What do you use to build your screenplay?

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  • What do you use to build your screenplay?

    Everyone has their own little techniques in approaching a script. From the start to finish you have a step by step process. Hopefully.
    What do you use as far as physically writing the story... Just the laptop? A notebook? Shuffle index cards? Tape recorder? A stone tablet? A quill pen?
    (I tape a Needle Tip .5mm ball pen to a composition notebook. And do something to the notebook to have distinction among the other notebooks)
    What rituals do you go through before you write that first scene? Take a refresher course of the latest "how-to-book?", read a script, watch similar movies? Stalk the subject? Don't tell me you use the internet! No way!
    I'm beginning to have a particular flow to the way I write and I wanted to know if there are any other idiosyncrasies out there that you think can enrich my writing.

  • #2
    Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

    I've used a large whiteboard sometimes to sketch out the main story line, sequences and subplots. Find it a good "tool" to get a proper overview.

    /H
    'Media is the evil of all evils, they tell you only what
    they want the story to be'¦'

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    • #3
      Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

      Yellow legal pad and a felt-tip marker.

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      • #4
        Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

        I jot down notes and a detailed outline in Word, then write it out in Word (only because I tend to write a lot at work and, for some reason, they frown on me installing Screenwriter on my work computer). Then I rewrite it into Screenwriter at home. So my "first draft" is really like my 3rd.

        Other than that, no rituals other than a little research, if needed, on the web. Don't read certain books or watch certain movies. Though watching a movie will sometimes inspire an idea.

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        • #5
          Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

          I map out the storyline on a long piece of butcher paper stretched across two bulletin boards that hang above my desk for easy viewing. After writing page ten I realize none of those scenes are going to work, so I never look at it again. But by then I know what has to happen at the end of each act and at mid-point and write toward each.

          I write on the computer. It would take me forever to write a script out by hand. Rarely does the first thing that comes into my head last on the page more than 5 minutes. Love that backspace button.
          It's kind of fun to do the impossible - Walt Disney

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          • #6
            Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

            Butcher paper. Yes. Butcher paper.

            No wonder my structure is all off, and my dialogue sucks.

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            • #7
              Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

              My rituals are a little strange. I go for a long (sometimes very long) drive with a notebook and tape recorder. I drive until I can see my characters and the opening scenes. I jot down ideas in the notebook or talk into the recorder. I drive until I know what I have to do. This isn't an efficient process, I've driven to N. Carolina (from NJ) to think through characters and a story, but being alone in a car (especially at night) is so relaxing and boring that there is nothing else to do but think, and it works for me.

              Now that I have a laptop--I keep it in the trunk so I'm not tempted to write while driving--I'll stop somewhere and start writing.

              I've said before that I write short stories instead of treatments and I do that before starting a script, but if I get stuck later, usually act 2, I'll do another and try to work through the scenes.

              Otherwise, I clean my desk completely so there's nothing there but the story stuff. I make sure I'm stocked up on coffee, ciagarettes and M&Ms and I put the CDs in order so there's always music playing but nothing too distracting.

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              • #8
                Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                Originally posted by Emerger
                Butcher paper. Yes. Butcher paper.

                No wonder my structure is all off, and my dialogue sucks.
                Now you know the secret. Newsprint works well, too. I buy the end rolls from the newspaper office. Ten bucks and you've got a whole lot of paper to roll out and doodle on. Works better for me than cards because I can see the entire story all laid out at once and have lots of room for notations.
                It's kind of fun to do the impossible - Walt Disney

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                • #9
                  Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                  The do the driving thing too. Nice. The butcher paper is friggin awesome. Cards tend to jumble up in my face... Appreciate sharing a nugget of gold.

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                  • #10
                    Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                    Hey all,

                    I asked Dave Steinburg at Hollywhooped, the same question to which he replied:
                    "Once I have an idea and a character, I figure out the beginning, middle, and end with the act breaks in mind. Then I outline. There, I can add as many details as I want and flesh out the plot, character arc, and set pieces. Once the outlined is fairly detailed, I just write, in order, 5-10 pages a day. The rough draft usually takes 20 days. Then I revise and add connective tissue, set ups and payoffs, etc."

                    It's helped me out. I hope this is what you were asking for. Good Luck.

                    BB

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                    • #11
                      Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                      I use my brain. Then a blank sheet of paper. And then Final Draft. It's easy, you see!

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                      • #12
                        Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                        Just wanted to add that I also employ the 3AM Epiphany Method.

                        This is used after writing at least two drafts of a script but it's still missing something. After agonizing over it for weeks, maybe even months, you bolt straight up in bed one night suddenly knowing exactly what that something is.
                        It's kind of fun to do the impossible - Walt Disney

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                        • #13
                          Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                          words. one at a time, in sequence, and some puncutation thrown in.

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                          • #14
                            Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                            Each screenplay teaches me how to write it. Each one asks for a different process.

                            It usually involves rearranging the furniture in my office (don't ask me why - some unconscious message that this is the new "girl" in my life and I am devoted to her...)

                            I read a lot, nap a lot, do nothing.

                            I write scribbled notes on random pieces of paper by my bed or in my wallet. One note like this could represent a day's work.

                            I notice connections in my life - new people I've met, events in m personal life, books I'm reading for pleasure - between my state of being and the material. Where am I and where am I meeting the material?

                            I travel to the city that my story takes place in. I go to the kinds of buildings my characters work or live in. I visited the Monterey Aquarium once because I had a set piece in there. I visited Niagara Falls for a drama I was writing that took place there. I went to Atlantic City by myself and wandered the boardwalk and the dirt poor residential streets for a film I was writing about a blackjack player. I talk to the cab drivers and the people that have been in the place for a long time. I take pictures of images that interest me. I collect ingredients for a stew that I don't yet know the recipe to.

                            I make an "image board". I cut pictures out of magazines, take my own photographs, archival material (if it's true life or period), print out text of some of my own key phrases or ideas, take my daughter's drawings, and create a collage on a corkboard of random associations. The pictures don't mean anything linear. They give me a feeling and that feeling becomes the tone of the film.

                            I nap and nap and nap. When I wake up I will write one word, I will just bring myself to open the file. That can represent a day's work.

                            When the deadline presses, i pick a date I have to finish by. I will put up a calendar on my white board estimating the pages I need to have. Some days I'll write four pages. Toward the end, when I have ten consecutive days of writing behind me, I'll write 18 good pages in a day. Writing it down is the easy part. The hard part is knowing what to write. I'll prepare for five months to get that one 15-20 page day where everything flows through me, knowing what to become.

                            I give the script to my readers. I wait a few days to do this so that I can appreciate the accomplishment of finishing before getting a critique. I then receive the critiques and ignore them for a week. Then I implement my own changes based on the critiques I get.

                            I go through this process again with my producers.

                            I hand it in to the studio.

                            I begin the process again on a project I'm already a month late on.

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                            • #15
                              Re: What do you use to build your screenplay?

                              Honestly, this place gives me a headache.

                              Its a wonder why there are so many un-signed writers out there...

                              [QOUTE]
                              Other than that, no rituals other than a little research, if needed, on the web. Don't read certain books or watch certain movies. Though watching a movie will sometimes inspire an idea.[/QUOTE]

                              A little research, if needed. What do you look up? Gee I wonder what Worf would do? Maybe I should email Shatner to see if he could describe how a phaser works?

                              And the best part: "Don't read certain books or watch certain movies."

                              Jackass.

                              Anyone that says that should go back to their day job, punch the timeclock and stay there forever. Don't even go home. Just ask your Super if you can set up a cot in the boilerrrom. It's over, don't write so much as a greeting card to your mom on her birthday.

                              Do research. Watch movies...especially those in the genre your writing in.

                              And some idiots are wondering what rituals I might have since I'm so perfect...I grab a bottle of 15 year old rum, a few ice cubes, an $8 cigar, some Pink Floyd and I go to f***ing work.

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