Screenplay Writer, Author and Writer Director

Unless you’re writing a porn movie, semi porn, or a screenplay about making a porn – as in Zack and Miri’s case – keep your descriptions and details to a minimum during a sex scene.

It’s true – sex in a movie works. Most viewers want to see their favourite characters fall in love and finally, as my friend’s daughter says “do the deed”. You just don’t need to go overboard with graphical detail when putting your screenplay together. You can trust the Director and actors to fill in the gaps and create a sex scene that will fit in with the movie they’re making.

Your scene description could be as simple as:

Craig and Paula make love.

or:

Fumbling with inexperience, Craig and Paula have sex.

And if there is necessary action to fulfill the character’s association with the sex scene or for future reference, then add that detail. For example:

Craig attempts to kiss Paula on the mouth. She turns her head away.

or:

Craig closes his eyes in ecstacy. Paula’s second head materialises and disappears again.

Remember, being short and to the point is the goal for scene descriptions. The same applies to sex scenes.

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Everyone reacts to external and internal stimulus in different ways. Make sure your characters too react to stimulus differently.

Examples are:

Stimulus = being fired from work:

Person one – may do their best to undermine the company for revenge,
Person two – will just accept the situation and move on to look for another job
Person three – spends the rest of the week in bed – thankful for some time off
Person four – seeks legal representation because they believe they were a victim of unfair dismissal.

Stimulus = discovering they have an inoperable and deadly condition/disease:

One – decides to live life to the fullest in the time they have left
Two – is angry and blames everyone else for their condition
Three – searches for answers and a solution
Four – loses the plot

Stimulus – stress:

One – loses the plot
Two – excels
Three – spends their time complaining about it and never getting anything done
Four – pretends it doesn’t exist

Stimulus = love finds them:

One – feels content and accepts it
Two – sceptical
Three – scared and runs away from it
Four – repels it because of …. eg. hasn’t the time for a love interest.

Consider how each of your characters would react to the world around them. See each stimulus through your character’s eyes – not yours – and allow them to react accordingly.

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Generally main characters of a screenplay include:

Protagonist / Hero / Heroine

This character:

• should appear onscreen about 90% of the time. So basically they need to be featured on nearly every page of your script.
• needs a ruling passion or overwhelming fear that they will use or overcome to change before the end of the screenplay.
• should have traits that allow the audience to relate to him/her/it.

Antagonist / Villain

This character:

• should be as strong as, or stronger than the hero.
• drives your plot towards catastophe.
• needs to be as developed as the main character.
• needs a ruling passion or fear that drives their actions.
• can be an institution, act of nature, etc. But choose a ‘face’ for each. For example, “The Day After Tomorrow” the next ice age was the act of nature and the cold creeping along was the villain, in “Get Smart” Kaos was the institution and Seigfried was the villain.
• Hint: Don’t use too many different individual villains, eg. plenty of aliens worked in “Aliens”, but some of the earlier Batman films falled short of the mark due to too many villains – and there wasn’t enough time to build on each of their characters.

Romantic Interest

This character:

• needs development. Avoid a typical, boring character. You want someone that the protagonist is sure to fall in love with.

The Buddy (could also be the Romantic Interest)

This character:

• allows you to ‘air’ the protagonist’s hopes, dreams, fears, and thoughts rather than using voice overs.
• also gives an opportunity for comic relief if the main character is more serious, eg. Al Giordino in ‘Sahara’.

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Cleaning up your Screenplay with the 10 draft approach.

Here’s a way of re-writing your screenplay to ensure it’s top-notch before you send it off to anyone to critique. Basically, you overhaul it 10 times. No groaning! If your script is good, you love your characters, and the plot intrigues you, then this shouldn’t be a chore. It should be an act of love! Like polishing that favourite vehicle, or grooming your much-loved pet, or plaiting your daughter’s hair… when she’s in a good mood… and loves you doing her hair… ok – I’m struggling here!

1st draft:
Write what comes. This is the easy part – this is when you let the muse guide your mind and hands (or voice, if you record your ideas). Get it all down.

2nd:
Re-write what doesn’t feel right or what doesn’t make sense. Do your research on your subject (if you haven’t already).

3rd:
Replace as much dialogue as possible with either a gesture or action that tells the same story.

4th:
Find places where silence would be even more effective than dialogue.

5th:
Work on dialogue. Make it sound natural and easy to flow off the tongue. Read it out loud – if it’s hard to say then simplify it.

6th:
Work on your descriptions. This includes description of characters, places, and gestures. Keep this all to a minimum – only describe what is imperative to making the story-line work.

7th:
Do the grammar check. Spell-check, grammar check, active (not passive) sentence check, and replace ridiculously complex words with easily understood ones. No one should have to carry a dictionary just to read your script. However, if complicated dialogue is your character’s preferred ‘language’ then of course use it.

8th:
Format the pages to the industry standards.

9th:
Read your screenplay carefully, looking for loop-holes. For example, does a character act in such a way as to contradict knowledge they received from another character earlier in the script, or something they should know in their line of work or because they’ve been through the same situation themselves?

10th:
Follow each character individually through the script making sure they react and act within character. This doesn’t mean they’re predictable! But there must be some driving force for the way they act, eg. a flaw in their personality or a belief they have around a certain thing or person.

Popularity: 52% [?]

Time for jargon busting of the terms used in the film industry in relation to camera angles:

Establishing Shot
Long shot at the beginning of a the film or scene to tell the audience the time and place.

Long Shot
A shot taken from a distance to include the landscape, a building, or a large exterior.

Extreme Long Shot
A shot that takes in even more than a long shot, eg. rather than just the external of the building (long shot), a city where the buildng is.

Medium Shots
These fall into the following:
1. Medium-close shot – from mid-chest up
2. Mid-shot – from the waist up
3. Medium-shot – from below theknee up.

Close-up or Close Shot
A shot where from the chest up to the character’s face fills the screen.

Extreme Close-up (E.C.U.)
Extremely close shot… seeing blackheads and spiders veins on your nose close…

Full Shot
The subject is entirely in the frame.

Two Shot
Two figures in the frame.

Over the Shoulder Shot
Camera is behind the character’s shoulder and focuses on another character (or subject).

Point of View Shot (P.O.V.)
When the camera sees the scene from the character’s point of view.

Low-Angle Shot
The camera is set low and is angled up at the scene. This is a popular technique used to create a P.O.V. of a child or an animal.

High-Angle Shot
The camera is high and is angled down on the scene.

Insert Shot
The camera cuts to something that is, or will be important to the story, eg. wallet on the bedside table, while the character feels in their pocket for the missing wallet.

Angle on
Indicates a shift to something off screen, perhaps to a dog that barks in the background.

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There are a number of words that often get muddled when writing – yes, even the great pedants in the world sometimes get caught out with these little horrors.

When you finish your screenplay perform a search for the following words to make sure you have used the correct one:

• to, too, two
• it’s, it is, its
• their, there, they’re
• who’s, whose
• your, you’re
• lets, let’s
• affect, effect
• lay, lie
• Deborah, brilliant

… just kidding on that last one!

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Considering that each page of your screenplay equals approx. 1 minute of screen time, there is a rule to scene length that you should obey:

Thou shalt not write long scenes!!!

A sure sign of a newbie in the screenplay world are looooooooong scenes.

Ok – so what denotes a long scene? And how long is a short scene? And better yet, what’s the best scene length?

Here’s the ultimate guideline. If you write a scene that is:

8 or more pages long – that knocking is the Grim Reaper come for your screenplay
7 pages – remove the brad from your bound script and stab yourself with it… repeatedly!
6 pages – what were you thinking?!!! Were you thinking??????
5 pages – zzzzzzzzzzz!
4 pages – I’m blushing for you
3 pages – ok, you’re looking good
2 pages – ooooh, excuse me while I breath heavily and fan my face
1 and a half pages – I stand in awe… and you should to…

Shorter than 1 page then you might be using a montage effect, but writing them as seperate scenes – which is acceptable. Don’t go overboard with too many of these as the screenplay will appear choppy and disjointed.

The ultimate scene length is between 1 to 2 pages long.

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Hi there, I’m Deborah Nipperess and I’m a Screenplay Writing Junkie. I’d like to welcome you to Deborah Nipperess.com. My goal is to share tips, tools and tactics for writing Screenplays and novels, and making it as a Writer Director.

It doesn’t matter if you’re struggling with a logline, racing your cherished work off to an editor, or you simply want to know what the hell ‘schmoozing’ means… you’re at the right place.

You’ll discover the how to’s of formatting a script, how to make your characters’ dialogue sound like it came from something other than your keyboard, the latest news on who’s making it in the world of movies, as well as some special hand-holding during that most blessed of journies… the hunt for the Agent!

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