Good Reader, back at you this week with more from the Overheard Dialogue Files. There is a wealth of crazies out there, not just in Chicago, but in your hometown too! I suggest you ride the public transit rails at 2am, hang in a bunch of lines at Target, frequent film school shindigs in search for that elusive overheard dialogue you can either learn from, or jam verbatim directly into your screenplay. Remember, long as the guy next to you isn’t reading from his latest novel, if you hear it in the air, and write it down…you just wrote it. It’s all about hearing the cadences around you, how people actually talk, not just noun-verb conceptions, what looks good on the page occasionally having nothing to do with how people actually talk. So, speaking of Target:
- NURSERY WATER
Setting: Target, Infant aisle. A haggard 40 year-old SEASONED VET pushing a cart with an infant and a two year old, rushing past and abruptly stopping next to a NEWBIE, a 30 year-old pregnant woman. Both women reach for the last two jugs of nursery water on the shelf. Seasoned Vet gets to the jugs first and slings both into her cart.
NEWBIE: Ah, excuse me, I was going to take one of those.
SEASONED VET: Good for you.
NEWBIE: Do you seriously need both of those?
Seasoned Vet looks down at her crying infant.
SEASONED VET: Uh yeah, I fucking do.
NEWBIE: There’s no need for that. I was just asking because I need them too.
SEASONED VET: Your brat’s not even here yet!
NEWBIE: Excuse me?!
SEASONED VET: What you need them for, so they can sit around waiting for your little mistake? Come the fuck on!
Seasoned Vet shakes her head and peels out of the aisle, leaving Newbie standing stunned.
THE TAKEAWAY: Possession = 9/10’s of the law. It also controls the beat here. If newbie got her hands on the water first this conversation would never have happened, at least not disintegrate so fast. Never cross a mother of two for a jug of nursery water!
- SOUNDTRACK THOUGHTS
Setting: Edit Room, Columbia College. Two girls edit across from a guy.
GIRL 1: You know what I hate?
GIRL 2: What?
GIRL 1: When like, a movie comes out and they don’t give full credit to the person who sings.
GIRL 2: You mean like a musical?
GIRL 1: No, like one of those documentary movies about Ray Charles.
GIRL 2: Oh, you mean like that one with Jamie Foxx, “Ray”.
GIRL 1: Yeah, or the Johnny Cash one.
GIRL 2: Whose Johnny Cash? Was he black?
GIRL 1: No, he did that movie with Reese Witherspoon and the guy from “Signs”, Joaquin Pheonix I think. Anyway—
GIRL 2: Wait, does he have like a crazy lip—
GIRL 1: Yeah, I KNOW! What the fuck…Anyway, like when they say that Jaimie Foxx or the guy from Signs sings all the songs. It’s like…whatthefuckever!
GIRL 2: I know! There’s no way they sing all those songs.
The Guy leans over, interjecting with a look of confusion and disgust.
GUY: Ummm, sorry to interrupt but Joaquin Phoenix studied for a year to learn to sing that well and Jamie Foxx did as well. Also, they list their names in the credits with the songs as having performed them. Please tell me you two aren’t in film school.
The girls look at each other and turn in unison:
GIRLS: We’re going to be directors.
THE TAKEAWAY: Columbia, please raise the bar on admissions! Hear the likes? You hear ‘em every day but writing them in naturally is tough. Also, look at the way the conversation shifts at will from topic to topic, just like in real life. Ignorance is bliss…and really funny.
Here’s an epic from my ex-student Nora Rose….
- THE LAST TIME I TALKED TO DYLAN
Setting: Darla’s home. Darla is on her computer. Phone rings– It’s Dylan. She sighs, answers.
DYLAN: Hi.
DARLA: Hi.
DYLAN: What’s up?
DARLA: Sleepy. You?
DYLAN: Same, sorta. (pause) Cam?
DARLA: Not tonight.
DYLAN: Why not?
DARLA: I’m exhausted. Kinda had a shitty couple days. Just not feeling it.
DYLAN: Alright. Why were they shitty?
DARLA: Just shit with my dad and my friend, about the apartment.
DYLAN: Ah.
DARLA: Furniture, fees, moving…grown up shit I’m not used to.
DYLAN: Oh, so because they’re telling you show shit really is, you have a shitty week, resulting in limiting other people’s fun? Sounds fair…seeing as I’m limiting my ability to give a shit.
DARLA: What? I never asked you to–
DYLAN: You summed it up clear as day. That’s life.
DARLA: I don’t want to get into this. You’re just bitching at me for not camming.
DYLAN: I can care less about that right now. It’s that you do this 24/7.
DARLA: No I don’t. I just don’t want to cam.
DYLAN: You punish others for your misfortune–
DARLA: I look like SHIT. I feel like shit…I don’t want to cam!
DYLAN: SEE? You’re still assuming I want to cam. Assumption is the key to a failed friendship.
DARLA: You always do!
DYLAN: I don’t!
DARLA: “Hey…what’s up…cam…what do you mean no?! Hang up.
DYLAN: You need to fucking suck it up.
DARLA: Wow, you are so rude!
DYLAN: You don’t like talking to people who tell you the truth. Life’s so hard in Chicago, why even be there?!
DARLA: I go to school here!
DYLAN: For shit you most likely won’t even be interested in in two years. Because YOUR PARENTS have the money for it.
DARLA: Because you know so much about college and not living off your parents?! How’s that GED going?
DYLAN: FUCK SCHOOL! My dad didn’t go to college and he makes more than both your parents combined!
DARLA: And he’s kicking you out.
DYLAN: Excuse me?! (various explicatives indecipherable) You need to get off your high horse.
DARLA: “My dad makes more than your parents combined!”
DYLAN: You can suck my fuckin’ dick! You’re just a fucking princess who expects everything and uses her insecurities as a crutch.
DARLA: You are such a fucking neurotic, Dylan! That’s why you have to talk to me! Because no one else will talk to you any more, and now I’m DONE–
DYLAN screams the word “HYPOCRITE” over and over and over and over and…
Darla hangs up.
THE TAKEAWAY: Whoever said the ability for constant communication was a good thing???! Fascinating to watch this conversation fall apart bit by bit. Starts off polite, mundane…ends with scorched earth, in two pages. Not an easy thing to create from scratch. Look to every scene for the beats, for subtext in what’s being said and not being said, like railroad tracks between what the emotion and what is actually happening. Look for multiple levels, complexity. Figure out why you’re in the scene, accomplish what you need to accomplish, and get out fast.
