Film Courage: In what ways can a writer improve their dialogue? Daniel Calvisi: Listening practice, I mean just
keep writing keep rewriting have actors read it out loud I mean they don't have
to be professional actors but just you and a friend read it out loud listen to
how it flows I think that can be really helpful
I like that listening where are we listening listening to how people talk
listening to interesting people around how they talk and then once you write
your dialogue read it out loud you know do a table read with friends or your
writers group or just even if you read it out loud yourself find it interesting
that a lot of times people certain people end their sentences with right or
you know like and they they continually do that is that important because even
though that's not you know if you can get actually irritating after a while
but there's certain people that that's how they sort of they always want
validation for what they're saying so it's right right and women do that a lot
and I must say that about my own gender so we do a lot of right right because we
want people to know that they hurt us and they got what we said do we infuse
things like that into a script or is that become too repetitive well you want
each character to sound unique to themselves you know ideally if you
covered up the character's name and read the line you would be able to tell that
it was that specific character because they should have a specific voice and
yeah if you have a character who needs validation and every sentence you know
ends with right or is that okay or good then you would write that you know but
in listening to how real people talk it doesn't mean you're transcribing it
exactly you know people don't talk like they're in a movie but so there is a
certain amount of you know dramatic license that you have to use but you can
write to cinematically you know you can write to theatrically
into too much like your characters are on stage and that can come through on
the page and that can really hurt your script
can you give me an example of that I find that interesting cuz I've
definitely seen that in films where it doesn't feel real good well I would say
to writers that do that a lot would be Aaron Sorkin and David Mamet but that's
their style and they've been around for years and they can get away with it you
know and they write produce movies so when we go see an Aaron Sorkin or David
Mamet film we know that that's the style of dialogue that they're going to employ
it's gonna be a little bit more poetic a little bit more about speeches a little
bit more you know stage ii but we know that about their style any writers that
have impeccable dialogue where you you just feel like they're real people and
you're in a restaurant overhearing someone in another table have an
interesting conversation that's a good question
i like i like paul thomas anderson any of the any of the Best Screenplay
winners of recent years you know they all have really great scripts I would
say Diablo Cody sometimes can get a little bit too too stylized or stagey
but in general I think she has a really good really good voice for her
characters are very distinct and it's just important to find an interesting
way to express an idea even if it's a simple idea an example that would be in
pulp fiction there's a moment where Bruce Willis character goes to buy some
cigarettes and he says to the bartender he says one pack of red apples and the
bartender says filters and he says none and that's just a really cool fast
interesting exchange there as opposed to five lines to explain what brand of
cigarettes he wants and oh you know what how about no filters in those cigarettes
you know because it's very Norrish feel it's very you know clipped and dark and
tight and it's just filters none and that just gets the the idea across
you