Script Question

[drybonesreborn]

For practice, how would I make my own version of the Spiderman 3 script? What makes this movie so compelling? I'd like to know how to translate movie to script and script to movie. I want to see how they do it, maybe give me ideas for story writting.

Anyone see it? I didn't like how they did Venom, but how they tied Peter's life going up hill as MJ's going down hill. Any ideas?

[Plot Device]

Are you saying you wanna take a stack of blank paper and see if you can maybe recreate from scratch a reasonable facsimile of your best guess of what the script might have looked like that was used for Spider-Man 3?

Is that what you're driving at?

That's not a bad exercise (as far as exercises go) to learn the craft of scritpwriting. But you might wanna start with either a shorter film, or one with a less complicated series of visuals and special effects and sound effects.

But if you've got your heart set on Spider-Man 3, you might wanna abreviate this otherwise massive undertaking by picking just ONE scene from that film (like when MJ and that other guy were making omlets together, or the scene when Peter goes to Aunt Mae and tells her he wants to marry MJ, or whatever your favorite scene was) and second-guessing the correct scripting-out of just that one scene (a whole lot less cumbersome). Then print it out and compare your guesswork to the actual script (which is probably already available out on the internet somewhere). This exercsie will be helpful only if the actual script that's out on the internet was written "correctly" to begin with. But if it wasn't written "correctly" you'll just be steering yourself into bad writing habits.

A better candidate than Spider-Man 3 might be any of the scripts that have been nominated for Oscars. Watch one of THOSE films (which more often than not have been written "correctly"), and then do the one-scene exercise I described, and then compare your effort to the internet script.

[drybonesreborn]

Thanks! Do you know a site that I can get the 'right way' from? As in, I write what I think happens and compare it to what 'actually' happend? I think it's moviescripts.com, but I'm not sure.

[scripter1]

and action sequences are too different animals.

A story is compelling because of the people involved.
Spiderman is an interesting hero in that he is a small, average, nerdy underdog. Suddenly he becomes this powerful being.
He lives a two sided life. And his condition creates many many conflicts for him.

All superhero stories have those similar elements.
Plus ALL of us wish we had power of some kind. The power to really make a change. To do something. So, we get to live vicariously through the film.

SO, to make a compelling story YOU write your daydream. YOUR hero fantasy. IF YOU suddenly got powers how would it happen? What would you have? How would it affect your life?
Hint, the more troubling and conflicted the better.

Making your story look like a script has allready been covered in your other thread.
But simply put, you write what you would see on the screen.
Close your eyes, see the key VITAL actions, and then write them.
Avoid the mundane stuff.

[Boo_Radley]

When I first got into screenwriting, all the books I'd read and the information they contained seemed too much to absorb all at once, so I did this kind of exercise, too. I'd throw in a favorite movie and just write what I saw and heard in screenplay format. I did stuff like Romero's Day of the Dead, Glengarry Glen Ross, Die Hard...mind you, this was before I ever got online and found the actual screenplays for these things.

Not a bad way to get started -- at least you're writing something -- but ultimately you'll have to buckle down and actually read screenplays, the more the better, to see how it's really done.

[NikeeGoddess]

dry - i don't think there is a site that will tell you want you want to know. you have to do the hard work yourself. reading scripts is the most valuable resource.

i suggest you take a script, read it while the (dvd) movie is playing and you can compare. but you must keep in mind that the script you have will probably not be the final shooting draft and the editing may change it after the production as well.

there are lots of free scripts available online.
http://www.scriptsecrets.net/library/scripts.htm

[whistlelock]

Okay, here's what I did.

I got a movie I liked on dvd. I watched it 2 or 3 times. Then, on the 4th time I sat down with a laptop and a screenwriting program.

I would watch a scene. Pause the movie. Then I would write that scene on the program, without rewatching it. Using my memory I tried to write it the way it appeared on screen but sticking to the format. you know, few action lines and dialogue as possible.

I did that for the whole movie.

It really helped me nail out format and form really fast.

[drybonesreborn]

oh.