Screenplays Are Like Good Watches: The “Moving Parts” of a Screenplay
When we look at a watch, we only see the time. But, no matter what kind of watch you use, digital or analog, old or new, accurate or not, you depend on that watch to tell you the time. You don’t actually care how. You only care that it’s giving you what you want when you want it. But behind that face or LED is a complex, interdependent system that makes that thing work. But it’s hidden by the actual product that we get from this machine. It looks like one thing — but it’s really a bunch of moving parts.
Most importantly, I believe that no watchmaker worth his weight puts anything inside a watch that isn’t there for a damn good reason. No part goes unused; no unnecessary part is ever included — there simply isn’t room!
It’s the same with a story or a screenplay — all of it. If you follow the rules that govern the making of a watch, I don’t think you can go wrong.
The beauty of a screenplay is that all that structural material, all those tricks, all that stuff is actually invisible. The thing that you get from a movie is the experience. The thrills. The laughter. The tears. If you’re a typical moviegoer (i.e., not working in show business), you don’t see any of that stuff that we’re talking about here.
But any audience will react to something that doesn’t work. Just as they would recognize that a clock was broken. Or they couldn’t read the dial. Audiences intuitively and subliminally know what’s going on in a movie because they are involved in the experience.
If it gets too slow, they stop getting excited. If the story is not being delivered in a certain way, they get mad! If things go radically counter to expectations, or worse, if they go exactly as expected, they will hate the movie! Audiences may excuse a corrupt politician or drug-addicted movie star, but any movie that doesn’t deliver — fugeddaboudit! An audience will dismiss it like yesterday’s cheesecloth. They will even tell their friends, “Whatever you do — don’t see this movie! It stinks!”
Merciless!
But when they’re right, they’re right.
This is because just as we can tell when a watch is broken, most people can see that a movie doesn’t work. They couldn’t tell you exactly why. But that doesn’t matter. If your watch doesn’t work, they’re gonna find one that does.
Same with producers, directors, actors, and other industry professionals.
What I propose is that you see your script like a watch. Precise. Designed. Composed of interlocking moving parts that all contribute to the illusion of one thing — unity, as Aristotle would call it.
Unity means everything’s working like a team toward a common goal. It means that each part is used for its specialty. No part is unused. No part is unnecessary or gratuitous. Pay really special attention to that last statement. Keep these words ringing in your head (like the dream sequence in Vertigo; words echoing deep in the dark limbo of your brain):
“Unnecessary . . . Gratuitous . . . Unnecessary . . . Gratuitous . . .”
We will look at a screenplay and its underlying story as we would a well-tooled machine. It must fulfill a certain output. It is built well. It functions beyond expectations. Those who put it to use, enjoy the way it feels — balanced, well-shaped, familiar . . . yet different.
But here’s why screenplays are the weirdest document ever created.
A writer must take an enormous philosophical impact and a profound emotional experience and reduce it to:
“INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT”.
Isn’t that weird? Why is that?
Money.
That’s right. The only reason we use this highly specialized format that looks more like an engineering document than writing, is so that time, location, and labor can be systematically distilled for about two hundred people who will be involved in the actual manufacture of the final product.
From the story department to the studio exec, to the director, to the actors, to the crew, to the postproduction crew, to the mixer, to the distributor — they all have to look at something that tells what, where, when, who, and how. Then they can determine “how long” and “how much.” Then the movie goes into production.
“Art,” right?
Yes. It is art. It’s a hybrid art that involves writing, acting, photography, audio, design, painting, clothing, military logistics, transportation, financing, and marketing. But have no doubt it is art. And without the artists, it’s nothing.
Because it uses visual tools to tell its story, those visual elements in screenplays have actually decreased over the years. You don’t even see “CUT TO:” in most screenplays anymore. So your story is told with language. But being a “great” writer may not matter. However, you really do need to know how to write. More importantly, what you really need to know is how to put things together. You need to know how to build a good story. Like a good watch, your script is useful, meaningful, beautiful, and it works.
So your great idea ends up like a good watch. That’s the first elementary step in putting your thoughts down on paper and “gettin’ this thing on the hump!” (Major King Kong, Dr. Strangelove . . . ).
CHECKLIST The Moving Parts of Screen Story
• In Act I: A main character, with certain problematic traits (a character deficit), has a difficult task ahead of him/her that must be resolved. This sends the character on an ordeal or a journey.
• Act II is the journey and the ordeal leading to a moment when “all is lost” (sound familiar?), where it appears that the character cannot (or will not) resolve the problem.
• Act III is the time when the character must make a choice to a) resolve the problem and change, or b) to arrive at a point of recognition about life and his/her problems or c) be defeated by the problem.