Lesson 5

[Anna Maganini]

MODULE 8 – LESSON 5 – SUBTEXT POINTERS

MY VISION – To write cutting edge, unique, human, soul-inspiring, Oscar-winning scripts that have commercial success and producers line up to buy to make into multi-million dollar movies. Which makes me a Force in the Hollywood Entertainment industry -as a writer, actor, producer, and director.

What have I learned doing this assignment – Interesting lesson. I might have been confused by it, just like in the previous lesson, but the BASIC INSTINCT examples made it oh so clear. And YES! I want to write like that! It made me enthused about doing this lesson. I did find that sometimes it IS better to just state the truth, depending on the circumstances in the script. There were times I changed it to some cool subtext pointer line, and then I felt it didn’t work as well as the original plain line. Sometimes plain lines are needed, especially in a big action scene where there is already so much going on, and you need plain lines to ground it. It is just an interesting lesson to keep learning when to use plain direct lines, when to use coverups, and when to use subtext pointers. Sometimes it really worked fantastic to change lines to subtext pointers.

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Some of the lines I changed –

Original – I was supposed to think of the game, not you!

Insinuation – This wasn’t how the rat game was supposed to go.

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Original – I may never get out of here.

Metaphor?-Allusion? – New York seems further away than the moon.

(NOTE: She is from New York).

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Original – Back to jail. You can expect a real nice treat from me now.

Implication – You know what rat poisoners get, don’t you?

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(Feed line – I don’t want any Chinese.) (NOTE: She’s making him a gross meal).

Original – Don’t worry. It won’t be.

Metaphor – Don’t worry, it won’t be any plum duck stew.

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Original – I’ll fight you every inch!

Insinuation- I know I’ll have fun marking more red X’es on your face.

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Original – Go away! I can smell it.

Metaphor – I’m really going to eat your leg!

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(The antag is telling her some of the ‘Home Sweet Home’ plantations still have slave quarters)

Original – Home sweet Home…

Hint /Insinuation/Metaphor – If those walls could talk, huh?

(I changed this one back to Home Sweet Home… – it worked better in the scene)

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Original – OK, that’s reassuring.

Sarcasm – I guess that’s reason enough to cross them off the suspect list.

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Original – Thank you from the bottom of our…

Metaphor/Implication – Wow! You know how you think something’s red and turns out it’s blue-?