[Joseph Bronzi]

What I learned doing this assignment is that subtext in dialogue is easier if you have a subtext situation or action. Also, that there are two ways to add subtext to your dialogue – cover the subtext with dialogue or point to it SUBTLY with the dialogue. Too “on-the-nose” isn’t good.

In “Parish Road”, there’s a scene where Lisa, at her sister’s wedding, gets braced by said sister about her current boyfriend. Lisa uses dialogue to cover the subtext already, but by removing some “on-the-nose” stuff and adding dialogue that only points to the subtext, I was able to make it a much better scene:

INT. RECEPTION HALL – BATHROOM – NIGHT

LISA is at one mirror and her sister NINA, the bride, is at the other. They’re getting ready to rejoin the party.

NINA
Hey, I practiced the bouquet toss! Line up to the left.

LISA
I’m in no rush to get old like you. Mind your business.

NINA
My baby sister is my business. About six yards deep and to the left.

LISA
Mind-

NINA
Don’t make me waste all that practice. You want Keisha to catch it?

LISA
-your business. I don’t care if Keisha catches it.

NINA
Bad luck to lie to a bride on her wedding day.

LISA
Besides, our cousin got hands for feet. She’s not catching a damn thing.

NINA
Baby, you need some good news in your life.

LISA
My sister got married. That’s my good news. Bad news is, I gotta go stop James from doing the Wobble.

NINA
For real?

[Joseph Bronzi]

What I learned doing this assignment is that action subtext is done primarily in two ways:

– The dialog is opposite of the action, creating an emotional experience for the audience (and often providing a satisfying jolt of surprise).

– The action is hiding something covert, which can really give a scene depth and resonance.

Version 1 in my script “Parish Road”

– The dialog when Lisa and her boyfriend are driving down the turnpike is definitely opposite of the action, which is that the town is sucking them in and capturing them. They are bantering and focusing on the fact that she has to pee and there’s a nice contrast with the jeopardy they are in.

Version 2 in “Parish Road”

– Maggie’s dialog is that she’s calling the cops and a tow truck to help Lisa while Lisa uses the restroom (and takes a detour to the basement). Lisa finds out she was talking to nobody while prepping an array of blades to slaughter Lisa.

[Joseph Bronzi]

What I learned doing this assignment is that a scene can be supercharged by layering in subtext! If there is an active subtext life, exposition isn’t dry and boring. It isn’t left as exposition at all, but can become a part of the audience’s emotional journey through the story. Every single scene in a screenplay should be either a buildup to an emotional payoff or a payoff using subtext.

Screenplay is Parish Road. The Scene: Lisa tries to inspire Anne to carry on with their quest to escape.

Surface – both women are tired and scared. Anne wants to retreat to the church and hunker down, Lisa wants to press on and find a way out of the haunted town.

Beneath the surface – Anne wants to lead Lisa back to the church in order to sacrifice her in an attempt to free her and her husband. What Lisa takes as fear and despair is really frustration at Lisa not listening to reason and falling into their trap. Also, Anne is moved by Lisa not giving up on her and it will make what she later has to do all that much harder.

[Joseph Bronzi]

What I learned doing this assignment is that you can enrich your screenplays and give them true depth by utilizing character subtext. The foundation of a great screenplay is three-dimensional characters and you can’t achieve that without subtext that makes the characters more interesting, vibrant, and compelling.

Parish Road (Horror Feature)

Lisa – Character Surface: Tough, capable, unflappable. Subtext: Grieving and lost with her recent tragedies (professional and personal). She lost her lover/partner and a teen she was fond of and had known for years, in the space of a few minutes. She doesn’t know if she deserves to survive what she’s being put through.

Anne – On the surface she’s a jaded widow & survivor with a sense of humor and faded maternal instincts who wants to help Lisa live and escape. Subtext: She’s a crazed victim with a dark secret that led her to Parish Road. Her husband is alive and the two of them are planning to sacrifice Lisa to facilitate their own escape.

James – On the surface, James is a caring and patient boyfriend who will give Lisa time to come back to him from her losses. Subtext: He cannot relate to what she’s going through and he’s not connected to her fundamentally enough to help her through it. This is why he’s quickly left behind on her journey.

[Joseph Bronzi]

What I learned doing this assignment is that layering your environments with subtext can add a deeper meaning to everything in your script. You can find the subtext in the environment by asking the following:

A. What is the deeper meaning of my story?

B. What environment can deliver that deeper meaning?

C. How can these subtext environments act as part of the deeper meaning?

For Parish Road –

A. Grief (combined with Guilt) can be a trap from which you, and only you, can pull yourself out. Lisa feels guilt because she had the chance to show mercy but her rage (due to her partner’s murder) caused her to lash out and kill a minor. She is grieving for the kid, her old life, and her partner.

B. The atrocity sites Lisa must visit in the town to escape can mirror/embody elements of the five stages of grief.

1. Maggie’s house is like Hansel & Gretel, warm and cozy and very child friendly. Maggie lured children and murdered them, so I think this dovetails nicely with DENIAL. When Lisa enter the house, on the run and scared, she denies the danger signals until it’s almost too late.

2. The old gas station drips with the ANGER of its crippled owner and his monstrous son. The violent acts of dismemberment the son committed are fueled by rage, and the owner’s bitterness poisons the building.

3. The hospital is a great environment to embody BARGAINING. In a seedy, trade-off kind of way…the “doctor” traded his soul for his experiments, and Anne is ready to give Lisa anything she wants to stay away from the terrifying locale. The ghost of the priest also bargains with Lisa, trading crucial information (that ends up saving her life) in return for “looking at him” and seeing him as no one did in life.

4. The schoolhouse, with all its haunted remnants of childhood, DEPRESSES Lisa. For the first time in the film, hopelessness overwhelms her and she contemplates giving up. It is a sad and bleak educational environment tinged with the atrocity the witch perpetrated on the innocent kids. An atrocity that Lisa feels is similar to what she did to the young gang-banger.

5. The Tar Pits is where Lisa faces “the Judge” that has been following/hounding her. A judge that turns out to be herself. She faces and bests herself, which is a form of ACCEPTANCE.

In my next rewrite, I can incorporate the atmosphere of these environments more fully to flesh out the subtext and add deeper meaning to not only these scenes, but the entire story. Now that I’m aware of it, it’ll inform every decision I make and every line I write as I retool the screenplay.

[Joseph Bronzi]

What I learned doing this assignment is that plot subtext doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. Just by asking myself what the surface story (and thus, the deeper meaning) is, or by asking either what the major twist could be, or where is the deeper meaning that is hidden or covert, I can open up the screenplay to a new depth and resonance.

Parish Road

Exactly at midnight, Ex-cop Lisa and her boyfriend James take an unintended exit off the PA turnpike that lands them in a town that disappeared in 1973.

Lisa meets Anne, also trapped there, whose says her husband was killed by the town and who explains that if Lisa’s not out by dawn she’ll be trapped there forever.

TWIST: Anne wants to sacrifice Lisa as the means to her own escape, and Lisa’s trials throughout the night mirror the stages of guilt over the events that led to her losing her job.

TWIST: Lisa defeats Anne (and her non-dead husband) and manages to escape by showing mercy. She emerges from the brush to see James, who acts as if she was never gone at all…

[Joseph Bronzi]

David,

Effective logline, man. There might be room to paint a character arc with the descriptions of Kevin and Sherry in here.

[Joseph Bronzi]

David,

Thanks for the kind words, brother.