Writing For Actors - part 1

Close to the end of the movie “Paris Texas” is a key scene where Harry Dean Stanton tells the story of how he ended up wandering in the desert; he tells this story to the ex-wife who he hasn’t seen since the night he tried to kill her. Now, what interests me about this scene, is for the entire three and a half minutes, as the story unfolds, the camera remains static on Natasha Kinski (the ex-wife). We’re not watching Harry Dean Stanton talk, we’re watching Natasha listen… at no point does the editor cut away to Harry’s moving delivery of this key monologue.

When you look closely at most films this is actually closer to the norm than you might expect, the camera often remains on the person listening, rather than the person delivering the line. This is especially true at key dramatic moments. This is because at these moments, what the audience is witnessing is impact of a line on the inner life of a character.

However, there is a deeper significance to the importance of this editing choice and I believe it holds one of the keys as to why so many indie films and spec scripts fail to create high quality drama. This is because, in order to write a scene where the listening is more important than the delivery, you have to write stories from the inside out… and not the outside, in.

In order to build a performance that makes an audience hold its breath in anticipation, you have to create moments of vulnerability. A moment where the audience understands the deep significance of what’s being said or done. In my opinion, in order to do that you have to write stories that flow round the inner life of the characters, rather than the externals.

Let me give you another example:

Towards the end of Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco’s “Crash” the Cop takes his Mother to identify the dead brother. She lays into the Cop for not finding him, like she’d asked… and, at the same time tells him how the dead brother was a good son, because he came by and put groceries in her fridge when she was asleep. This is a heart breaking moment in the film, because we know the truth, it was the Cop who left the groceries. We also know the sacrifices he’s made, throughout the film, to look after his junkie Mother and to protect his criminal brother.

Now, when you attempt to write a story like that, you have to make a relationship between the characters inner life and what they do, and what they experience in the outer world.

My belief is that this link between what’s happening in the character’s inner life and how that impacts on the outer world should be the basis for ALL thinking, when it comes to screen writing. And yet, it’s incredibly rare to see that kind of approach… even in films that make it to the screen. More often than not, films are written with a view to the externals… and, if it’s given a thought at all, the inner lives of the characters are delegated to the actors.

I also have a theory about why this is happening.

When I talk to indie film makers and spec screen writers, by and large they are driven into the industry by their experiences as an audience member… “I love movies, therefore I will make them.” There’s nothing wrong with that, I’m a big film fan as well. However, more often than not, when people attempt to write and make their own movies, they still view the product from the POV of an audience member. For the audience the movies is just a set of images on a screen which they experience passively. The bad news is this passive experience flows over into people’s attempts to tell stories.

For most film makers and screenwriters, what they try to do, is take the pictures in their head and recreate the images they have there… in the belief that if they can figure out what it should look like, they’ll be able to make it.

Which is why indie film makers are obsessed with new camcorders/formats/effects packages/new plugins… and in newbie writers this trait shows in a desire to write the shots to be used, expressions like “we see” and endless sentences constructed in passive voice. Even if you manage to train a screenwriter out of writing “We see a close-up of Betty-Lou sitting, reading on a bench in the park” deep in their hearts that’s what they really want to write, because it feels natural. And, it feels natural because they’re still viewing drama as an audience member does, not as a practitioner.

Now, for me, all of these trends in indie film making point to a very real chasm of misunderstanding about what drama is, how actors work and what’s really happening when they watch a film.

Instead of writing for the audience, the script writer should be writing for the actor. And, in order to do that you have to understand what it is an actor is doing when they work.

And, in my next post I’ll talk about how we can start doing just that.

Originality Doesn’t Make Great Drama

You talk to most film makers and they almost all equate “making it” with originality. The motivation to create a unique vision is strong in indie film makers. And yet, although I’m also motivated to create a unique brand for both my movies and my writing, over the last couple of years I grown increasingly suspicious of this search for the “holy grail” of originality. Often the phrase “I’m trying to do something new” is used as an excuse for poor writing technique and as a way to dodge criticism… I don’t know how many times I had feedback thrown back in my face along with “…but I’m trying to do something original.” In fact, when I used to teach film making to drama students, I would tell them there was only one rule for their first film,“don’t cross the line”… every time I did that, I could guarantee the first question asked would be “what exceptions are there to that crossing the line thing?” People mistakenly equate rule breaking with originality; they believe originality automatically makes something good; and, they also think being different is the key to success… when, in fact, being good is… and, there is no direct link between being excellent and being original.

About a year ago I was looking at a radical reworking of the Sherlock Holmes story as a possible project; it’s still a possibility, but for the moment it’s on the back burner. One of the main reasons I was looking at Conan Doyle’s great detective, was because we’re pretty close to the 75th anniversary of Doyle’s death and therefore all his books are about to go public domain. The upshot of this, is I got to spend a lot of time looking at Sherlock Holmes as a character.

The reason I mention this, is because those who worship “originality” would find it hard to believe you could create award winning drama, from the starting point of photocopying a character as well known as Sherlock Holmes. But, there is a fairly compelling argument which destroys this kind of thinking… the Emmy award winning TV series “House” can be pitched as “a modern day Sherlock Holmes uses deductive logic to solve, unsolvable medical cases.”

What’s surprising about House as a character isn’t the originality of the character… it’s how little they changed him from Sherlock Holmes. In House we have a character who is misanthropic, who can deduce personality traits from seemingly trivial observations and who is a raving drug addict when he doesn’t have a case to distract him. And, they haven’t exactly hidden the source of their “inspiration” … House lives at number 221 (in some episodes it’s 221B) and House/Holmes… how obvious did they need to make it.

However, none of this is important… the real question is, does this blatant use of an existing famous character make the series less good as a drama. Of course it doesn’t. The series is wonderful. It has huge audiences. It wins awards.

But, how can this be? Surely if you rip off one of the world’s best known characters and build a TV series around it, then you should be doomed to failure. Where is the originality in that?

But, that’s my point. My guess is, the guys who developed House understand that it’s great characters and great writing that make great drama… and originality isn’t as important as having a great character… even if you’ve lifted that character straight from classic literature.

Where spec screen writers and indie film makers all too often go wrong, is they get all bent out of shape trying to be original, when what they ought to concentrate on is competence. Good writing technique, well rounded characters (no matter where you stole them from) and high quality story telling will always triumph over originality.

However, this isn’t as simple as merely lifting a character from someone’s work and telling a new story. Where the team who developed House really kicked ass, was in looking at what new stuff you could do with an existing character. There is real skill and art in that. In fact, there is more skill in seeing the potential in an existing concept than there is in trying to be original through arbitrary rule breaking.

Like I said at the top of this article… I still strive for originality in my work, but over the last couple of years I’ve realised that even the pieces that seem to be the most original, all have influences from stuff I’ve seen, stuff I’ve read, stuff I’ve heard.

Ironically, this is the reason I don’t like to hear other film makers pitch their ideas… because even though I’m too arrogant to steal, I also know you can’t unhear a concept. And, you never know when someone’s forgotten idea is going to leak out all over your page.