John August

QandA

How to include sign language

Formatting, QandA

questionmarkWhen writing a sign language conversation, is it better to write the dialogue normally with a scene description specifying the dialogue is signed, or should each signed line be specified in parentheticals? Would the method change if one side of the conversation is signed while the other side is spoken, or spoken and signed?

— Adam
Toronto

I answered almost exactly this question [back in 2005](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/formatting-for-sign-language), and I’m happy to see that my suggestion then is still my best answer: consider italics.

MARGIE

(speaking and signing)

These girls are weak. I’m a fifty-year-old woman, yet I can carry a pig two hundred yards.

LUKE

(signing)

You’re so strong.

MARGIE

That’s because I’ve been carrying you for twenty-two years. Seriously, I’ve made you the center of the universe, and when anyone dares challenge that you’re anything less than perfect I regress to Mama Bear mode. It’s amazing more people don’t call us out on this dysfunction.

LUKE

I’m almost a villain, but nobody notices. Because you can only be one thing on a reality show, and I’m the inspiring deaf guy.

Not my problem

Writing Process

Great quote from Alvin Sargent in the most recent [Written By](http://www.wga.org/writtenby/writtenby.aspx):

> Somebody told me once, “If you have a problem with a character, give the problem to the character because it’s not my problem.” It’s truly their problem and you have to watch and wait and see what they do that makes some kind of sense. Sooner or later, if they are really people, they will do something, or someone else will come and help them. But I have nothing to do with it. If you have a problem, give it to the character.

Characters are not responsible for plot; you as the writer have to decide what you’re showing, when and why. But your characters need to be responsible for the actions they take. The reader and the audience can feel when characters are doing something simply for story’s sake.

Think of yourself as the producer of a reality show. You’ve hopefully cast interesting people, who will do and say interesting things. You’ll create obstacles that will force them to react. You’ll shoot a bunch of footage and edit it to tell the story you want. But if you’re pushing your characters around, telling them exactly what you want them to do, the audience will feel the manipulation — and your characters will resent it.

What does “execution dependent” mean?

Big Fish, Directors, Film Industry, Genres, QandA

questionmarkI’ve been taking a pitch and treatment around to producers, and people are responding very well to it–but one note I keep getting is that the idea is very “execution dependent.”

What exactly does this mean? It’s a high-concept comedy idea, easy to sum up in a logline. So what makes one high-concept idea more execution-dependent than another? Or is this a euphemism for “not high-concept enough”?

I’m planning to spec it out anyway, but I’d love to get a handle on what makes an idea more or less execution-proof. I’ve read your (excellent) answer about the [family of robots](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2003/good-writing-vs-the-idea), but that seemed to be about high concept and low concept, while this is something about the idea itself.

— Andrew
Brooklyn

“Execution dependent” means that the best version of the movie is a hit, while a mediocre incarnation is worth vastly less. It’s not a diss. Most films that win Academy Awards are execution dependent, as are many blockbusters.

For example, Slumdog Millionaire is completely execution dependent. If it didn’t fire on all cylinders, you would never have heard of it. It would have been another ambitious indie failure.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is also extremely execution dependent. There have been countless movies with adventurers seeking treasure, but the combination of elements in Raiders just clicked. If Raiders were twenty percent less awesome, it wouldn’t have a place in film history.

Other examples I can think of: Juno, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Dark Knight, The Piano, Titanic, Silence of the Lambs, Babe, Fargo, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Usual Suspects, Sling Blade, Se7en. Some of these are high concept, others aren’t. But in each case, the film’s relative success is largely a factor of how well-made it was.

Here’s a good test for whether a project is execution dependent: How many different directors could you imagine making it?

If there are five or fewer directors on your list, that’s a highly execution dependent project. And that can be a stumbling block. For Big Fish, the studio was willing to make it with Steven Spielberg or Tim Burton. Get one of them, and the studio will make the movie. Otherwise, it’s turnaround.

Many films are much less execution dependent. Consider Paul Blart: Mall Cop, or Obsessed. I haven’t seen either movie, but instinct tells me that the list of possible directors for each was much longer. Neither film needed to be perfect in order to succeed. Rather, they needed to be marketable. Both were, much to their credit.

From a studio’s perspective, there is some safety in picking movies that “anyone could direct.” You’re less likely to hit a home run creatively, but you’re also more likely put runners on base.

When a studio or producer trots out the phrase “execution dependent,” that may be a euphemism for a couple of things they’re not saying:

1. “I like it, but it would have to be perfect, and we mess up movies right and left.”
2. “I can’t think of five directors who could do it.”
3. “I can imagine getting fired over this movie.”
4. “I might buy it as a spec.”
5. “I hate the idea and I’m just trying to be nice.”

I hope it’s not the last one. Good luck with the spec.

Video from Rancho Mirage Q&A

Education, How-To, Strike, Video

Synthian Sharp, one of the nicest folks I met during the strike, took it upon himself to tape my [Q&A in Rancho Mirage](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/speaking-in-rancho-mirage). He now has it online at Vimeo, where you can also download a much beefier 934MB version.

This talk was very much geared towards a general audience. While there were some film students, most of the crowd was over fifty. We spoke more about the career than the craft of screenwriting.

I showed five clips. Weirdly, I didn’t pick one from The Nines, but I did show one scene from Scott Frank’s Minority Report that had my fingerprints on it.

At 112 minutes, it’s quite a time commitment. If you’re skipping around in the video, here’s the rough order of what I talk about:

* How I got started
* Go
* DC
* Charlie’s Angels
* Minority Report
* Big Fish
* Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
* God (the short film on The Nines DVD)
* The Nines
* Audience questions

Thanks to The Friends of the Rancho Mirage Public Library, Palm Springs International Film Society, and moderator Deborah Dearth. And of course Synthian for putting this up.