Film Courage: I saw you write something about “Dull Bits” in a script and I’m curious
what that means?
Wendy Kram, owner of Wendy’s LA4hire: Yes.
[Alfred] Hitchcock has one of my favorite quotes and let’s see for all of those who
are Hitchcock aficionados forgive me if I don’t have it exactly right but it’s something
to the effect of “Movies are exactly like real life but with all the dull bits cut out.”
And essentially if you think about films you are lying.
Movies are lies.
So let’s say you’re doing a story about about Helen Keller or Abraham Lincoln.
Let’s say the span where it takes place over a year or takes place over a lifetime
or twenty years.
We’re seeing a 2-hour movie generally speaking (an hour and a half, two hours, a little more).
It’s a consolidation of real life so you have to cut out the dull bits.
This is also a common mistake I see with writers is the need to explain the entrance into a
scene and leaving.
We don’t need to see characters walking into a door, walking down the hall way, unless
of course it’s very purposeful, you’re doing a thriller and someone is walking down
a hall way and there may be someone in another room that they don’t know about (it’s
very purposeful).
But we don’t need to see another character entering and saying “Hi!
Oh, I just came in from the grocery store.”
We don’t need to play that scene out and then see the character say “Okay, I’m
leaving now.”
I’m exaggerating a bit but there have been scripts that I’ve read where every scene
practically starts with the character entering and existing.
Another example would be if we see a husband and wife and they are heading to the in-laws.
We don’t have to see them get in the car, put their kids in the little seatbelt, baby
seat, drive the full distance (obviously) or even part of the distance and we see them
get out of the driveway, walk up the door, ring the doorbell.
So that’s an example of you cut out deliberately those dull bits.
Law & Order will sometimes say to writers “Think of the Law & Order edits.”
So you may have a scene where one of the detective says “So do you know about…have you ever
seen this victim?”
“You know what?
The last time I saw her she was partying with her friend Jessie.”
Where do you find Jessie?
“She’s always hanging out at such-and-such club.”
Boom!
We’re at the club and sometimes we might pick up a scene mid conversation.
So that’s one example of taking out dull bits.
Film Courage: That’s a great analogy, I like that.
Do you think people get some of that confused with novel writing?
Wendy: Yes.
And even in novels you don’t always have characters entering and existing but with
novel writing one of the things you can do is get fully inside the head of your character.
So if she’s walking down the street and she sees a leaf and it reminds her of when
she was young and (this is in Faulkner) and lost her virginity.
We don’t have the luxury in scripts, you can do of course a fantasy sequence or a flashback
but generally speaking you can’t go on and you can’t just like in book describe smells.
In a movie you can’t really describe smell.
You can say that a character burns toast and there is smoke coming out of the toaster,
so definitely it has to be much more economical.
One of the things I’ve said a lot (I was an English major), one of my greatest teachers
was Shakespeare and when I say that of course I had wonderful teachers who were guides but
one of the greatest teachers is reading great authors, great screenwriters, great playwrights.
I talk about a lot of times with writers giving them feedback about not writing with exposition.
Harold Pinter is a master at subtext, I recommend Matthew Weiner (MAD MEN).
Characters rarely say exactly what they’re feeling, there is so much subtext and it just
makes the writing that much more powerful.
Film Courage: Do you think the lost art of novel reading will come back?
Wendy: I don’t know if I feel it’s that lost even though Barnes and Noble is sadly
closing but I think there are just so many wonderful books out there and I know so many
people who are in book clubs and J.K.
Rowling, bless her!
She is responsible for getting more people (more children) into reading and there are
so many great authors out there and of course as we know books are a great, great source
for movies.
Hollywood loves intellectual properties, they like source material.
Another strategy sometimes with screenwriters they have a script and it’s well-written
and they’ve been having a hard time for whatever reason gaining traction.
Sometimes they may turn it into a book and if the book starts to get traction then they
sort of reverse engineer, go back and then sell the script.
Sell the book and the script based on the book.