Writing is a process and what beginning writers often forget, blinded by their insecure craft and fragile egos, is that “being bad” is a legitimate part of that process.
What beginning writers often forget, blinded by their insecure craft, is that “being bad” is a legitimate part of that process. Even first drafts from famous authors like Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Hemingway were ‘bad’. It’s liberating to know that the best writers in the land wrote drafts that needed tons of rewriting.
by Charles Deemer Edited bt Stavros C. Stavrides
Read with a fixed eye on flow & character
The chainsaw is your friend
Crank it up
Reading with a Fixed Eye
The rewriting process begins with careful re-readings of your draft. I suggest a quick read first, just to see how the story flows, and then a series of more careful readings, each focusing on a particular aspect of the draft.
Begin the careful readings with a focus on the main character. Is, in fact, the protagonist ALWAYS the focus of the story?
Often in beginning scripts the main character “disappears” in Act Two. The character simply may be absent for pages at a time – I get nervous when my protagonist is not in a scene for five consecutive pages.
Other times the protagonist is around but too passive, others are doing everything. At still other times some other character proves to be far more interesting than the main character (evil characters often steal the stage this way).
Make sure your script follows the main character on “a journey” through the story: that the protagonist is always front and central, that the journey moves into situations of increasing jeopardy, that the pace quickens into a rush through Act Three, and that the protagonist grows from the journey.
First, look at your scene design: when do scenes begin? when do scenes end? Typically, in a first draft, there will be scenes that begin too early, using a setup that is not necessary and only slows down the story.
Also, there will be scenes that end too late, dragging on with meaningless chat after the point of the scene has been made.
Look at the dialogue. Most six-line speeches can be trimmed to two or three lines without losing anything. Look for idle chat — nothing slows down a story narrative more than chatter. Look for expository dialogue (talk that is primarily informational) and find visual ways to present the same information.
Sometimes a beginner will improve the economy so much that the pagination of a script slips below minimum standards (about 90 pages today). If this happens to you, then you need to find ways to beef up your story and make it more complex, requiring new scenes to bring the pagination up.
This is a conceptual change, not an exercise in padding! If you don’t add story elements, you will be padding, which is the opposite of your rewriting charge to make the script tighter.
I tell my students that “the chainsaw is your friend.” Therefore, use it! This becomes a mantra in my screenwriting classes.
Look for ways to crank up your story, making everything matter more.
For example, a student of mine wrote a scene in which a husband moves out after believing (wrongly, it turns out) that his wife is having an affair. The wife, who is the protagonist, has been flirting with her old high school boyfriend, who has appeared out of nowhere. The story is about how the wife comes to appreciate, after a marital crisis, how good her marriage really is.
On rewrite, the student “cranked up” the scene above by having the husband take the children with him when he left. Suddenly the stakes are much higher! This is one way to crank up a scene to make it matter more.
Take your time during the rewriting process. Now is the time to let things spin around in your head; there’s no hurry. If you strengthen the focus on the protagonist, make the script tighter and more efficient, and raise the stakes in the story, you’ll be on your way toward a much improved second draft.
What makes a screenplay cinematic is rarely the dialog. The magic lies in how action is portrayed. In this two-part article, we discover that writing action in a screenplay involves three decisions:
What to write
How to write it, and
How to format it.
By Charles Deemer, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides
UPDATED DECEMBER 7, 2022
What to Write
Consider the following attempt at writing action from one of my students:DA
There are so many things wrong with this, I hardly know where to begin.
For the moment, let’s set aside the issues of rhetoric (how this is written) and format (the over-use of capitalization) and just consider what is said.
This is written with the eye of the fiction writer, not the screenwriter. Fiction writers describe everything in detail in order to create a specific image in the eye of the reader. This is not the job of the screenwriter. I repeat this is not the job of the screenwriter.
The screenwriter tells the story, directly and simply. Yes, this involves visual storytelling but to a screenwriter, this means something quite different from what it means to a fiction writer.
A screenwriter is a collaborator. He is neither the costume designer nor the set designer of the production; the writing above invades the territory of each.
Here is how a screenwriter might write the above scene:
The room is large, expensively decorated, with a fireplace. Someone is playing classical music on a piano.
NIGEL, a servant, enters with a tray for tea-time. He marches to the piano.
What an incredible difference!
This is direct, barebones writing, which is the style usually most appropriate for screenwriting.
Granted, there may be dramatic reasons to include some of the details I’ve omitted. Let’s say the walking stick is going to be stolen. In this case, it would be appropriate to mention it.
But the point is this: the screenwriter is not the set designer, costume designer, or director. The writer merely suggests what is appropriate to the story; “large, expensively decorated” is enough to say about the room.
Where the fiction writer writes in great detail, the screenwriter writes general suggestions for his or her collaborators.
This post is a support article for the chapter “Screenwriting” in Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook.
The screenwriter’s job is to tell the story, and does this by:
Telling us what we see on the screen, and
Telling us what we hear in dialogue and other major sounds important to the story: explosions, whatever).
In telling what we see on the screen, the screenwriter focuses on story movement and does not include so much detail – that is the major responsibility of a collaborator such as a costume designer or set designer.
The screenwriter doesn’t write descriptive detail, as it slows up the STORY’s forward movement.
Consider how characters are described in a screenplay. In literary fiction works, the description of characters is written in great detail.
Now look at the scripted character descriptions from the following films:
Citizen Ruth
She is around 30.
(That’s it!)
Big Night
PRIMO, the chef, is at the stove. Brooding, intense, he is in his late 30s but seems older than his years.” “His younger brother, SECONDO – early 30s, handsome, charming but high strung.
Lone Star
We see SAM DEEDS, the sheriff, driving. Sam is 40, quietly competent to the point of seeming moody
Get Shorty
CHILI PALMER, late 30s, sits in a booth with TOMMY CARLO, a low-level mob type.
Quiz Show
The hand belongs to DICK GOODWIN, late 20s.
Often the only character description we get is the decade of age! There’s some room for individual writing style here but no screenwriter writes with the “detailfiction” writer.
Here’s a detailed character description in a screenplay:
Bull Durham
ANNIE SAVOY, mid 30’s, touches up her face. Very pretty, knowing, outwardly confident. Words flow from her Southern lips with ease, but her view of the world crosses Southern, National and International borders. She’s cosmic.
Beginning screenwriters also tend to over-write character movement within the scene, which means they usurp the role of the director and choreograph the scene.
My students often begin writing things like this:
She walks slowly across the room, her high heels taking small steps on the thick red carpet. Reaching the portable bar, she stops and considers her options. Her left hand picks up the tongs in the ice chest and drops three ice cubes into a glass. She returns the tongs, then picks up the only bottle of Scotch and pours, stopping a quarter inch from the brim of the glass. She sets down the bottle and, still using her left hand, raises the glass. She brings it to her bright red lips and slowly sips.
A screenwriter is more likely to write something like this:
She moves across the room and fixes herself a drink.
Another major mistake many beginners make: like literary fiction writers, they get inside a character’s mind, in Writing Action – Part Two: How to write it and format it.
Before his career as a producer and television personality, Adam Palmer was an alternative education teacher for his grade 7 to 12 students deemed ‘too tough to teach’. Adam never taught a film class or made a film, yet he launched a film class with a single book that changed their lives.
Alternative Education: Teaching the ‘Tough To Teach’
“At risk? I’m not a fan of that term. All youth are vulnerable at some point, to some degree.”
~Adam Palmer
The Teacher as a Student
Adam Palmer runs a youth inclusion program at a First Nations community school in Agassiz, British Columbia, ninety minutes west of Vancouver.
That is where the youth counsellor and teacher integrated his Alternative Education class into the high school environment at STS’Ailes (‘Chehalis’) First Nations community, where his students work at their own pace within the school’s mainstream curriculum. Adam’s job is to keep them in school and out of the hands of the authorities.
Further, Adam works alongside English teacher Kevin Walsh, who offers extra marks for the script portion of the film program in support of the school’s curriculum. The school’s IT officer Mark Balfour admits, “Some of these kids are tough as nails.”
Why a Film Class?
‘Alternative Education’ was never a term that came to Adam’s mind before this. Additionally, neither Adam nor English teacher Kevin had ever taught film. Yet their passion for the wellness of these students ended up as just one model that represents the term.
Adam began classes here as an Outdoor and Wilderness Education Teacher, involving his students in rigorous outdoor activities to foster land-based knowledge, teamwork, a sense of achievement, and self-worth.
Adam also runs an outdoor program for his Alternative Education students.
“But not all of these kids are built for climbing and caving,” he admits. “There are the creative ones – the thinkers and the reflective among the bunch who would rather observe the doers. Getting them to participate was a bit of a push.”
However, on a wilderness expedition, Adam noticed a common thread that bound the group, despite their differences. The students took snapshots, recorded videos, and shared equally with each other, all enjoying a common interest, even if for moments at a time.
Learn a Chapter, Teach a Lesson
Students use their iPad and Mac to study and practice their filming/editing exercises and assignments
Tutorials, Exercises, and Assignments throughout the book progressively build essential, evergreen skills.
Formerly, Adam’s only filmmaking experience was as a video enthusiast, having produced a class video project in the past. “It was a lot of home-movie point-and-shoot stuff,” he admits. Not much film craft to it, and it didn’t get screened much. But it did bind the group in a new way.”
Soon after backed by little more than his passion for the subject and the eagerness of his students, Adam gave me a call. “I want to start a film course at my school,” he said. “Can I use your program to do this?”
If you do this in earnest, you will learn to ‘speak’ a new language – a visual language of film, and so will your students.”
“Of course”, I replied confidently, even though we were still in its experimental phase. “But you’ll need to follow each chapter and do the exercises. If you do this in earnest, you will learn to ‘speak’ a new language – a visual language of film, and so will your students.”
Adam was a student as well as a teacher.
“Cyber Film School changed my life.”
Matthew, 14years old
Testimonial Video (3 minutes):
Matthew, 14: “Cyber Film School changed my life”
Getting Started
Grades 7 to 11 got together as a film crew on assignments and learned the value of teamwork.
Adam was already thinking of the capital outlay he would need to start a film course for his high school students.
“Does your school have iPads or Macs?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Then you’re ready.”
The topics and exercises are generally structured in the manner of first-year film schools, where film language encompasses history, applied visual literacy, and the theory of the craft, with the beginner filmmaker in mind.
A typical assignment provides a practical tutorial along with analytical theory.
The user/reader is thus freed up to learn, practice, and apply the very core of film language right on the iPad or iPhone.
Although every chapter of this multi-touch textbook has exercises and assignments that can be shot, edited, and shared on just one device, A Mac computer and conventional camera enhance the experience.
For himself, Adam downloaded his copy through Apple Books using his Apple ID. Once he was satisfied, he made a volume purchase through the school through Apple’s Volume Purchase Program and distributed one copy of the textbook to each of the twelve students’ assigned iPads.
Class Film Project Trailer
Class Project Film Trailer (2 minutes)
Equipment
Adam opted to buy a kit from a third party, which outfits his iPads with additional lenses, lights, and microphones, for under $300. The holder/case itself is valuable as it helps mount the iPad to a tripod.
Sample of the iPad case kit Adam bought for his class. Shown are Wide Angle Lens, Direction Microphone, and case with handles and tripod mount.
Because Adam was a beginner filmmaker, his teaching routine was to study the week’s chapter ahead of time and understand the exercise himself right on his iPad. So in class, he went through the chapter’s sections and exercises with his students.
“I like the way the content is broken up into sections, which makes it easy to schedule class time for exercises, while leaving room for out-of-class assigments. So I basically learned about the process and I relayed the information,” he says. “We were all learning.”
The class reviews the Cyber Film School iBook’s sample videos and does the lighting exercises together.
Because he is limited to two hours and forty minutes over two weekly classes, Adam projects the Apple Book’s content – video clips, interviews, galleries, and diagrams onto a large screen through a wired connection.
Additionally, each student is equipped with a copy on their prescribed device. Therefore Adam conducts the chapter’s exercises as a group, while the students may study on their own.
“One of the greatest time-savers was the structured knowledge I was acquiring, which provided me with more educated and informed online searches to get specific information more quickly. “
Project Based Learning with Community Involvement
Scene from “Mosquito Lady”, the class film that retells an ancient legend.
As a First Nations school, its curriculum incorporates Indigenous culture. The common class film project, beyond the basic Cyber Film School exercises, is an ancient legend retold through the lens.
Authentic wardrobes and masks were made by community Elders who involved the students in the craft workshops.
The result was that three months into his program, Adam’s alternative Education film class had not only enhanced the lives of his students but the vibrancy of their entire community as well.
“This is the best example of project-based learning with community involvement I’ve seen.”
Judy Manitowabi, Director Of First Peoples Centre, Canadore College & Nippissing University, North Bay
Consequently, the class recruited community elders including Rocky LaRock as a cultural advisor. He helps with carvings, costumes, props, stories, and legends.
As for other community Elders, they helped with the design and sewing of period costumes and jewelry for the production. Younger children and older adults were recruited as actors. In a community of 450, a dozen teens can impact the entire population.
The cast came from the entire community, from local kids to teachers and elders.
“As for myself, I can only imagine that when bedtime now arrives for these teens, they dream up tomorrow’s adventure then awaken as esteemed storytellers – not only for their community but also as messengers of their culture to the world that surrounds them.”
Stavros Stavrides, Publisher
Diverse Learners
“It’s a unique place”, says Adam. “Everyone comes onto this ‘unequal’ playing field we call the school. For example, Mark, Brian, and I approach Cyber Film School with our varied skills and backgrounds and learn along with these kids.
That makes this alternative education film program a big equalizer. We have kids with good English skills, others with tech skills, and some with people skills. Each contributes their natural ability to support the other in a shared project with a common goal they all relate to.”
“The Book’s multi-touch features are very effective. Our students represent a wide array of learning abilities. We successfully went through Cyber Film School as our main source of theory content in my video class.”
Patty Jenkins, Media Teacher, Parry Sound High School, Ontario
Accordingly, linear and abstract thinkers play off each other. Their individual strengths surface. The technical and the creative cooperate to get it done. And quite importantly, the communication life skills they acquire help bolster their English credit associated with this program.
“That’s how we get this job done”, adds Adam. “In terms of accomplishment and esteem building, I have never seen this anywhere else outside of a sports team. Until now.”
Consequently, as Adam and his students were exploring a cave, Adam stopped to take some personal videos. One of his students jumped in and suggested some camera angles for more effective coverage –” the guy wants to half-bury the camera looking out from the cave, peeking just above the dirt.”
in response, Adam was about to reply to the student, “But this is just my personal video”, but held back the comment. Adam found himself taking direction from his students. Today, his students call the shots.
A student works to visualize how the next sequence of shots will cut together.
Latest Edition
As for our team and myself back at Cyber Film School, we raced that first Edition of Cyber Film School to market just in time for Adam’s program, to prove the concept.
Then in June of 2022, we released our much expanded second edition with further updates through 2023, based on feedback from the book’s users.
Over 200 videos, 700 images, more Hollywood interviews who speak with the beginner in mind, more tutorials, quizzes, and exercises, and an added screenwriting chapter, at the same price as before.
But that’s the business end. What really keeps us going is what our resident teacher/contributor Mary Jane Gomes said to me after witnessing these kids thriving.
“Right now, just seeing those twelve kids dreaming, and creating dreams, makes it all worth while. These young new filmmakers have become our teachers.”
Publisher, Cyber Film School
This is why we do what we do.
Make Cinema Your Language
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