[…] Put in the DVD of “Vertigo” or any of the other top-ranking films in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics poll—“Citizen Kane,” “Tokyo Story,” “Rules of the Game,” “Sunrise,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “The Searchers,” “Man with a Movie Camera,” “Passion of Joan of Arc”—and fast-forward ahead …read more […]

Yes. I've often read that every scene should contribute to the story or move it forward, just as you say. So every scene should do something; reveal, shock, expose, explain, increase mystery, and on and on. I've also read that every scene needs a beginning, middle and end. So simply by putting this together, no matter where you look, you should be in the middle of something happening. It should draw you in to see what comes next, or wonder how you got there. I notice that in stories that are better than average, if you jump into it in the middle (like I often do on cable), you are a bit lost and you feel the need to stop watching and wait for a chance to see it from the beginning. You don't want to miss anything or spoil anything. But with mediocre stories you catch on right away, which makes you wonder what the point was of everything before that. So yes. I totally agree.

Similar to your 5-page challenge, the podcast Scriptnotes (John August and Craig Mazin) does a regular critique they call their Three Page Challenge on a roughly monthly basis where listeners submit three pages of a script (usually the first three, but can be any three). John and Craig then critique them by various measures, one being that those three pages need to be engaging enough to want to cause the reader to see more.

It's interesting that it's usually the first three. If you can't draw in an audience in the first few pages it seems there would be little hope. Though I've seen plenty of films that drew me in at first, and then let me down by 20 minutes in. Not that I could do much better. The Devil Wears Prada used the first minute or so as the trailer. I was completely hooked. When I saw the film I though, OK, is this all there is? But it kept going. Perhaps that's a good example of this kind of thing. But that trailer was like a series pilot. All the main characters were introduced, and relationships defined. Perhaps a better test would be something further in. As an exercise on your own script I would suggest a random selection to see if it works. Can't wait to try this.

Jon, that was pretty much my thinking, too. Since every scene should be doing SOMETHING... and since every scene should be of a piece in terms of theme... why not have this test in mind as we write? Are these 2-3 scenes in these 5 pages enough to grab a reader's attention if they flipped the script open here at page 27... or 62... or 78? Basically anything to keep pressing us to write the best damn scenes / pages / script possible.

I love the three page challenge John and Craig do. They're great at using that as a learning device through their analysis: dialogue, scene description, action, on the nose writing, subtext, etc. Reminds me of a quote I saw or a comment I heard way back when: "Every scene is a mini-movie." This hearkens back to the main point I noted previously: Get a mindset to encourage us to make every scene, even every line count.