Day 12 Assignments

[Phyllis Strong]

Phyllis’ Description 1

What I learned from this assignment is that visualizing the scene really helps make the scene description more active and vivid.

Before:

HALLORAN, a rugged, retired fireman (late 40s) is hosing down one side of his rustic house. His brother CALEB (mid 40s) is on the roof, hosing it down. Their wives, BETTY and SUE (both early 40s), are reading an official Twitter feed on their phones about a raging wildfire.

After:

HALLORAN (40s), a rugged, retired fireman, clutches his high-powered firehose, urgently soaking one side of his house. His brother CALEB is on the roof, doing the same.

Their wives, BETTY and SUE, huddle anxiously over their phones, scanning an official Twitter feed about a raging wildfire coming their way.

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Before:

Over this, CAMERA FINDS the windows framing both sides of the entry door. Through them, a bifurcated view of a large armor-backed insecto-reptilian CREATURE. His eyes seem to be following the action inside.

After:

ANGLE THROUGH PICTURE WINDOW

Outside stands a menacing, armor-skinned INSECTO-REPTILIAN CREATURE.

Before:

They’re interrupted by THUDS as the entry door buckles.

HALLORAN

What the–

All four look toward the door as we HEAR the wood SPLINTER OPEN. OFF their startled, terrified looks…

After:

They’re interrupted by a tremendous THUD and the SOUND of the wooden entry door SPLINTERING OPEN. All heads turn toward the door.

OFF the terrified faces of the four adults…

Before:

Sasha comes up to him, throws her arms around him.

After:

Sasha comes up, throws her arms around his neck, pressing against him.

Before:

Duncan is hitting against a tennis ball machine, drilling the balls over the net in an attempt to curb his frustration over how his “investigating” went.

His lawyer, LUCAS FINLEY (40s, low-key) comes up, taking note of the wallop of each ball as it comes off Duncan’s racket.

After:

A tennis ball machine fires a ball across the net. WHAM! Duncan returns it with a wallop. Powered by his frustration over his “investigating” debacle.

His lawyer, LUCAS FINLEY (40s, low-key) comes up. Duncan continues drilling balls over the net.

[Marcus Wolf]

Lesson 12

Marcus’ Description 1!

I learned a little about improving the tone and visual impact of my descriptions. I’ve written around 15 feature length scripts, so show, don’t tell and present tense is automatic, as well as the other basics. But I have frequently questioned how far to go in descriptive imagery. On the one hand, you’re told to keep it short because no one wants to read the descriptions, and on the other hand you’ve got to show the reader how people and situations are playing out through tone and emotion, etc. This lesson plus the lecture gave me a better handle on that.

One example of improvement that I managed to remember to keep looks like this. In this scene, Jean discovers that the body Endor has supplied him to create a zombie with is actually decades old — despite it’s completely fresh appearance.

BEFORE:

He opens his eyes, looks at Endor, taken aback.

AFTER:

He pops open his eyes, jerks his head around toward Endor, taken aback.

In this scene, Endor is enticing Jean (who doesn’t want to make the zombie) with a display of affection:

BEFORE:

Jean gently disengages. His face still grim.

AFTER:

Jean gently but firmly disengages himself from Endor’s embrace.

I went through the entire script and did this everywhere I could.