John August

Search Results for: characters

Women in film

Film Industry, Story and Plot

Screenwriters: Think back over the scripts you’ve written, and ask yourself three questions about each one:

1. Are there two or more female characters with names?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. If they talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man?

This is the Bechdel test, [first articulated](http://alisonbechdel.blogspot.com/2005/08/rule.html) by cartoonist Alison Bechdel and amended by others over the years. ((The origin of the test is complicated, and very Googleable.)) You’d think it would be a very low bar to climb over. You’d be surprised.

Let’s be clear: many, many great movies don’t pass this test, and many terrible movies do. It’s not even a particularly good gauge for determining a film’s feminist content; Transformers 2 meets the requirement because Megan Fox receives a compliment on her hair.

So if this rule doesn’t necessarily speak to quality or content, what’s the point? My friend Beth, who took all the women’s studies classes I never did and therefore yawns at the mention of this old axiom, would argue it’s meaningless checkbox-marking.

But for screenwriters, I think it’s still fascinating. After all, we’re the ones who ultimately put characters in scenes together.

Looking back through my movies, I’m struck by how rarely the female characters actually do talk to each other. In Big Fish, it’s only a brief moment with Sandra and Josephine. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it’s a throwaway moment between Violet and Veruca. Titan A.E. fails the test unless you know that the alien Stith is technically female.

In each of these cases, I had to spend a few minutes just to come up with these (admittedly slight) examples.

Also, I find it fascinating that the Reverse Bechdel Test is almost meaningless. Pretty much every movie made includes two named male characters talking about something other than a woman.

Does acknowledging the situation change anything? Maybe. I’ll certainly ask myself these questions about future scripts. For now, my upcoming projects all seem to pass, but they have a familiar paradigm: a single main female who mostly interacts with the men in the story.

Formatting the faux-documentary

Formatting, Genres, QandA

questionmarkI want to know more about proper formatting of the new documentary aesthetic that’s been brought about by shows like The Office and Modern Family. I’m referencing specifically the ironic or conspiratorial glances into camera, the unexplained interview shots. These shows seem to have the assumption that there’s a documentary crew present. I love that! And I love the potential for humor it brings about.

My question is this: how would that be written in a script other than through the use of “into camera”? Is there a way to indicate that an entire film or pilot would be shot in this manner? I’m also interested in your general stylistic take on this and whether or not you think we’ll see this approach used in feature films successfully?

— Ashleigh
Los Angeles CA

The faux-documentary trend has detractors, but I think it works very well in the two shows you mention.

Each show will have its own house style for how they format it in the script, ((As always, if you’re writing a spec episode of a existing show, hunt down one of its scripts and follow its lead exactly.)) but it’s usually handled in the slugline when the whole scene is directed towards the camera:

INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY [INTERVIEW]

MARK

No. I’m not disappointed. Not at all. Surprised, sure. Dejected? A little. Angry maybe, but not furious. I guess I’d say I’m “disappointed” and leave it at that.

These shows tend to treat the camera as an unnamed character who either (a) is aware of something other characters in the scene aren’t, or (b) might take something embarrassing out of context unless clarified.

If a character is directing a line or a look to camera, call that out. (If it helps, think of “camera” as a producer standing right next to the lens.)

CANDY KANE

It just seems too big to fit. Maybe if we greased it up or something.

Laura gestures to camera -- see?

Reference the camera sparingly. Unless the point of your script is the documentary itself (c.f. The Comeback), you’re likely to undercut the comedy or drama by acknowledging that characters are aware their actions are being filmed.

So you’re moving to Hollywood

First Person, Los Angeles

Because this site is largely aimed at aspiring screenwriters, I like to include their first-person perspective on those early steps, beginning with the move to Los Angeles. Over the last few years, we’ve had guest blog posts from [Adam Davis](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/starting-out-in-hollywood), [Kris Galuska](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/moving-to-la), [Jerome Schwartz](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/jerome-schwartz-first-person) and [Jonny Summers](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/showrunner-asst) — all of whom are due for an update.

George Sloan is a writers’ assistant on “How I Met Your Mother.” He graciously agreed to write up a primer for recent college grads considering making the move to Hollywood.

—

first personHi. I’m George. You probably don’t know me. But that’s okay. We’re friends now.

Below is some information I’ve compiled over the last four-and-a-half years, based on my experience as a PA in the industry, as well as questions I’ve been asked by people considering the move to Los Angeles. Keep in mind, this is an unofficial and relatively shitty guide to working in Hollywood.

#The Big Move

Every year, thousands of 20-something guys and girls pack up their cars, leave their beloved suburban towns and head west to Los Angeles. And with good reason. LA is the international capital of television and motion pictures. Argue all you want about other places — Ne w York, New Orleans, Vancouver and Eastern Europe — but when all is said and done, LA is where you need to be. Granted, that may change over the next ten years, but as of 2010, LA is still the place.

Leaving home and saying goodbye to my family and friends, though incredibly difficult, was a necessity. But before I packed my ’98 Accord to the roof, I asked myself a question. It’s the same question that I pose to anyone considering the move to LA. “Aside from film and television, is there anything else you can see yourself doing with your life?” If the answer is no, pack your stuff and get out here.

George Sloan

##The Drive
Recruit a friend to drive with you, if possible. I drove alone, however, and loved every minute of it. Those five days in the car, thinking and listening to music, allowed me to prepare myself mentally for the enormous change I was about to experience.

##Saving Up
I moved to Los Angeles with $1,200 in savings. Dumb idea. I would suggest moving with no less than $5,000 in savings. LA is one of the more expensive cities in the country and you probably won’t have a job for the first few weeks. You’ll need enough to cover gas (about 50 cents more per gallon in LA than on the east coast), food, monthly bills (student loans, car loans, etc.), as well as your first/last month of rent and security deposit. You’ll also need money for furniture if you didn’t come out here with any. I moved in with a few guys I met on Craigslist who already had a fully-furnished house. That worked out well, but if you want to live alone, prepare to drop some cash at Ikea.

##The First Job
Finding a job in LA is not that hard. Finding a good-paying job that you enjoy is very hard. I did freelance PA (production assistant) work for my first year out here (additionally, I had worked as a PA back in Boston for over a year), working on some embarrassing low-budget feature films, as well as some embarrassing big-budget reality shows. The hours were impossibly long and the pay was hilariously low. The tasks I was asked to complete were menial and beneath anybody with a high school diploma. My friends like to refer to some of the jobs I had as “pride-swallowing.” I prefer the term “soul-crushing.”

##The Long and Winding Road
After a year or so, I got a job as an office PA on a big-budget studio feature. It was thrilling, but eight months later, I felt like I wasn’t learning anything new and decided to leave. I scored an internship at a well-respected production company, eventually transitioning into a full-time job as an executive assistant. But after a year, I again grew restless. I thought about why I moved to LA in the first place: to pursue my dream of writing and directing. My two years in LA had certainly not been a waste (I had fun, I learned a lot and I made some great connections), but I didn’t feel any closer to my dream of writing and directing. So I set what I considered to be a realistic goal for myself: I would become a writers’ assistant on a TV show. I had heard there was a “ladder” to climb in television writing (start as an office PA, get promoted to writers’ PA, then get promoted to writers’ assistant), and was growing increasingly frustrated by the fact that no such ladder exists in the feature world.

Luckily, around this time, I received a call from a former employer who said “How I Met Your Mother” was looking for a new office PA. It seemed destined, so I started there over the summer, and busted my ass. When shooting began in the fall, a writers’ assistant position opened up and I made it clear that I was interested and prepared to do the job. I got the promotion. It took me two and a half years to find a job that I didn’t consider “soul-crushing,” but it finally happened. I still consider myself “just starting out” in the industry, but I now feel more confident in my future.

##A Necessary Evil
The best advice I can give to anyone starting out in Hollywood is to find a job as a production assistant. It sucks hard, but it’s a necessary evil. Working as a PA is thankless. Truly. But it’s the nature of the beast. You must pay your dues. You’ll make shitty money, work long hours and be forced to swallow every ounce of pride that you have, but you’ll learn more in one day than you would in a lifetime of sitting in a classroom. You’ll also learn what you do and don’t want to do.

As a new PA on “How I Met Your Mother,” I was responsible for buying groceries and keeping the refrigerator stocked. Although it sounds silly, I took this job very seriously. Within a few days, the writers were telling me I was doing way better than the last guy and were offering to read any scripts I might be working on. Even the little things count. People notice.

##The Giant Whirlpool
I think of Hollywood as a giant, freezing-cold, bacteria-ridden whirlpool. On the outside of the whirlpool, closest to the shore (and financial security), are the executives, the studio heads, the big-name actors, writers and directors. As you move towards the center, you come upon the lower-level employees. And moving further inwards still, you come to the PA’s. There’s thousands of them, all clamoring and clawing, trying desperately not to get sucked into the deep, dark hole of anonymity and sadness. *Continues →*

Writing from theme

QandA, Story and Plot, Writing Process

questionmarkI’m a produced screenwriter, repped at a big agency. I work regularly, just had a movie released to good reviews, and am fairly confident when talking about the craft. And so it is with some professional embarrassment (and using a pseudonym–he he) that I admit I am plagued by what seems like a rather rudimentary question.

Long ago someone I trust read a script of mine. Something was missing from this script, I knew it, I felt it, I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. I read it and re-read it. Structurally it seemed fine, scene by scene it felt like it was working, the dialogue was tight, the characters well drawn. I took it apart and put it back to together again a couple of times. That missing thing was still missing.

So I gave the script to this trusted person and this trusted person read it and gave me this advice: WRITE FROM THEME. Okay. Now, that sounds very simple. And maybe it is for clever people like you. But I don’t seem capable of integrating this approach into my writing. And the reason, I’ve decided, is because I don’t really know what it means — at least in any practical sense.

Complicating matters further, a friend of mine, a better writer than I will ever be, the late novelist Lucy Grealy, shrugged off the notion of writing from theme. We were sitting in an airport bar drinking beer and I said, hey, so, do you write from theme? No, said she without hesitation, tell the story honestly and its theme will emerge. Trying to impose theme on story gives the story an agenda. She accented the word agenda with a dubious little rise in her voice.

Ten years later, as I sit down to write, wishing I were better than I am, hoping the next script will be the one where everything finally clicks and art is achieved, I hear a voice in my head saying, Write from Theme. Write from Theme.

Please make the voices stop, John. Do you write from theme? If so, how?

— JT
Los Angeles

“Theme” is a word screenwriters use without defining it clearly, so yes, it’s bound to be frustrating. But I’m not sure we should be using it at all.

In high school, we were taught that a theme is usually about opposing forces, e.g. “man vs. nature” or “the struggle for independence.” I don’t know that this kind of analysis is all that useful when you’re talking about a screenplay, however. It’s helpful for writing an essay *about* a movie, not for writing the movie itself.

I suspect what your pro-theme writer friends were talking about was some essence that permeates every moment of a good film. Something that’s in its DNA. You feel it when it’s there, and notice it when it’s missing — even when the script otherwise seems solid.

Think back to one of your favorite movies. Chances are, you could pick any moment in it, and it would “feel like” the movie. That is, you could take that little slice of it, plant it in some cinematic soil, and it would grow into something resembling the original.

My favorite movie is Aliens, and it meets this test easily. Pull out any sequence — even before Ripley has agreed to join the mission — and it would grow into a story that fits its universe.

I don’t know that “theme” is really the best word for this DNA quality I’m describing. But I think it’s what we mean when we say it.

Theme as the essential idea
—-

At the Austin Film Festival this year, I’ll be doing a detailed breakdown of Big Fish and my process writing it. Back in 1998, while trying to convince Sony to buy the book rights for me, I had a lot of conversations about “what it was about.” Not the plot, really, but what the point of it all was. I talked about the difference between *what is true and what is real.*

I don’t know that I ever articulated it quite that way, but this was definitely the underlying idea that informed every moment and every character in the script. And for most of my projects, I can point to the DNA ideas:

* Charlie’s Angels: Three princesses must save their father, the King.
* Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Charlie Bucket was lucky even without the ticket, because he was surrounded by family who loved him.
* The Remnants: The end of the world isn’t so bad.
* Snake People: Mother is a monster.
* The Variant: You are still your younger self.
* The Nines: A creator’s responsibility to his creations.
* Go: You cross a line, then your only way out is to accelerate.

For the first four projects, I remember saying these things aloud before I started writing. For the others, I probably didn’t. But I could definitely feel the edges of their core ideas before I put pen to paper. I won’t start writing until I know it.

When you really understand a project’s DNA, it’s much easier to write and rewrite. You know exactly what types of scenes, moments and lines of dialogue belong in your movie, and which don’t.

Every scene in your screenplay can change, but it still feels like the movie.

I think one reason movies with multiple writers often feel disjointed is because the writers aren’t working from the same DNA. They might agree on “what it’s about,” but they’re never going to emotionally approach it the same way. They can’t.

TV series, which by necessity have a bunch of writers, benefit from having a few filmed and finished episodes to create a baseline. We all know what an episode of Friends is supposed to feel like. But those first few scripts? Those can be brutal, and it often takes a lot of rewriting from the showrunner.

From that point on, “theme” is often what drives a given episode — storylines will radiate out from an abstract idea like “hope” or “false promises.” All shows work differently, but if you peek in a writers’ room, you’ll often find a theme word written high on the whiteboard, circled a few times.

Theme as a shibboleth
—-

Like “structure,” I see theme thrown around as a term meant to separate artists from hacks. So my eyes generally narrow when someone uses it, because I’m not sure exactly what they mean, or why they’re using it.

One screenwriting teacher made us state the theme of our scripts as a question. Which was difficult and, in my opinion, pointless.

The alternate version I’m positing above — the core idea or DNA — is practical and actionable. Once you feel confident what your unwritten movie wants to be, you make sure every scene and character and line of dialogue services that ideal. That’s the work of screenwriting, and it’s hard, to be sure.

But if you don’t pick a target, you’re unlikely to hit anything worthwhile.