John August

QandA

Film censorship

Film Industry, QandA

In your opinion, can film censorship be used as a form of publicity to increase
market interest?

–Alex Rimmer

I can only answer in terms of the U.S., where "film censorship" usually
equates with getting an "NC-17" rating, which makes it difficult
to book theaters and advertise.

While there’s some tradition of a distributor milking a ratings fight for
publicity (SHOWGIRLS, DOGMA, CRASH), I’m not convinced the drama puts any more
butts in seats opening weekend. Rather, I suspect that the number of patrons
attracted by the controversy is largely offset by the number turned off. And
it’s important to remember that most of the movies branded NC-17 receive the
rating for sexual content, which is difficult to market beyond a certain level
anyway. The attendant controversy only highlights the sexual aspect of the
picture.

For truly tiny movies that might otherwise get no publicity at all, talk of
censorship might be an effective strategy. But for most movies, trying to generate
controversy this way seems ill-advised in my opinion.

Various locations

Formatting, QandA

Can you tell me what is preferred/correct for this situation? Mabel is moving through a house (and, if necessary, outside):

INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY

Mabel searches for the cat.

INT. KITCHEN – DAY

Mabel searches for the cat.

EXT. STREET – DAY

Mabel searches for the cat.

Et cetera. Thanks very much.

–Arnold Sable

Yeah, that pretty much sucks, Arnold. Unless you are repeating the sentence for some effect, perhaps showing how intensely single-minded Mabel can be, almost anything else would be better.

The simplest choice would be to use a different scene heading that encompasses all needed locations, such as:

INT. HOUSE – VARIOUS ROOMS – DAY

Or, if you do want to show each location, try varying your descriptions of Mabel’s search so that they don’t repeat.

Finally, you could consider using a montage format:

MONTAGE as Mabel searches for the cat:

— She pulls open the dryer in the laundry room.

— Checks the kitchen cupboards.

— Searches under the porch with a flashlight.

— Pokes the broom under the sofa.

— Rechecks the kitchen cupboards again.

What format you choose really depends on the situation, and how much information you need the reader to know.

Western’s out?

Genres, QandA

Are western’s out?

–Mark Barragar

Yes. So write one if you feel like it. By the time you’re finished, they’ll
probably be in again, and you’ll be ahead of the curve.

Ad-libbing

QandA, Words on the page

How much ad-libbing do you write into your scripts?

–Walter Reichert

Some very funny movies have a lot of ad-libbing, which can give the
viewer the impression that there wasn’t really a script — the actors
just showed up and decided what they were going to do and say. But it’s
just not the case. The script may have been terrible, but something about
it was good enough to attract the actors and director in the first place.

If you happened to watch the second season of HBO’s "Project Greenlight" —
and if you’re reading this column, there’s a pretty good chance you’re
enough of a film masochist to watch it — you saw directors Kyle and
Efram defend their approach to an upcoming scene by saying, "We
were just planning on letting the actors improvise." To me, this
is analogous to saying, "We were just planning to let the children
drown."

Planned ad-libbing is like hoping for a white Christmas. Maybe it will
snow, or maybe it won’t. Your sleigh better have wheels just in case.

While I would never type the words "ad-lib" into a script,
there are occasions where people need to say something, but it’s not
exactly crucial who says what. For instance, in BIG FISH, there’s a scene
where the whole town has come to send Edward Bloom off on his journey.
Important lines are singled out to individual characters, but "the
crowd" gets just this:

THE CROWD (VARIOUS)

Goodbye Edward! / See ya! / We’ll miss you!

"Various" is a good word to choose when you need to indicate that there’s a range of possible options, be they in
action or dialogue. For instance:

VARIOUS SHOTS: Contorting his body in strange positions, Joe tries to get his candy out of the vending machine, but to no avail. Finally, he’s stuck in a half-pretzel as Jenny walks up.

Whatever you do, don’t use "ad-libbing" or "improv" as
an excuse not to write the best possible version of a scene. If you really
think the actors will come up with better dialogue than you can, find
a better writer.