A bit of a screenwriting hodge-podge today. Here we go:
- REPURPOSING MATERIAL
You never know where you can use previous material in terms of projects you’ll work on in the future. That means re-using your stuff. God knows how many plays I’ve written whose only purpose was to become a doorstop. Along with a closet full of “early years” poetry I wrote in London. Deeply felt, deep meanings, and crap. I once went to see Beat-poet Gregory Corso in London and approached him after his reading. “My stuff keeps coming out as Death. It’s all just about… Death…man.” He rubbed his beard: “All young writers obsess on Death.” You’d think I would have tossed these Death plays and poems into some eternal fire long ago. But, no. I kept them around. Why? Because there might be a line, a monologue, a kernel of an idea that can be adapted. Brainstorming for the CHAT screenplay started with a play I wrote that hadn’t been produced since 1985. Create an idea file and fill it with stories, dialogue, photos, poems…anything creative and discarded. For whatever reason, the stuff didn’t work the first time out. But in a new context, it might.
I’ve mentioned re-purposing a major monologues in CHAT, which was left on the cutting room floor during the editing process of JANE DOE. The producers felt the scene didn’t work and cut it. I knew that the speech was pretty good and saved it for another time, which came 13 years later. In JANE DOE this was a monologue by Jane about the death of her birds, Rock and Roll. A true story told by my girlfriend, who came to find that her boyfriend had killed her bird. So she killed his. Here’s the monologue:
“JANE: He had no right. He got Rock in his pocket. He was gonna kill him. I stopped him. It’s wrong. Taking it out on a little bird. Taking him in a corner and saying Rock, you’re gonna die today. Playing God. God doesn’t work like that. God’s better than that. I came back later and I asked him where Rock was, and he said Rock disappeared. (tears) Rock was a good bird. All he wanted was his food and water. And now Roll is gone too. (pause) I miss Rock very much. I asked God for forgiveness when I was doing it. I had that little bird in my hand and I opened the door and I knew it was wrong. And he flew off. He had no right. He had no right. Taking it out on a little bird, taking it on a little bird. I would never do nothing to a little animal, a little bird.”
When it came time to make Chat we needed a personal moment for the Annie character. Remembering this monologue, I built it into the new script, giving her the birds and having a drunken mother—instead of the drug-addict boyfriend—kill her bird. She then kills the mother’s bird. It’s a character-defining moment and one of the most powerful scenes in the movie.
Don’t toss your stuff away cavalierly. It might come to good use later.
- CONCERN YOURSELF WITH THE SINGLE LINE
Every writer has their own bit. Quirks, eccentricities. One of my friends writes the full script, then during the revise highlights every verb, and seeks alternatives. He compiled a full list of action verbs and challenges every one of his verb choices. This is more than just changing the voice from passive to active, for instance from is runningto runs, are playing to plays. He endeavors to not use runs or plays at all. The idea is to fight for the best possible verb in every sentence. While this strikes me as a bit obsessive, I can see the logic in it.
Imagine that your script is a house. You build this house with wood (scenes) and nails (sentences). Concern yourself with the single line, the single sentence. Build the script, one line upon the next. Picking the best verb possible allows you to avoid the adverb. I am an adverb hater. That’s my thing. This adverb hatred (adjectives, too) is born of simplicity. Having read 1000 scripts, I know…readers have tired eyes. The faster you can communicate an idea or story, the better. If you can tell the story using six words instead of four, 10 dialogue lines instead of five, 85 pages instead of 115, then do it.
- WRITING EXTERIOR NIGHT SCENES FOR MICRO-BUDGETS
Just…. don’t.
Here’s a blog entry from CHAT that might serve as a warning:
“DAY 14: 4-26-13
I owe it to Falcon (Rush Pearson) and the Hot Dog Vendor (Rich Cotovsky) to attempt to list every sound source disturbance in our shooting the single scene that was the Hot Dog Vendor monologue. For whatever purpose, I decided to give the biggest monologue of the movie to a ONE SCENE character in, yes, an exterior night shot. This sort of thing might have been fine for Preston Sturges with an unlimited budget for his 1930’s comedies, but not so hot for micro-budget digital movie-making circa today. Notoriously difficult to shoot exterior night scenes for just such sound troubles. The cast and crew attempt to lay it on the line and throw down against the dark forces outside our Weekend 6 location on Erie Street. A smattering of these were:
· The loose manhole cover that jiggled metallic for every car that ran over it.
· The beeping gate of the parking garage that rang out like a warning bell on Star Trek Deep Space 9.
· The drunken Erie Street bar hoppers whose fascinating drunk speak babble was oh so more important than respecting some dinky micro-budget trying to make its day.
· The passing EMT van, cop cars, cop wagon, limo, pizza delivery guys, and a dozen other rubberneckers who slowed vehicles to a crawl to gape out on what might have been the filming of the final first-season episode of Chicago Fire, but alas, was only us.
· The same vehicles attempting to park in the two parking spaces cleared out by Chat crew to have ample views of the location across the street. PA’s and the writer himself were dispatched as living lawn chairs in the great Chicago tradition of saving cleared parking spaces. Unfortunately, this only works in winter.
· The sirens in downtown skyscraper chasms howling…
· The skateboarders click-clacking…
· The Harley-engines revving…
· The small dogs of high-rent paying owners, late-night walked whilst yipper-yapping…
· The constant Muddy Waters from yet another ubiquitous Friday night sports bar…
These and a dozen others. Truly amazing Cotovsky pulled it off, standing and delivering that monologue time and again like some cross between Abby Hoffman and Charles Manson. There are scenes that great movies, and even mediocre movies, will always be remembered by. When you watch Chat don’t forget I told you about the hot dog vendor scene. You’re will remember it.
And for you screenwriters, please limit those exterior night shots!”
