QandA

Say you were writing the script to an action flick–LETHAL
WEAPON, for instance. When you get to the part where Mel Gibson and Gary Busey
are trouncing
each
other at the end of the movie, do you write a blow-by-blow account of the fight
in the stage directions, or do you just write "Gibson and Busey trounce
each other for a while, and Mel wins," and let the director/choreographer
worry about the details?
I’ve always wondered about that concerning the action
scenes in movies, like fights and gun battles and car chases and such.

–Roger

There’s a common misconception that a screenwriter only writes the dialogue,
while the director handles the rest. Being a guy who writes a lot of action
sequences, I can say definitively that’s not the case — at least not in the
21st century.

Supposedly, when the screenplay for GONE WITH THE WIND got to the climactic
fire scene, it stated only this: “Atlanta burns.” Just two words,
but in the movie the sequence took several minutes.

In modern screenplays, at least those that make it into production, the action
written on the page pretty closely matches the action on-screen. A fight sequence
will almost never be written blow-for-blow, but will at the minimum give
a sense of the action, the stakes and the most important moments within the
battle. If you don’t believe me, flip through the script to THE MATRIX, which
you can find in most bookstores. The Wachowski brothers don’t label each punch
and kick, but reading the script, you get a very good idea what the fight sequences
will look like.

The same holds true with almost any action sequence you can think of. In GO,
I spend half a page describing the chase down the alley in Vegas, in which
the Riviera gets stuck sideways. Everyone reading the script — producers,
the director, studio executives — could see exactly how funny the moment would
be, which is how such an expensive and time-consuming stunt stayed in the budget.
Otherwise, it would have been the first thing cut.

The danger with properly-described action sequences is that if they’re not
written very deftly, they can slow down the read immensely. That’s why I spend
at least as much time working on these moments as the dialogue scenes. They’re
much less glamorous, and honestly, more difficult to write. But the ability
to write interesting and economical scene description is what distinguishes
the screenwriter from the playwright.

That, and the weird “gh” in the name. If a playwright writes for
plays, shouldn’t a screenwright write for screens?

Do you use the "index card" method when preparing
to write a script and if so do you find that your screenplay fleshes out
in the same order as
you wrote it in the index cards?

–Ruble

For those who don’t know about index cards, it’s a technique a lot of screenwriters
use. Each scene or sequence is given its own card. Then the cards are laid
out, pinned up or otherwise arranged to figure out the best structure for the
movie.

While I always outline scripts, for me it’s 50/50 whether I use index cards
or not. For the CHARLIE’S ANGELS sequel they were a big help in pitching the
movie, partly because each card had funny stick figures (e.g. "Car Wash
Angels get the evidence"). I also used different colors for different
types of sequences: action was always on purple cards, while narrative was
blue. When you looked at the whole movie layed out on the table, it was easy
to see the pacing. In discussing an individual
scene, you could point at it.

For a lot of scripts, particularly those without action sequences, index cards
might be a waste of time. A better bet would be to write up an outline or a
treatment that lets you get a sense of the feel of the movie, not just the
big beats. Whatever technique you use, remember that scripts develop their
own logic. Use the cards or the outline as a map, not a Bible.