Screenplay, Review My Work

Quality

Quality

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Hey guys, this is my recent screenplay which I have intentions to shoot in the near future.

A man is going through the struggles of everyday life - job and relationship wise. He ends up teaming with his friend to break into a home; so he is able to support his girlfriend and himself. When they enter, they are in for a surprise.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/317233105/Break-and-Enter

Please tell me what you think.
 
Your Dialogue is awful and just too talky - adding nothing to the story. Especially the babe and boo and amazing stuff (So, last night was amazing, but other nights are not?). It's like watching people making out and slopping tongues on the bus. Just get to the important stuff.

Also, In the first action you have a confusing pronoun mashup, going from she to he. Also, how do we know this is his girlfriend? Could be a one-nighter, a neighbor, or even his sister. Or his mother, since you haven't told your reader how old these two characters are.


INT. KITCHEN – DAY

His girlfriend is in the kitchen fixing breakfast. He walks in.

JEROME
Hey babe.

SHANICE
Hey boo.

They briefly kiss.

JEROME
I see that you got up early, before the alarm.

SHANICE
Yes, I couldn’t sleep.

JEROME
What happen? Last night was too rough?

He giggles then pushes her on her shoulder.

SHANICE
No, it was not that. Last night was amazing by the way.


If I were to rewrite just this part ...


INT. KITCHEN – DAY

SHANICE (age and attributes unknown) makes breakfast. Jerome (age and attributes unknown) enters, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

JEROME
Couldn't sleep?

SHANICE
No.

A kiss.


That's all you need. The rest is forgettable fluff.

67 words trimmed to 29. And yes it matters. Your script shows 61 pages. Taking out more than half in just this brief sample likely indicates that your script is really a 30 pager at most. Pages cost money and time.

You need to go through the entire script and chip away everything that doesn't look like a horse.

alex
https://alexmwhitmer.wordpress.com/zz-excerpt/
 
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I'm with Alex on this. It's not shootable as-is. One of the Hollywood scriptreaders-turned-authors said in his book that if someone asked him what he thought of their script, he would say "chop out half the dialogue", and that he'd be right 99% of the time. I read the first few pages of the script here and that's exactly what I was thinking.

This is the movies, not radio. The adage for film is "Show, don't tell." If all they're doing is talking, it might as well be a radio drama. Anything that can be revealed by action, should be. The spoken words are the least important aspect of any screenplay, and further -- they should pretty much never be about what they're about. If a character is saying what they really mean, or their dialogue is revealing their true feelings, then you've got a problem. People don't talk that way in real life, and they doubly shouldn't talk that way in the movies. Doing so makes people hate what they're watching. People never want to be lectured. They want to guess and fill in the blanks.

Not addressing your particular script per se, but if he walked in on her at the computer instead, and she had been looking at wedding dresses but minimized the window the second he walked in, then that right there tells you everything you need to know, in five seconds. But more importantly, it lets the audience participate, because we get to FIGURE IT OUT, rather than being hammered over the head with two minutes of "on-the-nose" dialogue.
 
I recommend that you watch and study no-dialogue film, and see just how much the visuals can carry the story.


Here are three superb examples ...

Spin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP59tQf_njc&nohtml5=False

Right Place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjkNlmsYwFo&nohtml5=False

Nuit Blanche
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWK2Qgn9YbA&nohtml5=False



In film, Dialogue is there to convey what the visuals cannot effectively do on their own, and to deliver and reinforce vital character/plot information. It is NOT conversation.

alex
 
Thanks for the advice guys, I really appreciate it. But they do have hollywood films with tons of dialogue; like the Iron Man trilogy for instance. Tony has many.
 
Used with restraint, dialogue is not a bad thing. It IS essential in the overall scheme of storytelling, even in film - with exceptions, of course. And yes, there are films with tons of dialogue, some memorable, some not. I think if you really study those films word for word, most (not all) are delivering information, not conversation.

It's not a fast rule, but a guide to make sure - as Barry pointed out - you are not hammering your audience over the head with OTN. We tire of it quickly.

Here is an example of good dialogue use, at least in my opinion. Note how the flashbacks do not need the dialogue. The audience already knows what was said, and are invited into the story to reflect and remember.

Pantene Commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6j0XNwfWrw&nohtml5=False


Now watch this one. What do you think these two are actually talkiing about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t8H07c30io&nohtml5=False
 
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There are two writers that I can think of, where the dialogue is the star of the show. Quentin Tarantino, and Aaron Sorkin. Those guys can get away with it. If one is not Quentin or Aaron...

The Pantene commercial is brilliant filmmaking, in four minutes. How many of those four minutes are actually spoken words (or even subtitled?)

Another example I throw out -- Mad Max in The Road Warrior. Count the # of words he says. I doubt he has twenty lines in the whole picture, yet he's an iconic character.

Again, the point is -- if you're brilliant with dialogue, use it -- but extremely few are brilliant with dialogue. So use it as a tool, but not for more than what it should be. The less your characters say, the more intelligent your film can be (since it shifts the burden onto you to portray the actions and their feelings through action, rather than the lazy crutch of speaking).
 
I see what you are saying. You don't need words to actually express everything, visuals can do the most.
 
Quality said:
I see what you are saying. You don't need words to actually express everything, visuals can do the most.
Click to expand...

I've not had time to review your script, but in general, from other scripts I've read by the 'student/nonpro/amateur/etc.' often they will have wordy dialog, and minimal visuals, or inadequate visuals... or worse stereotype visuals.

Also, there is sort of a division of labor. The script writer writes dialog, but it is the director that gets the performance. So one need not put in parenthetical 'guides' in dialog.

It may be that a scriptwriter will be the director, especially for short films, but at the writing stage, one tries to 'just write'.

I attempt to apply these principles to my own scripts, even though I usually am writing with the intent on making the film myself, because when I'm asking for public review, it is good to conform to some form of standards that people can review by.
 
Quality said:
I see what you are saying. You don't need words to actually express everything, visuals can do the most.
Click to expand...

It really depends on the story, and any given character in it. It is not an automatic formula, but rather a guide to ensure your visual story is intact first and foremost. You can have one script dialogue-loaded, while another will be dialogue-lite, and both will work - ideally.

In 'Lethal Weapon 2', Joe Pesci's character, Leo Getz, wouldn't shut up. But that was his character, and it fit the story. Compare that to the 'Terminator'. Only three words really stick - 'I'll be back'. Can you imagine a Pesci Terminator?

Compare that to Robert Duvall's film debut character, Boo Radley, in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. Doesn't speak a word, has limited screentime, but remains a powerfull and integral part of the story.


Write what you need to write first, then go back for a slice-and-dice.


alex
 
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Barry_Green said:
I'm with Alex on this. It's not shootable as-is. One of the Hollywood scriptreaders-turned-authors said in his book that if someone asked him what he thought of their script, he would say "chop out half the dialogue", and that he'd be right 99% of the time. I read the first few pages of the script here and that's exactly what I was thinking.
...
Click to expand...
John Ford once got a 120 page ready-to-shoot Western screenplay (and that was during the era when 160 pages weren't abnormal) and immediately began to tear pages out. "40 pages for a Western is more than enough".

Now, personally, I love good dialog. I like good funny dialog even more. SJ Perelman is credited with the "Monkey Business" screenplay. In his own bio, he recounted how he was invited to the movie premiere and it took him about forty minutes until he could recognize a piece of dialog that he actually wrote. Everything else was the work of certain actors in the film.

Captain Corcoran: [describing the stowaways] One of them goes around with a black moustache.

Groucho: So do I; if I had my choice, I'd go around with a little blonde.
Captain Corcoran: I said, one goes around with a black moustache.
Groucho: Well, you couldn't expect a moustache to go around by itself. Don't you think a moustache ever gets lonely, Captain?
Chico: Hey, sure it gets-a lonely. Hey, when my grandfather's beard gets here, I'd like it to meet your moustache.
Groucho: Well, I'll think it over; I'll talk it over with my moustache. Tell me, has your grandfather's beard got any money?
Chico: Money? Why, he fell hair to a fortune.
Click to expand...
 
This has to be somewhat genre- and even medium-dependent. For instance, comedy vs drama or TV shows vs movies. Buffy the series had endless blabalogues about how "not all of us will survive this" and plenty of ten-minute scenes where people discussed feelings in depth. Daredevil has more scenes that I can count where people tell Matt not to Daredevil as he will get hurt, or someone tells someone else Matt can take care of himself. I think half-length versions of either of those shows would be Game of Thrones-style addictive (a show that knows how to NOT bore with talking).

What about every time someone says, as a character is about to leave, "oh, and, be careful"?

I mean, all of these things made it past every gatekeeper 'til they got to air/screen, so someone thought it was all critical. "We absolutely MUST keep the line where Joe tells Bob to "be careful" when he's about to walk naked and covered in reflectors into the minefield that shoots bullets. Otherwise, how would we ever know his friend didn't want him dead, and that he needed to be careful while nakedly navigating a bullet-spewing minefield?"
 
Wow, really? For something that's an hour long per episode I think it moves faster than just about anything else out there. I like that. I guess if you're not all about the "what's gonna happen next" factor you might not be into it. I'm not saying the dialogue is AMAZING, I just mean 90% of the conversations have a point. . .character conveying something to another character, reveal, etc. etc.
 
Josh Bass said:
This has to be somewhat genre- and even medium-dependent. For instance, comedy vs drama or TV shows vs movies ...
Click to expand...
It even varies within a genre. For example, "Married w/ Children" scripts were officially ~ 40 pages long (double line sitcom format) but they used only about half-width lines, so it was really a 25'ish page type script. "Murphy Brown" (people remember that one, right?) had regularly "full width" scripts of some 50+ pages, as did "Seinfeld". Larry David's idea of mimicking the old "Abbott and Costello" routines provided a lot of two syllable exchanges and those lines added up. Diane English wasn't much of a punchline writer, so her paragraphs were really, really, really long and, obviously, all other writers had to follow the same style. When Steven Peterman and Gary Dontzig took over the showrunning duties, the style changed somewhat (and the jokes became much funnier).
 
I was talking more about the idea that "The spoken words are the least important aspect of any screenplay, and further -- they should pretty much never be about what they're about." TV shows of all genres seem to violate this about 90% of the time. Unless all those times Foggy was telling Daredevil that Daredevilling was dangerous, he was actually confessing his romantic love for him?
 
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