I’m writing a romantic movie, but the last days I have been thinking if the story is credible or not. What do I have to do to write a credible romantic story?

– Stefano Vettorazzi Campos
Uruguay

You have to make us care whether the two lead characters end up together, which is really two requirements:

1. Characters we give a shit about. They don’t need to be likable, necessarily, but they need to be compelling. We need to be curious about what they’re going to do next.

2. A credible reason to keep them apart. This could be almost anything — war, prejudice, a sinking boat — but if we don’t buy it, you’re toast.

I’d argue that #2 is actually more important than #1.

Cast some attractive actors and we’ll want to see them kiss. But I get angry watching romances in which the hurdles are set too low. If there’s nothing stopping the characters from running off to live happily ever after at the midpoint, why bother?

I’ve been frustrated with not being able to get a project together to direct this year, and have a couple unproduced short scripts sitting around that I kind of like.

I’m considering getting into machinima to animate my films, using software like Moviestorm or iClone. Have you ever considered using machinima as a method of telling stories? I wonder what would happen if an awesome writer got involved in a burgeoning storytelling medium like machinima.

– John
San Diego

Machinima — using videogame engines to create animation — sits smack in the middle of a very geeky Venn diagram. It’s easy to do, but tricky to do well. It’s extremely limited and wildly liberating. And it hasn’t broken out of its niche yet.

So do it. Full speed ahead. But don’t do it because it’s simple. Do it because you want to make something cool.

In considering which projects to do, I’d urge you to think along two axes:

1. Suitability for machinima. On one extreme, you have Red vs. Blue, which uses Halo to make a comedy about characters in Halo. On the other extreme, projects that seem particularly ill-suited for machinima — say, Hamlet — might be especially awesome simply for their outside-the-boxness.

2. Production values. Do you want it to look amazing, rivaling something Pixar could make? Or should it be endearingly crappy? Consider a machinima version of Clerks. Just as that movie wouldn’t have worked if it were shot in IMAX, your little project might benefit from some rough pixels.

Readers, feel free to link your favorite machinima examples.

I want to know more about proper formatting of the new documentary aesthetic that’s been brought about by shows like The Office and Modern Family. I’m referencing specifically the ironic or conspiratorial glances into camera, the unexplained interview shots. These shows seem to have the assumption that there’s a documentary crew present. I love that! And I love the potential for humor it brings about.

My question is this: how would that be written in a script other than through the use of “into camera”? Is there a way to indicate that an entire film or pilot would be shot in this manner? I’m also interested in your general stylistic take on this and whether or not you think we’ll see this approach used in feature films successfully?

– Ashleigh
Los Angeles CA

The faux-documentary trend has detractors, but I think it works very well in the two shows you mention.

Each show will have its own house style for how they format it in the script,¹ but it’s usually handled in the slugline when the whole scene is directed towards the camera:

These shows tend to treat the camera as an unnamed character who either (a) is aware of something other characters in the scene aren’t, or (b) might take something embarrassing out of context unless clarified.

If a character is directing a line or a look to camera, call that out. (If it helps, think of “camera” as a producer standing right next to the lens.)

Reference the camera sparingly. Unless the point of your script is the documentary itself (c.f. The Comeback), you’re likely to undercut the comedy or drama by acknowledging that characters are aware their actions are being filmed.

1. As always, if you’re writing a spec episode of a existing show, hunt down one of its scripts and follow its lead exactly. ↩

Bruce Schneier on the danger of worst-case thinking:

You can’t be too careful!

Actually, you can. You can refuse to fly because of the possibility of plane crashes. You can lock your children in the house because of the possibility of child predators. You can eschew all contact with people because of the possibility of hurt.

He argues that we’re making bad decisions on the basis of what is possible rather than what is probable. Does anticipating disaster really make us safer? Are the costs worth it?

Schneier and I agree that one group certainly benefits from this kind of Black Swan doom-and-glooming: screenwriters.

Basically, any fear that would make a good movie plot is amenable to worst-case thinking.

When I’m waiting for a meeting, I’ll often wonder, “If Godzilla fell back into this building, knocking it over, would I climb ‘up’ or ‘down’ to get out?” That’s somewhat productive thinking for a screenwriter.

For a policy-maker, less so.

I’m in Manhattan, about a block away from today’s actually-not-a-bomb scare. So I can verify that in real life, people do say this phrase.

But in movies, maybe they shouldn’t anymore.

/via Scott Murphy

I had coffee today with a writer-director whose acclaimed short film got him many awards and meetings all over town. And deservedly: it’s terrific, a labor of love that took several years to make.

He said he was finishing up the screenplay for the feature version. I told him to focus on something else instead. You shouldn’t make the feature version of your short.

This seems like terrible advice. After all, it’s easy to think of several acclaimed filmmakers who expanded upon their short films, including Neill Blomkamp and George Lucas.

But having worked with many emerging filmmakers through the Sundance Institute and other programs, I’ve encountered a lot of silent evidence that suggests it’s a pretty bad idea.¹

1. Great shorts are great and short. The perfect haiku isn’t improved by rewriting it as a sonnet.

2. You will burn out on the idea. Having already made the short, do you want to spend several more years making it again?

3. Show what else you can do. A career isn’t one movie, or one idea. Even if you make the movie and it turns out great, you’ve still only told one story so far in your career.

4. Safety is paralysis. It’s less intimidating to expand on something familiar. But you need to push against your boundaries.

Your first feature project should ideally be in the same class or genre as your acclaimed short, but not a retread. If you made a charming short about blind leprechauns, write a feature about kleptomaniac crows. Let the connection between projects be your ambition and sensibility, not a single storyline.

Go was originally written to be a short film — but we never shot it. Had the short version been made, I can’t imagine going back to write the full thing. I would have been too hamstrung by my original choices, and the scenes that had already been shot.

Worse, I wouldn’t have felt the same things the second time through. You don’t get your first kiss twice.

1. Silent evidence: You’re only seeing the movies that got made and released, not the ones that didn’t. ↩