Notes from tonight’s Soho Screenwriters meeting:

The sign of a professional writer. In bad fiction people say what they mean. In real life, people talk around subjects – we don’t say what we mean. Subtext is content that is not explicit but implicit. The audience sees what the author is implying. Screenwriting is mind surgery – helping the audience build characters.

Subtext is all that is not explicit. Give audiences enough clues so that they can start to picture past events: life-changing events off-screen. Raise and answer loaded questions about characters through subtext. “Where did you first meet Marion?” Questions that reveal the ghost and relationships of the back story of the characters. A history that relates to a raw wound.

Major characters can know about a big event that happened before the film starts. They reveal aspects of that event through subtext.

There are other kinds of implicit content in films:

1. Metaphorical subtext
The Time Machine: Humans evolve into two distinct races in the far future. These represent the decadent middle-classes and the exploited working classses. In Hostel the actions of the American tourists abroad are a metaphor for America in the world.

2. Irony
Dramatic irony – knowing the motivations of characters

3. Innuendo
Words that can be taken literally that mean some sort of insult. Double entendre – can be unintentional in the part of the speaker. Makes audiences feel ‘in the know’ if they get the references.

These notes are about the subtext weaved into characters dialogue and actions within scenes.

A man’s wife leaves. A friend asks “What’s up?” He answers “Not much” – what is going on? What does he actually feel?

Husband: “We have meatloaf every Friday” Wife: “I thought you like meatloaf” Husband: “Why don’t we have some something different? You might like it.” – they are talking about food, but they could be also talking about their sex life. Metaphor. If the man and wife can’t talk about sex, we learn more about them. They have sexual problems. One of these problems affects other aspects of their life together. The audience will determine later which is the cause and which is the symptom.

Annie Hall:
The subtext appears as subtitles as Annie and Alvy talk on the balcony. Alvy: “Aesthetics” “What does she look like naked?”

As Good as it Gets:
People start as they see Melvin. He doesn’t have to say anything. Why does a nice lady hide from him?
Also:
Implication: “Remember what I said about Melvin about earlier?” (off-screen)
Sarcasm: “I love that dog”

We are supposed to understand all the messages implied in the script. If the dialogue is on the nose – what has the actor got to do? If you have good subtext, easier to cast A-listers. No subtext in the first five pages? Pass.

After those primary colours, here are some of the other tools of the trade:

Telegraphing
Someone says “I’ll see you there” or a man packs a suitcase) – clocks and deadlines – “In a year I’ll be dead”

Foreshadowing
True or false hints about future events

Dangling causes
A statement of intent: “I bet I will…” a dialogue hook to set up whether the intent will be fulfilled.

Preparation
Leading the audience to expect something to happen next.

Retardation
A dramatic pause in speech or in a scene.

Aftermath
Scenes that give the audience a chance to take in what just happened – to lend emphasis – to make sure action doesn’t follow action – these scenes have little dialogue or action.

Plant and Payoff
A gun shown in the first act better go off in the third act. A phrase or action takes on a new meaning (we know secrets and are rewarded for paying attention). We feel the story is a unified, singular piece. Keep plants and payoff as far apart as possible.

Exposition
Making sure the audience has the information they need. Exposition as ammunition – in arguments and speeches (In Act One of Toy Story: The toys are frightened – Woody re-assures them by telling them [and us] what they need to know). As long as there is a subtext to the argument we get the information without slowing down the drama. We notice the subtext and realise we know the information when we need to know it – later in the story (His brother can help – he knows sailor knots).

Recapitulation
To review where we are now – as part of figuring out what to do next – for people who have got lost in the plot. Characters coming up with plans based on what happened so far. A little information can be added too – in courtroom scenes (such as Vertigo)

Indirection
Characters should never directly express what they mean – they go around the subject of what they really want. Start with people pretending to be the opposite of the way they feel. Visual indirection: imply events and actions (off screen deaths).

Surprises
True: the revelation between what the audience expects and what happens – we get an emotional response to the event. Cheap: Smash cut away from what you expect to see to see – in a dark corridor at night our hero’s shoulder is grabbed… by a friend.

Tropes
Patterns and threads appearing through the film – the same phrase again and again (Doc. Brown saying “Great Scott”), the same symbol, a recognised series (the Seven Sins), similar elements (water/eyes/glass in Chinatown). Motifs come in two forms: visual and dialogue (including patter between characters and running gags). Themes can be highlighted with contrasting images (nature vs science) – visual metaphors. Only use motifs to enhance stories – they aren’t the story. Drop a scene if it is there to introduce a motif or trope – add motifs or tropes to scenes that already have functions in your story.

Screenwriting is about timing. The timed release of facts to the audience. There are many techniques open to writers for refining their story, but when coming up with the initial structure, there are three effects available:

1. Dramatic tension
2. Dramatic Irony
3. Mystery

These define whether the audience is ahead, in sync with or behind the characters in knowing what is going on.

This post is another excerpt from my summary of last Monday’s Soho Screenwriters presentation.

E.M. Forster said that stories can only have one fault: the audience does not want to know what happens next. To be interesting, stories need to appeal to the intellect and the emotions. For the intellect there is tension (what will happen next), for the emotions there is a value system (what we want to happen next).

Dramatic tension

The audience learns what is happening in the story at the same time as the characters. The tension we feel is between our hope of what will happen as compared with what might happen. We feel curiosity about the emotional outcome, not the specific facts of the events about to unfold. As we discover things at the same time as the protagonist, it is a lot easier to feel empathy for him or her.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, after Indy and Marion discover the Ark, we discover at the same moment as they do that the Germans have captured Sallah and are waiting for them at the top of the rope.

Dramatic irony

This use of the word ‘irony’ is not the one usually used in fiction. The audience learns things before the characters do. Using the example above, we could have learned that the Germans were waiting for Indy and Marion during the scene where they discover the Ark – that would have introduced a different tension in the scene.

Ironic tension is resolved when the characters discover what the audience knows. But the trick is to deliver what the audience expects but not in the way they expect.

Mystery

The least used method is when the audience knows less than the characters. Usually used in Agatha Christie whodunnits. The audience gets plenty of pieces of information, but they don’t know which to believe. Examples also include thrillers such as The Conversation (we’re not sure what Harry Caul is thinking) and The Godfather Part II (Michael’s relationship with Hyman Roth).

Once you’ve painted with these broad strokes, you have many other colours in your palette to use when writing scenes and rewriting…

I need to pay special attention to the following because I’m always coming up with twists and building movie ideas around them. This is part of the presentation given on Monday by Colin of The London Script Consultancy at the Soho Screenwriters writers group.

Twists are based on secrets. A character discovers that something has been hidden from them. There are four things you need to decide when including a twist in a story:

A. The reason the secret is in the story.
B. Which character is is keeping the secret.
C. The character the secret is being kept from.
D. The point at which the secret is revealed

Usually, the protagonist’s realisation comes too late. The twist should be a carefully constructed story based on the expectations of the protagonist. The audience need to very quickly to understand the twist and understand why the character didn’t have their revelation until that moment. To make sure the film works for those who watch a second time, write the ‘off-screen’ scenes that show the antagonist’s scheme in motion.

If your twist happens at the mid-point, then the secret keeper is usually a confidante of the hero who is revealed to be thwarting the goal (Cypher in The Matrix). If your twist is at the end of act 2, then the secret keeper is the antagonist (Cohaagen in Total Recall).

You also need to make sure the audience doesn’t feel stupid for not discovering the secret. The clues should make sense, they must be remembered to make sense. Foreshadow the twist (which makes some ‘smart’ people feel good if they get the message early) – that makes for satisfying repeat viewings.

A good twist needs to be visceral: associate it with emotions.

At Soho Screenwriters tonight, David Lemon came to talk to us about how he developed the screenplay of his new movie. ‘Faintheart’ goes before the cameras later this month. It’s a British comedy set in the world of military re-enactments.

The film started as a sitcom idea, but evolved into a feature in late 2005. Having had his script optioned by Slingshot films, he spent 2006 developing the movie with Vito Rocco, a neophyte director chosen by the producers.

After success in the MySpace MyMovieMashup competition, more producers came on board: Vertigo Films and Film Four. That meant that the budget went fom micro- (less that £500K) to low- (around £1.3m).

David says that more producers means more notes, and that genres like comedies have plots that are more flexible, more open for producer input. If you write a carefully interlocked Hitchcock-style thriller, it is much more difficult to remove characters and subplots without destroying the whole structure.

One of the things that made life easier was the unique setting, a setting that hasn’t been covered in films very often, but one that many people can understand. As regards having to defend plot points and scene moments, David found it easier if he used symetry to point out that this point in act 1 sets up a payoff in act 3, or vice versa.

A thing to watch out for is that sometimes you get notes that reflect how they would write the script – not suggestions to help you tell the story you want to tell more effectively. At least the notes are mostly suggestions and not instructions.

David’s script editor told him that it was a good idea not to avoid big emotions and big scenes – otherwise you end up with the scale of TV drama.

Faintheart will be taken to Cannes in May seeking distribution, more on their tale then…