FRIDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
SCENES CREATE SCENES
The way I outline is I brainstorm a bunch of scenes. I come up with as many scenes as I can - good ones and bad ones - then pick the best ones.
So if I'm writing a script about an FBI agent who goes undercover to get evidence against a mob boss, I'm going to need scenes...
1) With the undercover FBI agent almost being discovered.
2) With the FBI agent gaining the trust of the mob boss.
3) Scenes that show the relationship between the FBI agent and mob boss becoming friends.
4) Scenes with the FBI agent and his partner - which side is he on?
5) Scenes where the FBI agent goes over the line.
6) Scenes that show the FBI agent dealing with whatever their emotional conflict is going to be.
7) Scenes that show the FBI agent dealing with the plot conflict.
(etc.)(This Tip was actually written *before* THE FAST & THE FURIOUS came out - strange how many of those basic scene types are in the film. Next week I have a Tip on patterns and formulas and why all undercover cop movies have the same scenes - it's because those are the scenes that best illustrate the story.)
I brainstorm up types of scenes then I brainstom up scenes that fit those types. What I'm doing is looking at all of the ways my story might go. All of the possibilities. That gives me choices. Then I pick the way I want my story to go and pick the scenes that work best. I fill in scenes, and sometimes get better scene ideas along the way.
I'm an outline guy. I do all of the "heavy lifting" before I start writing the script. That way I can try to find UNUSUAL scene ideas instead of writing the usual scenes that you'd see in that situation. I did a Tip once about a scene in GRID RUNNERS where the partner's widow starts BEATING the hero after he says her husband died. I needed the scene where the cop tells the partner's wife he died for the story - but wanted to do something different. Here's that Tip.
John Frankenheimer said a script will have 45-55 scenes. That's not 45-55 sluglines, because a scene might have several locations. Think about a car chase scene - lots of locations, but it's all one scene. I think you need as many scenes as you need to tell the story... but if you have 10 scenes in a 110 page script, you may have a pacing problem! Different scenes will be different lengths. They have to be. If they were all the same length it'd be boring!
Scenes are sections of the story - so each scene is a step in the progress of the story. Each scene "creates" the one that follows. The events of one scene make the next scene possible. The story doesn't make sense when the scenes are out of order.
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