Film Courage: Can you give an example of what
needs to happen in the first three pages of a screenplay?
Cody Smart, Writer/Script Doctor/Teacher: I love that because I teach a class on getting your
script contest ready. In this class we focus on the first three pages and how important they are.
It used to be that you needed something amazing to happen in the first 15 pages of your script
but audience has attention today with social media and everything online. I'm like much prefer you
need to grab their attention right away hopefully in page one not even page three for me it's that
page one needs to be amazing and I always say that that page needs to show either your protagonist or
your antagonist in action and by that obviously I don't mean giant explosion you could be writing a
dramatic piece that doesn't have that it's more about showing who they are by what they're doing
not just describing it I don't like slow openings where they're just waking up going through their
morning routine and in page three then they leave the house and something happens give me
me something right away show me who they are but what they're doing don't just describe it yes you
can get away with giving us a description when you first introduce your character and you're writing
like their name their age and a little something about them but if you're also showing us who they
are maybe they're in the meds of an interesting conversation debating something exciting you're
showing us oh these are the type of characters that have a point of view they have an opinion
so that could also be showing them in action but I think that that needs to happen in those first
three pages you need to show something unique like for example an exercise that I love to do
with my students is rewriting the opening of friends if you could do that how would
you do it because if you actually read the pilot which is great and I love the show it's an older
show now we expect things to happen quicker so I always tell my students okay so how would you get
get this amazing teaser and make it quicker well Rachel should show up much quicker in the actual
pilot it takes like 10 pages for Rachel to walk through those doors in her wedding dress and oh
everything clicks for everyone because Ross is into her and then the Dynamics start because it
starts pretty slow it's good it's funny but it's just the other characters they're just talking
they're sharing anecdotes about dating in your 20s in New York City which is fun but that could be
later in the pilot like you can show a little bit of their Dynamics one page of this like fan banter
but then introduce Rachel which is the element of surprise that's what we want to see we want to see
something shaking the dynamic shaking The Ordinary World of the characters and also in action because
as soon as she walks in then we understand oh my God Ross is in love with her and he's like this
jittery guy that just gets up because she's there he opens the umbrella and like all of the physical
comedy so if you can get something like that in the first three ages of your script and not by
page 10 or 15 like it used to be then that's when you're grabbing your audience's attention well
if we took let's say Breaking Bad or the Queen's Gambit a lot of things happened in the beginning
of those shows but forgive me going back to When Harry Met Sally how would we see conflicts within
the first three pages it's been a little bit but it's a fairly tame movie What conflict exists what
what antagonists exist well they are I always say that the movie's Harry's movie and Sally is
Harry's antagonist because he's really the one with the arc in the movie and if you think even
the title it's When Harry Met Sally right like what happens to him this pessimistic person
that has to read the last page of their of a book before even starting the book in case he dies or
if something happens he meets his exact opposite the super chipper happy personality that just
clashes with him right she thinks that you can be friends with men he doesn't think that you can do
that things like that so I think that in that case that dynamic is the way I would introduce it right
away and it kind of is there in the script it just takes a little bit because like Harry's kind of
saying goodbye to the girl who's his girlfriend at the time but I would get to that quicker I
would just have the goodbye happen immediately in the first quarter of the first page and then just
get them in the car Harry and Sally and her being like oh you said goodbye and then just get to that
banter because that's how I would introduce those characters in action which is the way I think that
you should introduce your protagonist they should be sharing those points of view right away so
she could be being all the chipper and he could just bring out his ideas on
like books and stuff like that and that's how I would introduce it in the first three pages
also because when you're talking to writers about those three page count or whatever it's because
you want to grab readers attentions and one of the best ways to get your career started is to
send your scripts to competitions and things like that and in competitions imagine that thousands
and thousands of scripts that they get right it's overwhelming to even think about and in a lot of
competitions the first round they kind of like read the first Pages if they're not really hooked
they might pass on it the big competitions are mandated to read the whole thing right
away but there's still many to go through that you're reading like that and you're like okay
I'm not engaged by Page Three I'm not really advancing you to the next stage so you want
to really grab that reader's attention and be like okay there's something interesting here
the voice of the writer that has to come out in those first three pages the protagonist
or the antagonist has to be introduced in an interesting way and that's really how you hook
your reader why do you say the first three pages have to be the best three pages of the script
because you always get a first impression it's like the moment you see someone you already get
an idea of who they are just by looking at them or something like that when you get a script and you
get that first page it's like that first dance that you're having with a script if the first
page is not formatted correctly for example it's like looking at someone who's dressed terribly and
you're like you're getting that impression from them so everything needs to look good on the page
you need to know screenwriting formatting and that but then obviously it's not just that it's
way more than that you have to be introducing a character in an exciting way you have to be
revealing the world the tone the genre there's a lot of elements that need to be included in
those three pages and that tells your reader that your story your genre what you're saying who your
characters are and there's sort of a promise of that story you're about to tell so for example
in that first page I should immediately know if you're telling a comedy a drama a thriller or what
it is or if it's a mashup a horror comedy there should be a little bit of both in that first page
so I immediately know what to expect when I'm reading the world should be evident right is
this a world where magical occurrences happen I hate reading a script where the magic doesn't
happen until page 20 something and there's no little setup of the beginning of anything and
then whoa I'm like taking out of the world of the story because like I'm like okay you set up
a certain world with certain rules you can't just magically change everything without like little
setups I'm not saying a magical occurrence has to happen on page one but you have to set it up as a
world where magical occurrences could potentially happen sometimes you plan something like they use
crystals they're playing with a Ouija board or something just to tell you there's something like
that that is okay in this world and then obviously an interesting protagonist or antagonist something
interesting in action maybe a twist by page three and then also most importantly your voice and your
point of view have to be there as a writer I feel like producers and contests and anyone out there
who wants to read scripts is trying to discover new voices that's really what they're trying to do
stories are so many out there and so many writers so what makes you the best person
to tell a certain story because a lot of people are trying to tell the same story as you right
that's why you can't copyright an idea you can copyright a script but not just your idea it's
all about your voice your point of view I love for example Juno that's one of my favorite examples
because Diablo Cody was her very first script she won the Academy Award for this and the story is
so simple if you think about it it's a teenage girl that gets pregnant that has been told I
don't know how many times but probably hundreds of times it's a simple story she gets pregnant
what happens she eventually gives the baby out for adoption but what made Juno unique is that a voice
it was so impressive of Diablo Cody capture a voice of a generation in this teenagers that
talked with a level of banter that had never been seen before they were so snappy so original they
just kept you at the edge of your seat because they were witty they were so interesting to listen
to they had quick comebacks that just flew off the page so that makes that script unique even though
it's the stories being told so many times and even in that first page you see that Juno is taking a
pregnancy test at this convenience these store and and she's just having this banter with the clerk
there about like an Etch A Sketch and things like that like they're trying to read the pregnancy
test and he's like it's not like an Etch A Sketch you can just like change the answer things like
that just show the point of view that a voice so unique the way you're describing things and that's
what you're trying to discover in those three first few pages of a script especially in a
contest to get so many submissions producers agents the same get them that first impression
that is unique and they want to keep reading you get so many scripts when I was working at a desk
at the studio a million years ago I would just have piled some piles of scripts and I would
just like glance at them at first and be like oh this first page looks interesting okay I will read
this one first so give them a reason to read your script right away and want to keep turning pages
which is more common a great first three pages of a script or three bad pages of a script
s to say that it's more common like three bad pages I always say that out of a hundred scripts
I would maybe recommend three that's not to say that there's nothing in the other scripts that's
not salvageable obviously I would say there's a lot to work with most of the times but sadly
bad pages are more common than the first three being great and it's sad because a lot of the
times the greatest comes after they're just not hooking me right away so a lot of the times as
I'm reading the script and I'm giving notes to the writer I'm suggesting why don't you move this
up to the beginning the way for example Breaking Bad did it and that's one of my favorite examples
when I'm talking about how to do a great pilot Breaking Bad is a very unique case because it's
technically a premise pilot which I always say it's a No-No a premise pilot is when basically
you're telling all of like the backstory or setup and only at the end the story actually begins and
that's boring because if we're writing a pilot what we want is the template for a real episode
right because we're only reading the pilot we're not reading any other episodes unless obviously
eventually you get to write them so what you want where you're reading a pilot is to see exactly
what the style and story will be week after week right if you're writing a premise pilot on the
story only starts at the end then you are not really giving me a template for what to expect
with Breaking Bad the way they did that is so unique because they cheated the system basically
and gave us a flash forward at the very beginning the pilot starts with Walter in the future in
like the Winnebago and his undies running from everything that's happening cooking bad things
and everything he's recording himself for his wife and saying this is not an admission of
guilds but I love you blah blah we hear the siren of the cops and everything so we're like oh my God
what did this guy do then he had two and we go to the past which is really the start of the episode
and this backstory that set up where he's a boring depressed chemistry teacher with a teenage son a
baby on the way midlife crisis all of that then he gets diagnosed with cancer and all of that
have the pilot not started with that killer Flash Forward it would have been really slow paced and
we maybe would not have been as hooked so that's a great example in those first three pages really
hook the reader because they show me the promise of the show this Flash Forward tells me oh okay
this show will get really interesting because this person is going to be running from the police or
whatever cooking bad things and then the contrast to this chemistry teacher in the midlife crisis
and the rest of the episode kind of follows that pattern more like his day-to-day life and showing
us his crisis and all of that his diagnosis and everything but we already know what to expect so
we're trying to find little tidbits there of like oh my god when is he literally Breaking Bad which
is the title of the show when the whole Arc of the show right the five seasons are about Walter
Breaking Bad so we're trying to find little plans in the episode of oh my god when is he going to go
somewhere that it's going to lead to that opening but those three pages are really what sold the
show in my opinion because oh that's the promise of what I want to watch what if I bump it up what
if I say I'm gonna give you all the good stuff and the first one and a half and Maya is that
premature am I rushing it oh no I don't think so I mean honestly if you can give me a shocker by the
end of page one that hooks me even more and I want to read more obviously try to continue delivering
and not just give me a twist then and then just a super passive script as it goes along try
and give us some twists and revelations but the sooner you can hook your audience I think is best
and so for your class that you do getting your screenplay contest ready it's at UCLA extension at
grade school by the way and um so you have people do sort of mock readings and you because I saw in
the description that everyone's going to bring one completed screenplay so yeah I mean we do
different sort of exercises the same as we do sort of in my script doctoring class obviously focus
in different areas one would be more focusing on your script and getting it contest ready and the
script doctoring is how you would doctor other people's scripts but I like to get those pages
and sort of like implement all of these things and try to see how would you how would you hook your
audience sooner What would how would you take what's here and work around to really reflect
all of the things that we're learning all of the things that we've mentioned like they're
presenting your character in action or delivering a Twist or showing your voice the world the tone
the genre all of that in those first one to three pages of your script and is that really
what you're you're working on the entire no it's not the entire course obviously like we we work
on that a little bit and then on other areas on how to really improve your scripts and how
to appeal to contest readers or things like that because obviously it's not just about those three
pages if you're sending your script and you hope to win a contest it's about the entire finished
work right so we would talk about the structure and we would talk about how the protagonist arc
has to be connected to all of the turning points and how you have to plant all of the right seeds
in act one that need to be paid off by act three or for example how you have to have a protagonist
that has a clear core wound or flaw that is going to affect the way they go about their Journey
right they they have to change they have to Arc and there has to be something set up and then we
need to see tidbits of this growth right maybe at the midpoint we have a step back and then things
get worse before they get better and tracking all of those different elements to deliver a
full thing because it's again obviously the first three pages need to be amazing but that's not your
entire script you need to deliver a complete final product right so it all needs to track
whatever you set up there needs to be paid off and I think that you need to give your audience credit
you they love kind of putting the pieces together of all of this planting that you're doing in the
script so if you can plan something in those first three pages and then kind of deliver later and
have a great payoff then you're connecting with your reader you're connecting with your audience
you're giving them the credit that they're putting the pieces together creating the story
that they're getting involved in because you're giving them little things to get involved with.