PART FOUR: Radio, Screen and Theatre

Following feedback from my tutor I have decided to follow the screenplay pathway in this section.  I believe the story in my initial treatment fits well with this form of media and the techniques used in this industry will enable me to paint and excellent picture of the characters and settings. 

Project: Films – economy and imagery

Unlike a novel, writing for the screen does not allow for the luxury of long, deeply described settings, emotions and characters.  In order to ensure that the story ‘moves’ well and translates well on screen, it is necessary to apply a number of techniques to ensure that these details are not lost, but rather given to the audience through imagery and suggestion.  An article from scriptlab.com (n.d.) suggests that  “we must be economical as we go: start our story as late as we can, begin each scene at the last possible moment, get out of scenes as early as we can.”

This suggests that it is essential for the writer to portray the story in the most concise way possible, whilst still including all of the relevant details and keeping the ‘believability’ of the scene.  For example, in James Manos Jr’s Dexter (2006-) it is quite common for a scene to begin at the end of the character’s conversation giving the audience the impression of a realistic interaction taking place before the scene, allowing them to join only for the ‘juicy’ and relevant parts.  In addition to this, many scenes are ‘cut short’, to ensure that only the main information is given whilst giving the illusion of a realistic scene.

The dialogue too is a huge factor when ‘economising’.  Thompson (2013) writes that “While dialogue should be rich and fully worded, useless dialogue that does not add anything to the story should find its way to the chopping block”.   Although there is an overwhelming temptation to use dialogue to ‘tell the whole story’, in real life situations it is uncommon that conversation allows for long monologue-style structure.  Therefore, this should always be reflected in scripts using short, punchy sentences that are both realistic and ‘to the point’.   Of course, the dialogue plays a large part in the telling of the story, but in order to create an interesting, engaging and believable story, it is necessary to incorporate a number of other elements to aid the storytelling.  

Cowgill (2005:163) writes that, “One of the best tools a screenwriter has to help him or her achieve this momentum is to use an economy of words.  Words, description and dialogue, must be as focused as everything else in the screenplay.  Random description of every detail in a scene will only derail it.”  This suggests that not only is it important to economise on dialogue and imagery, but also scene length, descriptions and the actual foundations of the script. 

Whilst researching economy, I wanted to look at a number of films in different genres to compare them with the ideas above.  I chose to watch Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids (2011) and look at the published scripts of both Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Puzo and Ford-Copolla’s The Godfather (1972).  Whilst these three films provide very different stories and were written in different time periods, I found many similarities in terms of economy. 

The first thing I noticed about all three films was the average length of each scene.  Whilst all three films contain a great number of scenes, their lengths vary between half a page and five pages.  As suggested above, the dialogue in these scenes is very minimal, strictly kept to one or two lines of text.  However, The Godfather does contain many portions were the dialogue of each character was very long, although it could be argued that these scenes are amongst some of the more unsuccessful of the film. 

In each of these stories, it was clearly that the writer’s intention to not only rely on dialogue to tell the story, but also to rely largely on imagery and scene descriptions.  In contrast to Cowgill’s (2005:163) comments on the economy of the scene descriptions, I found both The Godfather and Vertigo to contain very large sections of text at the beginning of each scene, meticulously describing the scene’s layout.  However Bridesmaids provided very little information the beginning of each scene, allowing the director greater control of the story.

Exercise: Using images

The opening scenes of Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) almost acts as a ‘pre-curser’ to the story events that unfold later.  From the very beginning we are introduced to the vast change in climate and environmental conditions giving the audience the impression of a more unknown setting.   As the GIs emerge from the plane I felt as though their clothing and need to acclimatise to their environment was a good demonstration of their naivety and this stage was reflected in their cleanliness and pristine clothes.  The approach of the truck carrying bags of dead bodies gave the audience impression of the horrors of war and the new GIs' reactions to this sight, once again demonstrates their lack of experience, which later changes.  In addition to this, the attitude of the veterans casually throwing the bodies off the truck and the passing of a more experienced platoon provided a reflection of the personalities and desensitisation that the GIs experience by the end of the film.      

This epic film relies heavily on the use imagery throughout to paint a very real picture to the audience.  Whilst watching this movie, I once again make a comparison with my earlier research on economy.  Short scenes and concise dialogue enable this film to convey action and excitement to the audience, even during the scenes with less dramatic story events.