Screenplay Questions

BevVincent

Hi Bev - a few questions if I may and you don't mind.



How did you approach turning the story into a screenplay ie do you include stage directions, POV, camera moves, fade ins/outs etc?



Were you told upfront how long the movie would be and tailor the story to fit the time constraints? Did you talk with the production team and go through storyboards etc?



Did you have to compress the story significantly?





Anything else that struck you as unique about the experience?





Mucho gracias!

BevVincent

I don't do stage directions. The screenwriter's job is to write the script: set the stage and provide the dialog. From that comes a shooting script, which is written by the director and includes the scene setups, camera angles, pov, etc. The screenwriter must resist directing the film as much as possible. Only in a very few instances did I write in something about how I envisioned a scene being shot to help convey the idea.



I do set the stage for each changing scene and decorate the walls a little, so to speak. It's a balancing act, and I also have to be prepared for anything I wrote to be changed downstream, though the production team is giving me script approval on any of their changes.



I knew up front the time constraints, which governed to a certain extent how I wrote the script. Storyboards and all that come downstream from me -- the artist and the director do the storyboards based on the shooting script.



I did not have to compress much of the story. I did trim down the prefatory material, everything that happens before Steve and Diane meet the lawyer at the restaurant. However, during the revision process some of that was added back in to enhance character motivation. The script is also a little stylized...but I won't say more about that.



What is unique about the experience? How much you have to rely on dialog to tell the story. Also, how rigid the screenplay format is--very unforgiving. Dialog is indented X spaces. Dialog attributes Y spaces, etc.

Lou_Sytsma

Very interesting - what is the estimated running time - 20mins?



Looking forward to doing any more work in this vein?

BevVincent

I imagine there will ultimately be two cuts, one of which is governed by length limits assigned by some of the film festivals. There may be a 15-minute version and then a "natural" version which ends up being as long as it needs to be. 20, 25 minutes. Speculation on my part, though.



No plans to do more screenplays at present, but you just never know what the future holds in store.

Lou_Sytsma

Thanks for your responses Bev!

No plans to do more screenplays at present, but you just never know what the future holds in store.

True, very true.



Hope it turns out well, and now that you have your foot in film world, you may become the next Joss Whedon!