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FIRST APPEARANCES
By Christina Hamlett
When it comes to introducing characters in a scene for the first time, my beginning screenwriting students
usually fall into one of two categories:
1. Those who explain too much;
2. Those who leave us clueless.
"Contrivance" is the biggest sin among those who strive to impart the entire backstory within the first 10 minutes. Example:
JACK
Why, if it isn't my older brother Cecil who just returned from Monaco with his wife Sophie and stepson Arnold!
And this must be your longtime mistress, Melanie, from Michigan.
CECIL
Yes, it is, Jack. And are you still working at the same job as a piano tuner here in Poughkeepsie with your
best friend Al?
JACK
Yes, I am, Cecil.
CECIL
That's great, Jack. And how is your wife, Ann?
Arghghgh! Real people don't talk this way. Nor do they feel compelled to keep repeating each other's names.
On the flip side are writers who imbed reams of background in the narrative. Example:
FIONA enters. She is Larry's thrice-divorced cousin and is currently getting over her affair with Martin,
whose wife Alice has cancer and has gone to Cleveland to care for her daughter from a previous marriage to
Larry's boss, Sam.
You need to remember that the audience doesn't have a printed program to follow all this scintillating intrigue.
Cardinal rule: if the camera can't film it and the dialogue doesn't reveal it, leave it out!
How then, do you introduce your players and their histories without making it sound like a Weight Watchers meeting?
Try these for some variety:
1. Office phone calls (either outgoing or incoming)
2. Name tags (for those in service professions)
3. Office titles on doors
4. Parties/business scenarios whereby introductions are natural
5. Third-party references prior to appearance
6. CU's of correspondence opened by addressee
7. Soliloquies where characters talk to themselves
8. VO's which book-end the film or run continuously throughout
9. Paging (effective in hospital scenes)
10. Newspaper/magazine matchcuts.
Finally, don't forget the power of body language/facial expressions to convey relationship hints and stir viewer
interest before your characters ever utter a word.
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