Writing a silent/no dialogue script

V

vertigoanton

Active member
Okay, so I've read that it's not good if scripts have too much "black" (or whatever term they use to describe too much action description).

How would one attack a silent/no dialogue story without having detailed action description of what's happening? Would it be best to just convert it into a detailed treatment so that the prose doesn't look so horrid? Or would I simply just strip everything down and just rely on storyboards and/or animatics when I'm ready to pitch the project to investors?

Right now, everything you would see on the screen appears on the page - almost as if every frame is described. And now the script is at about 12 pages - and the running time will not be anywhere close to 12 minutes.

Any advice for this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
I'm working on a feature-length silent film and let me tell you - it's tough. It's ridiculously tough. Stupidly tough. There's a reason why the "talkie" instantly resulted in the death of the silent film - they are just so much harder to write.

That said, there's 2 courses of action: either you are trying to sell the script (you won't unless this is the single best concept of all time - I'm not trying to be a dick, but no one will buy a silent film because no one thinks they can *sell* a silent film), or you're trying to get investors. In the former case, page count matters, in the latter, it does not.

In my case, I use physical descriptions for everything and fill the page up with text. Keep your text tight and remove all non-necessary adjectives and verbs. Instead of "he walked with a calm strut across the room," use something like "he sauntered across the room," where every word counts. If you can use one word instead of 2 and keep the same "meaning," do it.

If you're going to make the film, the page count isn't particularly important. Robert Rodriguez wrote "El Mariachi" and it took up 40 pages but translated to 90 minutes of screentime. But if you want to sell it, then us a mixture of padding action with tight descriptions and sluglines to try to make the action match the page count. In other words, cut out excessive descriptions, but when you need a single action to take up lots of screen time (ie "He picks up the dildo and examines it" then you could add breaks in there and use sluglines to lengthen the amount of on-page text that it takes up).

Good luck
 
If it were me, I wouldn't try to describe every little thing that you'll see on the screen -- only the things that are important, just like any screenplay. Don't do the director's job for him by describing camera angles, etc., unless there's some reason necessary to the story for doing so.

To avoid 'large patches of black', I would consider putting each distinct action or set of actions into its own paragraph. Here's an example....

"PAUL walks over to the DRESSER.

"SHIRLEY watches him intently as she LIGHTS her CIGARETTE.

"PAUL OPENS a DRAWER of the DRESSER and takes out a CLEAN T-SHIRT."

That's as opposed to writing it like this...

"PAUL walks over to the DRESSER. SHIRLEY watches him intently as she LIGHTS her CIGARETTE. PAUL OPENS a DRAWER of the DRESSER and takes out a CLEAN T-SHIRT."

That's the way I'd do it, but whether or not it's the 'best' or the 'right' way, I don't know. Hope that helps, though. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the speedy reply. It's funny because I just finished re-reading the latest version I had and all those adjectives and adverbs...yeah, they're all in there. I'm sure I can trim the fat no problem.

I don't think I'll be trying to sell this script - 1. it's a short and no one buys those, and 2. it's kind of a dream of mine to make it. But if I wanted to try and raise money for it, I'd want to give people a version of the script they would be able to read quickly.

So thanks again.
 
If you want to use the script to raise money, then don't give them a version they can read too quickly. They need to savor. They need to feel the presence, the timing, the mood. Maybe you don't want to pitch all of those adjectives. You don't sell the meat -- you sell the sizzle!

Good luck.
 
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