How come screenplays haven't become more experimental, like say... novels?

[ScriptShadow]

I was wondering why screenplays have not welcomed any innovative changes to their presentation like say... novels have. I was reading a book recently (The Raw Shark Texts) and there is a 50 page flipbook near the end of it that I thought was extremely innovative. It reminded me that novels can have pictures, puzzles, drawings... and yet screenplays are restricted to this boring 12 point fixed font.

I mean, I understand in principle why they do it. Because it's a blueprint for the film and not the final viewing experience. However, shouldn't you add anything you can that will help tell the story? If images weren't as good as descriptive text, then why do we watch movies as opposed to read scripts? It's clear the image has a more powerful effect on us. And yet including one in a screenplay is grounds for you being permanently banned from Hollywood. (I also understand that a page of script is roughly one page of screen time. But before any movie goes into production, they do an official page count with their software anyway - so they'd easily be able to do this - taking out any images or what have you in your script).

We're light years beyond the 1920s, when these rules began. We send just as many digital scripts noawadays as we do physical scripts. We have home printers that can knock out photos at five times the resolution of film. Are we just being stubborn? Are we just a bunch of old sticklers who refuse to dem dere let them young willy-nillys ruin our tradition?

I remember asking a casting director 12 years ago why all headshots were in black and white? She said "If I receive any headshot in color I throw it away immediately. I don't even look at them." I told her the technology's there and it was only a matter of time before color headshots took over. She literally looked at me like I was crazy. Well low and behold, cut to present day... everyone has color headshots.

It used to be you walked in a room to pitch a movie with just your voice and your hands. Now people bring in paintings, storyboards, short movies, pre-made trailers, etc...

All these other areas have adapted and changed. Why hasn't the screenplay?

[Fox Bronte]

If you need to draw illustrations or use anything
but words to emphasize what you're saying, you're
not a very good writer.

[TheKeenGuy]

As an architect, you want to focus on the design of the house, not the design of the blueprints.

Screenplays are the blueprints for films, a burden not carried by novels, and therefore must maintain a basic structure. But the content within has laid the blueprints for more experimental films.

If you want to turn screenwriting into an experimental artform on it's own, you can. However, that does nothing to help in the process of making it into a film.

[Sinnycal]

I mean, I understand in principle why they do it. Because it's a blueprint for the film and not the final viewing experience.

That's not so much "in principle" as it is the exact reason.

[Jake Schuster]

The first truly great "experimental" novel in English is Sterne's Tristram Shandy. To begin with, the narrator of the book--the voice telling us his story--isn't actually born until we're many pages into the book. There are pages that are either completely blank or completely black, time shifts abruptly, there are snippets of music manuscript, and so forth. It's a book full of surprises and unexpected shifts of style and typography.

Recently a film of the book was made and the producers and writer did the only thing they could do--not reproduce the book, which is impossible (there's the answer to your question), but make a movie about the making of a movie based on the novel. And in my eyes it's a great success. And funny as hell.

The novel allows for all kinds of rule-breaking. One of the earliest novels in English, Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson, is made up entirely of letters written and sent; Joyce's Ulysses "retells" The Odyssey as a tale of a salesman in Dublin on a June day in 1904, giving us each chapter in a different style.

We accept all of the above, because when we open the book we're in the world of that book. But a movie makes different demands, both commercially and artistically. Commercially, the goal is to keep people riveted in place in their seats (save to go to the bathroom or buy popcorn and soda, which maintains the theatre with its sticky floors and surly staff); artistically to keep the audience believing that what it's seeing is a mirror held up to someone else's life; that what it's watching must be followed through to the end, that someone's life may be at risk, or the love of one person for another, or the world has to be saved, or Gotham needs to be rid of its villains.

An experimental novel (or film) is, in the end, all about itself. It draws attention to its techniques and not so much its narrative drive. The experimental novel, I should point out, is virtually dead at this stage. Everything that can be done with a prose narrative has been done, and all that's left is repetition.

And that's why mainstream films aren't built on anything more than the tried-and-true scripts that this industry has built upon for lo these many years.

[ScriptShadow]

If you need to draw illustrations or use anything
but words to emphasize what you're saying, you're
not a very good writer.

I actually don't think this is true. Or else the phrase, "There's no words to describe what I'm seeing" wouldn't exist. I would bet my life that no writer in the world could describe the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in a way that would make it more beautiful. There are simply some images that are more powerful than words. Like I said, it's the reason everybody goes to the theater to watch movies on opening day, instead of running over to their local bookstore and reading the script. Images are the essence of films. Why not give the screenwriter one more tool to paint with? If nobody had ever seen the Mona Lisa, and you wanted your characters to see it in your script, are there any words that would do a better job of describing the Mona Lisa than the image itself? In this case, the reader would have an infinitely better understanding of the painting's beauty than if it were merely described. And isn't that what we're trying to do? Tell our story as clearly as possible?

[Sinnycal]

I would bet my life that no writer in the world could describe the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in a way that would make it more beautiful.

The script as written has things in it that set a director's teeth on edge. Look at your opening page--"Pull back to reveal a schoolyard on an agonizingly beautiful spring day." Well, the studio executive reads that and he says, "Oh, an agonizingly beautiful spring day, that's great." The director says, "When have I ever agonized over a spring day?" Then he says to his cameraman, "Get me an agonizingly beautiful spring day."

It's all hype--you write it, the executive reads it, and after I've shot it, everybody looks at it and says, "Wait a minute, that isn't agonizingly beautuful, why isn't it?" It's the director's fault. I wonder what Shakespeare would have read like if he wrote this way? "And it's the most agonizingly beautiful dawn you've ever seen and the ghost appears and it's the most staggering-****ing-looking ghost anybody ever saw."

-George Roy Hill

Bottom line, it isn't the writer's job to convince us that sunsets are beautiful.

[JonnyAtlas]

As already stated, if you have to use pictures you aren't doing your job.

Likewise, if a writer uses the phrase "there are no words to describe...", they're not a very good writer. Period.

Honestly, your speculative threads and your repeated mantra of rule breaking philosophies grows tiring. Screenwriting is what it is. If you don't like it, it's not the path for you.

[ScriptShadow]

Sinycal, I would actually argue that that quote supports my argument. Had the director seen a picture of what the writer had in mind, there would be no misunderstanding. It would be, "Oh, yeah. I know exactly what he wants."

I'm curious, with everybody saying how if the writer isn't using words, he's not doing his job... This exact argument could've been used for pitches 20 years ago. So then why did that change? Why was it okay to switch over in that realm? Why is it that, when someone walks into a pitch with a poster (or a trailer, or a scene, or the actors who will be in the film) for a script that hasn't even been written yet, the producer doesn't say, "Oh, I don't want to see that. If you can't convey that with words than I have no interest in seeing that."? It's because it helps them visualize the movie. I don't see how screenwriting should be any different. Anything that helps a reader/director/producer/actor visualize the movie is a good thing, right?

[Jake Schuster]

I think that perhaps the screenplay (if one exists or even existed) of Chris Marker's "La Jetée" may well have been one of the more experimental. Made up--save in one case--of a series of still photographs, this film (which served as basis for Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys") remains in a curious way as gripping as a movie that actually moves.

[Ralphy W]

At one point in his STIR OF ECHOES script, David Koepp has an entire page with just one word on it, which is supposed to mimic the experience the audience will have when they see that word on a white movie screen. (http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/stirofechoes.pdf -- page 84)

[JonnyAtlas]

At one point in his STIR OF ECHOES script, David Koepp has an entire page with just one word on it, which is supposed to mimic the experience the audience will have when they see that word on a white movie screen. (http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/stirofechoes.pdf -- page 84)
That was honestly really cool. I read the whole sequence.

I appreciate manipulation of words like that. The whole Shane Black technique of forcing the reader's pace is awesome, and I use my own form of it quite often. Like:

Jim closes his eyes. His toes hang over the ledge.

He opens his arms wide.

He .l e a n s .f o r .w .a .r ..d ... ... ...

His body tips over, like a glass off the corner of a table.

He falls...


tumbles through the air...



the wind whips his clothes...




THUD!


:p


However, when it comes to pictures or anything visual, that's not writing. It's visual art. We are called to write. It's what people (hopefully) pay us for.

All we have is words. We can (and should) use them to their utmost potential, but they are still all we have.

[AnotherWriter]

I was wondering why screenplays have not welcomed any innovative changes to their presentation like say... novels have. I was reading a book recently (The Raw Shark Texts) and there is a 50 page flipbook near the end of it that I thought was extremely innovative. It reminded me that novels can have pictures, puzzles, drawings... and yet screenplays are restricted to this boring 12 point fixed font.

This "style of screenplay" do exist. They're called graphic novels.

A writer writes words. An illustrator draws pictures. Someone talented in both areas may choose to write/draw a graphic novel as part of a their "selling package" to pimp out a movie idea/screenplay. It *does* happen.

The storyboard artist doesn't DP, the camerman doesn't DP, the music composer doesn't record and edit audio. Unless they carry crossover skillsets, everyone keeps within the domain of what they're good at -- within their specific job titles -- everybody has their own job to worry and excel in. And when we're talking about screenwriting, we're talking about words on a page.

[jkk808]

I'm not going to say this is the dumbest thread ever but,

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2158/2331862131_83a611ed18.jpg?v=0

[Kwinnky]

Sinycal, I would actually argue that that quote supports my argument. Had the director seen a picture of what the writer had in mind, there would be no misunderstanding. It would be, "Oh, yeah. I know exactly what he wants."

You're assuming the director cares what the writer wants.

I'm curious, with everybody saying how if the writer isn't using words, he's not doing his job... This exact argument could've been used for pitches 20 years ago. So then why did that change? Why was it okay to switch over in that realm? Why is it that, when someone walks into a pitch with a poster (or a trailer, or a scene, or the actors who will be in the film) for a script that hasn't even been written yet, the producer doesn't say, "Oh, I don't want to see that. If you can't convey that with words than I have no interest in seeing that."? It's because it helps them visualize the movie. I don't see how screenwriting should be any different. Anything that helps a reader/director/producer/actor visualize the movie is a good thing, right?

Using a pitch to sell is the end result. A Novel is the end product even if no one reads it. A script isn't really anything until it's filmed.

Even Shane Black-esque writing is getting tired (according to readers). I would rather spend my time developing my voice than figuring out ways to to be innovative that will actually be ignored.

[Popcorntreect]

I think the industry is just stubborn. The Crank 2 screenplay I read had pictures of artificial hearts -which was very helpful in detailing how it worked.

When description lines are supposed to be a line...illustrations could help. There are tons of screenplays I've read where I couldn't tell what was supposed to be happening or what the location looked like. That goes for specs and produced screenplays.

Yeah, I know the OP has thrown out some wild ideas but I think screenplays could use a little spicing up. Especially, if you're a writer who wants to be a director. I plan on having an artist draw up some illustrations to serve as storyboards when I'm ready to pitch my script.

[ShaneBlackFan]

Have you guys read Burn after Reading - the draft that circles amongst us? I was disorientated at first, the formatting* was radically different to the point of annoying** but the Coen's voice still shone through and the story is terrific. I can't wait to see it.

*That's if the script wasn't copied.
** Don't try this at home, kids.

[Sinnycal]

Sinycal, I would actually argue that that quote supports my argument. Had the director seen a picture of what the writer had in mind, there would be no misunderstanding. It would be, "Oh, yeah. I know exactly what he wants."

The director doesn't give a crap about how the writer pictures a sunset.

That's not the writer's job.

The screenplay hasn't taken on experimental forms because the screenplay isn't a particularly artistic medium.

[Ravenlocks]

The power of words is that they call up an image IN THE IMAGINATION. If you look at a picture, there's nothing to imagine; it's just a picture. But if you read an evocative description (which doesn't mean purple prose; lean and mean often works better), it produces a mental image that's far better than any real image you could show. Notice how annoying it is when the actors who get cast for a movie adaptation of a novel don't match the way you visualized the characters (LOTR hobbits, anyone?). Imagination is better than real life. And the written word speaks to the imagination.

[DavidK]

Hey - what about storyboarding?
Why is there so little experimentation in storyboards?
Why can't we storyboard without relying on drawings and use text instead?
It's time the industry moved on and became more experimental. I think a lot of the images in storyboards could be replaced by descriptions, so we can use our own imaginations to conjure up an image.
And dialogue in storyboards.
If we included dialogue in storyboards we could avoid having to draw a lot of those images, just replace the drawings with text describing the dialogue.
Even better, a completely experimental storyboard with no images, just written descriptions of the scene, action, and dialogue.

Oh hang on, that sounds a bit like a screenplay...

Wait, wait, I've got it. Let's replace screenplays with storyboards, and replace storyboards with screenplays. Brilliant.

No, wait, wait. Here's a better, much more experimental idea which confounds all the rules and conventions of screenwriting.

Write the screenplay and use scissors to cut it into separate scenes. Cut the storyboard into individual images. Throw the whole lot in a cardboard box. Throw in some photos of your favorite actors, and a couple of CDs with some of your friends reading the dialog. Throw a couple of props into the box and the latest edition of the American Cinematographers' Handbook. Mix it all up and deliver to studio.

[ScriptShadow]

Sarcasm noted, David. But there *are* words and description in storyboards. And there didn't used to be. Why was that medium able to change?

jkk, you just linked a picture to get your point across. I won't point out the irony.

But anyway, it's good to hear that people are actually doing this. I figured there were some isolated cases out there, but didn't know for sure. Maybe it will change someday. However, judging by the reaction on this thread, that day will not come soon.

Heck, it only recently became acceptable to italicize. Baby steps.

[Buzz2074]

I would bet my life that no writer in the world could describe the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in a way that would make it more beautiful.


Uhh... to who? Consider the audience, Wilson. If you really want to knock people dead with beautiful sunsets then become a photographer.

If you're trying to sell a spec screenplay, all you need is

EXT. BEACH - SUNSET.

This doesn't matter if you're making your own film, in which case you can do whatever you want. Write a screenplay of tree bark if it helps.

But as the predominant theme of this board is the crafting of potentially saleable screenplays, your ideals about elaborating on heightening the audience's experience are off base.

For those business purposes we write in the accepted format.

Now, if you're an established presence like the Wachowski Brothers and you want to present a Storyboard to do justice to The Matrix at your studio meeting, perhaps there's a case for embellishing the screenplay. But for most of us here, that's not a practical choice.

I've been told more than once that even putting an illustration on a script's cover will cause wariness.

[Terrance Mulloy]

If you need to draw illustrations or use anything but words to emphasize what you're saying, you're
not a very good writer.

Every written form or medium requires a different process.

Some of the best comic writers out there - Bendis, Ellis, Moore, Miller, Vaughan, Azzarello - all these guys use great dialogue and wonderful illustrations to drive their narratives. Doesn't mean they're bad writers - it's how they work within the confines of that medium.

A prose writer on a novel has the luxury of using four pages just to describe one character, or describe a world or setting. But they do that because they can. It's a novel. Doesn't mean they're bad writers. Once again, it's the confines of the medium.

Screenplays are a completely different beast. You're trying to convey a sense of depth and story and arcs and theme and all that jazz, into 110 pages - by using the least amount of words possible.

All you can do is illustrate with words. That's all you've got.

[Ralphy W]

If I could draw, I might include a picture -- if I thought its presence in the script would effectively communicate a specific visual I had in mind.

Unfortunately, my stick figures aren't very cinematic.

[Scripted77]

This is akin to the two or three brad debate.

Beautiful sunsets?

People know what beautiful sunsets look like. If it was a sunset with a neon blue sun because we're on a different planet, then describe that. Because it's interesting. And it matters. But describing how "beautiful" a sunset is -- in a screenplay -- is simply not necessary.

If all the words in the English language aren't enough to get your idea across, then maybe you should be writing comics or graphic novels instead. There's certainly nothing wrong with that. But a screenplay is not some cool medium that needs to be edgified or whatever the hell you're getting at. It's not a final art form.

Just my .02.

[wcmartell]

Because the only purpose of a screenplay is to be made into a movie. They aren't read by the public like novels.

A screenplay is a precision document.

- Bill

[Mac H.]

When I first read 'Flight of the Phoenix' (the book, not the script) I thought 'if this was a script, the writer should use a diagram to explain this bit'. Even a diagram was used in the book.

Because even with a carefully crafted, detailed explanation, someone is always going to get confused over where you got a fuselage of a new plane from.

Sure, it CAN be done with only words and no diagrams, but wouldn't that be like trying to create a building plan for a house without using words - only diagrams? Would someone who 'resorted' to using words on a building plan just be showing what a poor draftsman they are, because if they were more skilled they could have done a diagram to communicate the same information?

In a house building plan, you use words when it communicates the most effectively, and diagrams the rest of the time.

OK, fundamentally I agree with the criticisms - the house building plans / recipe / screenplay isn't a work of art in itself, but just one step in the process.

But most industries DO change what these process steps look like, not for any particularly creative reason, but just because industry styles change.

If you look at the electrical schematic for the first video game and compare it to a modern schematic, you'll be struck at how different they look.

It isn't just the technology - people simply don't use those kind of symbols anymore. (It took me ages to figure out that one of the circuit elements was a relay) I notice this especially working with older engineers - the style of schematic layout they use is quite a bit different to what we would use with modern tools today.

Since an electrical schematic is a LOT more of a precision document than a screenplay, and we've seen style changes in schematics, it isn't simply enough to say that the static form of screenplays is due to the precision required.

Interestingly, Australian TV scripts have one innovation that I've found handy - a list of characters under each scene heading listing who are visible in that scene (even if they don't have a speaking role)

(Yes, the lists are in the original screenplay generated by the writer .. they aren't put in by later people. Check out the Final Draft template for 'McLeod's Daughters' if you want to see an example. It is accurate apart from the comments about length ... the ad breaks are slightly longer now so they'll be slightly shorter)

If you want a screenplay that is EXTREMELY experimental, check out the original draft of 'Stranger than Fiction' ... it has a style of its own...

Mac

[prescribe22]

We have to differentiate between a shooting script and a spec script in order for this to really make sense.

As Bill pointed out, shooting scripts are precision documents. They have been used on stage and screen sets for ages. It is a useful document that helps the production process.

There are many practical reasons why it comes in text format. In today's culture where technology has drastically changed our lives... It's important to note that it is still a whole lot easier to rewrite a script than it is to go around revising story boards or illustrions.

The standard script has a very strong foothold within the development process. As of right now, it is still the best option. That may change (animation projects use some different methods), but for now, the script is still king.

Now what Wilson is really getting at here is MARKETING a story. Not the development process. The format used to sell a story to a studio.

While Wilson is thinking and making good points. Wilson is wrong in one key aspect. Hollywood DOES NOT restrict different formats when it comes to selling a story. Not in the least.

The Spec screenplay only accounts for a small % of story sales in Hollywood.

Adaptations and pitches are far more common. Essentially, when Hollywood buys up story rights to a Graphic Novel or a Comic, they are buying the same "experiments" Wilson referred to.

Furthermore, story boards, illustrations, and even video have long been used to help market story ideas in Hollywood.

STAR WARS was sold to Fox with the aid of very dramatic art work.

So was the MATRIX

The Coen Brothers made a mock trailer for BLOOD SIMPLE well before shooting the actual movie. They used the trailer to solicit funding for the actual film shoot.

Fox TV has been giving out video cameras to scribes pitching new pilots. They are asking them to go out and video tape possible scenarios for thier project.

Bottom line.... there are actually way more options when it comes to selling a story in Hollywood than just writing a spec.

Experiment all you want.

You can sell a story in a variety of different formats. But the shooting script WILL eventually be needed, and whoever does pen it will get Written By credit.

If you want that credit (and you should), then you better pen that script in addition to putting all the other creative knick knacks together.

[Terrance Mulloy]

I do love the idea of pitching or marketing your script with concept art, storyboards and mock trailers, etc.

A lot of well established writers aid their pitches to execs with artwork etc - Helps visualize the look and feel of the film - both for characters as well as props and locations.

[Laura Reyna]

I was going to point out something along the lines of what Prescribe says above...

The spec script itself is a marketing tool. A SP is a tool used to sell a (potential) movie. A writer wants to sell a movie, but right now the movie he wants to sell is in screenplay form. A storyboard or graphic novel can, theoretically, do the same thing as a script-- sell a movie. They do it visually, a screenplay does it with words.

What has traditionally seperated screenplays from other story forms-- novels, poems, graphic novels-- is that they are not considered to be as entertaining by themselves, as other story forms are. Few people outside the industry read unproduced scripts for pleasure. They are considered by many to be a strictly utilitarian document.

Just a thought, but what if you could make scripts entertaining-- visually interesting-- enough to get people to read them for pleasure?

We've gotten used to seeing scripts look a certain way but the industry is constantly evolving. Gaphic novels are becoming bigger. Who knows what The Screenplay will look like in a few yrs?

I remember a thread where Chris Lockhart said he wished scripts had a list of the players on the front page, in order to keep track of who was who. Some scripts have a lot of char's & it gets confusing... Well, I had the exact same thought & was happy to see someone else was thinking along the same lines. I still hope they start doing this.

I see scripts that have their sluglines in bold now...

Little changes are happening to the look of the SP. Maybe there will be more changes in the near future.

So some of what Wilson is suggesting isn't so outrageous.

And really, a writer can experiment all s/he wants right now. There is nothing stopping them from putting diagrams or drawings or whatever in their script. But this experimentation needs to be so interesting & compelling that it does the same job as an ordinary screenplay does: It sells the story of a movie.

[reddery]

All these other areas have adapted and changed. Why hasn't the screenplay?

We're a small part of the over-all design of a movie.

There are one-sheets

[ShaneBlackFan]

I can't wait to read wilsoneads's script!!! I enjoy his subversive questions, it certainly provokes a debate. ;)

[Fox Bronte]

Actually, I think this guys inspired me.
I'm just writing a scene in a hospital but
couldn't think of how to describe an operation.

So, now, I'm going to buy a liver from the butchers.
And when I submit the script to 20th century Fox,
I'm going to put the liver in with it.

But still, I'm struggling with how to describe the sunset
outside of the hospital.

:cool:

[Ralphy W]

Terry Rossio's thoughts:

http://www.wordplayer.com/forums/scriptsarc10/index.cgi?read=151496


Also:

http://www.wordplayer.com/forums/scriptsarc11/index.cgi?read=159826

[jonpiper]

Actually, I think this guys inspired me.
I'm just writing a scene in a hospital but
couldn't think of how to describe an operation.

So, now, I'm going to buy a liver from the butchers.
And when I submit the script to 20th century Fox,
I'm going to put the liver in with it.

But still, I'm struggling with how to describe the sunset
outside of the hospital.

:cool:


I can save you the trouble of adding a liver to your script.

I'm perfecting a device that will, without a doubt, increase our chances of selling a spec script. I'll market it to other writers once the patent is issued.

The Page Scent Atomizer allows the writer to insert any of a variety of scents into the page within a written scene. The scent is automatically released to the reader's nostrils, when a reader directs his/her gaze to the written scene.

We can add the operating room and liver scents with little effort.

Also working on a device, which releases a subliminal message to the reader when he or she reads certain words. This one is a bit more difficult.
The word sunset will take on a whole new meaning, depending upon the message attached to it.

[Fortean]

I was wondering why screenplays have not welcomed any innovative changes to their presentation...yet screenplays are restricted to this boring 12 point fixed font.

I mean, I understand in principle why they do it. Because it's a blueprint for the film and not the final viewing experience. However, shouldn't you add anything you can that will help tell the story? If images weren't as good as descriptive text, then why do we watch movies as opposed to read scripts? It's clear the image has a more powerful effect on us. And yet including one in a screenplay is grounds for you being permanently banned from Hollywood. (I also understand that a page of script is roughly one page of screen time. But before any movie goes into production, they do an official page count with their software anyway - so they'd easily be able to do this - taking out any images or what have you in your script).

We're light years beyond the 1920s, when these rules began....

All these other areas have adapted and changed. Why hasn't the screenplay?

Conformity, and economics.

If I went to a bank with an application for a mortgage to build a residence, based upon Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes and Richard Snelson's tensegrity structures, I bet that the mortgage lender would ask for a set of blueprints and ask if the design conformed with the Ontario Building Code. And, when shown that it didn't conform, my application would be refused. That a building might not have any load-bearing walls nor any long trusses....

Hollywood producers are looking for screenplays that conform to their standards before putting any serious money into making a film. The last real innovation in screenplays was, with the advent of talking pictures, to go from the "scenario" to the "script." Innovation in Hollywood has largely been on technical achievements: colour, 3D, CGI, Smell-O-Vision, etc. And, most Hollywood writers will do what they can to make a dollar, (rather than "buck" the system), with familiar stories for audiences with simple tastes and with simple minds, (who prefer a trip to McDonald's, not a gourmet restaurant).

Look for innovation with independent filmmakers, (such as Guy Maddin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Maddin) or Jim Jarmusch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jarmusch)), who aren't Hollywood people. I disagree with Jake's assessment.
An experimental novel (or film) is, in the end, all about itself. It draws attention to its techniques and not so much its narrative drive. The experimental novel, I should point out, is virtually dead at this stage. Everything that can be done with a prose narrative has been done, and all that's left is repetition.

Tho the screenwriter may be limited to using a written language with a standard font, one must use one's imagination and creativity. How would one write a film involving a Rube Goldberg device, without "too much black"? If there's no dubbing, nor subtitles, can a film be presented which would be a comedy to one audience, (which understands all the languages spoken), and a tragedy to another audience, (which doesn't understand all the languages)? I think that there's considerable room to experiment in the perspectives offered by the screenwriter, but whether or not these can be conveyed to the director, cameraman, and soundman depends on the intelligibility of the screenplay, (for example, THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478366/combined)).

My present film project has a screenplay that's only twenty-nine pages in length for about ninety minutes of film; but, it may grow to forty pages when I add more of the French language material, alongside the English, (not including the musical score, which could be over two-hundred pages in length, by itself, for there are many musical jokes, involved in the story's narrative; for an example (http://www.resologist.net/The%20Bear.mid)). Without the music, the film is a tragedy; with the music, a comedy. It's a matter of perspectives, and it's an independent Canadian film.

[Fortean]

I'm perfecting a device that will, without a doubt, increase our chances of selling a spec script. I'll market it to other writers once the patent is issued.

The Page Scent Atomizer allows the writer to insert any of a variety of scents into the page within a written scene. The scent is automatically released to the reader's nostrils, when a reader directs his/her gaze to the written scene.

I'm doubtful about how you'll convince the patent examiner that it's not been done in prior art; but, with the number of "fart jokes" in Hollywood films, it could be the next big thing in page-turners.

[Sinnycal]

But still, I'm struggling with how to describe the sunset
outside of the hospital.

:cool:

Something like this? (http://i36.tinypic.com/302onqp.jpg)

[DavidK]

Sarcasm noted, David. But there *are* words and description in storyboards. And there didn't used to be. Why was that medium able to change?

Sarcasm is the cheapest form of wit but sometimes it's the quickest and easiest.

To be serious for a moment, what matters more is why you would want to do something experimental with script format. Surely there should be a solid rationale for doing so, not just to fool around. It might be easier to evaluate if you had an example of a good reason to change the format, as that would also offer some clues about what sort of experimentation might be of benefit.

I think the type of experimentation would be different between spex and shooting scripts. Regarding the latter, there is an experimental software development already under way but it is designed for a script that is definitely going into production.

Fortean makes some really good points above.

[wcmartell]

Now what Wilson is really getting at here is MARKETING a story. Not the development process. The format used to sell a story to a studio.

Actually, he's talking about the screenplay itself, not the marketing. In his initial post, he talks about the marketing aspects and asks why they are not allowed as part of the screenplay itself.

Why hasn't the screenplay?

He would have us have portions of the screenplay done as a flipbook or something. Not the marketing, the screenplay itself.

And the reason why we can't do that is because the screenplay (even a spec) is a precison doc that has no other purpose except to be made into a film (or show to someone that you can tell a great story in screenplay form so that they will hire you to write an assignment in that same screenplay form - with the intention of turning it into a film).

(and sometimes intentions do not equal finished films, but that's the plan.)

Using pictures or a flip books or coloring with crayolas are more likely to be seen as the writer *not* having the ability to tell a great story in screenplay form... and they need the great story told in screenplay form so that it can be broken down in order to be made into a movie.

Blueprints are still blue... even though they could be any color. That's the tradition part. But the drawings in the blueprints are still exactly the same - because that's the part they use to actually build the house.
- Bill

[Rathmon]

Of the scripts that I have read, the pilot for 'Heroes' is the only oddity. It breaks the conventions of what we are supposed to present as a script- it has artwork, overlong explanations, and *gasp* uses the word CAMERA and deems to tell the director how to do a shot!

However did that get into any studio? It's compelling as hell, that's how! So there is something to be said about bucking the trends, but you better have one damn good script if you do it.

That being said....

Bottom line is.... well, just that.... the bottom line. The money in Hollywood doesn't care about art, it cares about more money. And without those money men, any script is worth less than the paper it's printed on! When you have the money to back your own script, write the most experimental script you want, just don't be surprised if you lose your shirt... and your house.... etc.

[Nexus9]

wilsoneads, I have to ask you a serious question: why are you so obsessed with breaking the rules of structure? It's okay to think about these things, but you seem hell-bent on breaking away from the "rules" of screenwriting. As others have said, screenwriting is what it is. And for a reson. Conventions can be broken, sure, but breaking them isn't what's going to get you noticed.

[Forest]

Of the scripts that I have read, the pilot for 'Heroes' is the only oddity. It breaks the conventions of what we are supposed to present as a script- it has artwork, overlong explanations, and *gasp* uses the word CAMERA and deems to tell the director how to do a shot!
Just to note, it WAS written by Tim Kring who already had success with Crossing Jordan as creator, writer and executive producer. It's to say he could get away with that, just because he's a familiar name (plus in charge of the whole thing); he could deliver the good if the whole thing was written on cocktail napkins... which is something I think I'll do when I make it big. I digress.

But to think, an unknown making Etch-a-Sketch scriptbooks...

I wouldn't even dream of reading something that has creatively-placed origami on the front covers. It just looks like a magician's trick... "Watch the pretty bird while I palm off the chosen card." And as it has been mentioned many times, you don't want to give the reader ANY excuse to toss your work to the wayside.

[twk69045]

When I reach that level of success (stop laughing) I'm going to make all my scripts into flip books so people can see the storyboards play out the action in its entirety. :D

[Fortean]

When I reach that level of success (stop laughing)....

That settles it!

Ha, ha!

I'm inspired, now. [Appropriate music. (http://www.resologist.net/The%20Crafty%20Spy.mid)]

When I finish writing my spec screenplay for X.U., (the Canadian code-breaking "Examination Unit," run by Yardley in 1941 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Yardley#After_the_Black_Chamber)), I'll have copies printed with an invisible ink, (which can only be read under ultraviolet light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_ink#Inks_visible_under_ultraviolet_light )), so that it cannot be read in its entirety under normal lighting, (perhaps, the parts with the cryptological material written on the blackboard and the decodes of the Nazi spy messages). "Too much black," indeed! The Nazi spies involved in the story used an invisible ink which only became visible with the application of a reagent solution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_ink#Inks_developed_by_chemical_reaction) . That'd be a bit messy. An ultraviolet penlight (http://www.spyreview.co.uk/2008/01/24/spy-pen-with-invisible-ink-and-built-in-black-light/) would be a cool accessory that accompanies the requested screenplay.

Ha, ha!

[wcmartell]

I'm having my latest script tattooed.

And the one after that - I'm adapting WUTHERING HEIGHTS into semaphore!

- Bill

[prescribe22]

When I reach that level of success (stop laughing) I'm going to make all my scripts into flip books so people can see the storyboards play out the action in its entirety. :D

If they flip the pages fast enough, it would be like watching the movie.

[ComicBent]

Is this still a serious discussion? :(

[wcmartell]

Is this still a serious discussion? :(

Was it ever?

[DavidK]

Is this still a serious discussion? :(

My guess is not, but it was worth the wait for WCMartell's take on it. There goes my semaphore epic.

[wcmartell]

I think there is room in the world for *many* screenplays "written" in semaphore. In fact, I think it's the new trend, and soon *every* screenplay will be "flagged" instead of typed.

- Bill

[Ralphy W]

Message board posts are the future of screenwriting.

I mean, think about it --

You can use emoticons!

:nono::fryingpan: :jawdrop:

[wcmartell]

Actually - my next script will be texted...

Or maybe written in the snow!

- Bill

[Moviequill]

I'm planning on submitting mine by telepathy, just think it in and save on all that paper and finger straining.

[wcmartell]

Hey! You stole my idea!

[Fortean]

Or maybe written in the snow!

Can you?

Maybe, if you drank more C******n b**r (http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/showthread.php?p=461906#post461906), you'd get past "FADE IN"?

[Moviequill]

Hey! You stole my idea!

sorry, I did send you a micro-ESP burst just before I posted

[jonpiper]

Actually - my next script will be written in the snow!

- Bill
Can you?

Maybe, if you drank more C******n b**r (http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/showthread.php?p=461906#post461906), you'd get past "FADE IN"?



Yes, but when it melts, only the theme remains . . . or does the theme vanish too?

[Ire]

I tried mental telepathy and I was only able to get the 1st act to "go through."









I'm iffy on tht joke, but...

[wcmartell]

Oh... *mental* telepathy! I've been using anal telepathy.

YOu know, if people spent as much time working on their writing as they did trying to buck the system, they may actually write something good.

I know a guy who has his own format - he thinks that it is better than the current one. So far, Hollywood thinks he's just a kook.

- Bill

[twk69045]

Maybe a kook now but in ten years EVERYONE will submit their scripts in 17 point wingbat font. Mark my words.

[Sinnycal]

Oh... *mental* telepathy! I've been using anal telepathy.

An amateur mistake. You hate to see it.

[twk69045]

I take that back. The standard will be wackyspankers font.

[JonnyAtlas]

I know a guy who has his own format - he thinks that it is better than the current one. So far, Hollywood thinks he's just a kook.

- Bill
Didn't William Goldman try that with his first script, get his ass chewed off, and start writing in standard format?

[Sinnycal]

Didn't William Goldman try that with his first script, get his ass chewed off, and start writing in standard format?

I don't think he ever learned to write in standard format.

[Adam Isaac]

That's not so much "in principle" as it is the exact reason.


Word.:cool:

[reddery]

Oh... *mental* telepathy! I've been using anal telepathy.

YOu know, if people spent as much time working on their writing as they did trying to buck the system, they may actually write something good.

I know a guy who has his own format - he thinks that it is better than the current one. So far, Hollywood thinks he's just a kook.

- Bill

Is this part of your guerrilla marketing class?

[Jake Schuster]

Doesn't it really boil down to the fact that prose (as in a novel or work of short fiction) is in itself a means to its own end, that the reading of it is the author's goal; while a screenplay is the means to another end, the filming of it?

Thus the last thing I think you'd want attention drawn to is anything on the page that detracts from that process.

[Fortean]

Thus the last thing I think you'd want attention drawn to is anything on the page that detracts from that process.
Unless I was able to finance the very expensive production of X.U. (http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/showthread.php?p=462088#post462088), myself, (a film set in Ottawa, Washington, New York, Chongqing, and several Latin American locations, in 1941), I would have to send the spec screenplay out to interest other producers and talent.

By its very nature, (a work involving the breaking of codes used by Nazi spies and Japanese diplomats, with their actual messages), the screenplay would have "too much black" and run more than 120 pages. Would that get past the readers handed a "spec" by "Mr. X"?

Imagine how detailed the writing would be, for a scene in which I show Yardley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_O._Yardley) demonstrating at the blackboard, to his fledgling staff in Ottawa, how a double-transposition cipher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition_cipher#Double_transposition) message can be broken, (without a page illustrating what's on that blackboard); for, the hastily-trained Nazi spies in Latin America were assigned that method of encipherment, (even tho it had been broken in the First World War). I tried this in a Writing Exercise, some time ago, with a single-transposition cipher; it was difficult both to write and to post.

If "too much black" will deter interest, printing such details with invisible ink and readable only in "blacklight" might spark the interest of the reader. To do their job, the reader would have to inhabit their own "black chamber" to see the real intrigues of espionage and cryptology. That's what this story is about!

[Jake Schuster]

Interestingly, Fort, I recently finished an espionage novel set primarily in France and the UK during the summer of 1944. Because of the set-up of the story, I needed to show some "business" involving radio signals, and to have it explained to my protagonist. Even in a novel, business can get tedious if not handled well and with any sense of drama, but there's a way to do it without getting technical.

The whole key is the human factor, as Tolstoy shows us in his battlefield scenes in War and Peace. As long as there's a deadline (as there always is in this type of story) and people who need to achieve certain goals within it, having the protagonist watch and learn as the operation's in progress, conveying to the audience exactly what's at stake on the human level precludes having to throw a lot of, albeit vital in the author's eyes, mumbo-jumbo at them.

[Fortean]

...there's a way to do it without getting technical.

The whole key is the human factor, as Tolstoy shows us in his battlefield scenes in War and Peace. As long as there's a deadline (as there always is in this type of story) and people who need to achieve certain goals within it, having the protagonist watch and learn as the operation's in progress, conveying to the audience exactly what's at stake on the human level precludes having to throw a lot of, albeit vital in the author's eyes, mumbo-jumbo at them.

What I expressly want to do is "get technical" on the subject of cryptology; and, the success of Yardley's book, The American Black Chamber, could be credited to its inclusion of details about enemy codes and how they were broken. The "human factor" is good. I love a bit of drama, too. And, I detest films where code-breaking remains little more than someone waving sheet of paper with a "Eureka."

After being lured back to the States with false promises, (from his code-breaking operation in Chongqing for the Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomingtang government), Yardley again becomes a persona non grata, (because, William F. Friedman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Friedman), who helped break the Japanese PURPLE code, recovers from his "nervous breakdown"). The Canadian government hires Yardley to start its own code-breaking unit, (having gotten no help from British intelligence). Starting from scratch, with about a dozen people, Yardley's group is very successful. While Bletchley Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park) profits by Yardley's successes, sent via British Security Coordination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Security_Coordination), British intelligence refuses to cooperate with the Canadian officials, (until Yardley is removed), and blames their animosity upon the Americans. Lester B. Pearson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_B._Pearson), then an External Affairs official, visits Washington to learn why; and, Yardley also goes to Washington, (and has an appointment at the White House, on December 8th).

The audience knows about that count-down. What happened before December 8th, (with the Canucks), they don't.

The intrigue is with antagonists in British intelligence, the neutral Americans, and the Nazi spy network, (which Yardley uncovered). Yardley could fight the Japanese and Germans with his knowledge of cryptology, but he couldn't overcome the backstabbing, before the greater tragedy.

If he's a protagonist, I don't want him waving a sheet of paper and saying: "I've broken a Nazi spy's code." That's the Hollywood version, (no code-breaking, just "human factor," eg. ENIGMA (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/combined), BREAKING THE CODE (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115749/combined), and U-571 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141926/combined)). I want to show a Nazi spy watching ships leave Sao Paulo, the master spy encipher the report in Rio and transmit it via radio, Canadian radio monitors intercept the signal, bring that intercept to the Examination Unit in Ottawa, its decipherment and translation from German into English; ie. the entire chain of espionage and counter-espionage. Without Yardley's link in that chain, (his mumbo-jumbo), his conflict with the enemy remains abstract, and his methods are obscure. Show him demonstrate how to crack a code, which uncovers a Nazi spy in an American embassy, and he becomes a hero with real talents. Have his mistress, (a future second wife), break the Vichy code, and one has a top-secret affair.

The original draft screenplay for TORA! TORA! TORA! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066473/combined) was 657 pages in length. How much real code-breaking did it show? If I can keep my original draft of an X.U. spec under 120 pages, (visible in ordinary light), and another 30 to 40 pages of cryptological material in blank sections, (visible only under UV light), I think that its readers might get past the first ten pages, (if only to sneak a peek at what might be there and how the invisible ink works), without too much bother over the page count.

[Jake Schuster]

Fort, I've always found that audiences are captivated by process, whether it's watching a fictional CSI investigation, Julia Child putting together a dinner, or Carl Sagan explaining a black hole. Typically, when a specialist is trying to explain a process, and a process he or she's excited about, there's a point of frustration where it's evident to the explainer that he's not getting his point across.

So he resorts either to analogy ("Okay, so instead of thinking of binary code, look at this--these two coins. Let's put them together," etc.) or to making it so elementary that both the character he's explaining it to and the audience "gets it". That's the key: the audience is as ignorant as the person who needs to understand it. It bonds audience to character (hopefully the protagonist), and they'll be together for the rest of the film or novel.

In my novel (and without saying too much about it at this point, as it's with my agent) the protagonist possesses a special skill in one area and has basically been spirited away to a unit of the SOE in England to use his talents to create something for the war effort. Essentially I made up the entire thing, so my job is to make it sound absolutely convincing while at the same time allowing the reader to grasp the nature of it the same moment the protagonist does. Because he reaches a point where he says, "Ah, now I get it. You want me to--" and so on and so forth..

Again, it's bringing in the human factor. Character, character, character.