Ever watch a professional drag race? Before the race ever starts, drag racers perform a burnout. They spin the back tires, throwing up plumes of smoke and revving the engine loudly in the process. Fans of the sport love it, but that's not why they do it. A pre-race burnout actually performs a vital role in the race. This burnout warms the tires up so the tires are as sticky as possible and it cleans dirt off the tires. If the tires slip, it doesn't matter how powerful the engine is, the car won't go down the track.
Think of the screenplay opening as your burnout.
The opening of a screenplay must serve two purposes. It must dazzle the audience. It must also perform the following four functions at a minimum: establish the world, establish the rules of that world, establish the protagonist, and establish the protagonist's wants and needs.
Think of the screenplay opening as your burnout.
The opening of a screenplay must serve two purposes. It must dazzle the audience. It must also perform the following four functions at a minimum: establish the world, establish the rules of that world, establish the protagonist, and establish the protagonist's wants and needs.
These wants and needs become drivers for the story. These drivers move the story forward and create reason and logic for the actions of the protagonists and, possibly, the antagonist.
This reason and logic is vitally important. Characters are shaped by their world. They operate within the rules and accepted practices of their world.
World-building is a term that sounds like it was taken straight out of science-fiction. Instead of thinking in terms of alien planets and civilizations, think about individual families. Do you remember in school, being invited to someone else's house for dinner? Or when you were dating someone new and were invited to meet the family for the first time? Do you remember that awkward period of adjustment where you tried to figure out how things worked in that family?
Did you ever get transferred to a new school? Or attend an out-of-state college?
Any time you're put into a new environment, you're forced to learn a new set of rules. In a literary sense, these rules are part of the new world you've entered.
Every story starts in a new world. In every story, the rules of the world must be clearly established. You cannot expect the audience to understand the new world. You cannot take for granted that the audience understands. So you must teach the audience how the world works without resorting to exposition (exposition simply means telling your audience backstory or explaining how things work).
Imagine your first day on campus. You automatically feel a connection to the first person who is nice to you, right? Audiences are the same way—they fell a connection with the first real character they experience on-screen. This is why it's so important to establish your protagonist early, and establish the protagonist vividly.
Sometimes the best way to open a screenplay is by writing a 10-minute or less mini-movie. Think about RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK—what did Indy's recovery of the Chachapoyan fertility idol at the start of the movie have to do with the lost Ark of the Covenant? Absolutely nothing, except that it served to establish the world Indiana Jones lives in and would eventually hunt for the lost ark in. The entire opening sequence was set up like a mini-movie, with Indy going into a booby-trapped temple and facing obstacle after obstacle—each encounter more dangerous than the last. He's betrayed by his native guide and eventually bested by his antagonist Belloq upon escaping the temple. Yet this sequence brilliantly introduced audiences around the world to Indiana Jones, and introduced those audiences to the world of Indiana Jones. By the time the story really gets going, we already know what to expect—both from Indy and from Belloq.
Other times, the best way to open the screenplay is by plunging the audience into the story and let them catch up later. Think of Graham Greene's novel, THE END OF THE AFFAIR, which opens with the narrator meeting the husband of the woman he'd been having an affair with long after their affair has ended. Greene's choice of opening works because the story isn't about the affair at all, but the aftermath. The jealousy. The guilt. The torment.
There's also a hybrid option whereby a story is framed. That is, the story begins with some event that happens later on, then goes back in time to tell the backstory. AMERICAN SNIPER uses this technique, beginning with a troop movement in Iraq and and the main character's difficult decision to pull the trigger under questionable circumstances, then going back in time to the main character's youth and young adult life, then telling his story all the way back to that moment that opened the movie. This is an effective technique for grabbing an audience's attention, but it can also seem like a gimmick if not skillfully used.
However you chose to open your screenplay, the first ten pages are CRITICAL to successfully telling the story. You MUST establish the world and its rules, as well as the protagonist and their wants / needs within those first ten pages. Fail to do that, and it won't matter what you do with the rest of your story.
-The Illiterate Writer
World-building is a term that sounds like it was taken straight out of science-fiction. Instead of thinking in terms of alien planets and civilizations, think about individual families. Do you remember in school, being invited to someone else's house for dinner? Or when you were dating someone new and were invited to meet the family for the first time? Do you remember that awkward period of adjustment where you tried to figure out how things worked in that family?
Did you ever get transferred to a new school? Or attend an out-of-state college?
Any time you're put into a new environment, you're forced to learn a new set of rules. In a literary sense, these rules are part of the new world you've entered.
Every story starts in a new world. In every story, the rules of the world must be clearly established. You cannot expect the audience to understand the new world. You cannot take for granted that the audience understands. So you must teach the audience how the world works without resorting to exposition (exposition simply means telling your audience backstory or explaining how things work).
Imagine your first day on campus. You automatically feel a connection to the first person who is nice to you, right? Audiences are the same way—they fell a connection with the first real character they experience on-screen. This is why it's so important to establish your protagonist early, and establish the protagonist vividly.
Sometimes the best way to open a screenplay is by writing a 10-minute or less mini-movie. Think about RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK—what did Indy's recovery of the Chachapoyan fertility idol at the start of the movie have to do with the lost Ark of the Covenant? Absolutely nothing, except that it served to establish the world Indiana Jones lives in and would eventually hunt for the lost ark in. The entire opening sequence was set up like a mini-movie, with Indy going into a booby-trapped temple and facing obstacle after obstacle—each encounter more dangerous than the last. He's betrayed by his native guide and eventually bested by his antagonist Belloq upon escaping the temple. Yet this sequence brilliantly introduced audiences around the world to Indiana Jones, and introduced those audiences to the world of Indiana Jones. By the time the story really gets going, we already know what to expect—both from Indy and from Belloq.
Other times, the best way to open the screenplay is by plunging the audience into the story and let them catch up later. Think of Graham Greene's novel, THE END OF THE AFFAIR, which opens with the narrator meeting the husband of the woman he'd been having an affair with long after their affair has ended. Greene's choice of opening works because the story isn't about the affair at all, but the aftermath. The jealousy. The guilt. The torment.
There's also a hybrid option whereby a story is framed. That is, the story begins with some event that happens later on, then goes back in time to tell the backstory. AMERICAN SNIPER uses this technique, beginning with a troop movement in Iraq and and the main character's difficult decision to pull the trigger under questionable circumstances, then going back in time to the main character's youth and young adult life, then telling his story all the way back to that moment that opened the movie. This is an effective technique for grabbing an audience's attention, but it can also seem like a gimmick if not skillfully used.
However you chose to open your screenplay, the first ten pages are CRITICAL to successfully telling the story. You MUST establish the world and its rules, as well as the protagonist and their wants / needs within those first ten pages. Fail to do that, and it won't matter what you do with the rest of your story.
-The Illiterate Writer
No comments:
Post a Comment