John August

Words on the page

Writing silent scenes

Formatting, Ops, Projects, QandA, Words on the page

questionmarkI have a question about formatting for a script I’ve been working on. The concept involves some scenes being completely silent, but with an occasional sound coming through (i.e. everything’s silent, including speech, until someone breaks a glass and the shattering is audible).

I’ve tried a couple of different methods of formatting this but I’m not sure what makes the most sense. In early drafts, I just designated the scene as “Silent” at the beginning and capitalized the sounds that broke through. My writers’ group found this to be strange so in my latest draft I tried it with “M.O.S.” attached to every action that was supposed to be silent, but they didn’t like that either.

So now I’m kind of stumped on how to translate this idea to the page. Is there a way to format it that makes sense? I want it to be as clear as possible to readers.

— Cali
Seattle

My hunch is that you are doing too much, and it’s slowing down the read. A modern screenplay isn’t a list of camera angles and sound cues. It reads more like journalistic, present-tense fiction. (Think Hemingway, not Faulkner.)

If certain scenes are going to be silent, and other ones aren’t, my inclination would be to flag them in the scene headers, the same way you call out special events like [RAINING] or [DRIVING]. So in your case…

INT. KITCHEN – NIGHT [SILENT]

Within scenes, putting those few audible sounds in UPPERCASE makes sense. Remember, treat your readers like audience members, and think about it from their perspective.

For example, in the [second pilot](http://johnaugust.com/downloads_ripley/ops_venezuela_pilot_2.pdf) Jordan Mechner and I wrote for [Ops](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/ops-stops), we had an extended sequence with no natural sound. It was important to showcase why this was going to be cool:

INT. KIDNAP SHACK – DAY

Brilliant shafts of sunlight burst through the corrugated metal walls of the shack. We don’t hear the gunshots or the hits — we simply watch as the holes open up.

Under the cot, Dagny is screaming, but we don’t hear it — we only see her open mouth.

EXT. JUNGLE – DAY

Only now do we see Gonzales and his men silently firing, emptying the clips of their fully-automatic rifles.

INT. KIDNAP SHACK – DAY

Vanowen is flat on the floor, looking out through a broken board. Sweat is dripping into his eyes, but he stays rock-solid.

EXT. JUNGLE – DAY

Gonzales signals for his men to stop. They listen. One man takes a few steps to his right.

INT. KIDNAP SHACK – DAY

Vanowen squeezes the .45 trigger. This SINGLE SHOT is deafening. (At this point, normal SOUND RESUMES.)

Look at your silent scenes from your reader’s perspective, and try to read them without knowing what’s happening next. You’re not nearly as curious what it sounds like as what it _feels_ like to have the sound missing. Write that.

Secret history of the Kleinhardt Gambit

Charlie's Angels, Projects, QandA, Words on the page

questionmarkIn the second Charlie’s Angels, where did the phrase “Kleinhardt gambit” come from?

— Duane
Mount Pleasant

Duane is referring to this scene, near the end of the movie:

EXT. HIGH ROOF – NIGHT

Madison finds herself alone on a high, empty roof. Reeling, confused. A giant, blinking “LOS ANGELES” SIGN flashes.

A single telescope has been set up near the edge. Madison walks to it. Leans down to the eyepiece.

HER P.O.V.

On a distant rooftop, all of her gangster clients are being arrested by the F.B.I.

CLOSE ON MADISON

as she looks up from the eyepiece. Furious, but smiling. She speaks to the only ones who could be behind this:

MADISON

The Kleinhardt Gambit. Classic. Well done.

WIDEN TO REVEAL the Angels, approaching behind her.

NATALIE

Thanks.

SMASHCUT to a series of FAST FLASHBACKS:

MUSSO AND FRANK’S. SNAP ZOOM TO THE COAT CHECK ROOM. THE COAT CHECKER IS NATALIE, WITH BLACK HAIR AND SLINKY BLACK DRESS.

ROOSEVELT HOTEL, BATHROOM. THE HISPANIC DOORMAN QUICKLY RIPS OFF HIS LATEX FACE, REVEALING DYLAN.

(Those last three are separate scene numbers, by the way.)

Here, the “Kleinhardt Gambit” refers to the way the angels sent Madison’s buyers to the wrong rooftop through elaborate misdirection. The telescope is apparently not a key part of the gambit, but rather just to piss off Madison.

The action is pretty standard for Charlie’s Angels (or Mission: Impossible), so it makes sense that a fallen angel would recognize how she was duped, and would have a term for it. The term itself is completely invented, a ridiculous neologism. And believe me, there wasn’t a lot of deep thought going into it. The first combination of syllables that seemed reasonable got typed.

Science fiction does this constantly. What’s a [flux capacitor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_capacitor)? How did Kirk prevail in the un-winnable [Kobayashi Maru](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru)? What are [midi-chlorians](http://www.theforce.net/midichlorians/), and how can we pretend we never heard of them?

Don’t be afraid to invent terms you think would exist in your fictional world. Done just right, jargon helps ground characters in their setting, much the way medical-ese makes you think those pretty people on TV could actually be doctors.

Were I to seek examples of the subjunctive…

Resources, Words on the page

…I might begin with the excellent [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive) on the issue, which provides a nice introduction to its usage in English and other Indo-European languages.

I’m a native English speaker, but the first language I studied was Spanish, which I think accounts for my fascination with the subjunctive mood. It’s much more commonly heard in Spanish, partly because its usage in English disappears amid polysemy:

→ I wish **you were** nicer to your brother. (past subjunctive)
→ **You were** lucky he didn’t hit you. (past indicative)

Different words, but you wouldn’t know it. The only time you notice the subjunctive in English is when the verb doesn’t seem to match the subject:

→ If **I were** rich, I’d have you killed. (contrafactual)
→ I request that **he be** given exile. (indirect command)
→ **Let us fight** our enemies, not each other. (hortatory)

When the subjunctive shows up, there’s almost always drama. Someone is expressing hope or doubt. It’s worth paying attention.

Cynics have been predicting the death of the subjunctive for years, arguing that it is mostly confined to archaic phrases. I disagree. While there are many shaky grammatical constructs I could easily see collapsing (who/whom, lay/lie), I think the subjunctive has several points in its favor:

* **Most native speakers don’t know they’re using it.** While we notice when it’s omitted (“If I was president…”), the majority of people get it right without knowing why. (“I demand my account be reactivated immediately.”)

* **While there are alternatives, they’re rarely better.** The previous example could be rewritten, “I demand you reactivate my account…” or “Reactivate my account, you idiot!” But neither achieves the same effect as the subjunctive. English thrives on having many ways of saying similar-but-different things.

* **It’s really common in religious material.** The U.S. is very church-y, so Americans get a weekly dosage of subjunctive in their sermons and prayers. (“The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace.”)

Remember that the subjunctive is invoked by the semantics, not just the words leading up to it:

→ If I were correct with my answer, I would have won Jeopardy.
*but…*
→ If I was correct in my calculations, we should hear a boom in three seconds.

Now that I’ve expressed my deep affection for the subjunctive, let me urge discretion when using it in screenwriting. Many times, your characters will speak ungrammatically. Your knowledge of the subjunctive should never trump their ignorance.

PAPPY

If was a bettin’ man, I’d say he demanded Sonny kills that other fella lest he rats him out to Bubba.

That’s three missed opportunities to use the subjunctive, but it may be the right choice for Pappy. Always go by ear with dialogue.

Northeaster

Projects, Travel, Words on the page, Writing Process

pierI spent five days in Maine, writing and researching my next project. A few observations, in bullet point form:

* Part of my motivation for visiting Maine was that I’ve always claimed to have visited all 48 contiguous states, thanks to endless summer roadtrips with my family growing up. But my mom recently told me that we’d never been to Maine, which kicked in my set-completion instinct.

* I was reluctant to try to pronounce any place names in front of people. Bar Harbor is on Mount Desert Island. “Desert” is pronounced like “dessert,” which conjures images of a fantasyland of fudge and sprinkles.

* Even though a screenwriter isn’t trying to capture an accent per se, it’s important to choose words and patterns that can work with the accent when spoken by the actor. (“Down the road apiece. Can’t miss it.”)

* That said, I feel lucky that this won’t be a big accent movie, because several Mainers were adamant that Hollywood always gets the accent wrong. Which is probably true. But what I resisted pointing out was that no two Mainers I met had the same accent. It’s all over the place, particularly when you talk to people under 30.

* Going somewhere to write has become my standard operating procedure. I barricade myself somewhere without TV, internet or familial distractions, and crank through as many hand-written pages as possible in three or four days. I fax these pages back to Los Angeles, both for safety and to let my assistant type them up. This time, I faxed to an eFax account, which had the bonus of creating a digital backup in .pdf form.

* I took a lot of photos, [which you can see on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnau8ust/sets/72157604470043300/). It wasn’t really location scouting — we’re not at that point yet. But since there’s already a director on board, it can give him some sense of the place.

* One place had flies. [A lot of flies](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/stupid_flies.mov).

* Man, I was lucky not to be flying on [American](http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-american11apr11). [Or ATA. Or SkyBus. Or Aloha.](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24018687/) (Though the last one would have been an unlikely choice.)

* house wrappedAnother reason for the trip: we had to have our house tented for termites. This is probably alien to readers in colder climates, but in Southern California, termites can become pervasive enough that you need to nuke the house. Generally, you do it when the house is sold (and thus empty), but we’re not moving anytime soon, so we had to bite the bullet. But it looked cool, like a [Christo](http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/wk.shtml) project.