Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction.
"- Five persons including actress Sharon Tate
were found dead
inside the posh $200,000 home
in the Hills overlooking Los Angeles."
But sometimes fiction can ring truer than fact.
Modern screenplays are increasingly mixing fact with fiction
in fascinating ways.
"- I think I saw many colors in it, man, what is this?"
Kevin Garnett is an actual NBA All-Star.
"- Garnett with a tough baseline turnaround jumper."
- That's my man."
But Howard is fictional.
This is Charlie Kaufman.
Charlie is real.
And his twin brother Donald is not.
"- Come on. Sing with me."
Sharon Tate is a real actress.
Rick and Cliff are 100% Tarantino.
All of them illustrate
the unique power screenwriter has.
To bend.
Break.
Or rewrite the rules of reality.
Leaving viewers with something completely unexpected.
"- What the...!"
♪ Page to Script Intro ♪
Great screenwriters see fact and fiction
as elements of style.
That's because they treat the truth like a bomb.
Alfred Hitchcock had a lesson about bombs.
"- Four people are sitting around a table
very dull.
Now take the same scene
and tell the audience there is bomb
under that table
and will go off in five minutes.
Well, the whole emotion of the audience
is totally different."
When a writer plants a bomb
in this case real people or true story
inside a work of fiction
the viewer is held captive throughout the film.
Locked in with a simple question
will this story end the same way it did in real life?
Or differently.
With our screenplays in StudioBinder,
we can see how these writers build compelling fictions
atop a foundation of truth.
"- KG, huh."
"- Back him down. Back him down.
Fuck you! Yes! That's it!"
In some cases, historical events can be nested
inside scripted drama.
This is what's known as "Docu-Fiction".
One such story is "Uncut Gems".
In Josh and Benny's Safdie script,
true events from Kevin Garnett's life
and fictitious events from Howard's
converge in the same narrative.
KG becomes obsessed with the shimmering jam.
This is our scripted scenario.
"- Why's it got so many colors in it, man? What is this?"
- That's the thing, they say you can see
the whole universe in opals...
that's how fuckin' old they are."
Notice how the Safdie brothers insert photographs from KG's real life.
"- That's a sign. I need this.
You understand that?"
Howard lens KG the opal.
And that's what fuels his success.
"- KG having fun."
But it serves a practical purpose too.
It propels the plot.
"- I want Garnett's points and rebounds. Garnett's block shots.
Celtics opening tip...?"
The script establishes a cause and effect
between KG's real-life performance
and Howard's fiction. gambling addiction.
"- I have every intention of paying you back.
I'm broke right now.
- You're broke? What's that one?"
It wraps up our anxiety
as we watch him a catastrophic decisions.
"- C'mon KG
this is no different than that,
this is me, all right?
I'm not a fuckin' athlete
this is my fucking way.
This is how I win. All right?
Let's fucking bet on this.
Let's bet on this shit.
I'm, fucking, gonna bet all this money on you tonight, KG."
The docu-fiction approach can add a texture of realism
to your films look and feel.
"- He's got the gem. Feel that, fucking, gem."
But it's rigid parameters tied to real-life events
also encourage inventive storytelling.
It can push you to craft
a more character-driven story.
"- Yeah! Yeah!
Oh my God!"
" - There's a bump. I'm starting to sweat. Stop sweating.
I've got to stop sweating."
♪ ♪
In a Meta-Memoir,
a writer can narrate their own true story
with the help of creative license.
This is Charlie Kaufman.
The real Charlie wrote "Adaptation".
The film's protagonist
is a fictionalized version of himself.
"- Charlie Kaufman, fat, bald, repulsive, old..."
And includes a completely fabricated twin brother Donald.
"- There are no rules, Donald."
In reality, Kaufman was hired to adapt
Susan Orlean's book "The Orchid Thief".
But struggled with writer's block.
"- To begin.
How to start.
I'm hungry.
I should get coffee."
His fictional twin brother Donald
exists to help us understand the real Charlie
and his tortured creative process.
" - ...jerks off to the book jacket photo of Susan Or--
- What do you want?"
Donald is a disruptor
and the ultimate foil.
He's also a screenwriter
but a more composed confident one
who can finish what he starts.
"- I finished my script.
I'm done."
We learned that Charlie's conversation with Donald
is a conversation with himself
and his very real insecurities.
"- I'm insane. I'm Ourobouros.
- I don't know what that word means.
- I've written myself into my screenplay.
- That's kind of weird, huh?
- It's self-indulgent.
It's narcissistic.
It's solipsistic.
It's pathetic.
I'm pathetic. I'm fat and pathetic.
- I'm sure you had good reasons, Charles.
You're an artist.
- The reason is because I'm too timid to speak to the woman
who wrote the book.
Because I'm pathetic.
Because I have no idea how to write.
Because I can't make flowers fascinating.
Because I suck.
- Hey, am I in the script?"
By the way, Charlie never successfully
adapted "The Orchid Thief".
"- He's desperate to finish this project
and he doesn't know how to do it.
To me, that's kind of the tragedy of this screenplay
that never was able to reach the fruition
that Charlie had hope."
The Meta-Memoir approach values emotional honesty
over factual accuracy.
"- I wonder who's gonna play me.
Someone not too fat."
By allowing audiences to access your process
their connection to the material can be more personal.
Okay, so maybe you do want to change certain true events.
Where history goes one way
your story goes another.
This is Revisionist History.
This is an approach Quentin Tarantino has taken.
In "Inglourious Basterds",
he guns down Hitler and Goebbels in a movie theater.
And in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood",
our bomb under the table is Sharon Tate's tragic death.
"- In a scene described by one investigator
as reminiscent of a weird religious right,
five persons, including actress Sharon Tate,
were found dead.
Miss Tate who starred in "Valley of the Dolls"
was 8 months pregnant."
Our dread grows
as we inch closer towards the night
she was murdered.
But in this alternate universe,
her murderer is meet Rick and Cliff
before they can get to Sharon
in the house next door.
" - Uh... You are...?"
Tarantino's dialogue includes the exact words
Tex Watson spoke
on the night of the real murders.
"- I'm the Devil,
and I'm here to do the Devil's business!
- Nah, it was dumber than that. Something like... Rex."
But when Cliff mocks Tex,
he rubs these words of their power.
And then he and Rick
take things into their own hands.
Had Tarantino stuck to historical accuracy,
we'd sit idly by as Sharon met her demise.
But his playful use of irony...
"- What the fuck!"
...makes us willful participants
in this cathodic revenge.
"- Holy shit."
"- When you win, it’s all that matters, you know.
The big be quiet, the big shut up, you know."
Writing a true story with a twist
can be risky business.
But those who try this technique
may reap enormous creative benefits.
A clever command of tone.
And a crafty way to misdirect your audience.
After all, movies are all about what if?
Ready to start writing your own true-ish story?
StudioBinder's free screenwriting software
can help you blur the lines.
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