Camera angles and edits
I’m currently banging ideas around for a script, but have a question concerning the implementation of camera angles/shots. Should these be written into the first draft as you envision it in your head, or are they best left until you write a final shooting script?
–Ross Simms
Until the movie is in theatres, there’s no such thing as a final shooting script. During production, and even during editing, the script itself is subject to change.
In my opinion, every draft of a script should be shootable, with the same level of detail, clarity and professionalism. Scripts do change to a small degree when production begins, with every scene being numbered, and a byzantine system for keeping track of changes. But the words themselves are no more or less specific at this stage than any other.
If a director has specific camera angles that she feels necessary to put in the script, they get put in the script. But more often, these non-story details are handled by storyboards or shot lists, rather than the screenplay itself.
Dead rapper’s mom is calling the shots
I have a situation that is very complex. I’m in the process right now of producing a movie with the mother of a famous rapper who was killed. This will be a feature film about his life as a youngster up until his death. The problem is, she wants us to also use the screenwriter who wrote the first draft of the script, who she has a personal relationship with. How do we deal with this situation once the director gets involved?
–D
Carefully. And prepare for it to get rough.
I’m including your question not because I can offer you any real help, but to remind readers that producers don’t have an easy life. Aspiring screenwriters tend to think of producers as sharks or gurus, but often they’re people like D struggling to make a movie under difficult circumstances.
Just a guess, but I suspect the screenwriter who wrote the first draft is inexperienced, and may not be up for the task. If D or the director decides to replace him, who’s the bad guy? If the mother freaks out, who’s going to deal with her?
The real world, outside of the safety of 12-point Courier, is chock full of these uncomfortable situations, and producers aren’t always the bad guys.
How long a treatment?
I am currently writing my first feature length screenplay and have been asked to send in a treatment to a production company. What is the standard form for a treatment (how many pages, etc)? I have trawled the Internet to no avail.
–DOC
There is no standard. Ask the production company what they mean by a treatment, and they’ll probably tell you what they’re looking for in terms of pages. They may even send a sample.
For example, my assistant Dana is currently writing a treatment for a production company. The treatment will end up being 15-20 pages, single spaced. To me, that’s at the long end of a treatment, but that’s what the company wanted.
A treatment of any length generally describes all of the major scenes or sequences in the movie in prose form, but doesn’t get into specific dialogue. From a treatment, a reader should be able to get a good sense of the movie’s plot, but not necessarily its special flavor. A treatment is never a substitute for a screenplay.
A character sings a song
To what extent can a character quote, sing the lyrics, or hum the tune of a song without rights or permission being attained?
–Trevor
Ultimately, that issue would have to be addressed by whoever’s handling the legal affairs for the movie. Believe me, it will come up when it needs to.
For your purposes in writing a screenplay, don’t worry about it. Don’t footnote, don’t asterisk, don’t put a special note in the script. You can leave it as simple as:
- Max is WHISTLING the "Bewitched" theme when a pitbull suddenly attacks his car.
If it’s especially important to show the lyrics of a song, put them in a character’s dialogue block. Remember that sung words are generally italicized.
MPAA numbers
I know about WGA and Library of Congress copyright registration, but someone told me that films also get MPAA numbers on the scripts? Is this true?
–V. Thomas
You don’t need to worry about this. Really. Ever. At all. I’ve made a couple of big studio movies, and I’ve never seen an MPAA number on anything. But since you’re curious, I’ll tell you a bit about the the magic numbers.
The MPAA is a trade organization made up of the seven major film studios: Fox, Warner Bros., Sony, MGM, Disney, Universal and Paramount. While these studios compete fiercely with each other, they work together through the MPAA on issues of common interest, such as preventing piracy, maintaining copyright, and establishing ratings. The MPAA — specifically its president, Jack Valenti — is the "face" of the film industry to Congress.
Way down on the list of MPAA responsibilities is the job of keeping track of its members’ movies, for all sorts of internal reasons. That’s when a movie is assigned a number, which is probably the same "MPAA number" your friend saw on a script.
It’s nothing a screenwriter ever needs to worry about, but now you know.
Are characters based on people you know?
As a writer, do you worry about everyone in your life thinking characters are based on them?
–Dari
Surprisingly, the issue almost never comes up. I guess that means either, (a) everyone in my life has already accepted that something they say or do might someday end up on screen, or (b) they’re angry and repressing their rage.
A writer is inevitably going to borrow ideas from real life, both consciously and unconsciously. With me, it’s dialogue. I’ll hear somebody say something perfect and immediately jot it down on one of a hundred tiny slips of paper. (Probably half of the time, I’ve actually misheard what they said, the same way song lyrics seem much more poetic when you can’t quite make them out.)
But I’m pretty careful to never completely base a character on somebody I know, especially not a close friend or family member. It’s just not worth the potential grief.
Of the scripts I’ve written, GO was closest to using actual true people and events. Tiny (played by Breckin Meyer) was inspired by Anthony Satariano, the sports editor of my high school paper, who was a white kid talking black way back in 1988. The food poisoning from shrimp at a Las Vegas buffet happened to my friend Wende in 1993, while the hotel room fire is a possibly apocryphal story related to me by my friend Tom Smith. (No, it didn’t happen to him.)
It’s worth noting that of all these incidents, the only one I asked permission to use was Tom’s, probably because he’s a writer himself, and might have been saving it for one of his own projects. He was gracious enough to let me have it.
Another factor which reduces the "Is-That-Based-On-Me?" tension is that a lot of the projects I work on already have some form of source material, be it a book, a TV show or whatnot. For example, my screenplay for BIG FISH involves a lot of my experience watching my father die, and my frustration at trying to get to know him. But the fact that it’s ultimately based on Daniel Wallace’s book makes it easier for my family and everyone else to get some emotional distance, and differentiate the movie-dad from my actual dad.
Articles