Dean, Gene and the magic machine. (Or being careful with character names)

So you've spent two weeks creating the structure and outline of your screenplay. You're happy with how the story flows from a high-level point of view and you're ready to start fleshing out your scenes.

Great!

Before you begin, you spend some time thinking of character names. It's a detective story so you feel that something like "Dean" is a good name. Yes, "Dean McCormick", great. Sorted. You then start thinking of your antagonist's name and for whatever reason "Gene Davis" pops into your head and it sticks.

Yeah!

Good guy: Dean McCormick

Bad guy: Gene Davis

As a whole name, and as read, they read completely different, but whilst Dean and Gene look sufficiently different in your screenplay, on screen they'll be very hard to distinguish in dialogue. It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to work out that if another character is referencing Dean or Gene in their dialogue, it could be confusing for the viewer.

However, after saying that... You may actually WANT this to happen as a device in your screenplay - to cause the very confusion it could cause, but be careful of this device. If done incorrectly it could just end up falling flat on its face.

Admittedly, there aren't many names that rhyme that look different but I have seen it done in spec screenplays online (Dean and Gene in fact) and by that time the writer has grown quite attached to his or her character names and finds it hard to change them.

So, as a rule of thumb avoid that trap by saying your character names out loud before you commit to naming your darlings.

Mark Spark.
www.moviedraft.com

To bold or not to bold, that is the emphatic question

With the advent of the modern word processor to replace the beloved chattery typewriter, pretty much anything is possible on a page. Images, colors, hyperlinks, different font sizes etc. You name it and more than likely it can be placed, formatted and printed.

Obviously, none of the above belong anywhere near a screenplay, (and if you're using any font other than a member of the Courier family then give yourself a good slap in the face) but on a far simpler scale, one of the age-old screenwriting debates is whether or not to use bold, italic or underline in your script, and I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't.

If you're new to screenwriting then you've more than likely started your script in Microsoft Word. Nearly everyone has Word installed and so it will come as no surprise that it's the most popular tool in the world for writing screenplays. Not the best by a long shot, but the most popular none the less.

As an established user of Word (or equivalent) you will be familiar with applying bold, italic and underline lavishly throughout the pages of things you write about without any consideration. You may then assume that you can do the same thing in a screenplay and no one will bat an eye lid, but you'd be wrong.

Emphasis is usually found in the Action element of a screenplay and goes something like this:

EXT. THE PARK - CONTINUOUS

Josh trips on a stone and falls to the ground with a splat! Right into a pile of doggy doo.

Now, remembering that this is a screenplay, how long would the above lines actually take on screen? Well, according to Movie Draft SE's SceneTime™, it's 5 seconds. That's a pretty short scene. We've emphasised the result of what happened to Josh tripping over the stone but not described it.

So here's a rule: Describe, not emphasise.

Let's rewrite the above without the use of emphasis and instead with the use of words describing what you would see on screen, or in real life if you actually did see Josh trip over that stone. Remember that the time it takes for Josh to fall must relay into screen time - you can even extend the actual time it would take for him to fall by this equation:

Gravity + Artistic Licence = Takes A Long time To Fall

EXT. THE PARK - CONTINUOUS

Josh trips on a stone.

IN SLOW MOTION

His arms reach out like a poor excuse for superman. The bottom of his long, thick-looking coat flutters upwards like a matching cape.

Josh sees that in front of him on the floor - where his face will eventually be - is a great big pile of doggy doo. It looks fresh.

His eyes widen. He inhales quickly. His mouth opens. He looks like he's about to say something. His face scrunches up as he lifts his hands up towards his face.

JOSH

Shhhhhhiiii...

The ground is close. Josh closes his eyes and turns his head.

NORMAL SPEED

Josh hits the ground, his head seemingly cushioned by the freshly left dog present.

He sighs.

He takes a long deep breath.

JOSH

...t.

All of a sudden, our 5 second emphasised scene is now 38 seconds when written as you'd see it on screen, and not a single bold, italic or underline to be seen anywhere.

Describe, not emphasise.

The other big no-no is emphasising dialog. When you emphasis dialog, what you're basically doing is putting in the pauses and beats of how you yourself hear them. For example:

JOSH

What does she want this time?

is different to:

JOSH

What does she want this time?

...and you may think that's ok to do. Most people would say it is, but you're not the actor and the actor has been paid a generous amount of money to get into the "head" of your character, to think like they think, react how they react, and most importantly of all, to talk how they talk.

Let the actor decide how to say their lines. If needed, as above, describe, not emphasise:

Josh sees Lauren through the window. His shoulders fall as he shakes his head gently from side to side.

JOSH

What does she want this time?

That way the mood is conveyed visually - as you would see it on screen, so once again: Describe, not emphasise.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, boldly going...

Mark
www.moviedraft.com

Why the iPad is not the right choice for screenwriting

We've all got one or we all want one. They're the hottest thing on everyone's birthday list, you can take them anywhere & everywhere and you can get an app to do practically any task you can think of. Including screenwriting.

Final Draft recently announced that they would soon be releasing an iPad version of their software, and everyone who's a screenwriter with an iPad is waiting eagerly for that. Apart from me it seems - I just kinda went, "huh?".

You see, anyone who's used an iPad for writing over a sustained period of time - be it emails, notes, Pages or whatever will know that whilst it's convenient to be able to do those things on the move, there's no replacement for a real keyboard.

Aha! I hear you say, just buy a Bluetooth keyboard! Duh! And you'd be right, that would kinda solve that issue, but then what you end up with is essentially a broken-in-two laptop. Not the best solution to carry around with you, so by that time you'd already be better off with something like a Mac Book Air.

The other problem is surface. Writing on an iPad (and this post was written on an iPad, in bed) requires a good steady surface - like a desk, perhaps - for reaching any kind of respectable typing speed. Balancing on your lap (or my knees as I'm doing now) just won't do for writing anything other than a quick blog post or email.

To write properly the tool that you use needs to be transparent to the process and not a constant reminder that you're actually pressing your fingers on a bit of glass with make-believe keys. You need a good desk, or a place that you can call yours - your zone - with a good steady surface, a proper chair and plenty of room to put down your favourite beverage and a note pad. You also need a good keyboard (they all have a different feel) and a good clear monitor.

Yes, the iPad is GREAT, don't get me wrong, it's perfect for browsing whilst out and about, or checking emails whilst being sat on the sofa. I love the iPad. But using it to write a screenplay would be like running a marathon with one arm behind your back and your laces tied together - you could do it, sure, but it wouldn't be the most efficient way of doing it and would take far longer.

I have been asked by many people, both during the course of developing Movie Draft SE and after its release: "are you going to make an iPad app?" and my answer is always a simple, flat "no, sorry".

The trouble is, because the iPad phenomenon is "cool" and "down with the kids" there's a tendency to think that you "need" to use it as a replacement for a desktop or laptop, but the truth is that both have their strengths and weaknesses and typing for sustained periods is not one of the iPad's strengths. It's as simple as that.

You wouldn't decorate your house with an artist's paint brush now, would you...?

Mark
www.moviedraft.com