shouldn't be some hokey love story that just ruins a good movie.

I'm sorry that Hollywood feels we all want to see mediocrity in our films. I do not. Leave the love stories for Danielle Steel novels.
 
Sorry, but 2 billion years of evolution has as its sole purpose for all life to find love, reproduce. You don't have to put it in a script, but it is what all life seeks, whether conscious of it or not. A biological drive. :)

JonathanLB said:
No thanks to romantic subplots, and NO, we are NOT all "looking for love," ...
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Look just because YOU are not able to overcome mediocre biological impulses doesn't mean we're all that way. And no, I have NO desire to reproduce whatsoever. Everyone can do that, it's completely mediocre, and quite undesirable and even inimical to achieving my goals. I desire a lot more out of life than some simplistic animalistic function. I'm sorry if that's what you think it's all about, but you're wrong. As humans, we have a lot more control over our impulses and goals than that. We are able to control our genes and our impulses, not the other way around.

The point of life is to achieve as much power as possible, not simply to reproduce. That is an endless cycle without resolution. There is no point to life if you just look at it like an endless chain of existence. As Nietzsche said, "A goal is lacking." That goal is the overman -- the pinnacle of human achievement.

And no, not everyone is "looking for love." Many of us love life and love achievement, and value human relationships for what they are -- a bonus, and part of life, but not by any means a point or the goal.
 
Hey you had Isabel Lucas and Megan Fox in Transformers 2, that's all any film needs, just no hokey love story like with a bad actress, ahem, Megan Fox. ;)
 
Alright, the love stories are overplayed but are usually strong and are a good subplot. I'm not one to judge people I don't know but I think that you need some kind of psychology.
 
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