(TELLING STORIES FROM THE OUTSIDE, THE INSIDE, AND ALL THE WAY THROUGH)
by John Skipp
Dear kids –
Turns out I’ve got an insane little multi-media challenge in front of me, over the next several months. It’s the kind of insanely ambitious project I’ve always wanted to tackle; but now that I’m actually doing it, it is thoroughly kicking my ass.
To whit:
1) I’ve got one month to completely rewrite my JAKE’S WAKE screenplay, in order to produce and direct the actual feature film in early December.
2) I’ve got four months to complete the novel JAKE’S WAKE, in order to get it into bookstores next summer.
In other words, I’ve got a modest but legitimate cash deal for each. Which is an absolutely wonderful thing.
The flipside, of course, is that I’ve got AT LEAST TWO WHOPPING SHITLOADS OF WORK TO DO, in order to pull this off.
Which is to say, yep: it’s another one of those “Be careful what you wish for, CUZ YOU JUST MIGHT GET IT” scenarios Rod Serling liked to warn us about (and we wonder why that poor bastard chain-smoked four packs a day!).
So, anyway: here’s how I’m approaching the whole thing, strategically. So as to actually make it not only happen, but maybe even make it sing.
PART ONE
THE OUTLINE/OVERVIEW
First things first. I’ve got to tell myself this story in relatively broad strokes. And tell it from start to finish. Making note of every scene that needs to take place. Making it tight, and propulsive, and virtually fat-free.
At the same time, I need to clock all the implications of the story I’m telling. Recognize the themes both large and small. Make sure the character stuff reflects the big picture, and vice versa.
Make sure that everything that needs to get said and done is right there, in the framework.
I give myself a week for this, as a solid first draft. I give myself 30 single-spaced pages, max, to play with.
From there, I move on to
PART TWO
THE SHOOTING SCRIPT
Now I concentrate on sound and vision exclusively, within the parameters of a 90-minute story. One page of script per minute of movie is the accepted unit of measurement. So I’m looking at maybe 90 single-spaced pages. (Minus opening and closing credits, I’m thinking more like 85.)
Understand: this is a low-budget film. Think NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD/HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER low. There will be no Bruce Willis driving a car through the air to collide with a fucking helicopter here. (And no big dumb CGI monsters, neither!)
Every single penny counts. Because every single second costs.
And I am cool with that.
So I am essentially tripling the size of the outline: adding in all the important dialogue, and showing the actors and camera how to tell the story.
Which means that – even though I am extending the narrative – I’m still dialed down to nothing but the key moments needed to make a great film, fleshed out just enough to count with maximum impact. Cutting to the chase, in every conversation. Moving quickly from one pivotal act to the next. Catching deeper details on the fly, by implication, or just leaving ‘em out altogether. For now.
Honed-down dialogue. Amped-up action. Mood set with minimal verbiage and ultra-tight, ultra-specific visual imagery.
I give myself three weeks for this working draft. Possibly four.
And then two more things happen.
a) We bring the full production team together, and start workshopping the script. Hire a production designer to lock down the look of the set. Hire fx artists to design the effects. Secure and photograph the location, so everyone knows what we have to work with. Bring the Director of Photography back in, so we can design the lighting and the shots. Bring the actors back in, so we can dial the performances. Get my studio back up and running, so I can start recording the original score. And…
b) I start writing
PART THREE
THE NOVEL
At this point, I have the story locked down and fleshed out with dialogue, momentum, and (presumably) powerful imagery.
Now it’s time to get inside these characters, and experience it from their points of view. Live inside their skins, in the moment-to-moment, and express all the things that a movie just can’t.
It’s time to let the language dance around the beats pre-set by the outline and screenplay. Time to connect all the dots, both seen and unseen.
Time, in short, to act like a real fucking writer.
All of the previous steps are essential for the collaborative act that is film. And they will come in INCREDIBLY handy, in the context of writing the novel.
But in many ways, I feel like screenwriting isn’t real writing at all. It’s just the verbal part of filmmaking: a weird combination of storytelling shorthand and organizational blueprint haiku.
A screenplay comes alive when you start shooting, on a pre-dressed and pre-lit location. The actors bring the characters to life. The production designer brings the location to life. And the camera writes it all down on film or digital videotape.
In the novel, it’s all down to the words. And if they don’t come to life – and bring the life of the story vibrantly into the reader’s life, with all of the muscle and insight and emotion and soul intact – well, then it’s bound to be a pretty shitty novel.
I’ve given myself three months to write it, double-spaced out across some 80,000 words.
And then I shoot the film.
———-
The coolest thing about this whole process, for me, is that the mediums get to feed each other. Stuff I learn while writing the novel will doubtless inform the final shooting script.
And things I learn, while building the film, will doubtless clarify and deepen the novel.
The macro-lens is the overview: looking at the story as if from above; ascertaining its structural integrity; making sure the center holds.
Micro-gnosis comes in with all the little details, those places where God (and yeah, yeah, the Devil, too) resides.
In this way, I hope to build a book and film that reinforce each other, while thoroughly standing by themselves.
And since I’m doing the music, maybe you’ll get a nice soundtrack album, too!
WISH ME LUCK, is all I’m sayin’.
And I hope this has been useful, in the course of devising your own storytelling plans.
Yer tough l’il’ monkey-pal,
Skipp
14 Comments, Comment or Ping
Bob
Skipp, you’ve got quite a full plate there pal… no two ways about it. But I’ve gotta say… damn that sounds fun. =)
Get to it m’friend. Like many others, I’ve got faith in ya. If you believe it’ll happen, it’ll happen.
Now go be the whirling dervish I know only you can be.
bob
Aug 6th, 2007
rjones
Wow! I’m out of breath just reading your proposed schedule. I hope the mutual feeding of one medium by the other works as planned. Were it my assignment to do what you outlined, I would have more hours to spend because I would probably not be able to relax enough to sleep until it was completed.
Good luck,
R C Jones
Aug 6th, 2007
David Niall Wilson
Ah, you make it sound HARD (lol) Have fun man…multimedia lives are the order of the day.
DNW
Aug 6th, 2007
Brian Hodge
Whoa, Skipp … looks like you picked the wrong year to stop sniffing glue!
That’s one seriously compressed to-do list, but the synergistic effects of one on the other on the other should be amazing … and an advanced education unto themselves. I look forward to continued reports from the front lines.
But if you aren’t going to kill a helicopter with a car … it’s – it’s like you’re not even trying, man.
Aug 6th, 2007
Gorelets
All those strands spooling around together in one huge creative ball of energy…. that’s nirvana, Skipp! Best wishes in every thread.
Aug 6th, 2007
John Skipp
THANKS, YOUZE GUYS!!!
Dear Brian — I no longer sniff glue…I just use to hold my stupid ass together!
And if THAT ain’t tryin’…(can’t even finish foolish sentence). HEE HEE HEE!
Dear R.C. — Hilariously, rest and relaxation are gonna be the only things that make this possible.
Without them, I would fry like a fucking twig within the first three weeks.
Dear Bob — Thanks, man. Whirling dervishes are now my official totem mystics for this one: guys who dance and spin themselves into enlightenment.
Dear Dave — Here’s to REAL LIVES, with perky multimedia components!
Dear Mike — DON’T YOU KNOW IT, MY FRIEND!
Yer very grateful pal,
Skipp
Aug 6th, 2007
Janet Berliner
Sounds like heaven to me. –J.
Aug 6th, 2007
Sean The Butcher
Go Skipp Go!
It’s so great to see all this coming to fruition for you man. I can totally relate to the “be careful what you wish for” comment.
Aug 6th, 2007
Anonymous
No matter how busy you get, don’t quit catering to the porno sets! Our boys and girls need their protein!
Congrats, brother!
yer pal,
Pic
Aug 6th, 2007
John Skipp
Dear Pic –
You know good and well that those boys and girls make their OWN protein!
EWWWWWW…!!!
Dear Janet — If Heaven gives you a double hernia, then I am definitely there!
Dear Sean — I’m GOIN’! I’m GOIN’!
Love,
Skipp
P.S. — THANKS, EVERYBODY!
Aug 6th, 2007
Frank Wydra
Hey man, you’ve done it, reinvented the art. Start with this little thirty-pager that you peddle as a short story somewhere along the way. Morph that into a script. Product two. And wrap it all up with the full treatment novel. Trifecta.
Not a bad process and every part of it saleable. The only bummer is the timeline. But for normal folks, doing normal work, that can be stretched.
Hats off to you, Skipperoo.
Frank
Aug 6th, 2007
Sully
Hey, check out the word “delegate.” Man, you are asking for serious escape problems. Though maybe the solution is what you said about script and novel reinforcing each other. Could be a lot of 2 for the price of 1 there, if you can collate. Bestest on all of it. It is a hoot!
– Sully (Thomas Sullivan)
Aug 6th, 2007
John Skipp
Dear Frank — It’s kind of like eating EVERY PART OF THE ANIMAL, or something!
And yes, I think there’s utility in the 3-stage process, even for people who AREN’T trying something so ridiculous, or are doing so at a far saner pace.
Dear Sully — Man, you wouldn’t believe how many things I’m NOT doing on this film! (I’m not the cameraman, or the editor, for example: two jobs that I originally thought I might do.)
And thank God I figured out — a looooooong time ago — that I am not an actor!
So, yeah, there’s a lot of three-way overlap in the various stages, and LOTS of excellent people to help with just about every stage.
I’m a lucky, lucky, lucky lad.
THANKS, YOU GUYS!
Love,
Skipp
Aug 7th, 2007
John Skipp
Dear gang –
Interesting side-note: over at Shocklines, a friend of mine just asked, “Since all the screenplays I own are double-spaced, wouldn’t a 90-minute screenplay be 180 pages long???”
Here’s my response, which I hope might come in handy for anyone else with a similar confusion.
* * *
Dear Mr. Phil –
You hve double-spaced scripts from WHERE?
I’m asking in all seriousness, since I gather you are, too.
Aside from the whole “centering of dialogue” thang, which I don’t know how to do on a message board, scripts should look something like…
CUT TO:
INT. BEDROOM — MORNING
Skipp gapes at the words on his computer screen. Visible question marks float, balloon-like, around his head.
SKIPP
What the fuck is Phil talking about?
He swats at the question marks, but they will not float away. He pulls a pin from his bonnet. The question marks tremble.
CUT TO:
INT. PHIL’S OFFICE — MORNING
Phil busily inflates THOUSANDS OF QUESTION MARKS with an air pump, by hand. The office is filled with them. Dozens logjam in the open window, trying to squeeze their way free.
PHIL
(hollering)
Make ‘em think, boys! MAKE ‘EM THINK!
CUT TO:
EXT. MOUNTAINTOP — MORNING
As the question marks soar majestically, then scatter in the wind.
————
So, yeah. You put a space between CUT TO and EXT. — BLAH BLAH, then a space between that and the next wad of description.
But the actual writing — when more than one line long — is single-spaced. Same with dialogue. And so on.
Are you reading scripts in books, where they might’ve put a little half-space between everything for formatting purposes? Or are you buying scripts at cons, or reading them online, or what?
Anyway, the answer is, “No, scripts aren’t double-spaced.” If you handed a producer a double-spaced script, he would hand it directly to the nearest trash can.
Hope that helped!
Yer pal,
Skipp
* * *
And there ya have it!
Yer pal some more,
Skipp
Aug 7th, 2007
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