Words on the page

I am writing a screenplay that has a court room sequence.
Since I find it hard to write lawyer lingo, I figured that I could write the
sequence in a
voice over and have the actors do their thing as I write it out or as the director
sees fit.

–Scott

I hate to burst your bubble, but those lengthy courtroom sequences every week
on "Law and Order" — the ones where Sam Waterston cleverly gets
the witness to screw up on the stand — someone actually has to write all of
those. Every word, every comma. Waterston is a talented actor, but he doesn’t
come up with a single thing he says. Neither does the director. It’s all in
the script, and it’s really, really hard to write.

The same holds true for every line spoken in every movie you’ve ever seen,
with the exception of a few improvised comedies and Dogma experiments.

If you find it impossibly difficult to write lawyer lingo, I can think of
a few options:

1. restructure the story so you don’t need the courtroom stuff
   at all,

2. get someone to help you, or
3. tell a different story, one without
   lawyers.

Ordinarily, the scripts I tend to write are by nature
shooting scripts. In all probability its due to the fact that I know that
I’m going to be the one
directing them, so they’re very "CUT TO" and "FADE TO" heavy.
However, I’ve recently been entertaining the idea of entering a few in screenwriting
contests and most of the feedback I’ve received from peers has been that shooting
scripts are often dismissed as being "unprofessional."
Have you found this to be the case? If so, what sorts of things need to be
avoided and why?

–Richard

It’s truly a matter of personal style. I’ll explain how I approach it, but
you should know that there is not one right answer.

I use "CUT TO:" when it’s meant to be an especially blunt transition.
The classic and bad example is when a character says, "I will never, ever
get on a train." CUT TO: He’s on a train. (This is a situation where some
writers use, "SMASH CUT TO:", but that’s always seemed tacky to me,
like a cymbal crash.)

CUT TO: is also helpful when you’re finishing up a series of short scenes in one location, and then need to make it clear to the reader that you’re jumping
to a new place and time.

Overuse of fades can feel like the writer is trying to "direct from the
page," generally a no-no. One or two in a script won’t raise any hackles.
Fifteen will. So be judicious.

I’m about 50 pages into my first screenplay, a family film.
For research, I decided to watch at least a dozen children’s movies, and I
started with the
current blockbuster HARRY POTTER. I was fascinated by the pacing. Virtually
every scene (there are one or three exceptions) is only 1 – 3 minutes long,
with most coming in just under two minutes. That seems very short.
Comparatively, my writing is averaging 2 – 5 minutes per scene. Should I be
concerned? Is it possible anymore for a children’s movie to be marketable if
it doesn’t run at a breakneck pace?

–Barb

First, kudos on doing the experiment. You taught yourself something that no
instructor could ever beat into you: movie scenes are short. Much shorter than
you would think.

If you were to expand your research to include other genres, you’d find that
most scenes in most movies are no more than three minutes long, which means
no more than three pages of script.

It’s not an iron-clad rule; scenes can be twenty minutes long. But it’s a
very useful rule of thumb. If I get to the third page of a scene I’m writing,
I automatically stop and re-examine it to figure out why it’s so long, and whether it really needs to be.

Since this is your first screenplay, I’m hesitant to tell you to cut your
scenes down now, for fear that you’ll never actually finish your script. But
always look for economy: what is the latest moment you could come into a scene,
and the earliest moment you could leave? You’ll probably find that your character
waste a lot of time before getting to the meat of a scene, then chew on the
bones longer than needed.

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.