John August

I have lots of questions, but by all means choose two you’d like to answer.

— Ric
New Zealand

1) What’s the commercial potential of movies without happy endings? I’m tired of every movie having to end in a good way, even if that’s a main character surviving a slasher flick. Does a movie automatically fail if it ends with the world blowing up? Forrest Gump wouldn’t quite be the same movie if Forrest suddenly went mad and killed everyone, but surely not every single movie has to end on a good note.

Movies can certainly end with everyone dead, ((Consider The Blair Witch Project, or Cloverfield. If either of these are spoilers, you’re officially behind on popular culture.)) and it’s not at all uncommon to kill off key protagonists (e.g. Romeo and Juliet, Titanic). Even a comedy can end on mixed notes — The Graduate being a good example. But your basic assumption is correct: the commercial potential of most movies is going to be stronger if it ends happily, simply because people will walk out of the theater happy. So you need to decide how important a happy ending is to your story, knowing the extra challenges you face with a downbeat ending.

I’d also challenge you to remember that a happy ending doesn’t necessarily mean everyone skipping off into the sunset. From The Godfather to Aliens, many great movies end on a note of uncertainty. The immediate threat may have passed, but the road ahead is dangerous.

2) What’s the best way to handle an “early life” part of a film, where you need to show the character growing up? How much is too much? How many “stages” are too many? Will it break the movie if my screenplay uses the whole first act to show incidents: at birth, 5 years old, 7 years old, 10 years old, 14 years old (and that’s condensing things, stage-wise) and then further flashbacks later on? And how do I show the character’s “want” or “why” through all of this? Or is it okay if the want or why doesn’t start until later in the film?

Every movie works differently, but trying to include that many stages will almost certainly fail. Here’s why.

In a book, aging a child from five to seven to ten to fourteen costs you nothing. You can skip from age to age, incident to incident, without trouble. Readers don’t have a strong expectation about “when the story is supposed to get started,” so as long as you are holding their interest, you’re okay.

In a movie, aging a child from five to seven to ten to fourteen means casting at least three actors. ((I’m assuming the same child actor is playing 5 and 7, or 7 and 10.)) Each time, you’re forcing the audience to identify with a new kid, with a new face, and new quirks. The replacement cost is very high, so it has to be really worthwhile to consider doing it.

More importantly, movie audiences have strong expectations about when the story is supposed to get started, and we know the story won’t really begin until we reach the grown-up version. Any scenes involving the young versions are going to feel like stalling.

Big Fish follows Edward Bloom’s life from the day he was born until the day he dies, but deliberately structures those moments to tell the bigger story of Edward and Will’s reconciliation. That’s the A-plot, and everything else is in service of that. In fantasy flashbacks, we see Edward very briefly as an infant, then jump ahead to him as ten-year old. After that, he’s either adult (Ewan MacGregor) or elderly (Albert Finney).

Get to the grown-up. We need to know much less of a character’s history than you think.

3) What is, in your opinion, the best way to write a synopsis?

A good synopsis doesn’t follow the plot beat-by-beat, but gathers together related story threads to explain What It’s About rather than exactly What Happens. Depending on its purpose, a synopsis can be two sentences or two pages, but I find almost any movie can be well described in a paragraph.

4) How would I show someone “studying really hard all year.” Would that be a montage?

Yes, but it sounds incredibly dull. Please avoid it.

5) Say the character starts singing a song and then all these different scenes start showing. How would I write that, considering each scene coincides with certain lyrics?

The character begins singing, then as you move through other scenes, you include the next part of the song as voice-over.