Tag Archives: movies

Characters in your screenplay – good in a room?

Boy, I wish I could write great characters. Then I would feel qualified to write an article on them. But in all honesty, I can’t lay caim to that (what? you cry. Humble? Moi?). So instead this is just about a few techniques I use to write characters that might work for you.

William Goldman said famously that screenplays are structure.

But if you’re like me, you’ll want to know how to populate your story with great characters. They can make the difference between selling a screenplay and it ending up in the slush pile.

More importantly, they can also make your story into something that will hopefully last longer than the popcorn you bought going into the theatre.

How many times have you seen a (usually big budget action) movie, and been carried along by the stunts, explosions, etc. only to never watch that movie again?

In contrast, how many times have you watched certain movies over and over again?

Why do you do it?

What do The Terminator, Casablanca, The Producers, and Frankenstein all have in common?

Great characters.

What would The Terminator be without shrinking violet waitress-turned-badass Sarah Connor? (Answer: Terminator 3)

What would Casablanca be without the outwardly cynical but morally sound Rick?

What would Annie Hall be without the neurotic Alvy Singer?

How about Dirty Harry without Harry Callaghan? Or Rocky without Rocky Balboa? It’s no coincidence that many successful movies have character names as their titles, or even the occupations of the characters (Ghostbusters or The Goonies).

Okay. We get it. Characters are important. They keep us interested in the movie long after the special effects aren’t so special anymore. And SFX go out of date really quickly. Have you seen The Matrix Reloaded recently?

But I digress…

So here are a few tips I use when designing characetrs.

1) Real Life

Yes, sad but true. Real life actually inspires a lot of art. You remember real life? The stuff that goes on when you’re away from your computer? Sometimes it can be smelly and unpleasant?

Take a walk down any street or through any mall (if you’re an American) and make a mental note of the different people you see. Try to imagine their backstory. How did they become that person? The weirder (or rather “more interesting”) the people, the more extreme the characters.

2) Contrasts

If your protagonist is a quiet guy or gal, a little shy maybe, then try having a nemesis who is exactly the opposite: brash, loud, confident.

If your protag is a straight-forward, no-nonsense, action type, try having a nemesis who is sneaky and never gets his or her hands dirty.

For a good example of this, see Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman in Die Hard.

3) Admiration

One of the ways to make a protagonist interesting is to make them the best at what they do. James Bond, for instance, is the best spy. Wolverine out of the X-men is an unstoppable fighting machine. The ultimate example of this is Superman – he flies, is invulnerable, always saves the day, and he never lies. He is perfect in every way. yet that’s his curse. Which brings us to…

4) Flawed

Heroes have to have a flaw to be likeable. We all root for underdogs. Arnie in End of Days is faced with insurmountable odds. It makes him human (-ish). Rick in Casablanca is bitter and cynical due to the loss of his love. But we understand why; Ingrid Bergman is quite a catch. Wolverine in X-Men is prickly (literally) because he was mistreated by the military.

Heroes must have a flaw or they become boring. Like Tomb Raider.

5) Consistency

Would Bruce Willis in Die Hard talk to himself in a neurotic way about his situation the way Woody Allen does in Annie Hall?

Would Rocky Balboa set up a complicated sting operation the way Luke Skywalker does in Return of the Jedi in Jabba the Hut’s palace?

That’s consistency. Characters must act according to their personalities throughout the entire screenplay. This is a tough one.

For an example of where this rule is broken, see also Die Hard. John McClane (hero) bumps into an unarmed Hans Gruber (baddie). Gruber pretends to be an American hostage. He does it so well that McClane hands him a gun. Gruber uses the gun on McClane. But guess what? McClane knew Gruber was Gruber the whole time, and the gun is unloaded! But then Gruber’s allies burst onto the scene, removing McClane’s advantage anyway.

Now this may be a good example of misleads and reversals (have to make that the subject of a later post), but it’s bad characterization. Why? Because McClane is a blue-collar cop while Gruber is a criminal mastermind. How could McClane possibly KNOW that Gruber is a terrorist? What gives him this blistering insight? Throughout the script we se that McClane is an underdog, a likeable Joe who just happens to be a cop in extraordinary circumstances. McClane exhibits almost superhuman perceptiveness in figuring Gruber’s identity.

So why did Die Hard make a ton of money? Well, it’s full of surprises, which audiences like. And don’t forget the superhero factor. We want McClane to beat the incredible odds. So we forgive and forget this unsupported character reaction. But it’s still there. It’s a minor “jumping-the-shark moment”, which is one of my favourite movie sayings. But more of that another time…

So I hope this has been remotely useful. Great characters have been filling up our screens ever since Ebeneezer Scrooge (and a good deal before that). So have fun with them.

Chances are, if you come up with characters based on real life, you won’t fall into the trap of writing yet more cookie-cutter one-dimensional video-game characters.

I, for one, am tired of seeing girls with swords kicking-ass, girls with guns kicking-ass, or girls in PVC catsuits kicking-ass (never thought I’d say that).

Now I’m off to try to put this into practice with my own script…

The demise of low budget horror…

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Strolling through the virtual aisles of my online video rental site (the real video store in my neighborhood was torn down years ago), I happened to notice something strange.

When I first started renting movies, in my teens, there were lots of videos that would never have seen the light of day but for the limited collection of obscure treats in the back of my local dodgy grocery store.

I’m talking about such cult releases as “The Stuff” (a black comedy about killer yoghurt), “Society” (a bizarre tale where a boy discovers his rich relations are all shape-shifting monsters), and “Re-Animator” (a hysterical horror comedy very loosely based on HP Lovecrafts serial). Sure, these films were cheap and cheerful. But they were also GOOD movies. Heck, some of them are now hailed as classics.

The Stuff – killer yoghurt on the rampage!

But looking at the new horror releases, I was depressed to see that so many look like the hybrid offspring of some poorly-conceived and executed SyFy channel monster /disaster mash-up. There are , for instance, innumerable takes on “Shark Night” (“Shark Week”), the woefully bad “Sharktopus” series (“Pirhanaconda”, anyone?) The poster to “Back From Hell” looks suspiciously similar to the “Cabin in the Woods”, while there are too many “Dawn of the Dead” and “Saw” rip-offs even to list.

Zombies – a lot more common nowadays.

I understand that sometimes distributors put pressure on small studios to come up with something that they can actually sell. But does the world really need another Shark/creature combination? What’s next,”Sharkgerbil 2″, “Sharkplatypus” (and if that gets made I want my share of the royalties)?

I know at least one microstudio that continues to put out highly original films as well as satisfying the distributors. So it can be done. Come on indie producers, give us the next generation of “Evil Dead” movies, give us our Jack Deths.

You can be that filmmaker who has adoring fans thirty years or more down the line. But to get there, you have to dare to be original.

Herbert West is about to get ahead in his medical studies.

A New Hope…

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When I was sixteen years old, I wrote my first “serious” short story.

I had written a lot before then, of course, but I had never tried to structure anything or to create real, believable characters. The story I wrote was called “The Musical Box”. It was about a women with psychiatric problems and her husband who move to the coastal town of Whitby, England to rebuild their lives. But as the woman’s psychosis deepens, she becomes fixated with a porcelain dancer atop a musical box. In the end, she literally becomes the dancer, frozen forever like a beautiful image.

The story sat forgotten in my drawer for many years. A few years back I got it out and polished it. The story was published.

About ten years ago, I wrote a television pilot episode for a show I would like to see. It was about a bounty hunter in the future who pertended to do the dirty work of various intergalactic tyrants, hunting down wayward clones who’d escaped before their creators could use their bodies to achieve everlastic life. But our hero is really a force for good, playing the bad guys off against each other to achieve a fair result.

I gave up on it for years, thinking it was just an experiment that would never get made because it was too big budget. Until I dug it out and started work on it again.

That script eventually became the movie “Clonehunter”:

Clonehunter – sci-fi film noir.

My point is, many British would-be screenwriters will be thinking, “How the hell can I ever get anything made into a movie?”. I believe this only because it’s what I think on a daily basis.

The answer?

Tenacity.

Oer the years I’ve come to believe that this is the main thing that the high achievers possess (not that I would put myself into that category, but from reading many interviews with screenwriters and their peers). So for what’s it’s worth, here are my top ten rules for surviving as a screenwriter:

1. Learn to love rejection. Treat each rejection as a step forward.

2. Don’t discuss your goals with anyone except the people you want to help you succeed.

3. Work on improving your craft as much as possible.

4. Be open to criticism, both positive and negative.

5. Know when to ignore said criticism.

6. Listen to your instincts.

7. Don’t be crazy. Be professional.

8. Ignore trends. Instead focus on creating something you love. Chances are, opther people will love it too.

9. Really really love rejection.

10. Don’t despair. Never despair. Desperation is unattractive. It stinks. It’s like blood in the water. And big fish can smell that blood from miles off. Desperation will force you to write stupid e-mails, it will make you say dumb things, it will make you harass people to get your script read. It will destroy any chance you have at coming across like a normal, intelligent person.

If I had to add another tip to this list, it would be a quote from Winston Churchill that goes something like: “Never never never never never give up.”

I have seen people give up. Those people do not sell screenplays. If you carry on, you just might.

American spelling and grammar

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Let’s get one thing straight. I hate editing and proofreading. Hate it. With a passion.

Nor do I claim to have any expertise in the area of grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Or any skill, for that ~~amtter.~~ matter.

But I thought that all you budding British screenwriters who want to make it in the States might want to know some commonly misused phrases, together with some insights about American English, that I have learned on my journey so far.

First of all. Toward, or is it towards? And forward, or is it forwards?

Well, actually, it’s both. And yet…

American authors and editors seem to prefer “forward” and “towards”. As in, “to run towards” or “to go forward”. Maybe it has something to do with “forwards” being one of the dreaded adverbs.

Also, I’ve noticed some differences in punctuation.

In English English (if there is such a thing), we like to drop the final comma in a list. For example: “blue, yellow, red and green”. Not so in American English. Our cousins across the Atlantic like their commas. So in American English this would tend to be written as : “blue, yellow, red, and green”.

If I’m wrong about that, I’m sure someone will correct me.

Finally, some terms.

In America they don’t have rubbish. It’s either trash or garbage. It’s not a rubbish bin either. It’s a trash can or garbage pale (or dumpster if you’re hiding a body).

Nor do they go looking in the dark with torches. Torches in America are the burning staves you go chasing after Frankenstein’s monster with. Take a flashlight instead.

Other differences can include:

“-our” endings becomes “or” endings, e.g. “colour” (British) as opposed to “color” (American).

Ending that have “-ise” e.g. “organise” in British become “-ize” e.g. “organize” in American. Similarly with “organisation” (UK) v “organization” (USA).

Other favorite confusions include:

“aluminium” (UK) v “aluminum” (USA)

“tonne” (UK) v “metric ton” (USA)

“mummy” or “mum” (UK) v “mommy” or “mom” (USA)

An excellent article on the subject can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

So these are just a few of the ways you can confuse or distract an American reader. I’m saying all this because that’s the last thing you want to do. You want the reader to feel comfortable that you know what you’re talking about (even if you don’t).

I’m sure there are many more of these. If I come across them I’ll let you know.

No commas were harmed in the writing of this post.

Pouring some salt on Sluglines

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So. Sluglines.

Okay, we all know what sluglines are (and if not, Google the term and find out!), but are we comfortable with using them? If you’re like me, probably not. But here are some things I’ve noticed.

In a lot of amateur scripts, sluglines are annoying things that you have to write to get to the good stuff (the action!). But sluglines can also be your friend.

Sluglines can be used to save time and energy describing things. For instance:

“INT. OFFICE – DAY

An office. Pens and pencils lie everywhere. Papers litter every surface. Overturned chairs clutter the floor. Smashed coffee cups decorate the desks… did I mention this was an office?”

Or you could just write:

“INT. A VERY UNTIDY OFFICE – DAY”

Another way to save white space on the page (thereby writing less words and making your script more attractive to time-starved executives and producers) is to omit “DAY/NIGHT” after you’ve introduced an interior for the first time.

For example:

“INT. OFFICE BUILDING – DAY”

And then when you switch to another part of the building:

“INT. OFFICE BUILDING – CUBICLE”

And then for the next part of the same interior:

“BOSS’S OFFICE”

Although sometimes you might want to inform the reader that this is a slugline by inserting “INT.” at the start, depending on the number of sluglines you employ.

Putting all this together:

“INT. OFFICE BUILDING – DAY

A busy accountancy firm in full swing. Staccato chattering of TYPEWRITERS. Harried OFFICE WORKERS constantly trip over mounds of files scattered across the floor.

INT. BOSS’S OFFICE

MARTY, an office junior, quails before his red-faced BOSS. His boss’s tirade over, Marty turns tail and runs out through the

MAIN OFFICE

And into the

BATHROOM.”

Hardly Shakespeare. But you get the idea.

The main thing to remember is that nothing is set in stone. Although you could fill a library with everything that has been written on screenplay format, as long as you adhere to the basic principles concering the main elements (line spacing, indentation, capitals, etc) then I’m sure most experts would agree you’ll be fine. To make it easier, programs like Final Daft format these elements automatically. And if you’re not using screenwriting software by now, you should be. It will increase your productivity tenfold. The most important thing is that you do not present the reader with something they (a) struggle to read, and (b) are not familiar with in terms of style.

Hope this helps. As always, feel free to disagree!

Ten books I dare Hollywood to make into movies

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Hello, True Believers!

Today I thought I woud share a list of ten books that should be made into movies. Okay, so some of them are actually comic books. But these are the properties I think would reinvigorate the motion picture industry.

Some background first. Hollywood is in dire need of franchise material. Jack Reacher and The Hobbit just won’t cut it. Where are the iconic films for the Y2K generation? Where are the Indiana Joneses, the Dirty Harries and the Star Warses (How do you pluralize “Star Wars” anyway?)

What we need is a new approach, something more daring and edgy than conventional blockbuster fare with its cookie cutter plots and bloated CGI (remember Green Lantern?)

Here are my choices for breathing fresh life into the film industry:

1. THE ELFSTONES OF SHANNARA

Terry Brooks’ finest book. This epic fantasy has enough originality to give the Lord of the Rings a run for its money. But it’s a much more human story, with an unforgettable twist ending.2. BATTLE OF THE PLANETS

Based on the 1970s Japanese cartoon and the father of modern anime. Superpowered teens in a cool ship do battle with giant monsters from outer space. I’m not seeing the downside. Just don’t let Jerry Bruckheimer near it!3. THE WITCHING HOUR

Anne Rice is best known for her Vampire Chorincles, but this multi-generational tale of witchcraft in New Orleans ranks among her best work. Very dark and gothic, with a rich sense of history. This is the “Gone With the Wind” of horror stories. Neil Jordan to direct please!4. STRONTIUM DOG

Mutant bounty-hunters from the future hop across planets to collect bounties from the humans who despise them. If it sounds like X-Men in space, it isn’t. More like some insane Speghetti Western. Created by 200A.D. writer John Wagner (“A History of Violence”) and artist Carlos Ezquerra, mutant “Strontium Dog” Johnny Aplha has a host of cool gadgets and ways to kill you. Backed up by some truly wonderful supporting characters like Norse bounty-hunter Wulf Sternhammer and lumpy-headed Middenface McNulty.5. THE RATS

A Canadian company attempted this once and came badly unstuck. But with modern SFX this horror classic is screaming to be made into a major motion picture. It has two sequels, the third of which takes place after a nuclear holocaust! “The Walking Dead”‘s Andrew Lincoln would be perfect for the lead!6. THE CALL OF CTHULHU

This is the project Guillermo Del Toror should have tackled after Hellboy. HP Lovecraft’s cosmic tale of a conspiracy to revive an immortal extradimensional demon from his ages-old slumber in a buried city under the Pacific Ocean. Comes with its own built-in fanboy audience!7. MIKE HAMMER

Mickey Spillance wrote numerous Mike Hammer books, many of which have been filmed, with the most memorable being “Kiss Me Deadly” with Ralph Meeker. Hammer is the uber-detective. A World War II veteran transplanted into post-1940s America, he is politically incorrect (he promises to murder his friends murderer), mysoginistic (he pimps out his secretary to solve a case), but with a sense of purpose that is at times terrifying, Hammer is Dirty Harry on steroids. The only problem could be getting someone who is gritty and believable enough to play him. Imagine Kirk Douglas fused with Clint Eastwood and you’re about halfway there.8. EON

Intelligent and epic sci-fi novel from Greg Bear. A team of astronauts investigate a hollow asteroid orbiting Earth and find… well, you’ll have to read the book. But it has a vision of the future of humanity that’s slowly coming true. Could be the next Stargate. One for director Alex Proyas, perhaps, who filmed the excellent “Dark City”.9. NORSTRILIA

A bewilderingly exotic sci-fi, so rich and strange that it outrivals even Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. Cordwainer Smith’s stories of the far, far future include the anti-ageing drug “Stroon”, uplifted animals that carry out slave labour, a humanity so interwoven with technology that it has forgotten happiness, and the weirdest planetary defence system known to man. Together with his short stories, Smith’s sci-fi is almost poetic in beauty and would present moviegoers with images never before seen on film. But who could direct such divine madness? Kubrick perhaps, were he still alive, or maybe David Lynch. But nowadays my money would be on “Tron Legacy” director Joseph Kosinski.10. ALAN MOORE’S SWAMP THING.

Comics legend Moore managed to revive this flagging minor DC book and turn it into one the greatest works of comic art in the 1980s. Swamp Thing is a kind of existential Everyman. Rather than perform the usual superheroics, the eonymous hero explores the nature of good and evil, travels from Heaven to Hell, and meets a young John Constantine. In a fantastic series of stories titled “American Gothic”, Moore reinvents horror staples such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts and zombies, giving them fresh social relevance and deaing with issues such as racism, gun laws, family ties, veganism, and feminism! Never one to offer us easy answers, Moore leaves many of these debates open-ended. This resulted in some fierce debates with readers and fans at the time. Forget Green Lantern, give us Swamp Thing!

ERIC IAN STEELE

(Confessions of a British writer)