“… and God help you if you use voiceover in your work, my friends. God help you! It’s flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character. You must present the internal conflicts of your character in action.” This speech by the Robert McKee character in Adaptation is […]
Remember with screen direction, you want the eye to roll down the page, to make the script a “page turner.” How do you do that? Go vertical. Keep the reader’s eyes moving vertically down the page. For example, from Seven: He reaches to the nightstand, to a wooden, pyramidical metronome. He frees the metronome’s weighted […]
There are two uses for INTERCUT. The first is: THE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION: Establish the first location, establish the second, and then INTERCUT between them: INT. JOHN BOEHNER HOME- NIGHT Boehner looks on as a TV plays his news conference from earlier in the day. The phone rings, he picks up. INT. JOHN MCCAIN HOME- SAME […]
“Keep your screen direction tight!” “Don’t overwrite!” It’s all well and good to tell you this, but how much screen direction is too much? How many lines? What are the rules? Here’s my own rule of thumb: When your screen direction can’t be covered by a block of Velveeta cheese, it’s too long. Examine every […]
There are a couple ways to go with Montage format: INT. PLAZA HOTEL- NEW YORK CITY- NIGHT (MONTAGE) --Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae sip Maine lobster bisque with Merrill Lynch bigwigs. --They munch Free Range Organic Chicken with Bank of American honchos. --They slurp Nutella crepes with Citibank VP’s. END MONTAGE Or, MONTAGE--FREDDY MAC AND […]
