The Seven Tests Of A Good Screenplay Idea (This article was
emailed as a link earlier, but I felt it deserved a second read)
By Neill D. Hicks
Somewhere in the churning soup of your creative self, a bubble begins
to form. It grows larger and larger: an irritation, an obstinate itch, an
insistent demand - an idea! At first, it's a craggy, bumpy, uneven sort
of thing that only a creator could love. But, with a little work, you forge
it into an authentic concept suitable as the operating premise for a...?
A what? A note pinned to the supermarket bulletin board? A magazine article?
A novel? A textbook? A stage play? How about a movie?
Sure, everyone's writing screenplays these days, and some of those screenplays
are selling for big money. Why not yours? Before you plan your Academy Award
acceptance speech, though, let's consider what makes a good movie idea that's
worth spending the next six months to a year fashioning into a screenplay.
Movies Tell A Dramatic Story
It may seem obvious, but keep in mind that the movies we enjoy the most
tell a story. A magazine article about how to select fresh fruit is probably
not going to become the basis for an exciting film. Neither is an essay on
health care. Even a short story about a young girl who waits by the telephone
to be invited to her first dance is not the kind of material movies do well.
We may be satisfied in a short story to glimpse a slice of life, but in
a movie we want the whole pie - and we'll be unsatisfied if we don't get
it. A good movie has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It tells the narrative
of change for a character in a dramatic sequence.
Dramatic is the important word. Movies are dramatic, and drama is about
conflict. All good movies are about a character acting against another character
or his environment. The main character moves through the story only because
he overcomes obstacles. The character may have to use physical force, as
in an action-adventure movie, or emotional and verbal force as in a movie
like Rain Man or Kramer vs. Kramer, but in either case the character always
will have to take direct action in order to overcome the opposition.
The opposition in a movie story comes not only from an antogonist, but
from the main character himself. Before he can win, the main character must
conquer some fear or shortcoming. In other words, the character must come
to grips with his own values.
So, movies are stories about change in the values of a character that is
achieved through conflict.
Movies And Novels
Movies are action. We all know that car chases and gun battles are favorite
devices for Hollywood movies. But so are courtrooms and bedrooms - because
they require action. In the movie theater, the audience's experience is
limited to what it actually can see on the screen. That means that the characters
must be doing something. That young girl waiting by the telephone may have
a world of terrors and hopes going on in her head, but there is little for
us to see on a movie screen. Northing is more boring than watching a movie
character think.
To be sure, characters do think. One of the requirements of action is that
the character is forced to make difficult choices. Remember that the story
is about the character's change in values, so that character is going to
be making some tough moral choices before he can progress in the story. The
audience, however, can't see the decision making process, only the result
of the process. A portrayal of the agonies of making a decision is of little
interest, while the actions that come from that decision probably will keep
viewers entertained and excited.
Movies, in fact, are a poor medium for exploring the inner life of characters.
The novel and the short story use the mind's eye to allow the reader to
imagine the characters. Even in novels with scant physical description,
we understand what's going on without necessarily seeing detailed pictures
of the people. Movies, though, thrust us into the action and we become part
of the story as it happens around us. Even an historical drama or a futuristic
science fiction pjece seems to be taking place now, as we watch.
Movies don't, in fact, deal well with fantasy. Of course, they can transport
us to a fantasy world like Star Wars, but once we are there, that world
becomes real. We can count the buttons on an actor's shirt. In a sense,
the world on the screen seems more real than life itself. A good film story
idea recognizes and makes use of this sense of immediate reality.
Stage plays are also dreams. For the most part, however, stage plays take
place in one location and deal best with those themes that do not require
physical action to carry the plot. While both stage and film dramas deal
with conflict, stage characters usually talk their way through the dilemma
on their way to self-discovery, but film characters must take action against
other characters.
Movie Story Structure
Generally, movies don't ask us to imagine what a character is thinking
or feeling, but show us their results of those thoughts and feelings in
actions that we can see clearly. The best movie ideas do this by structuring
events in ever increasing importance. We don't want to watch the character
make the same decision or go through the same actions over and over again.
The result of the character's actions must lead to a more difficult decision
to make, which in turn leads to greater action, and so on until the character
solves the problem.
The worst movie ideas? The worst movies don't tell us a story at all.
The intensely personal record. A young man has trouble with his parents.
He has trouble at his job. He has trouble with his girlfriend. He talks
to his best friend. He worries about his girl. He argues with his parents.
He talks to his psychotherapist about his boss. One morning on the way to
work, he's run down and almost killed by a speeding car. When he wakes up
and hears the birds singing outside the hospital window, he decides to be
a better person and stop complaining about life. He reconciles with his parents,
makes up with his girlfriend, and gathers the courage to ask his boss for
a promotion. Now, this may be fairly accurate picture of a person's life
and troubles, but it is hardly an interesting movie. It has no progression
of increasingly important events, and merely reports life as it is, wallowing
in the minutiae of relationships
The history lesson. After years of research, the writer sets down all the
facts of her great grandmother's trek westward in the nineteenth century.
With loving labor, the writer records every detail of the voyage, faithfully
listing the exact places, times, colors, and sounds. Unfortunately, the
writer is letting facts get in the way of truth. Better to write a novel
where this kind of detailed description adds to the texture of the event
than a film where we are much more concerned with the unfolding of the events
themselves.
The sermon. All writers have a point of view. We write because we have
something to say about life. But we make a mistake when we try to hammer
our political, social, or moral point of view into the heads of a movie
audience. Better to create a world and an entertaining story in which your
point of view can be felt by the audience than preach to them about what
you believe they should think.
Is It A Film?
Let's get back to that irritating bubble that is swelling up to become
an idea. When it finally rises into your consciousness, ask yourself a few
questions before you reach for the keyboard:
* Is there a clear main character?
* Does this main character have a problem to solve?
* Is there clear, definite opposition? An antagonist?
* Does the resolution of the problem require the character
to take action against the antagonist?
* Does the resolution of the problem bring the character's
values into question?
* Does the story have "air" in it? Does it take place
in several locations?
* Is the primary thrust of the story emotional rather
than intellectual?
If you can answer "yes" to all of these questions, you may have an idea
for the next Academy Award winning screenplay!
Copyright 1999 by SCREENTALK. All rights reserved.
Neill D. Hicks is a Senior Instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers'
Program where he has been honored with the Outstanding Instructor Award;
and has been a guest instructor at Northwestern University, the University
of Wisconsin, the University of Denver, California State University, the Canadian
Television and Film Institute, and advisor to the Norwegian Studiesenteret
for Film, among others. His book Screenwriting 101 will be released in September,
1999. He is available to conduct screenwriting seminars in Writing Thriller
and Action-Adventure Films and Essentials of Screenwriting.
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