Romantic Screenplays 101 (7 page)

COMIC
characters are meant to provide comedic relief to the drama. They set-up an expectation then credibly respond in the opposite manner. Their practical jokes can teach a subtle lesson, like Mrs. Doubtfire’s “run-by fruiting” scene.

COMPLEX COWARDS
are effective point-makers. They usually begin as stereotyped negative fluff, disdained and discounted by other characters. In their moment of glory, they do one right thing that balances everything else. The repulsed coward has a moment of vindication and worth. The best example ever depicted in film was the inept clerk who joined the battle-hardened squad in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

ROMANTIC SCREENPLAYS Chapter 4 Exercises

Exercise 4a:
Complete a Character Profile for your Hero. Now complete one for your Heroine. Don’t leave any number blank because you don’t think it will be important or even used in your screenplay! When you
know
the character this thoroughly, the person comes alive. You can both hear the dialogue and see the person move. You can predict how each will respond!

Exercise 4b:
Look back at your notes for Exercises 1b and 1c from Chapter 1 regarding the female and male leads’ influential friends and subplots. Revise them according to your just completed Character Profiles.

Exercise 4c:
Always complete a Profile on your major antagonist, as well. Giving that person depth prevents stereotyping. Remember an Antagonist is anyone who opposes the Protagonist. An Antagonist is not necessarily a repulsive Villain (like a well-meaning but overly strict parent), but a Villain is always an Antagonist.

Chapter 5

Hollywood’s Need

for Sex and Violence

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF SEX & VIOLENCE

Hollywood is fickle and there is no such thing as a trend. Why? Every power figure in the industry has his or her own preferences and absolutely no one can predict what will click with the ticket-buying public. There will be a lot of copy cat projects, however, after a successful film. But, think about it. How long does it take for a script to go from concept to financing to development to production to the screen? The public could move on to some other flavor-of-the-month by the time your rendition of a similar story makes it into the theaters.   

 The only constant in film making is no one wants to read/see the story of the-happy-people-in-the-happy-village. That means dramatic conflict is essential in every genre. The most basic definition of conflict is want is blocked by a powerful obstacle. The two basic human wants are the perpetuation of the species and the continuation of life . . . thus sex and violence are common elements in every kind of genre. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Definitions
for this discussion
:

Sex:
Chemistry of physical attraction vital to establishing a loving, trusting relationship that will lead to sexual intercourse, whether visualized or inferred.

Violence
: The threat or actual physical jeopardizing of human life, be it disruption of status quo or actual death.

SEXUAL CONTEXT IN VARIOUS GENRES

To begin with, we are not talking about sexual intercourse on screen here. We are talking about Linda Howard’s Twelve Steps of Intimacy, the titillation of inference, the unspoken assumptions. If you haven’t got those down then refer back to Chapter 1.

 What does someone mean when they say “That couple has great chemistry” or “I don’t believe the attraction because the on-screen chemistry is just not there”? Yes, actors who possess that sexual charisma and great acting ability can turn a simple conversation into a raging seduction scene. But, screenwriters have to create the characters, the fundamental choreography, the subtle dialogue that gives the actors the tools to work with. Visuals, visuals, visuals at all three levels of 1) characterization, 2) movement, and 3) dialogue.  

 Time and again you will hear some industry people say “The barest hint of what is going on or closing the door will create greater titillation for the audience than if you film an R or X-rated sex scene.” Some call these scenes tasteful illusion and others roll their eyes and say “That’s a director cheating to get by the censors.” Both are right. However, an artful screenwriter can heat up the screen with the characterization, movement, and dialogue to the point the audience members are squirming in their seats because their vivid imaginations are racing. Another writer pointed out “The reader or viewer’s imagination is much stronger and diversified than one director’s / screenwriter’s—allowing a much stronger connection emotionally to the characters and story than if the audience watched a graphic love scene. You have thousands of viewers and every single one can imagine what happens, making it their own.”

 Probably the most common tool of playing off sexual assumption is the touching or partnering of spouses, parenting referrals, pregnancy or the presence of children, even the image of a double bed. Small children will not even think about the underlying assumption that sexual congress is implied in all of that. Cartoon guys getting bug-eyed when a curvaceous cartoon gal walks by swinging her hips is humorous, but for different reasons to different levels of maturity. So the teen films that show skin and hormonal boys are alluding to the assumption of sex. An elderly couple holding hands are at what stage in Howard’s Twelve Steps of Intimacy?  Is the contrast between those two examples the assumption of vigorous activity for the purpose of procreation or pleasuring a partner? What exactly is the implied difference? What is normal and what is pushing the envelope of the observer’s imagination? 

Here is where you, the romantic script writer, have to very deliberately plan the sex you will use in your story by specific visuals of the Twelve Steps, the titillation of inference or the unspoken assumptions.

Keep a list of the visuals that will depict thoughts and emotions, such as his hand sliding around her bare, sweaty midriff causing her gasp and shiver. Perhaps she makes a verbal denial as “What? No, nothing’s wrong. You just startled me.” He frowns then pinches his eyes to concentrate harder on something else because
he
is turned on. Movie-making is about the visuals you give the actor and director to tell the story. The physical signaling is how the audience connects with the character’s thoughts. This is a matter of delivery by the actors and reception by the audience.

Here’s an interesting exercise to get you in that visual mode: Put in your favorite movie that you watch over and over . . . with the volume off. Watch how the body language and facial expression
show
the story.

Of course, as a writer you will not depict every nuance, just insinuate what a good actor can latch onto. To describe every expression, every physical move is called micro-choreography and will get your script promptly sent back to you or thrown in the recycle bin. Imagine yourself as an artistic actor who wants to recreate a memorable character on camera. As an actor do you want somebody who wrote the thing three years ago dictating to you how to do your job? Instead, think macro-managing.

Did you know that in live theater the playwright’s words are sacred? Not one line or one word is supposed to be changed without the playwright’s authorization. Of course, changes happen according to staging, actors, directors, but that is not particularly ethical in live theatre. It ain’t that way in film-making. Everybody and their mom can come on the set or to rehearsals and suggest changes. Ultimately, the director and the film editor have the final say. All you the screenwriter can do is to write the best story you can at the outset . . . then let go of that baby you have birthed and let it learn and grow into that incredible on-screen adult the rest of the film-making world has advised and fashioned into being.

VIOLENCE DOES NOT MEAN BLOOD & EXPLOSIONS

Think of violence as increments of jeopardy.  Crewella Deville in 101 DALMATIANS was a violent woman who wanted those puppies to die. The horrors visualized on D-Day in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN were as visually accurate as cinema could get. At the other end of the jeopardy spectrum you have the mother warning her misbehaving son with “The Look.”  No violence is committed, just the threat of something the boy would not like. The same thing could be said about gunfighter opponents and the stare-down scene where one relaxes and looks away, unwilling to act. No violence evolved, merely a threat resulting in the response of allowing the Alpha Male to reign supreme.

Here’s the basic storytelling formula:

M + G + O = Dramatic Conflict

(Main character) + (Goal) + (Opposition) = Dramatic Conflict

And here’s the VIOLENCE formula:

 
W. M. + W.G. + THREAT = Jeopardy

(Willing Main Character) + (Worthy-of-Risk Goal) + THREAT = Jeopardy

Examine each of those components in your story and you will discover the level of violence you must depict.

 Highly motivated people are logically more willing to take risks. The more confident and skilled the person, the greater the risk they will be willing to take. At the other end of the spectrum is the innocent, ignorant character who makes assumptions and takes risks without awareness of the consequences. Children without life experience references and the truly ignorant are the two most common. So, you must examine character in each scene for these two extremes: deliberate acceptance of risk and ignorant action.

Cinematic stories are about exaggerated circumstances, so goals have to be BIG. The more important the goal, the greater risks the motivated character will be willing to take to achieve that goal . . . within the parameters of their personality. Think back to the innate personality traits talked about in Chapter 4. What would motivate a devoutly religious character to respond violently and take a human life? The most decorated soldier of WW I, Sergeant Alvin York, was a registered conscientious objector with Quaker roots, yet when he committed himself to defending the rights of people to live freely rather than under tyranny, he killed and captured more German soldiers in those few days in 1918 than any other one man in the history of that war. He committed to both his willingness and a worthy-of-risk goal that motivated him to the ultimate of violent acts, taking human life. By instinct, animals are willing to do whatever it takes to survive. Consider that in your formula.

The greater the threat, the greater will be the level of jeopardy, as well. Think about how stalking can escalate, yet every level is frightening to the victim. Every level is an invasion of territory, a disruption in the continuum of a safe, secure life. Practical jokes are a threat. Holding a door closed, forcing someone to eat something, putting a bug or snake into someone’s backpack or bed . . . all of these disrupt and threaten the security of the moment. Restraining someone whether body-to-body or with some sort of tie-down is a threat to physical freedom for the person being restrained. In hospitals, law enforcement or military actions this act may be necessary for the safety of the majority, but it is still a threat to the one restrained.  

Some people have personal difficulty identifying the entertainment value of the violence of multiple car wrecks, like in THE BLUES BROTHERS, or in the gore and terror of slasher movies. Emergency personnel see the reality of human suffering, so the on-screen pain and suffering is not particularly entertaining from their perspective. Many ex-military had a tough time sitting through the battle scenes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and even such epics as BRAVEHEART. The cinematic drama of the violence in those films ripped right to the soul, which was appropriate for each story. The battle scenes were there for more than entertainment value . . . which cannot be said of the gratuitous scenes in THE BLUES BROTHERS and various slasher movies.  

JEOPARDY IN ROMANCE

All of that said, let us go back to the concept of jeopardy in romantic movies.  The main characters or Hero and Heroine must be willing to risk their personal well-being for the ultimate sake of the relationship. That is what makes O. Henry’s Christmas story “The Gift of the Magi” so intensely meaningful. The husband and the wife loved one another so much they were willing to give up the one thing they treasured most to make the other happy.  They jeopardized their personal want to make the other feel cherished.

How to consider jeopardy is simply a matter of identifying what the character values most then listing the many different ways that valued thing could be diminished, tarnished, or destroyed completely. Some assaults merely undermine the value, whereas other actions can malign and destroy the essence of character values.

Every single character should have their own set of golden idols, those things that are sacred. Of course, as human beings we will share some common values . . . but most of us hide and protect those things that are the most sacred to each of us alone. Those sacred things are what make each of us vulnerable. Nothing, not one thing, not one institution, belief, or physical possession, not one relationship, one human ability is above attack or beyond destruction. British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is the most brilliant man of our world. But he is trapped in a deteriorating body and must rely on machines to communicate his brilliance. Our human shells are fragile. Our belief systems are certainly even more fragile. Who is right and who is wrong? When will the truth be known for certain? One man’s truth is another man’s abhorrent way of life.

So, You-the-Writer must create each character with his or her own set of values and personal idols then create a story experience that will assault those values. You have to suck the audience in to care about that character’s values in Act I then depict all the trials and stressors that strain and jeopardize those valued ways of life in Act II and finally force the character to defend the well-being of that character’s values in Act III.