1000 Dollar Film

If it doesn’t sound natural, cut it. If your character is a teenager from a small town in the Midwest, it’s likely that he’s not going to walk around speaking in lengthy scientific phrases. Unless it’s part of your plot (perhaps he’s River Phoenix’s character Wolfgang in The Explorers?), change or cut the dialogue.

Make sure your dialogue is easy to understand. It’s one thing to have a character with a weird accent or feature to make him interesting; it’s another to make him incomprehensible. (more…)

You want your characters to sound as natural and human as possible–without being boring–right? This doesn’t mean that every word that’s said must be golden words of infinite wisdom, grasshopper; what it does mean is that your characters need to be believable.

Here are just a few tips to follow when guiding your actors through their dialogue.

Maintain consistency. If your movie takes place in Ireland and your actors have their Irish accents down perfectly, great! (more…)