Writing the short film (Third Edition)

This book is primarily intended for film and video students or independent video- and filmmakers who are faced with the necessity of writing a short narrative script. For our purposes, we consider a short film to be one of 30 minutes or less, as films longer than that usually need a secondary, or minor, plot-line to sustain audience interest and, in addition, are much less likely to be eligible for festivals or suitable to be shown as “portfolio” work.
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Writing the short film (Third Edition) WRITING THE SHORT FILM Third Edition WRITING THE SHORT FILM Third Edition Pat Cooper and Ken Dancyger AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier Elsevier Focal Press 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, California 92101-4495, USA 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8RR, UK This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: permissions@elsevier.com.uk. You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier home- page (http://elsevier.com), by selecting “Customer Support” and then “Obtaining Permissions.” Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Application submitted. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 0-240-80588-7 04 05 06 07 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Printed in the United States of America To the memory of Richard Protovin, dear friend and colleague —P. C. For Gerald and Perry Charles, my brothers —K. D. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix INTRODUCTION 1 PART I Fundamentals: Breaking Ground 7 Chapter 1 STORYTELLING IN GENERAL 9 Chapter 2 TELLING A STORY IN IMAGES 17 Chapter 3 USING SOUND TO TELL THE STORY 29 Chapter 4 DISCOVERING AND EXPLORING A MAIN 37 CHARACTER Chapter 5 TELLING THE DRAMATIC STORY 47 Chapter 6 WRITING AN ORIGINAL SHORT SCREENPLAY 65 Chapter 7 ON REVISION: SUBSTANCE AND STYLE 79 PART II Moving Forward: Writing Strategies 87 Chapter 8 THE NEED FOR STORYTELLING 89 Chapter 9 VISUALIZATION STRATEGIES 101 Chapter 10 DRAMATIC STRATEGIES 113 Chapter 11 CHARACTERIZATION STRATEGIES 127 Chapter 12 MORE ON DIALOGUE STRATEGIES 141 vii viii Writing the Short Film PART III Genres: Forming the Story 151 Chapter 13 THE MELODRAMA 153 Chapter 14 THE DOCUDRAMA 171 Chapter 15 THE HYPERDRAMA 187 Chapter 16 THE EXPERIMENTAL NARRATIVE 205 PART IV New Directions 221 Chapter 17 THE OPPORTUNITY FOR RENEWAL 223 APPENDIX A Short Short Screenplays 233 Vincent, by Gert Embrechts 235 Sob Story, by Matthew E. Goldenberg and Michael Slavens 241 Pigeon, by Anthony Green 249 APPENDIX B Short Screenplays 257 Another Story, by Lisa Wood Shapiro 259 The Lady in Waiting, by Christian Taylor 270 Sleeping Beauties, by Karyn Kusama 297 The Wounding, by Susan Emerling 308 Dead Letters Don’t Die, by Anais Granofsky and Michael Swanhaus 323 INDEX 345 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PAT COOPER I would like to thank Ken Dancyger for his provocative ideas, easy wit, and exemplary patience throughout our partnership on this project. He is a most gracious collabora- tor and a valued friend. I would also like to thank Mary Carlson for her perceptive comments on the first draft. KEN DANCYGER The notion of writing a book about scripting short films began with Pat Cooper. I have to thank her for her enthu- siasm, her insights, and her commitment to students. And I thank her for bringing me into this project. She is a great friend and collaborator. At New York University, I’d like to thank Christina Rote and Delliah Bond, who assisted me in the preparation of the manuscript. Finally, I’d like to thank my wife, Ida, for her intelligent critiques of the manuscript at all phases. On this latest edition we would like to thank our new scriptwriters—Gert Embrechts, Matthew Goldenberg, Michael Slavens, and Anthony Green—for allowing us to include their screenplays. We would also like to thank Elinor Actipis at Focal Press and Trevor MacDougall at Kolam, Inc. for their excellent and thorough edit. ix INTRODUCTION This book is primarily intended for film and video students or independent video- and filmmakers who are faced with the necessity of writing a short narrative script. For our purposes, we consider a short film to be one of 30 minutes or less, as films longer than that usually need a secondary, or minor, plot-line to sustain audience interest and, in addition, are much less likely to be eligible for festivals or suitable to be shown as “portfolio” work. Although our main focus is on the short narrative film, we intend to demonstrate the ways in which each short form has borrowed freely from the others. It is important that less-experie ...