WEDNESDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

REVEALING


I don't mean to have veal again, or to turn an adult cow into a baby cow, I mean to expose something that was hidden. The most important part of a writer’s job is to decide when to give information to the audience. Both at what time in the over-all story and in what specific order the information is given. We look at this in the Structuring Blue Book, and - spoilers - there is no one size fits all method. That isn’t in the book. Instead, we look at some films and how the time and order where the information is revealed creates an emotional impact on the audience. What dies the audience know and when did they know it?

Let’s say we have a man and a woman in their 40s who share the same last name, and they kiss. Passionately. Then head to the bedroom. The audience is likely to feel the romance - hey, a couple this age are still passionate about each other! And the sex scene that follows will be erotic. Okay, now let’s say we have the same scene, but before it we introduce the characters as Cercei and Jaimie Lannister from GAME OF THRONES who are brother and sister. No longer romantic, no longer sexy - it’s gross! Hey, that was the last episode of Season 1. Now imagine what you would have felt had their relationship as brother and sister not been revealed until after the sex scene. Shock! A different response than the slow burn grossness of the sex scene when we knew they were brother and sister. The reason why there’s no “one side fits all” method when it comes to revealing information is that 0only you know how you want the audience to feel at this point... and either version of the Cercei & Jaimie scene can work. Which do *you* think works best? And that is the art part of the job! So let’s look at a couple of couples, both of which have a relationship involving cell phones...

STORY REVEALS

Neil Jordan’s GRETA (2019) is an 80s style thriller like SINGLE WHITE FEMALE and BAD INFLUENCE that features modern cell phone technology put to great use. The 1980s and early 1990s were great decades for thrillers and to some degree the genre has been dormant recently. Chloë Grace Moretz plays Frances, a girl who has just graduated from college and is renting a room from her wealthy college friend Erica (Maika Monroe) in New York City. Frances works as a waitress in an upscale restaurant, and is one of those responsible, hard working people... which is kind of the opposite of her friend Erica. I think this might be Chloe’s first role as an “adult” - she’s played kids and college girls but here she’s all about her job. There is some great character building in the first few minutes involving calls from her father on her cell phone - they have been estranged since the death of her mother, and Frances lets the calls go to voice mail.

One day on the subway, she finds a handbag with an ID and some money inside and sets out to return it to the woman who lost it. Erica thinks they should just take the money and have a spa day... but Frances is the responsible one, and returns the handbag to...

Greta (Isabelle Huppert) a witty and outgoing older woman who lives alone in a large ground floor apartment. Greta invites Frances in for a cup of tea, and they have a nice conversation about being lonely in the big city - Greta’s daughter is away at college in Paris and she never calls. So we have a mother missing her daughter and a daughter missing her mother - see how giving the audience the information in this order would make them think that these two belong together? During this conversation there is some loud pounding on the wall behind Greta’s piano, and she says that her next door neighbors are doing some remodeling, and from the amount of noise they are making you would think that they are building an ark!

To avoid spoiling later scenes I am not going to reveal the relationship that Greta has with her neighbors who are making all of that noise... or how the noisy neighbors become part of the story later. But giving the information about the noisy neighbors early in the story has been done so that you will forget about them. Had this piece of information been given to the audience later in the film, closer to when the noisy neighbors become important to the story, it would have allowed the audience to jump ahead.

Greta invites Frances back for dinner, in appreciation of the returned handbag... and the two have become friends.

Just before the dinner, Greta asks Frances to get the candles from the cupboard, and Frances opens the wrong door and sees a dozen identical handbags, all with the exact same contents as the one she found on the subway. This happens early in the story, maybe around the ten minute mark. The reason why it happens at this point? This is a thriller, and we need to establish the threat early in order to create suspense. Greta isn’t just a lonely mother, she is a stalker looking for a surrogate daughter. Now we get a really creepy dinner scene where Greta keeps saying things that would not sound odd and vaguely threatening if we didn’t know that she had been “fishing” for a friend like Frances.

CELL PHONE TERROR

One of the “problems” with horror and thriller stories now is that everybody has a cell phone, and that means that they can call for help or find their way to safety or take a picture of the monster or whatever. My screenwriter friends hate them... but I love them. My theory is that anything that is a liability is secretly an asset. You just have to figure out how to make the cell phone the protagonist’s problem rather than their solution! They are hiding from the killer... and it rings. The villains can trace the cell phone. Maybe hack it and take pictures to discover where the protagonist is hiding. There are a million ways to make a cell phone work against the protagonist in a horror movie or thriller - find one!

GRETA does a great job of using cell phones. When Frances says that she no longer wants to visit Greta, she starts getting a million texts at work from Greta. Stalking by phone! If she turns her phone off she won’t be able to get important calls, if she leaves it on it buzzes every minute with a message from Greta. Or a missed call from Greta. She turns off her phone ringer, and later there is a great reveal as she looks at her messages - sees Greta’s name, then scrolls through HUNDREDS of messages from Greta. The phone becomes an integral part of the stalking plot - and this reveal show us just how bad things are, And all of these calls and messages from Greta obscure important calls from her father, so they are a great two-fer.

SPOILERS

Greta’s physical self is another element of reveals - when Frances looks outside her apartment window, Greta is standing in the street watching her building like Michael Myers in HALLOWEEN! When she looks across the street from the restaurant that she works at - traffic breaks up revealing Greta across the street. My favorite reveals - not really much of a spoiler - is when Frances goes to a table to greet a new customer and tell them about today’s specials... and it’s Greta! Revealing in this way creates shock in the audience, and a feeling that Greta can just pop up *anywhere* - Frances can never be safe because a car may pull away from the curb revealing Greta!

As Frances realizes that there is no escape from this lonely older woman, who is witty and loves Franz List music and dances when she’s happy (great uncliche characteristics for a stalker), she realizes that she must learn more about Greta in order to stop her. This leads to all kinds of information being revealed, each piece more shocking than the last. All of this information must be concealed in order to be revealed - so the loud next door neighbors and Greta’s estranged daughter in Paris and Greta’s piano and many other pieces of information we get early in the story pay off later when we understand that they conceal other information. They are clues - especially the piano - that reveal secrets later in the story.

The coolest use of the cell phone in the movie is when Greta threatens Frances by stalking her roommate Erica and taking candid photos and sending them to Frances. Frances calls Erica to say - she’s in the same bar as you! As Erica finds a way to sneak out through the delivery door (kind of from the world of restaurants) into the alley - Greta sends Frances a photo of Erica in the alley! No matter where Erica goes, an unseen Greta manages to take a photo of her and send it to Frances’ phone! Every time we thing that Erica has escaped, Frances’ cell phone rings revealing a photo from Greta only a few feet away! This builds great suspense - it’s a creepy chase scene combined with one of my 20 Iconic Thriller Scenes - watching someone in danger and being unable to help (think of the REAR WINDOW scene where Grace Kelly goes across the way to search Raymond Burr’s apartment as Jimmy Stewart watches... and Burr returns home early!). This movie does a great job of inventing new ways for cell phones to add to the suspense!

GRETA is a nice little old school thriller which even includes some shocking horror movie style reveals late in the story. XX lays a Private Detective reminiscent of Arbogast in PSYCHO, and Isabelle Huppert manages to be charming and frightening at the same time. If you find something left behind on the subway, give it to Lost And Found and let them deal with it!

SCENE REVEALS

Reveals can also be used in scenes (like the photo stalking of Erica) and short films, so let's look at one of the shorts that was in competition at the Raindance Film Festival several years ago when I was on the jury: not a thriller, but a delightful little French film called TEOU. In this case we're going to talk about connections between characters that are revealed for effect. It's as if the pieces of the puzzle come together and we can finally see the whole picture for the first time. After a couple breaks up, they try to make up by phone - each walking down crowded streets, talking on their cell phones. The film is split screen - she's on one side, he's on the other. As they dissect what went wrong with their relationship, apologize for past mistakes, profess their love for each other, and even ditch a rebound relationship; they are connected only by voice...

Or are they?

When the story opens, they seem to be in different worlds - she on her side of the screen and he on his. A line cuts through the screen. Both are in urban backgrounds, but they couldn't be more different. One is surrounded by graffitied walls and urban decay, the other on well maintained street with plants and flowers. But as the story continues, we begin to notice similar landmarks. She passes a particular building, and a minute later he passes the same building! They are in the same city! And getting closer together! In an odd way, this is similar to the GRETA stalking Erica scene - proximity between characters on a cell phone revealed to the audience.

When he says something stupid, and she takes a side-street. They may have been coming together before, but now they are coming apart. As they iron out their relationship problems, we begin seeing similar landmarks again. He passes a building and a minute later she walks past the same building. As their conversation continues, we start to spot more landmarks - She passes a fountain, then he passes it! We realize these two are walking around in the same area! Maybe only a block away from each other. They might even be able to see each other... if they weren't so focused on their phone conversations.

Every time it is revealed that one is passing a landmark the other passed only a minute ago, we want to yell at the screen "She's right there!" or "He's a block behind you!". As the time between the landmarks showing up on one side of the screen and the other becomes shorter, we realize they are getting closer to each other. Finally, when they profess their love to each other, we realize that the backgrounds are almost the same... and as each walks towards "center screen" the back grounds become the same. The two weren't in different worlds - they were close to each other all along. The total running time of the short - 7 minutes!

SERENDIPITY does the same thing. When John Cusack gets tangled in the leash of a friendly dalmatian on the streets of New York, we think he's a hundred miles away from his one true love Kate Beckinsale. But when we see Beckinsale a minute later and a man walks past with a friendly dalmatian, it's revealed that they are only a block away from each other! Like magic, she has appeared in his world. These are some of the most amazing scenes in the film - we become involved in the search and the romance because we are given information that neither character has - we know they are close when they think they are far away from each other.

When information is revealed to the audience that is not revealed to the characters, it puts us in a superior position. We know what might happen (or might not happen) and hope the characters make the right choices. This allows the audience to participate in the story - we are INVOLVED. Any time you have a character with an important decision, and show the audience the choices before the character makes the decision, the audience BECOMES the protagonist. They make the decision, then hope the protagonist will make the same decision. The decision to turn left instead of right while walking down a street may seem trivial... but in both SERENDIPITY and TEOU that decision will either take the character into the arms of their true love, or send them in opposite directions.

TEOU was a magical little 7 minute short, brilliant because the proximity of the lovers was revealed with little clues that involved the audience in their relationship. GRETA was an intense little thriller, brilliant for its use of cell phones to reveal the escalating threat. What information do you reveal to the audience in your script? What magic moments do you create by giving information at just the right moment?

This Script Tip gets a shout out in the GRAND FINALES Blue Book that I am currently writing. Reveals in Act Three!


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GRAND FINALES Blue Book!

The Perfect Ending For Your Story!

The First Ten Pages Of Your Screenplay Are Critical,
But What About The Last 10 Pages?

Creating the perfect ending to your story! This 100,000 word book shows you how to end your story with a bang, rather than a whimper. Everything from Resolution Order to Act Three Tools to Happy or Sad Endings? to How The Beginning Of Your Story Has Clues To The Ending (in case you were having trouble figuring out how the story should end) to Falling Action to How To Avoid Bad Endings to Writing The Perfect Twist Ending to Setting Up Sequels & Series to Emotional Resolutions to How To Write Post Credit Sequences to Avoiding Deus Ex Machinas, to 20 Different Types Of Ends (and how to write them) and much more! Everything about endings for your screenplay or novel!

Only: $4.99


NO KINDLE REQUIRED! Get the *free* app (any device, except your Mr. Coffee) on the order page on Amazon!


All About LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING!

bluebook

LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING! Blue Book!

Distilling Your Screenplay!

Loglines, Treatments, Pitching, Look Books, Pitch Decks, One Pagers, Rip-O-Matics?

You have written a brilliant 110 page screenplay, but how do you get anyone to read it? You need to distill it down into some form of verbal moonshine or story rocket fuel that will ignite that bored development executive or manager or agent and get them to request your screenplay. But how do you shrink those 110 pages into a 25 word logline or a 2 minute elevator pitch or a one page synopsis or a short paragraph? This 100,000 word book shows you how! Everything you need to know! From common logline mistakes (and how to solve them) to how your pitch can reveal story problems to the 4 types of pitches!

272 Pages - ONLY $4.99!


READY TO BREAK IN? bluebook

THE BUISINESS SIDE

*** BREAKING IN BLUE BOOK *** - For Kindle!


Should really be called the BUSINESS BLUE BOOK because it covers almost everything you will need to know for your screenwriting career: from thinking like a producer and learning to speak their language, to query letters and finding a manager or agent, to making connections (at home and in Hollywood) and networking, to the different kinds of meetings you are will have at Studios, to the difference between a producer and a studio, to landing an assignment at that meeting and what is required of you when you are working under contract, to contracts and options and lawyers and... when to run from a deal! Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!

Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is over 400 pages!

$4.99 - and no postage!




hcd

FINAL DRAFT SOFTWARE

Use your creative energy to focus on the content; let Final Draft take care of the style. Final Draft is the number-one selling application specifically designed for writing movie scripts, television episodics and stage plays. Its ease-of-use and time-saving features have attracted writers for almost two decades positioning Final Draft as the Professional Screenwriters Choice. Final Draft power users include Academy, Emmy and BAFTA award winning writers like Oliver Stone, Tom Hanks, Alan Ball, J.J. Abrams, James Cameron and more. * * * Buy It!

copyright 2022 by William C. Martell


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SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING

bluebook IT'S BACK! SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING
Over 460 pages packed with tips and techniques. How to write a plot twist, the four kinds of suspense (and how to create it), reversals, ten ways to invent new action scenes, secrets and lies, creating the ultimate villain, five kinds of love interests, MORE! CLICK HERE!

CLASSES ON MP3

Class MP3s CLASSES ON MP3! Take a class on MP3! GUERRILLA MARKETING - NO AGENT? NO PROBLEM! and WRITING THRILLERS (2 MP3s). Full length classes on MP3. Now Available: IDEAS & CREATIVITY, WRITING HORROR, WRITING INDIE FILMS, more!
Take classes on MP3!

MY OTHER SITES

B MOVIE WORLD
Cult Films, Exploitation, Bikers & Women In Prison, Monster Movies.

FIRST STRIKE PRODUCTIONS
Producing my own scripts, investment possibilities, pipe dreams.

NAKED SCREENWRITING MP3s

Naked Class The NAKED SCREENWRITING CLASS ON MP3! The 2001 London Class on 8 MP3s! Recorded *live* the morning after the Raindance Film Festival wrapped. The two day class on 8CD worth, plus a workbook, plus a bonus CD.
The 2 Day Class on MP3!

ONLINE CLASSES
Furious Action Class
BILL'S CORNER

My nineteen produced films, interviews with me in magazines, several sample scripts, my available scripts list... And MORE!
...............................BILL'S CORNER


Available Scripts

E BOOKS PAGE

bluebook E BOOKS: New Blue Books and Novelettes!
I am expanding all of the Blue Books from around 44 pages of text to around 200 pages! Some are over 250 pages! See what is availabale and what is coming soon!Also, I've been writing Novelletes and there will soon be novels.
E BOOKS: BLUE BOOKS & NOVELLETES

BOOKLETS & PRODUCTS

bluebook FIRST STRIKE BLUE BOOKS
Each Blue Book is 48 pages and focuses on a different aspect of screenwriting. Dialogue. Visual Storytelling. Your First Ten Pages. Act 2 Booster. Protagonists. Great Endings.
Seventeen Blue Books now available!

THE SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING OUT OF PRINT!