John August

Search Results for: courier

Are you somebody?

Film Industry, First Person

doing it book coverThe Writers Guild Foundation has a new book out, Doing It For Money, in which working screenwriters contribute short pieces about the pleasures and pitfalls of working in Hollywood. I’d feel bad about giving my essay away for free, except that pretty much every entry in the book is at least its equal. Buy the book. You’ll like it.

* * *

There are no famous screenwriters.

There are rich screenwriters with houses in Malibu. There are acclaimed screenwriters with awards on their mantels. But none of them are actually famous. Your aunt in Pittsburgh can’t name a single screenwriter — except for you, her little champ, working so hard to make it in Hollywood.

She’s proud of you, but worries. Who wouldn’t?

True, there are the hyphenates: writer-directors can be famous, not to mention actor-writer-directors, whose many hats only add to their publicity value. But no one gets famous just for writing 120 pages of 12-point Courier. You should know this going in, because if you have any interest in becoming “a household name,” your best bet is to pick a pseudonym like Crisco or Clorox.

Here’s an example of someone who is actually famous: Drew Barrymore. A few years ago, paparazzi took pictures of us having lunch. In the caption, I was the “unidentified companion.”

I wasn’t offended, honest. By this point I had fully accepted that I would never be recognized. The more time you spend with actual famous people, the more you realize that it pretty much sucks to have random people taking your picture, or asking for autographs while your dog is pooping at Runyon Canyon Park.

Well-paid anonymity is a luxury, frankly. I came to enjoy it.

And then one day, someone recognized me.

My boyfriend and I were at LAX, flying to Colorado for Christmas vacation, with both our dogs in carriers. Out of nowhere, a young guy on crutches came up to me and stuck out his hand: “I just wanted to say, I’m a big fan.” I stammered and thanked him, then went back to my dogs.

At the time, I was busy promoting Big Fish, so I figured that Crutches Guy had been at one of the countless Q&A screenings. He’d seen the film, liked it, and remembered me as the guy sitting next to Danny DeVito. I was flattered, and enjoyed the little jolt of adrenaline, but quickly wrote it off as a one-time thing.

But it wasn’t.

As I’ve done more publicity, and talking-head interviews on various DVDs, I’ve found that random people are recognizing me and saying hello with increasing frequency. It’s once a month or so — nothing alarming — but it always comes when I least it expect it: shopping for strollers, in line at the movies, at breakfast with the woman carrying my baby.

The hand-shakers are invariably polite, so I can always genuinely say, “It’s nice to meet you.” But what’s fascinating is how everyone around us reacts. Remember: as a screenwriter, I’m not actually famous. Yet suddenly someone is treating me like I am. I love watching that double-take as bystanders try to figure out who I could possibly be.

Once a nearby woman actually asked me, “Are you somebody?”

Almost apologetically, I said I was a screenwriter. Her face showed a combination of confusion and disappointment that would have been devastating at another point in my life.

While I stand by my no-famous-screenwriters rule, I need to issue a clarification. It is apparently possible to be recognizable among the subset of “aspiring screenwriters living in Los Angeles.” That’s far short of famous, but quite a bit better, in my opinion. Screenwriters are commendable folk. (Except for one guy who asked me to sign his hat, then dissed me in his blog.)

If there’s a downside to being recognized, it’s that occasionally I get half-recognized. At a restaurant, someone will see me and know that they know me from somewhere. Throughout the rest of their meal, they will steal glances, wracking their brains to figure out who I could be. A musician? A contestant on The Apprentice? The Neo-Nazi from last night’s West Wing? By the time salads arrive, I can feel their growing frustration.

So I take off my glasses.

With 18 inches of vision, the rest of the world blurs out, leaving me alone in my happy anonymity. Unless that guy comes over and asks if I am somebody. Then I don’t know what I’ll say.

How to format lyrics in scripts

Formatting, QandA

I was quite curious as to how one would write a scene with characters singing a song, musical style. Do we just include “singing” as an action within the handy parentheses? Or is there some other formatting we must use? And how much mention are we supposed to give to the music itself?

— Adam Scott
Perth, Australia

For movies and television, the convention is to put the lyrics in italics. It’s probably helpful to include a “(singing)” parenthetical the first time you do it, because some readers may not catch it otherwise. And yes, dialogue in italics can also be used for foreign languages, so you’ll need to make sure it’s clear in context.

Here’s where the former graphic designer in me resurfaces. Screenplays are written in 12-pt. Courier, which is not the most attractive typeface in the world, but certainly sturdy and readable. There’s an italic form of Courier that’s rounded and a little more like handwriting, which would be quite suitable for lyrics.

However, the “italic” form of Courier you find on most computers is really just normal Courier with a slant effect applied (called “oblique”), and it seriously blows. It’s ugly on screen. It’s ugly printed.

It’s impossible to write beautiful lyrics in such an ugly typeface.

So, having written lyrics in many of my scripts, I’ve come to use a different typeface altogether for the songs. For Big Fish, I used 11 pt. Stone Sans Italic. For Charlie and Corpse Bride, I switched to 11 pt. Verdana Italic, because I needed to send those scripts in as .pdf files, and you can safely count on just about any computer having Verdana installed.

Why 11 pt., when the main text is set at 12 pt.? That’s because Verdana looks much bigger than Courier when set at the same point size. You’re also more likely to get a full lyric line in without a break at that size. (Although I feel no guilt cheating a margin slightly to avoid a break in any event.)

Some scripts I’ve read will include a slash “/” at the end of each sung line. I don’t find that helpful, so I never use it.

In terms of talking about the music, your best bet is to describe the general style and tone, such as “bright, Sousa-like march” or “melancholy dirge.” You can give an example if it’s particularly apt, but I’d avoid a reference that makes the reader stop and think, “Hmm, how does that go?”

Note that the convention for songs in stage musicals is completely different. For those, lyrics are placed in uppercase along the left margin. You can see examples of the format in the templates for Final Draft or Screenwriter.

Because not all screenwriters live in Wisconsin

First Person

I recently did an e-mail interview with the good folks at the [Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum](http://www.wiscreenwritersforum.org/), only to realize that a significant percentage of my readership base (aspiring screenwriters, [confused Christians](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/liam-found-a-mistake-in-the-bible), web-surfing office drones) lives outside of our 30th state, and therefore might not receive the newsletter.

So with WSF’s kind permission, I’m reprinting it here.

Could you tell me a little about the process you went through from the time you decided you wanted to write screenplays, to the time you wrote GO?

I wrote my first script in graduate school. It was a romantic tragedy set in Colorado. Reading it now, I don’t think it’s all that good, but the writing showed enough promise to get me some meetings, and ultimately an agent. By that time, I had already written the first part of Go, designed to be a short film. It was only several scripts later (after How to Eat Fried Worms and A Wrinkle in Time) that I went back and wrote the full version of Go.

I pretty much always wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t really know anything about screenwriting until I got to Los Angeles. Like all new screenwriters, it took a while to get used to the format.

How did GO make its way from an idea in your mind to your first produced feature film?

Go came from a bunch of little incidents I’d collected over the years, some true, some not. A lot of people focus on the structure of it, but I think what makes it work is that moment-by-moment, you’re not sure where the hell it’s going. That’s very much the experience of being twenty.

What process do you adhere to, if any, when approaching an adaptation?

Adaptations are really no different than originals. You’re looking for what’s inherently the “movie idea.” Sometimes that’s obvious (Jurassic Park) and sometimes that’s more work to uncover (Big Fish). But in both cases, you’re best off building the movie from the ground up, rather than trying to force the original material into a cinematic shape.

What are some of the smartest things you’ve done in regards to your career? Things you feel have helped bring you to your current level of success.

I was never a big networker. I didn’t keep up relationships on the off chance that someday I’d work with a certain person. But I learned how to be good in meetings, which means knowing when to talk and when to listen. When people would give me stupid notes, I wouldn’t reject them outright, but would rather try to intuit what they actually wanted, even if they couldn’t articulate it. And I’ve always tried to be the guy who comes up with solutions, rather than pointing out problems.

Have you made any mistakes along the way, in regards to your screenwriting career, which others could potentially learn from?

Especially early in my career, I’d fall in love with a given scene and do anything to keep it in the script, even if in my heart I knew it wasn’t working for the story. Now, I’m a lot more ruthless. There will always be other great scenes. What’s important is that the piece as a whole is working.

How do you approach writing that snappy dialogue you’ve become popular for?

Dialogue is just the way people would talk if they had a few extra seconds to think about what they were going to say. It’s not exactly natural; it’s more compressed and streamlined. I think it’s a lot like how illustrators do animation, flipping pages back and forth to see how it moves. I’m constantly reading from line to line, making sure the rhythm works.

What are some of your favorite movies? Screenplays? Books?

My favorite movie is Aliens, which is probably my favorite screenplay as well. I don’t know that I have one favorite book. I don’t tend to re-read books the way I’ll re-watch movies, so I don’t have the same kind of familiarity with any one work. But in general, I love the dysfunctional family genre, such as Augusten Burrough’s RUNNING WITH SCISSORS or David Sedaris’ NAKED.

What piece of advice could you have used back when you were an aspiring screenwriter?

To worry less about the format and more about the words. Honestly, if a script has terrific writing, no one will give a rat’s ass about the margins and sluglines. There’s far too much emphasis on doing things right, and not enough on doing things brilliantly. When you read a great script, the paper disappears and you feel like you’re watching a movie. That has nothing to do with 12 pt. Courier. It’s artful writing, and that’s the only crucial element

What format should I send my script in?

Formatting, QandA

questionmarkI’ve just finished my first script and a few people who I’d like to impress have asked me to send it to them over email. My question is, what is the proper format for sending scripts through email? Do I attach it as a Final Draft document? Convert it to a Word document? Something else I don’t know about? Thanks.

–Ryan
Los Angeles

Since you can’t count on your friends having the right version of any given program, your best bet is to convert it to a .pdf document. Both Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter can do this pretty easily.

In Screenwriter, choose “Print…” from the File menu, then choose “PDF (Adobe Acrobat) File” from the “Print To:” pop-up menu. Screenwriter gives you the option to make bookmarks from all the scene headings in the file, which is helpful.

In Final Draft, simply choose “Save as PDF…” from the File menu. One caveat: in some versions of Final Draft, the .pdfs generated this way are huge.

As an alternate for Mac OS X, you can choose “PDF” from the main print dialog box, which bypasses the program and grabs the real information that would be sent to the printer. This system-wide ability of Mac OS X is a godsend; I use it all the time.

Almost everyone I know uses .pdfs these days to turn in scripts. You can pretty much count on them printing out properly, and it saves a lot of hassle dealing with couriers and photocopiers.