Awesome. I especially loved this:


INT. KITCHEN – CONTINUOUS

Mr. Morfblatt lifts the toilet lid and unzips his pants as Cutting Crew’s, I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight wraps him and us in a soft ethereal blanky.


So, Morfie has a toilet in his kitchen? :p

No swearing and men shouldn't write women?

I don't know that I agree with that - so if I'm male, I should avoid strong female characters (I note that James Cameron writes great women) and if I am writing a drama about construction workers, I shouldn't let them talk like construction workers did when I worked construction (even more interesting, when I lived in an Irish boarding house with seven Irishmen ... you'd think using the f-word ever third word would be redundant, but every Irish guy I know seems to think otherwise) ...

Is the point not to do it, or if you do it, do it WELL?

This fella seems to think, just don't do it (I'll follow up to his site).

I've got five of the black list screenplays, just arrived via email ... and while I haven't read them yet, I opened each to take a look at the first couple pages.

Three of them start with Voice-overs (The BEAVER is all VO) and there is much cursing in three others ...

So ... I dunno ...

I went back and reread his screed there and to be honest, he sounds exactly like the type of person Tarantino says he is ... angry because he's reading bad scripts when he wants to be writing his own.

Again, I dunno ... some great movies have flashbacks, some great movies had VO (Forest Gump) some great movies have weird cutsie titles ... for my money, GOOD WILL HUNTING was a great movie, GROSSE POINT BLANK was great, the names of the characters didn't distract me from FIGHT CLUB ...

I get when he's pointing out the bad writers that do this ... however, I think it's stronger to point out the good writers that do it and make it work ... I mean, Tarantino's INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is on the black list and it's a mess of a screenplay (title is even misspelled) but it's gonna be a hell've a movie ... so I think from QT's point of view, yeah, writers do have to find a way around the readers (who, as we know, are discouraged from recommending or even considering work) but the point isn't that QT's hurting movies by saying this ... is it?

My main point with this post is to provide this gentleman's 'yin' to DC Mar's 'yang.'

And Josh, your point is another way of saying what I've said elsewhere: It doesn't matter what screenwriting 'rules' you follow or break, as long as you write a great script.

I am currently writing a screenplay that breaks three of those rules.

First off, I include the two songs to be used, however both are actually heard by the main character, and one of them absolutely epitomizes what film is about.

Two, the first words uttered by my protagonist are "Fuck You", which does, in essence, sum up his outlook on life. I think fuck is only used three times in dialogue. I use it myself as an intensifier for some description. I will probably remove it later when I'm polishing the script.

And three, my entire story is predicated on fact that one character is telling another character a story. There are occasional breaks to present day, which complete the overall tale as a whole, but the film could not in any way be told without a narrator and a VO. If it was people would die of aneurysms while trying to read it, because it would just be that confusing. Though it might be a sign of a good writer to have it NOT be confusing, let me guarentee you, this story cannot be told without a VO.

So...I am a rule breaker. But for the sake of necessity.

Re voiceovers: Sometimes I think the irrational fear of narration leads to much more horrible exposition put into the mouths of characters. I'd rather hear a narrator than have to listen to someone noisily 'lay pipe'. Leads to a lot of characters who only serve the purpose of being surrogate viewers or, even worse, suddenly stupid characters. I agree that there's a place for any type of storytelling done well, and sometimes narration can make a story more intimate.
To me 'Goodfellas' is a movie that becomes more human because of the narration. I particularly like the use of compression in the scene where the 'kid' Henry is talking about the respect his mother gets at the grocery store while we see him torching a lot full of cars. That gives the scene more depth and immediacy than it could possibly have otherwise. I'd be interested in hearing some other instances of well-done narration that Scott or any of the blog readers can recommend. Might make for an interesting post.
Can't believe I've never visited your blog before. It looks like a valuable resource and you can be sure I'll be mining the archives.

Nicholas, as I said, if what you're doing is in the spirit of the story and the best way you see to tell it, then I concur with the following: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

I think, though, that while we know what the guy is really saying is that if you do "this" do it really well ... I hate it when readers come out and say, no VO, no this, no that, etc ... because then a host of other readers / evaluators come to believe the same ... I had the same argument with someone over the use of "we see", which John August uses (and a number of the black list scripts) ... no matter, too many believe that putting "we see" in immediately means a pass.

I mean, it's just silly ... bad writers use the word "the" all the time, too ... that doesn't mean the "the" word should be banned from screenplays, right?

Anything one does in a screenplay needs to be done well. From the FADE IN to the FADE OUT. That should be the only criteria, I think.

And this fella ain't really telling people how to write well ... he's just saying the techniques he hates ... and like many above, these are techniques featured in many movies we love ... so why avoid them?

This kind of snark always puts me on edge ... I get that he reads a lot of bad scripts and hates it ... and he's underlining why QT and other folks don't trust readers ...

A script isn't bad because it has Voice-over ... it's bad because it's written badly.

Sigh. Okay, rant over ...

And..."The Piano" - voiceover. And...wasn't Jane Campion given one of those golden statue thingeys after a wander on a bit of red carpet...

Just had to say it.