Coming up with a title

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boarderjosh10

Active member
I was wondering how you writers come up with a title for your screenplays. I have been working on a script for a while and I haven't come up with a title yet. Is this bad? Do you start with a title or usually come up with it at the end?

Thanks
 
I find it hard to write without a title. I might end up changing it along the way, but I do find a good title can help me focus the story.

Chris
 
I suck at making up titles. One of my film was actually titled after I finish shooting it. Sort of like a "aww, what do we call this crap?" moment.
 
First off, you can do it either way. Just like some people write words then music, or vice versa, or both together.

Some writers start with a detailed road map before they begin actually writing a script and a title may be an important part of that. Other writers start off having no idea where they are going and use the first draft as a process to tell help them find the direction of their story. (hopefully they go back with that roadmap and do a coherent rewrite - but both ways work)

The title can be a tool though, both in writing a script and in cracking it open from the director's chair after it has been written.

From script analysis - the title is looked at for its potential as a window into the world.

My two thoughts on it are as follows though.
  • ONE: Start with what you want your audience to come into the film with. It's your first chance to have an impact on them before the movie even starts, so use it strategically if possible since it will be almost impossible for someone to see your movie without knowing what it is called. For example, if your movie is called "Bunnies in Happyland!" and your film begins with the vivisection of a live rabbit, then you have set up an expectation and defied it. It may just be a feeling or a question that will make people want to see the film to have it answered. But it's a good way to start thinking about your piece, what mood does it conjure for you, what mood do you want it to conjure for your audience or expectation do you want to set up for them. Examining this can help you find the core of your piece and help you find a title.
  • SECOND: musicality. We speak (predominantly) in "iambs". You may have heard of iambic pentameter? It's what Shakespeare wrote in more or less. Pentameter means 5 feet (two syllable pairings) and an iamb is a two syllable paring whose syllables are accented as unstressed then stressed. You've heard it when people read poetry without saying the words

    "baDum baDum baDum baDum baDum ...
    baDum baDum baDum baDum baDum"

    each "baDum" is an iamb - unstressed stressed. This is also the majority of the way we speak. So .... I would lean towards that rhythm in a title.

    I just thought of all this syllable stuff today when I heard the title of a William Shatner project that will air on the Sci Fi Channel. It's called

    "Fire Serpent"

    It ends on a week syllable "baDum ba" Which makes it sound weak. This is what is called a feminine ending in verse.

    I would have suggested instead to Bill (Shatner not Shakespeare) that he consider:

    "Fire Snake" (stressed stressed, Dum Dum)

    or more probably

    "Serpent of Fire" (Dumba baDum)
This is not a rule, just another thing to consider for two or three word titles. I think with one word it doesn't matter so much. Nor does it matter so much with long titles like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (Dumba baDum Dum ba)
 
I find (annoyingly) that either a title suggests itself along with the idea (and often it's two titles), or I never really come up with a title I'm happy with. I have a voodoo tale with such a limp title I feel faint whenever I think of it, and another very complicated tale that I cannot name at all yet.
 
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