Short on Dialogue

                    Your Screenplay, Short on Dialogue

    When writing your low or no budget script you need to consider the actors. I do not mean that you need to consider casting. You need to consider their limitations. Unless you are lucky the majority of your cast will be new to the business. They will not be use to being on screen. They will not be use to hitting their marks and the massive pressure of a low budget film shoot.
    You as the writer need to help them out as much as possible.
    How do you do this?
    Keep dialogue as short as possible.
    No, I do not mean keeping the scenes as short as possible. I mean that you you try to keep their speeches as short as possible. One to five lines at most. Your name is not Tarantino and this is not Kill Bill. If you are going to have stage trained actors who are use to memorizing massive amounts of dialogue then go for it. But most likely you are going to have people who have never done this before. Friends trying to help you out or models who are trying to branch out. It will most likely be their first time so follow the first time rule, be gentle.
    Acting is a funny thing. It is easier for a novice to react than to actually act. Some of the greatest movie stars of all time are not actors, but reactors. Go rent a Kevin Costner movie and watch one of the worlds great reactors.
    Your lead character gets the most dialogue and the biggest blocks of dialogue. Allow those who interact with the lead to have shorter bits of talk that when and where ever possible they are called upon to react to what is said to them.  Bill was killed, react. Did you hear that Mike died, react. There is a monster in the basement, react. Our son is missing, react.
    Make it easy on the actors and they will show their love by giving a quality performance.

What Do You See?

What Do You See?

What do you see?
This is an important question.
Why?
Because what you see is what the audience will see one day. Movies at the end of the day are visual. I would say go back to silent films and watch them, but the truth is a silent film is doing very well for itself right now, (The Artist). When writing a script dialog tents to take over. I understand why. It is easier to write. To eats up a lot of pages. It progresses the story in a way. On the page it looks great and there is all that clear white space around it. While description and action is usually that ugly block text that look like paragraphs in a text book.

On the screen that block text flows quickly while those lovely pages of dialog drag along. More than 90 seconds on screen of uninterrupted talk is like watching paint dry unless you are named Tarantino. What we see is more important than what we hear or in other words show do not tell. If you can show that characters do not like each other rather than telling us then do it. If they love each other love is what they do with and to each other rather than going on and one about who loves who. Save that stuff for soap operas. We are going to talk about dialog soon, but this is about the visual and what we see comes first second and third.
Does genre matter?
Same rule for all.
I do not care if it is Action, Horror, Comedy, Drama or Found Footage show me do not tell me.
But in comedy they tell jokes.
Really?
Take Dumb and Dumber, it is the stupid things that they do and not what they say that makes it a comic classic.
Action is obvious. The Road Warrior is all most a silent film for the first twenty minutes.
How many times have you heard when will they shut up and when will something happen in this movie?
I am going over some familiar ground here, but hey this point has not gotten through to some of you. Show them at all cost and then resort to telling them. With low to no budget film screenplays sometimes we have to tell rather than show. We can tell about an alien invasion or a murder spree rather than showing it because we can not afford to show it, but when or where ever possible we must show them.

Your No Budget Screenplay, Cutting Scenes

            Your No Budget Screenplay, Cutting Scenes

    You have finished your entire no budget screenplay or at least an act of it and you are at a point where you wish to do some editing.  I would like you to review every single scene and list what you believe to be the 5 worst scene.  These scene will feel forced or they just do not seem to connect well with the joining scenes or maybe they are much too long or too short.  For what ever reason they do not seem to work.
    Isolate the absolute worst of them and cut it.
    I said cut it.

    Do not edit it or try to redo it or move it around.  Just take this scene and if you have a paper copy tear it out.  If it is on the computer delete it from the script.  Yes I really know that this scene has its place in your screenplay.  It is really necessary and conveys an important bit of information or character development.
    Here is my response to that heart felt and sincere argument.
    CUT IT.
    It is better to get rid of this really bad scene rather than have it stinking up all the scenes around it.  I do not care if this scene tells who did it or where the body is buried or who stole that piece of cake or if Jessica Alba is nude in it, cut it.
    “Did I really just say that last thing?”
    Okay keep the Jessica Alba scene and cut the rest.
    I am just trying to make your screenplay stronger and after you cut and edited you will find that it is stronger. After you cut that worst scene and cut as much as possible of the second scene, edit down the third worst scene and rewrite the forth and fifth worst scenes.  Make your script better and better.  It will be painful to do this, but you know what the military say about pain.
    Pain is just weakness leaving the body and in this case pain is just the weakest elements leaving your script.
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Your No Budget Screenplay, King Conflict

Your No Budget Screenplay, King Conflict

    Perhaps you have heard the expression that content is king.  I disagree, I believe that conflict is king.  Within those first ten pages you have to establish characters who will be in natural conflict with each other.  Unnatural conflict is this is page 8 and this is where character one argues with character 5 for no reason other than there is suppose to be conflict in the script somewhere.
    Natural conflict comes from character traits.  Their world view as it conflicts with the world view of others.  Their personality is at natural odds with those around them.  I will use 2 characters from a series of films that almost all of you have seen at least one of whether you were willing or not.  We are going to pluck two characters from the Harry Potter universe (I could use the Star Trek Universe) to illustrate how to create conflict naturally.
    Now entering the ring an attractive young mud blood, Hermione.
    Stumbling in, late as usual, is the red headed terror himself, Ron.
    Yes I know that they become a couple.  Hey opposites attract. These two are made to produce conflict.  This conflict does not come from the writer as much as it does from who they are.  Ron is all emotion and feeling.  Hermione is all reason and logic. Early one she looks at him as being a silly unprepared block head.  He looks at her as a bookworm who does not feel much of anything and has no concept of how to have fun.
    When ever they have a problem she tackles it with reason and logic while Ron gets caught up in doubt, fear and a hundred other emotions.  They will forever rub each other the wrong way and not because they do not like each other, (they grow to love each other) but simply because they do not see the world the same way at all.  Without the third character of Harry, who is mostly instinct, to balance them out they would have never been able to progress much past hello.
    Conflict between your heroes will come naturally if you keep this in mind.  Conflict between heroes and villains will be intense if you have a hero who is all emotion and instinct going up against a villain who is as coldly logical and remorseless as a plague.

    Whether it is Bond going up against Doctor No or it is Van Helsing doing battle with a soulless vampire who looks at innocent people in the same way he would look upon chest pieces conflict comes from being opposites.
    Your first and I hope only exercise that I am going to suggest is that you list your top character and in a word describe their primary approach to any situation.  If these characters share a lot of scenes together make them opposites.  If they are best friends or husband and wife or brother and sister or father and son.  These opposing traits can get you through the roughest parts of your scripts.  They will find ways to push the story forward even where you are lost.

No Budget Screenplays, Found Footage

            No Budget Screenplay, Found Footage

    An ultra low budget film in number one at the box office.  Another found footage horror movie has taken the top spot at the box office.  These movies look like documentaries and act like documentaries, but they are really well thought out and written films. 
    They all come with a script of some kind.  Someone had to write it before it got filmed and the better the writing, the better the film.  I am not going to talk about The Devil Inside, I am going to allow the smoke to clear on this movie.  Like the Blair Witch Project many years ago, some people love it some people really hate it.  Let’s begin where this trend really started.  Not with the Blair Witch, but all the way back in the 1970's with a movie titled Cannibal Holocaust.  A repulsive movie at times, one that got band in a few countries during its first release.  This is a movie were the film crew travels to south America to film native tribes and instead of just recording the events they encounter they caused them and then later fall victim to them.  This simple plot device has been part of almost every found footage film since then.  Observe and become a victim.  Observe and linger too long for safety. 
    Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, CloverField, Grave Encounters, Apollo 18, Rec and the fantastic Rec 2. All of these films could be summed up as curiosity killed the cat.  The camera feels like a shield to the one holding it and only too late are they reminded that they are part of events.  Not safe at home watching on a tv screen, but in the middle of a life and death struggle.
    What I suggest is that you keep this in mind, but you also add a twist.  Try this found footage concept with comedy or straight drama.  Remember the scene in the Sixth Sense where the boy delivers to a grieving father found footage of a step mother poisoning the daughter.  We are missing the boat, but only doing horror.  Use security camera or webcam footage or even iphone footage.  Take a chance.  Do something different with this type of story telling.

 

Your No Budget Screenplay, The 10 Page Rules

    Your No Budget Screenplay, Ten Page Rules


    If you have read my other post you probably at this point have a good idea of what you wish to write so we will by pass that for now and get to the basics.  What is it that we must accomplish within the first ten pages of our script.
    We must establish the location of the story.  The script can begin there or through a series of events we can travel there.  The central location needs to be established because this is not only where your story takes place, but also this is where your future cast and crew will be spending most of their time and efforts.  Even if you are only the screen writer and not going to be wearing the hats of producer and director you have to keep these things in mind.  The majority of movies manage to achieve this whether they are low budget or mega budget.  People, meaning the viewers, need to know where the story is going to take place.  They need to get comfortable in the world that you are creating.  Whether it is the Blair Witch Project or Gone With The Wind those first ten pages and or minutes are the most important.
    In times gone by once a ticket was purchased the film maker had his audience and they were going to be stuck in that seat until the end credits.  Now your audience is one button click away from leaving you and the movie that you have written behind. Remember that scene from Gladiator where Maximus yells to the crowd “Are you not entertained?”  I am not saying that they have to be entertained during these first ten pages, what I am saying is that you have to hold interest.

    The best and most cost effective way of doing this is with you main character. The lead Character is not necessarily the main character.  (Quick note: Think about the movie Terminator.  The lead is Sarah, the main character is the Terminator.  In this movie we meet the Terminator first and he pushes the action and drives the story.)  Your main character will be presented and shortly there after he or she will become the seeker or the searched for center of this universe.  They must always drive other characters to act or to react.
    The world is about to end.  They have the ability to save it.
    Their marriage is on the rocks, they are responsible for this and they must undertake the journey to repair or Fireproof it.
    Someone is about to be murdered and they are the only one who knows about the plot and the only one capable of stopping it, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
    To change the future they must travel back in time and terminate someone, but they are not sure exactly who.
    Find the who and the thing that will drive him or her to chase and or run and you will have a great jumping off point for your no budget screenplay.

Your No Budget Screenplay, Peter Jackson's Bad Taste

               Your No Budget Screenplay, Bad Taste

    Peter Jackson started where you are.  From a no budget little feature to the Lord of the Rings he has come a long way.  Having worked in a video store at one time I became familiar with just about every low budget release during the eighties and nineties. I had bought a copy of Bad Taste from the store I worked in for about two dollars, stuck it on a shelf and revisited it only when I heard that this guy named Peter Jackson was going to do the Lord of the Rings movies and he had started with a movie titled Bad Taste.  I dug the movie up and watched it again.  If you can not find it try to at least watch the movie trailer, it is great fun. Then go and watch clips of his later movies and perhaps the new Hobbit Trailer.

    To me Peter Jackson is not your typical no budget film maker.  He wrote a sci fi movie and if you pay close attention to it this movie what he wrote was a big budget epic that he shot for eight dollars and twenty seven cents.  Bad taste is a gross out take on the genre with a lead that actually gets part of his brain
knocked out and keeps on going.   Why does he keep going? The only answer is “Derricks don’t die.” His name is Derrick and he will not die until his task of saving the world from an alien invasion is complete.

   The lesson from this film is that no budget does not mean that you can not be ambitious. You can write a huge story as long as you remember to write down only the most necessary visual elements.  Steven Spielberg needed to blow up buildings and show gigantic alien machines in his version of War of the Worlds, while the no budget writer/film maker would have to rely on sound and light and shadows to suggest what is going on with the invasion of earth.  Look at one of my favorite film makers M. Night, his movie Signs.  The most frightening and intense part of that film takes place in a basement.  No real special effect needed. Both movies with a adjustments could have been utra low budget and done well. 

    M. Night Shyamalan  and Spielberg started out shooting super 8 or video.  They began as no budget writers and film makers.  Peter Jackson began in the no budget world and now he is one of the top film makers on earth.  With the arrival of part one of The Hobbit this year you will have one more reminder of where you can get to from here.

    Good luck guys, next time maybe we will talk about the basics of writing your first no budget script this year.  I say first because I expect that you will write at least three of them this year.