April 11, 2011

How do you think about a screenplay when you’re watching a movie?

If you were to have do a movie review, and if you had to think about a screenplay when watching, how would you be able to “see” the screenplay to talk about it?

What makes a screenplay good or bad and how could we notice?

Juno – an example –

-     Diablo Cody was the writer

-     The dialogue is very witty and weird and really stands out as interesting, even if it’s way too much

-     Not realistic, not normal, but it’s catchy and very obvious

-     The way people talk is designed to be different from normal

-     Taxi Driver – Paul Schrader – the dialogue in this movie is gritty and dark and has a lot of meaning and depth – deal with hard moments and powerful themes

-     Powerful can come from very emotional scenes and moments

-     Some writing is great because it captures things that are hard to say and hard to say well if you can say them – making corny or potential silly moments into powerful, really emotional moments is really difficult

Some screenplay elements that we can see in movies come from the situations that arise – the screenwriters comes up with WHAT happens, but the director comes up with HOW it happens

Another way to figure out the quality of a screenplay is to look at the characters – do they change in the movie? Is the change believable? Is it a big change? Characters at the end should be EXACTLY opposite of the way they were at the start

Surprises and twists – great movies have at least 5 (FIVE) big REVEALS, TWISTS, CHANGES or SHIFTS these TURNING POINTS make movies more interesting and surprising and more enjoyable

Salt has a LOT of this happening – think of all the twists and turns and the fun surprises –

She was a child in the head bad guy’s crazy assassin school

She was working with another one!

She choked him out!

She killed her old friends!

She jumped out at the end!

Why Disney movies aren’t as awesome in terms of screenplay (but Pixar movies are)?

Disney movies are predictable – the screenplays aren’t surprising because they are aimed at children.

SO, why do Pixar movies work SO well?

-     they are not aimed at kids, they are aimed at adults AND kids – more complex

The more complex a movie is, the better it might be, TO A POINT.  

What’s the deal with Inception? Complex and difficult, but it did REALLY WELL.

There are movies that are too much, and they break down the audience with too much novelty and surprise and the audience can’t follow it all.

A really good screenplay will have those killer moments – moments of pure awesome, with the exact right line at the right time, the perfect bit of coolness that you remember forever