How do you write a screenplay?

Cafe Society
1

I’m reading a book about the attack on the heavy water plant in Norway during WWII and I’m struck by how cinematic it is. I bounced the idea off daughter, “It has everything! A daring attack with explosions. Guys drinking reindeer blood to stay alive. Skiing–it’s mostly crosscountry so far but we could fit in some downhill. Imagine a dozen Norwegian guys, all built like professional athletes.”

“Will there be a ‘Pearl Harborish’ romantic sideplot?”

“Their wives and girlfriends are being menaced by Nazis.”

“That’ll do. You’ve got the explosions for the guys and cute guys with accents for their girlfriends but this still needs a cute American guy.”

“So far the only Americans mentioned are FDR and General Groves of the Manhattan Project, and he looked like Don DeFore with a bad moustache.”

“How about a cute English guy?” (Talking with my 18-year-old daughter is like instant market research.)

“All of the British commandos get killed early in the second reel.”

“You really don’t know how to bend history to make a better movie, do you?”

No, I don’t. I’ve never done a screenplay before, much less one based on nonfiction. I have no idea where to start. I have less idea how to end. And no idea whatsoever how to sell it.

I should probably get to know a REAL screenwriter, suggest they write it, and save myself the work.

2

First - Get yourself a script template for Word or one of the scriptwriting programs like Final Draft, Dramatica or Hollywood Screenplay. Get in touch with your local writers guild for advice on adapting material.

Second - Research like a madman everything about the story, era and people involved.

Third - Write you script

Fourth - Rewrite your script.

Fifth - Re-Rewrite your script

Six - Re-re-Rewrite your script.

Sixth - Show it to someone who you know will give you an honest opinion.

Seventh - Re-re-re-rewrite your script. Get in touch with WGA.

Eight - Do anything you can to get it into the hands of a producer, and take their ideas on board. Work out what royalties etc. needs to be paid to the original author and/or the estates of those whose story it is. If your lucky, the rewrites will have changed the story to that magical percentage point where it bears only slight resemblance to the original story.

Nine - From here, with a producer on board, you’ll find you have little or no actual input unless they really like you. If you’re really unlucky Ivan Reitman will be attached to direct and you’ll find yourself looking at your cheque while a team of nineteen writers dismantle your script.

By the time it’s finished you might be lucky enough to have an actual sole credit. If not, well the money should help the pain when you see you script being credited to Babaloo Mandel.

BTW. at some point in this endeavor somebody will suggest reading books by Syd Field, Linda Seger or current wonderboy Robert McKee. The best way to take this advice is to read the books and then break every single rule or formula they put forth.
The only thing that these books are good for is writing formulaic trash, and I hope you aspire to more than that.

Finally, remember. If you’re a writer, write

3

Back in university, I worked as a script reader during the summer. On average, I would read about three scripts a day. That means that my company used to receive somewhere around 1000 scripts a year. And that’s just a small portion of what’s written in North America. Getting a script produced is pretty much akin to winning the lottery. Quality is, unfortunately, not as big a factor as it should be in deciding what gets bought (let alone made).

Which is why, strictly IMHO - as someone who gave it a shot - you should write your script for the sake of writing it. I’ve read scripts that were as enjoyable as a good novel. They never got made, but I never got the sense that they were anything less than a complete work of art by themselves.

One of the most painfully obvious fault of many scripts is bad structure. It’s something authors like Field harp upon, but it’s true. That’s why I’d recommend is writing from the outside in, so to speak.

When I wrote my script, I got a roll of fax paper and diagramed the story. I also had post-it notes with character descriptions and the like posted all around my work area. Unless you have a very good instinct for structure starting from page 1 and going to page 90 or so in one shot is going to be very difficult.

4

Yeah, I’d probably write it for its own sake, not to sell it, though I have this friend I can mention it to. “I know how you actors all want to be directors when you grow up…” (sigh) It’s just that it’s such a cinematic story and nobody’s made a movie about it for forty years and it’s got skiing and WMDs and everything that’s popular these days.

Of course, as I never actually DO any of the things I think about doing, there is no real risk of my disappointment when I can’t sell it.

5

Do you remember the recent movie U-571? Just change the Norwegians into Americans. It won’t matter if they protest. Do they have the Bomb?

6

Hiya drop. There’s this movie called The Heroes of Telemark. Have you ever seen it?:slight_smile:

7

Hell, cut me in on the take, I’ll help you write it. Not that I’ve written a screenplay of my own, but I know the format and conventions pretty well, i just need the story.

8

Reminds of a Marvel mini series spinoff of Spiderman called Get Kraven. It’s written by Ron Zimmerman, who’s done a lot of comedy writing for film and TV, so he’s familiar with a lot of what goes on behind the scenes.

The beginning part is a scriptwriter meeting with two Hollywood producers. The scriptwriter is kind of a nerdy intellectual type, and the producers are two fat rude guys who are constantly eating, belching and farting.

He’s written a spy-movie type script that’s an exposé on the medical industry’s cover-up of a cure for cancer. After he’s rewritten it 17 times, the producers tell him they want to make the movie. He’s happy with himself that his genius is getting the recognition it deserves. The producers ask him what he thinks of Kevin Smith. He tells them “I love Kevin Smith! He’s my hero!” They tell him “Great, he’s rewriting your script as we speak.”

This gets the scriptwriter guy all upset, because he’s rewritten the script 17 times for them, so why are they getting somebody else? They tell him they decided the script was too depressing to attract a large audience, so they’re making it into a comedy. He goes into a rant of how his script was the result of 5 years of research and that cancer isn’t funny. They tell him “Yeah, that’s why Kevin’s taking all that cancer stuff out. It’s gonna be a movie about jock itch.”

The scriptwriter guy then goes ballistic and screams “You tell that no-talent hack Kevin Smith to keep his filthy hands off my script!” The producers just smile and tell him “Kid, this is Hollywood. Everybody gets rewritten,” and eat more food. He offers to buy back his script, and they tell him they’ll sell it back to him and charge him an extra $100,000 for expenses. After he leaves they blackball him.

9

Many, many moons ago. That’s the “forty years ago” one I mentioned, which makes it overripe for a remake. Maybe following what really happened this time, too.

Ironically, thanks in part to this incident, NO! (evil laughter at Norway’s expense)

Not a chance. There’s already ONE inexperienced incompetent working on it. I’m only sharing writer’s credit with an EXPERIENCED incompetent.

10

Ha ha! Fair enough.

Anyway, if you really want to do it, the first thing I’d do would be read and research all you can on it and take notes. In addition to the major timeline (the raid itself), identify possible subplots. Were there tensions between two of the guys on the raid? Was the family of one of the guys trapped in Auschwitz and he’s doing it out of revenge? Note these relationships or anything else interesting about the principals.

Identify when you want to start the story. Is it going to be just a chronicle of the raid itself, or are you going to do the “Dirty Dozen” storyline where we see them getting together, going through training, building relationships, etc.?

Watch a lot of war movies for ideas.

Make a timeline of the major events your screenplay will be covering. This’ll help you plot your screenplay.

Grab one of the many screenwriting books out. We used a book called “The Elements of Screenwriting” in the class I took, I think Blacker is the author. It was pretty good overall, very basic, easy to understand. Everyone has a slightly different way of formatting it.

Put together a treatment. Here’s an article on it: http://www.filmmakers.com/features/screenwriting/treatment.htm

It’s basically just your script written out in narrative form. Like writing a short story. Again, books have been written on the subject that’ll tell ya more.

By that point, you’ll have a good idea of where your script should go, what scenes you want in, etc. And you work on the screenplay. Then redo it over and over.

11

Thanks for the tips, all. I daresay, this is shaping up to be NOT one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever had.