The Visual Story

How to write your film visually

So I’ve talked a lot about visuals being important in film, now let’s actually look closer at how to write your screenplay visually. To refer back to the first draft article, don’t worry about this to begin with. If you want a character to express that he is angry, but don’t know a way right now, just make him say “I’m really angry!” and come back to it later, at the first draft stage it is only crucial that YOU know what your character thinks.

The reason why we write films visually is because these images are much more engaging, than just having your character say what they feel. Both express the same, but in such dialogue it feels clunky, and isn’t very expressive nor interesting. Take American Beauty, for example, the dinner scene when Lester takes a plate and throws it into the wall, smiling. Many have talked to me about this scene. They remember it because it is an excellent visual manifestation of Lester’s interior life, what he feels inside.

I don’t know how Alan Ball writes his scripts, but let’s hypothetically say that Ball in this scene just wrote Lester saying what he feels, instead of throwing the plate. It still expresses the same, but with much less impact. He then looked at the script and though, “hey, this scene needs something that hits the audience a bit more, it’s too flat.” He had a problem with the scene, but solved it in using visuals. This is a problem all screenwriters have to solve at several points in their scripts.

Actually, for your own reference it’s quite useful to write an internal monologue or dialogue between the characters, because it gives you a quick and straightforward look at what the characters feel and think. This is how you want the characters to express themselves. If you have a scene, look at your internal dialogue, then the more subtle scene and think, “does this scene express what I wrote in the internal dialogue?” If it does, great! If not, rewrite the scene, the internal dialogue should be the blueprint, the actual scene the subtle execution of this blueprint.

Of course, a lot of the visual language comes when the film is actually made, the director working with the actors. However, that doesn’t mean the screenwriter shouldn’t make an effort to tell his story as visually as possible. There are certain things you can’t get on the page, but that’s fine. Most of all, the actions of the characters should be visual, and redundant dialogue should be cut.

We will come back to this issue later, without a doubt. Meanwhile, I would like to recommend some films that use visuals and sequences of non-dialogue extremely well. Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (1964), Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le cercle rouge (1970). Check them out, and have a nice day.

Writing that first draft

So you have a great idea, and you are ready to put your thoughts on paper? Great! However, what I’d like to talk about is the writing of the first draft. This is one of the trickiest parts of writing a screenplay, because it is the point in which you are also attacked by you own mind, doubts and worries over whether or not the script works, are the characters believable, will people relate to this?

Well, my first and strongest advice would be: Just write! You can always go back and fix things, your first draft will, anyway, most likely be quite poor, always. The point of the first draft is to get your writing down on paper, to have something tangible to work on, rather than just in your head. A script is much easier to improve if you have it written down; in your head it can become a bit a mess.

Doesn’t your character work? Fine, continue writing, fix it later. Is the dialogue bland? Fine, just come back later. What is most important is to have an overall structure you can look at, all the ideas are there, now you just need to refine them. The majority of the writing process is rewriting, but a lot of aspiring writers become frustrated at the first draft, because their brilliant ideas aren’t turning out the way the hoped for on the page. Don’t worry, your idea is probably fine, only when you’re writing the third draft and it’s STILL not working, should you worry.

Carefully crafting your first draft is, in my opinion, meaningless. Of course, you have to put your hard work and intelligence into it, but don’t work yourself out over it, just get it done. A good example which is similar is when I had my editing exam. Basically, in my class I got the best grade. I am not bragging, because I don’t think I did better than everyone else because I am a better editor, but because my method of editing was superior.

What most people did was labour over every second from the word go, they moved slowly through the scene. Me, I threw wide shots together just to get a sense of the time and space in twenty minutes. That was my first draft. Then I would look at the scene I created and think; “what does this scene say? What does it need?” Then I would go over it, refining it and changing it in significant ways. That was my second draft. Then I reworked the scene over and over until I thought it worked the way I wanted to.

Don’t labour over your first draft, just get it done. Later I will cover how to actually developing your story, how to go from a vague idea to a much more detailed outline.

In many ways, the first draft is more of a template than an actual piece of creative writing. The real work starts when you write the second draft.

Getting started

We writers tend to be neurotic creatures, that is probably why we like to shut ourselves out from society and then, inexplicably, write about just that. So, you’re a shut-in and want to write a screenplay? Great! However, most people don’t come up with a story on the spot, but rather an idea or a premise, and then work from there. So how do you best develop you initial idea into a detailed outline?

Well, to tell the truth there is not real “correct” way to do this. Myself, I usually have a beginning or an ending in mind, then find out what would be the best ending/beginning based on which end I came up with first, then work on the meat in-between. I’ve read many interviews and comments by screenwriters on this topic, and it seems everyone have their own method.

Just figure out which one works the best for you, and then work from there, however, there are some thoughts you should have in mind before you write.

• What is the format? Ten minute short film or a three hour long epic? Make sure you know roughly how long you want the screenplay to be.

• Who is my protagonist, and what are his goals and desires? How should he change by the end of the story?

• Is the character’s struggle based on interior or exterior problems? It is critical that you map this out. Interior deal with psychological issues, inner emotions, while exterior deal with an outside force, most action films are like this. Of course, a film can have both elements.

• Are you writing within a genre? If you are writing within one of the popular genres, make sure you know that genre well and avoid the more glaring clichés.

• What is the antagonistic force in the film? Sometimes the antagonistic force is just the main villain, but sometimes it could be the character’s own psychological problems. Or, as in many recent films, nature itself. Every film must have an antagonistic force to drive the story and protagonist forward.

• What is it that you want to tell through this story, what is your message?

There are many other elements that you have to consider, but to begin with, these should do nicely to map out where your screenplay is heading.