Film Courage: What does an outline look like?
Mark Sanderson, Screenwriter/Author: Well for me on these assignments that I do, they
are usually 10 or 12 pages and it’s the entire story treatment.
And it’s not just line-by-line, I mean there are some outlines where it’s just a line
and a line but for these movies for television they are eight acts so everything has to be
broken down.
Gordy Hoffman, Screenwriter/Founder of Blue Cat Screenplay Competition: And then when
I started I was just like…I was literally like “Oh, okay.”
And I knew something about page 30 and page 60 or whatever and I started to try to follow
that and I didn’t find it difficult to remember that something was supposed to happen but
I was very much on my own and I wrote whatever.
Mark: I write it as a story so if you were to sit down and read it, you’d be reading
the story of the movie which I think is essential to create which in fact I’ve had friends
that do this “I’m just going to sit down and I have the vague idea and I’m just going
to write.”
And I’m like “You’ll be lost in the barren wasteland of Act 2 with no water, you
be in the desert, you’ll be lost and you’ll wonder how you’re going to trudge through
those 75 pages.”
Gordy: You know it’s very important for people to remember you don’t have to learn
the rules to break them.
You can just ignore them.
If you feel like you’re being expressive and something is cool then you’re writing
something that is cool and you start showing it to other people and other people think
it’s cool then that’s the only thing we care about.
We would not have any Fellini, we would not have Orson Welles, we probably would not have
Kurosawa.
Eventually people had to stop listening to what people are suggesting and nowadays people
being told they can’t direct, women, people of color, diverse voices that have been discouraged
or whatever, for all of those people I would just be like “Get out of my face!
I’m going to say what I want to say and that’s the only way we move forward with
this art form is when people just say “I don’t care what I’m supposed to be doing
or who is supposed to be directing or who is supposed to be writing.
The only time we move forward when people are like “Well let’s follow it.
On page 23 this is supposed to happen.
That’s when everyone wants to blow their brains out.
I want something new.
And that’s why things like streaming and like episodic television did grow probably
in response to formulaic feature writing, it’s probably one of the reasons because
people were like “God can I watching something else that doesn’t feel like everything else
and it’s because of the formula and people were following what they were supposed to
be doing.
And it’s like not good!
Mark: I’m a huge advocate of starting outlines before starting writing and I know it’s
probably 50, 60, 70 percent of the work because it makes the load a lot easier and you can
write a faster screenplay if you have an outline.
Now that doesn’t say there is no room for changes or improvising but if you don’t
have a solid roadmap going in…it’s almost like a pre-draft of a first draft.
And I’m not an advocate of what people say the vomit draft or just spill it out.
But I don’t have the luxury of spilling it out on my assignment jobs, I don’t.
I really have to turn in let’s say on a ten scale turn in probably an eight…an eight
out of ten…because I’m now holding up development and I’ve also done rewrites
on other screenwriter’s work/projects that means that the script that they had went through
multiple drafts and still is not there.
And they have a buyer, they have network who is waiting on the script and so I’ve also
been hired to do rewrite job where I can come in but it’s like a page one rewrite where
see the script that you have you can’t use any of it, the names yes, the concept yes
but you basically…but that’s something that I’ve learned how to do which is good
because there is a lot of rewrite work out there and some writers look down on it.
An example is that I took a rewrite job and that ended up being three more jobs for the
same company because that opened the door for them and they were thankful for that.
So you never know what opportunity you’re going to either turn down or accept.
But back to your point about the outline, I think it’s extremely important to do an
outline before your screenplay because it’s easier to work out the problems there than
it is writing a complete first draft and just having so many problems.
And also it trains you like I said, like you’re an olympic athlete, it trains you for the
time that you do have to do outlines because I’m not allowed to write these assignments
without an outline that I have to create.
So they just wont let me go to pages.
They have other people involved who have to okay it.
So the outline is extremely important.
Gordy: I think there are a lot of people who get discouraged today because they do think
they’re doing something wrong and there is that element out there on messages board,
on podcasts, very popular podcasts that talk about black and white and define things in
black and white and it’s dangerous.
It’s like people have been trying to figure out where this industry is going, where storytelling
is going all the time, since I’ve been working to write screenplays or whatever and I’ve
seen all the different iterations of like Well you’re not able to write.
You shouldn’t write anything period.
You shouldn’t write anything about the industry.
You should do this.
You shouldn’t do that.
And all of this has been blown up.
You shouldn’t write anything.
I mean like an online bookseller, an online bookstore wins Oscars now.
Don’t tell me what anything black and white is anymore, so it’s dangerous.
We can talk about the rules of why people care about movies like sort of the laws of
emotion and I think no one is going to really get freaked out about it.
I think that’s sort of organic stuff.
But when I started off I read Michael Hauge’s book.
And I don’t even remember…I don’t think he talked a lot about formulas or beat sheets
(he might have talked about it).
The only thing I remember from Michael’s book was encouragement, like he just empowers,
he gave me hope, he definitely encouraged me.
That’s what I always responded to.
And he had the sense that it was rare for something good to be written but he did find
it possible.
It’s very much, it was a hopeful book.
So that was the only thing I got.
So it was the only screenwriting book that I ever read a lot from (I don’t know if
I read the whole thing through but I would often refer to it).
Mark: it’s not that mysterious.
There is a step outline, there’s a one sheet which is just a one sheet of paper which is
the concept.
It’s sort of a short synopsis.
There’s the log line which is even smaller (two or three sentences).
So there are different steps and you have to have each along the way because you have
the quick pitch “Hmmm…I’m not interested.”
Then you have the quick pitch and they go “Hmmm?
I’m willing to read something (not the script but I’ll ready the synopsis).
Then there are different steps as to how interested they are to read what you want as the final
product, the final script is for them to read.
A step outline, I’ve done outlines that were 30 pages.
I mean you triple it and you have the script.
Everything had to be worked out because it was very technical the way the film was going
to be shot from like an iPhone and from different things and so really it had to be spelled
out because on the set you just can’t leave it up to chance so.
But after that point I could have written a script in weeks because it was all figured
out, I’d figured it out already.
And you want that outline for those dark periods when you’re stuck.
You don’t want to be stuck trying to figure out plot points when you should be filling
pages.
That’s the worst part, that’s the worst place to be.
Gordy: Audiences don’t care what page number a scene is on.
All the audience is responding to is the emotional voracity.
They want to be sucked in, they want to feel a part of the Universe.
People go into…have you ever thought about this, people walk into a theater to watch
other people on a screen act out stuff from life and they just watch it.
Like why are they watching it?
It’s the weirdest thing when you go into a play or into a theater, people are watching
people on an imaginary stage, we’re going to watch people act out life.
It doesn’t make any…it’s like bizarre!
But the reason why people are doing it is because it gives them meaning for their struggles.
They go “I’ve done that.
That’s me.
I’ve fought Cancer.
Something happened to me.
I won the State Championship.
I want to be able to win the State Championship.
I want to be able to come from nowhere.
I want to believe.
I want to fall in love.
I want to survive the loss of a loved one.
This can happen, I saw a story.
I mean this is why, it gives us context so we’re not walking around going “Why am
I doing all of this?”
You see the movie and you’re like “Other people have been dumped!
Other people have been fired!
Other people have been discriminated against, there has been injustice.
I’ve suffered injustice, so have they.
I can live.
I’m going to fight.
That’s why people go to movies.
That’s the only thing anybody cares about.
They don’t care that the point-of-no-return happens on page 63 or some crap.
You’re writing from that place.
That’s no punk rock!
That’s just stories.
That’s storytelling.
That’s conservative, liberal, it’s not supposed to be political but I’m just saying
that’s anybody.
That’s any ethos, that is the ethos.
So if you’re looking to get in the business, the young lady in the front row, the person
who gives the apple to the teacher, this is the business of emotion.
It’s the business of human identification with authentic stories and that’s heavy
lifting.
That requires sharing of your life experience, it’s demanding.
It’s just as much as a surgeon, it’s emotionally demanding to be a nurse.
It’s emotionally demanding to be a trash man because you’re looking at people’s
trash and you’re like “Oh my gosh!
They threw out this photo album?”
It’s like everybody has got to deal with something.
This is the thing, this is that business.
So you can’t get around that and when people try to get around that then the great actor
becomes the good actor.
And then the great screenplay becomes an okay movie.
But when you go there and you sell the whole thing and you don’t shy away, then you’re
Kirosawa, then you’re Eugene O’Neill, then you’re doing 12 YEARS OF SLAVE, then
you’re fearless, then you’re telling this, you’re doing this thing that people go “Ahh!
That’s awesome.”
BLACK KLANSMANN, like an amazing, honest movie about the truth.
It’s a great movie and it’s about the truth and it’s emotional, it’s disturbing.
But that’s Shakespeare, that’s never changed.
That’s not new, that’s not avant-garde and audiences are still responding to it.
Because we’re human beings and we still respond to a good story.
Mark: *that usually ends up being 12-15 pages as the outline in my experience with my producers.
And that outline is then rewritten sometimes two or three times, I get notes on the outline
before I’m allowed to go to the script.
So the script is the final…once we okay the outline, then go to pages.
And that’s not to say they don’t change their mind once the script is finished because
that’s the crazy part…
“Yeah but you agreed to it in the outline?”
But we built the house but now we don’t kind of like the way it looks.
You know we thought we did.
So that happens, too.
To be open and prepared for rewrites at all stages it does allow you to write a faster
first draft is to have a solid outline.
Because for me I have to see the film in my head before I can write it.
And I know that I have a lot of problems ahead of me if I can’t see it.
I don’t lock in, like I’ve almost seen the movie.
Like when you watch a movie, you remember it.
I have to see it that way.
And I know things are working.
And you know the outline is good for living with your characters.
You get to live with them.
You get to see how the movie is working or doesn’t work before you sit down and write
that screenplay, which is building the house (which is almost at the pre-blueprint) in
my opinion, that’s been my experience.
But I know writers who just want to write down a couple of lines and wing it.
There are so many things that can go wrong and why not turn in the most amazing first
draft you can?
I don’t see the problem with that.
And like I say, you have to when you’re doing assignment work.
You want fewer drafts.
You don’t want eight drafts because nothing is working.
You want to turn that in where they go “Wow!”
One of my assignments I did two drafts and two polishes.
We’re done!
That’s what they like.
They don’t 5 [drafts] “You’re not getting it…”
That’s where you get fired and they hire someone else who can facilitate the notes
and get it moving.
It’s creative but it’s also a business at the time, unfortunately.