Watching the extras on a DVD can be so enlightening. On "Stranger Than Fiction," Emma Thompson said she read the first 4 pages of the script and knew she wanted to do it.
I've heard other actors (and directors) make similar comments... that they read the first 5 or 10 pages and knew they wanted to do it.
This just emphasizes the need to make the first few pages absolutely shine. To make them clean and clever. To introduce the main characters quickly. To have a strong hook... and, I think, a voice of your own.
Go back and look at your first 4 or 5 pages. Are they good enough to get your A-list choices to jump at the chance to do this movie? (I've re-written the first ten pages of both of mine several times now.)
Horror with a Light Touch - Cat People 1942
I just finished watching the original Cat People, made in 1942 by Val Lewton. I didn't know anything about it, or about Mr. Lewton beforehand, only that I love the 1982 version for it's eroticism, intriguiging story, and the reluctant (and oh-so-sexy) monster that is the protagonist.
I was expecting something campy, full of melodrama and bad makeup but with a good story at the core. I've seen plenty of early horror films, and I didn't know that Cat People was different.
Cat People used classic noir cinematography to give a basic love story plot with conflicted and interesting characters a dark edge. Much of it could have gone over wrong and ended up being comical and amusing, but the scenes were just restrained enough to remain compelling.
It's a seductive film. It draws you in with a simple story, elegantly told, and plays with you - like the kittenish lead actress.
One of the things in it's favor, of course, is that lovely old black and white film stock. The "silver screen" that simply feels like you've walked into another world.
The cinematography is careful: lighting, contrast, framing, positioning of the actors, the architecture of the sets. There is a marvelous moment when the "other woman," Alice, is working late in the drafting office. Two large square tables are lit, but the overhead lights are off. The only other light comes from the street, through the window across the room, centered in the picture. Light streams upward, emphasizing the vertical elements in the room, and the line of the ceiling. The effect is to create boxes within boxes. Alice sits at the closest table, in the lower right corner.
The cat woman, beginning to be suspicious and jealous, calls the office. Alice stands up, turning off the light on the table as she does, and walks around it as the phone rings. She walks around the second table, and crosses the window to reach the phone. This makes her appear to move into those boxes, framed tighter and tighter, trapped - but not yet aware of it.
And then there's the pool scene - much like the one in the re-make. Alice sees a shadow on the steps - very briefly. Blink and you'd miss it. She dives into the pool. A tiny box of a room barely bigger than the pool, the light reflecting on the walls, echoing like the voice of the woman in the pool echoes when she screams... an eerie confusion which might make her doubt the shadow she saw moments before.
Items on the sets help reinforce the story. As Irena (the cat woman) tells the story of the evil cat people of her village in Serbia, a large painting looms over her, the corner just visible over her shoulder - featuring, of course, cats - their glowing eyes watchful. A beautiful art deco screen with a panther dominates the room. In one scene, as Irena stalks Alice and her husband - she passes the window of a florist's, which is filled with a display of tiger lilies.
Costuming is no less intentional - and sometimes witty. Irena has a black fur coat which she wears more and more often as the story progresses. It shimmers much like the panther's coat in the zoo. In the final scene, before her death, she has it draped over one shoulder - emphasizing her dual nature.
The costuming element I most enjoyed was Alice's hats. Irena has a pet bird, given to her by her husband. She accidentally frightens it to death, and then takes it to the zoo and feeds it to the panther. When she returns to the apartment, Alice is there - wearing a hat with a great feather. It's later that evening, in the same hat, that Irena stalks her for the first time. On that night, Irena kills some sheep. The next time Irena follows Alice, Alice has a pillbox had made from lambswool (the curly texture of the fur is distinctive.) Then, in the final stalking and confrontation scene, Alice has on another feathered hat.
All of this attention to detail is impressive, considering the film had a limited budget and was shot in 18 days. Val Lewton had been put in charge of RKO's new horror division, and was expected to crank out B-grade commercial schlock that would bring in cash to make up for that disaster from the previous year - Citizen Kane. The studio was angry when they saw the film, fearing it was too subtle and intelligent and would be a flop - but it was a huge success, with audiences sometimes so frightened that there was near-hysteria.
Now I'm going to have to watch some more Val Lewton films. Good thing the Curse of the Cat People is also on the same DVD.
I was expecting something campy, full of melodrama and bad makeup but with a good story at the core. I've seen plenty of early horror films, and I didn't know that Cat People was different.
Cat People used classic noir cinematography to give a basic love story plot with conflicted and interesting characters a dark edge. Much of it could have gone over wrong and ended up being comical and amusing, but the scenes were just restrained enough to remain compelling.
It's a seductive film. It draws you in with a simple story, elegantly told, and plays with you - like the kittenish lead actress.
One of the things in it's favor, of course, is that lovely old black and white film stock. The "silver screen" that simply feels like you've walked into another world.
The cinematography is careful: lighting, contrast, framing, positioning of the actors, the architecture of the sets. There is a marvelous moment when the "other woman," Alice, is working late in the drafting office. Two large square tables are lit, but the overhead lights are off. The only other light comes from the street, through the window across the room, centered in the picture. Light streams upward, emphasizing the vertical elements in the room, and the line of the ceiling. The effect is to create boxes within boxes. Alice sits at the closest table, in the lower right corner.
The cat woman, beginning to be suspicious and jealous, calls the office. Alice stands up, turning off the light on the table as she does, and walks around it as the phone rings. She walks around the second table, and crosses the window to reach the phone. This makes her appear to move into those boxes, framed tighter and tighter, trapped - but not yet aware of it.
And then there's the pool scene - much like the one in the re-make. Alice sees a shadow on the steps - very briefly. Blink and you'd miss it. She dives into the pool. A tiny box of a room barely bigger than the pool, the light reflecting on the walls, echoing like the voice of the woman in the pool echoes when she screams... an eerie confusion which might make her doubt the shadow she saw moments before.
Items on the sets help reinforce the story. As Irena (the cat woman) tells the story of the evil cat people of her village in Serbia, a large painting looms over her, the corner just visible over her shoulder - featuring, of course, cats - their glowing eyes watchful. A beautiful art deco screen with a panther dominates the room. In one scene, as Irena stalks Alice and her husband - she passes the window of a florist's, which is filled with a display of tiger lilies.
Costuming is no less intentional - and sometimes witty. Irena has a black fur coat which she wears more and more often as the story progresses. It shimmers much like the panther's coat in the zoo. In the final scene, before her death, she has it draped over one shoulder - emphasizing her dual nature.
The costuming element I most enjoyed was Alice's hats. Irena has a pet bird, given to her by her husband. She accidentally frightens it to death, and then takes it to the zoo and feeds it to the panther. When she returns to the apartment, Alice is there - wearing a hat with a great feather. It's later that evening, in the same hat, that Irena stalks her for the first time. On that night, Irena kills some sheep. The next time Irena follows Alice, Alice has a pillbox had made from lambswool (the curly texture of the fur is distinctive.) Then, in the final stalking and confrontation scene, Alice has on another feathered hat.
All of this attention to detail is impressive, considering the film had a limited budget and was shot in 18 days. Val Lewton had been put in charge of RKO's new horror division, and was expected to crank out B-grade commercial schlock that would bring in cash to make up for that disaster from the previous year - Citizen Kane. The studio was angry when they saw the film, fearing it was too subtle and intelligent and would be a flop - but it was a huge success, with audiences sometimes so frightened that there was near-hysteria.
Now I'm going to have to watch some more Val Lewton films. Good thing the Curse of the Cat People is also on the same DVD.
Painting Pictures with Light and Words
Originally posted here
When you are writing the script, what is driving it? Is it character? Plot? Structure? Do you see the words in your head, hear the dialogue, know the characters as if you remember them like old friends (or enemies)?
Or do you see the movie, and set about describing it?
I was surprised in a recent thread on Triggerstreet, that I seem to be among the minority in being a visually driven screenwriter. People were talking about their technique, about what they begin with, how they develop the story - and among all of the comments, I was the only one who said I began with an image.
I'm sure there are others, but what I mean is this:
I start with an image. Every idea for a poem, or a screenplay, or novel, or anything I've attempted - starts with an image. Sometimes static, sometimes moving. I can describe every nuance of that image: the textures, the focus, the light.
From that image, I figure out what is happening, and to whom. The story and the characters come from the image.
As I outline, and write my scenes, I have an image of them in my head. Usually, from the original image, I get a series of other images.
For example:
one script (which is now taking a very different direction) began with the image of a large white cat with a red collar, sitting on the chest of a dead man in a snow-blanketed forest, looking him in the face. The man was asian, and had a moustache, which had frosted over from his breath - so I knew he had been alive recently, and yet he was quite pale and frozen.
other images that came up while outlining: a man with golden skin and a pretty (yes, pretty) face, dressed as a warrior, barechested - the sun shines behind him as he rides a large horse with a golden mantle, beside him is a rough-looking bearded man, and just behind - a boy on a pony with a banner, also in gold. Several yards behind are more mounted men.
A pale asian woman in white, with a red collar around her neck, walking around a battlefield among the dead - she bends to one man who is gasping for breath. He smiles slightly as she caresses his cheek, but then, as she brings her her lips close to his - panic flits across his face for a brief moment. She breathes in, and his eyes glaze over.
The golden man, sleeps in a sumptuous tent on the battlefield, on furs laid across a divan. Beside him is a morrocan-style table, sexagonal and elegantly carved. On the table rests a silver bowl filled with oranges. The pale woman stands a few feet from him, looking down on him. She reaches a hand cautiously toward his face, as though warming it at a fire, and holds it there. She edges closer, and grasps one of the oranges. As her hand closes on it, his hand closes on her wrist. He turns his head and opens his eyes to see who the orange thief is, and blinks in wonder. She pulls away and in three steps, disappears from sight - without disturbing the door to the tent or the guards posted outside.
When you have the film in your head, and write from that - describing what you see, then it's rare to write "unfilmables." And yet, with these purely visual scenes, I was able to learn about my characters, and see the potential story between them.
By seeing the scenes clearly, you also can find ways to hint at camera direction without spelling it out. For instance, the last scene might be scripted something like this (note, this is NOT from the actual script, I'm just winging it)
Rei sleeps in a sumptuous tent on the battlefield, on furs laid across a divan. Beside him is a morrocan-style table, sexagonal and elegantly carved. On the table rests a silver bowl filled with oranges.
Itsura stands a few feet from him, looking down on him. She reaches a hand cautiously toward his face, as though warming it at a fire, and holds it there.
She edges closer, and grasps one of the oranges.
As her hand closes on it, his hand closes on her wrist.
He turns his head and opens his eyes to see who the orange thief is, and blinks in wonder.
She pulls away and in three steps, disappears from sight - without disturbing the door to the tent or the guards posted outside.
-----
I threw some names on the characters, his derived from him being the king - and of the sun, hers similar to the Japanese word for frozen... but other than that, just broke up the paragraph of description in a way that suggests the shots as I see them in the film. It suggests that the camera is focused on him, lying on the divan, pulls back to show her nearby
Then the focus is on her, as she moves forward, and then a close shot on her hand and the oranges - and then his hand.
Then it pulls back to show his face, and back again to encompass both of them, closing with a shot of the tent doors, and the silhouettes of the guard.
Now, I'm certainly not saying this is the right way to write a screenplay... I'm still a novice, so I can't even say that it's a good way... but I read so many screenplays that have unfilmable scenes, or scenes where the action doesn't quite make sense - or where opportunities for visual themes are missed - and I wonder if the writer was seeing the movie.
Do you see the movie when you write? At what point do the images coalesce for you?
When you are writing the script, what is driving it? Is it character? Plot? Structure? Do you see the words in your head, hear the dialogue, know the characters as if you remember them like old friends (or enemies)?
Or do you see the movie, and set about describing it?
I was surprised in a recent thread on Triggerstreet, that I seem to be among the minority in being a visually driven screenwriter. People were talking about their technique, about what they begin with, how they develop the story - and among all of the comments, I was the only one who said I began with an image.
I'm sure there are others, but what I mean is this:
I start with an image. Every idea for a poem, or a screenplay, or novel, or anything I've attempted - starts with an image. Sometimes static, sometimes moving. I can describe every nuance of that image: the textures, the focus, the light.
From that image, I figure out what is happening, and to whom. The story and the characters come from the image.
As I outline, and write my scenes, I have an image of them in my head. Usually, from the original image, I get a series of other images.
For example:
one script (which is now taking a very different direction) began with the image of a large white cat with a red collar, sitting on the chest of a dead man in a snow-blanketed forest, looking him in the face. The man was asian, and had a moustache, which had frosted over from his breath - so I knew he had been alive recently, and yet he was quite pale and frozen.
other images that came up while outlining: a man with golden skin and a pretty (yes, pretty) face, dressed as a warrior, barechested - the sun shines behind him as he rides a large horse with a golden mantle, beside him is a rough-looking bearded man, and just behind - a boy on a pony with a banner, also in gold. Several yards behind are more mounted men.
A pale asian woman in white, with a red collar around her neck, walking around a battlefield among the dead - she bends to one man who is gasping for breath. He smiles slightly as she caresses his cheek, but then, as she brings her her lips close to his - panic flits across his face for a brief moment. She breathes in, and his eyes glaze over.
The golden man, sleeps in a sumptuous tent on the battlefield, on furs laid across a divan. Beside him is a morrocan-style table, sexagonal and elegantly carved. On the table rests a silver bowl filled with oranges. The pale woman stands a few feet from him, looking down on him. She reaches a hand cautiously toward his face, as though warming it at a fire, and holds it there. She edges closer, and grasps one of the oranges. As her hand closes on it, his hand closes on her wrist. He turns his head and opens his eyes to see who the orange thief is, and blinks in wonder. She pulls away and in three steps, disappears from sight - without disturbing the door to the tent or the guards posted outside.
When you have the film in your head, and write from that - describing what you see, then it's rare to write "unfilmables." And yet, with these purely visual scenes, I was able to learn about my characters, and see the potential story between them.
By seeing the scenes clearly, you also can find ways to hint at camera direction without spelling it out. For instance, the last scene might be scripted something like this (note, this is NOT from the actual script, I'm just winging it)
Rei sleeps in a sumptuous tent on the battlefield, on furs laid across a divan. Beside him is a morrocan-style table, sexagonal and elegantly carved. On the table rests a silver bowl filled with oranges.
Itsura stands a few feet from him, looking down on him. She reaches a hand cautiously toward his face, as though warming it at a fire, and holds it there.
She edges closer, and grasps one of the oranges.
As her hand closes on it, his hand closes on her wrist.
He turns his head and opens his eyes to see who the orange thief is, and blinks in wonder.
She pulls away and in three steps, disappears from sight - without disturbing the door to the tent or the guards posted outside.
-----
I threw some names on the characters, his derived from him being the king - and of the sun, hers similar to the Japanese word for frozen... but other than that, just broke up the paragraph of description in a way that suggests the shots as I see them in the film. It suggests that the camera is focused on him, lying on the divan, pulls back to show her nearby
Then the focus is on her, as she moves forward, and then a close shot on her hand and the oranges - and then his hand.
Then it pulls back to show his face, and back again to encompass both of them, closing with a shot of the tent doors, and the silhouettes of the guard.
Now, I'm certainly not saying this is the right way to write a screenplay... I'm still a novice, so I can't even say that it's a good way... but I read so many screenplays that have unfilmable scenes, or scenes where the action doesn't quite make sense - or where opportunities for visual themes are missed - and I wonder if the writer was seeing the movie.
Do you see the movie when you write? At what point do the images coalesce for you?
2001 - Thoughts
Originally posted here
Mystery Man recently posted a video and link to an article about 2001, and I decided my response there merited repeating in my own blog.
My discussion of films tends not be be analytical so much as experiential, and this is no exception.
I remember the first time I watched 2001 so clearly.
I was about 14, it was at a slumber party. The other girls were all out at the pool, going into the daylight after telling scary stories in the dark of a walk-in closet.
The parents put it on (and, in retrospect, I suspect had just dropped acid.) I stood behind the couch and watched the opening - silent and yet so *big* and *important*... I asked what it was, and if I could watch. They told me I wouldn't enjoy it, it was for grown-ups. Well, I wasn't the kind of kid who ever appreciated being left out because of my age - so I sat down on the floor and watched.
I was baffled and completely entranced - and knew I'd have to watch it again in a few years... and yet, despite not quite getting everything, I had grasped the essence of it. It speaks in such grand gestures and on a mythical level that a grasp of the narrative details is not needed, and the willingness to accept not understanding is part of the experience of the film (while at the same time, letting the presence of that enigma drive one, the great mysteries that spark creativity.)
And yet... I can't even imagine a film like this being made today. The pacing, and most especially the abstract ending would be difficult for any director to push through.
Mystery Man recently posted a video and link to an article about 2001, and I decided my response there merited repeating in my own blog.
My discussion of films tends not be be analytical so much as experiential, and this is no exception.
I remember the first time I watched 2001 so clearly.
I was about 14, it was at a slumber party. The other girls were all out at the pool, going into the daylight after telling scary stories in the dark of a walk-in closet.
The parents put it on (and, in retrospect, I suspect had just dropped acid.) I stood behind the couch and watched the opening - silent and yet so *big* and *important*... I asked what it was, and if I could watch. They told me I wouldn't enjoy it, it was for grown-ups. Well, I wasn't the kind of kid who ever appreciated being left out because of my age - so I sat down on the floor and watched.
I was baffled and completely entranced - and knew I'd have to watch it again in a few years... and yet, despite not quite getting everything, I had grasped the essence of it. It speaks in such grand gestures and on a mythical level that a grasp of the narrative details is not needed, and the willingness to accept not understanding is part of the experience of the film (while at the same time, letting the presence of that enigma drive one, the great mysteries that spark creativity.)
And yet... I can't even imagine a film like this being made today. The pacing, and most especially the abstract ending would be difficult for any director to push through.
Where I'm At
Right now, you can find my posts mostly at myspace: http://blog.myspace.com/visualpoems
I may start cross-posting them here also, but I prefer to keep things simple, and I do most of my writing about screenwriting, filmmaking, movies I've seen and so forth at the myspace blog.
I may start cross-posting them here also, but I prefer to keep things simple, and I do most of my writing about screenwriting, filmmaking, movies I've seen and so forth at the myspace blog.
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