Film Courage: How to properly test your script?
The absolute importance of script testing?
What is script testing?
Corey Mandell, Screenwriter/Instructor: Script testing…so when I was starting out a manager
did this for me and I’ll forever be grateful.
So the way it works is most who write a script they will give it to their friends, their
writing group, people they trust and they want feedback.
What’s working, what’s not working, suggestions, ways to improve it.
And what I was taught and I see a lot of the more successful writers working this way is
that they don’t start there.
What they start with is script testing and what script testing is the first thing you
realize that when you write a script you experience a movie, you experience characters.
And when someone reads your script it replays in their head.
They experience the story and they experience characters.
And a lot of people make the assumption that the movie that plays in my head is really
similar to the movie that plays in your head.
Script testing is strategically asking a series of questions to find out what movie is playing
in someone else’s head.
What story are they watching?
What’s happening, why is it happening?
Why is it interesting or not interesting?
Who are the characters?
How are they experiencing the characters?
How would they describe the characters?
Are they engaged with the characters?
Are they not engaged with the characters?
And it’s literally being able to track what they are experiencing story and character
wise as they move through your script.
What script testing aims for is not to know if someone likes your script, loves it, hates
it, suggestions, critiques…not at first.
First is are they experiencing what I’m experiencing?
And if they’re not, why not?
What are they experiencing different from me?
When I first started teaching at UCLA I had everyone bring in 7 copies of their script.
Let’s say you and I would switch scripts so I would give you 7 copies of my script,
you would give me 7 copies of your script.
You would take my 7 copies and go to 7 of your friends and say “Hey would you read
a script by someone in my class.
I haven’t read it and you don’t have to have anything smart to say.
You don’t have to give feedback.
You just have to answer questions about what you experienced when you read the script.”
And you really make it clear that you’re not testing their reading comprehension, it’s
testing the writer’s ability to have it come off the page.
So let’s say 7 of your friends “Okay, I’ll do that.”
So they read my script and then I would give you a series of questions that you would ask
those writers and you would record the conversation.
And it’s really important that you haven’t read the script because you’ll ask the question
about the story or the character and one of your friends would start to give an answer
and then say “Is that right?”
And you’d say “I don’t know.
I didn’t read the script.”
And so at some point they will just relax and they will tell you what they experienced
and you record that (all 7 of your friends).
Then you’d come back to class and give me the recordings.
I would do the same for you.
I would have each writer transcribe the recordings because you really have to hear it if you
transcribe it.
I have to admit when I first started teaching at UCLA there were things that I did that
were successful and there were things…there was a lot of trial and error when I first
started teaching.
This was a real mixed bag because people were so demoralized that they had a script they
poured heart and soul into, characters they loved more than anything and this was there
character but everyone else was seeing this.
And “this” was like “this” was despicable and this was an amazing character.
And a lot of people would come up to me and they were like “Be careful with Julie in
the class because I think there is something wrong with Julie because Julie’s friends
are like all schizophrenic…I’m telling you because look at the feedback.
Her friends are…”
So there was that.
There was one person who just dropped out of the MFA program, she did come back.
And then I had another one who threatened to hurt herself.
She didn’t!
But that is when I stopped doing this exercise mandatory and I would make it voluntary.
She did not hurt herself.
A lot of people who came out of that class went on to be working writers and said that
this experience was the most painful experience they had as a writer but the most valuable
because they didn’t realize that not everything that they were putting on the page was fully
coming off the page to other people and there are so many people who write scripts that
get rejected in the marketplace or they don’t get an agent to represent them or a manager
and they feel like “Okay my character or story, something is not strong enough.”
And that might be true and it might not be true.
It might be that if people actually fully experienced your character and your story
they would have fallen in love with it but they didn’t.
Here is a true story.
Now this is not an average representation, this is a little clean and easy.
It’s not usually this clean and easy but it will illustrate a point.
So an agent sent me a writer not quite a year ago (close to a year ago).
And it was a really talented writer who was staffed on some really prestigious shows but
had never been able to sell original content.
Her stuff was great but it just wasn’t great enough.
So the manager had shown the script to some people in the industry who trusted to unofficially
get feedback on it.
There were two main characters.
They loved the concept, they loved the engine.
But the second main character they found annoying.
Like honestly if this character wasn’t in the story, I would really be interested in
this but this character just ruined it for me and that was hard for the writer to hear
because this character was the main character as far as she was concerned and it was sort
of an autobiographically, emotionally-based character to her.
So that always hurts because then they are not only rejecting your writing, it feels
like they are rejecting you.
What I do when I work with a writer is instead of reading their script and giving them my
opinions I always start with I want to know the movie that plays in their head.
I want to know how they experience the story and the characters to see where it’s not
coming off of the page the way they see it.
And I knew (because she shared with me) that this character was the main issue).
So I started with this character and just asked her a series of questions, describe
the character to me and then whatever she said I said “Well why is the character this
way?
What does the character love more than anything in the world and why is that?
What do they fear more than anything in the world and why is that?
When this happened in the script, why did the character do it?
And why do you find that so compelling?
And when the character did this…why?”
And so it was a good 30-40 minutes and when we were done I could identify to pieces of
essential context.
Let me just stop and define how I would define essential context.
I would define essential context as everything the audience (reader or viewer) everything
the audience needs to know or experience to understand what’s happening, why it’s
happening and why they should care?
And that’s true for the story and for the character.
I was able to identify two pieces of essential context that were not in the script.
There was something about the character’s motivation for the main thing they were trying
to achieve that it wasn’t clear to a reader.
And there was also something about this character’s backstory I think that was really important.
The writer kept talking about this as part of why she cared so much about the character
and it wasn’t clear in the script.
And at first the writer is like “Well of course it’s clear.”
And I would ask them to highlight where it’s clear and in doing that the writer was able
to realize “Oh it’s implied.”
But I could see now how some of them may not get that.”
And then the other piece of essential context was gone.
I’m sorry…in an original draft it was there as she rewrote it and rewrote it somehow
got removed.
This was a really common experience.
It just wasn’t there.
And she didn’t catch that because when she reads her script (the movie and characters
that play in her head) she knows all of this.
She loves all of this.
She knows exactly…this character is her so of course she knows exactly why the character
is doing it.
Now again this punchline is really clean and simple.
It’s not usually as clean and simple.
But with this particular writer and again three or four very senior people in the industry
at production companies had read the script and said “Really like this, really love
this but this character ruins it for me.”
She just went in and she changed one line of dialogue to make something crystal clear
and then she added a scene.
It was about a two-page scene to get that essential context across in the script.
One line of dialogue and added a new scene that was about two pages.
The purpose of these two pages was to make this critical missing essential context clear.
Film Courage: For the backstory?
Corey: Yes…actually it was her motivation.
It was her line of dialogue for her backstory but yes the two things that she knew that
we didn’t know or experience were remedied with a change of dialogue and adding a two
page scene.
Sent it to her manager…actually sent it to a few of the people had already seen it
and sent it to some new people and everybody loved this character and said this is one
of my all time favorite characters and there were actually multiple bids for that.
Now unfortunately not usually as such after you do script testing you realize I changed
one line of dialogue and I just added this one little scene and the script goes from
a pass to multiple bids but that can be the case.
Usually there is more missing essential context so it’s a little messier.
So it’s usually multiple things that are going to have to be addressed.
And that’s the whole key to script testing is to figure out where people are not figuring
out what you’re intending and why.
It almost always comes to essential context.
And then it’s figuring out how to rewrite the script.
So hear is a true story that the writers have publicly talked about.
The writers of GAME OF THRONES…so a lot of people probably know this (maybe some people
don’t) they originally shot that pilot and then decided to redo the whole thing because
they didn’t like some of the casting and so they literally reshot the pilot which gave
the show runners the opportunity to screen the original pilot for people and they screened
it for some friends and they realized there was a missing piece of essential context.
So people who watched the original episode (the original pilot that never aired) when
they got to the end, they knew that Cersei (the queen) was having an affair with Jaime
who was her main bodyguard…there was a term for what he was…the head of the queens guard
is his official term.
And that they were having inappropriate relations because the queen is married to the king.
People didn’t know that that was her brother.
And that whole season doesn’t necessarily work in the same way without knowing that
because that’s the stakes of the show.
The stakes of the show is that people go to any length to make sure that nobody knows
that her children are illegitimate in that way (illegitimate heirs to the throne).
So they caught that and then when of course they went to redo the pilot they could rewrite
and reshoot that.
This is what I was told, “only an idiot” (this isn’t me talking, this was a manager
talking to me) “only an idiot would take a script out to the marketplace that they
haven’t properly tested to see if you have to rewrite, redesign, reshoot.”
And testing again is making sure that strangers that don’t know what you’re going for
when they read your script do they experience the story you experience?
Do they experience the characters you experience?
If so then you certainly want to know what did you think?
Do you have suggestions?
Do you have critiques?
Where did it hold your interest?
You want to know all of that stuff after you know that people are experiencing what you’re
experiencing.
In the workshop that I teach that I just came from last night, we did an exercise where
they literally wrote a 3-4 page story.
A scene but not a scene in a script, like a short film (3-4 pages) as a exercise.
And they have a main character who is trying to achieve something and they have reasons
very motivated why (stakes to achieve it) and there is another character who opposes
and they have really strong reasons why they oppose (3-4 pages) and then everyone tested
their 3-4 pages to see if everyone could fully see and experience all of the essential context
and with two exceptions everyone discovered that there was at least one piece of essential
context that wasn’t being clear in 3-4 pages.
The two people who nailed it are both working writers.
I mean one is an executive producer and one is a staff writer on a really successful show.
So they’ve been trained that way.
So it is so important to test your scripts.
And if anyone wants the questions very easy.
Go to my website Corey Mandell (dot) net and just sign up for the newsletter and the autoresponder
will give you the questions.
I highly recommend after you’ve poured heart and soul into your script and when you read
it you’re like this is the movie or this is the TV show I want to create.
This is exactly what I am going for.
I love it!
Now go test it and see what other people are experiencing because when it does go out to
the marketplace I want it to be your characters.
I want it to be your story.
I want it to be the best possible version of what you’re going for.
So make sure by testing.
Film Courage: With the student that you had where she wrote this sort of semi-autobiographical
story and it seemed like the sidekick character was the likable one and the protagonist was
the one who people felt was off-putting.
Once she changed a few things - one line of dialogue and a two-page scene you said?
Then people felt more empathy toward that main character?
Corey: You know it would be like…so in real life you meet someone and let’s say they
just rub you the wrong way and for whatever reason you just don’t want to spend time
with them and you just don’t care about them.
But then you find out that they are really struggling because they just lost their father
to cancer (a really terrible cancer) and they are having troubles and their in that mourning
period.
And let’s just say that you lost your father to cancer, you immediately feel different
about that person and it changes your entire dynamic.
Now imagine that you meet this person and you start to spend time with them and you
never know that they just lost their father to cancer, you are going to have a very different
experience with them.
So in this case her character when you really understood why she was struggling, why she
was making some poor decisions it changed how you felt about her it changed how you
understood it.
And people went from thinking this is a very self-centered character who just treats people
poorly, this is a character who is in a really bad space and they’re doing their best and
actually they are trying to protect their friend but they are doing it in the wrong
way and it just changed how everyone felt about that.
I mean it could be that subtle.