A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting : for Theater and Television Films
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F253 Mh II BOOKS II I I 1 I WE WIS HERMAN E^3 Practical Manual of Screen "* _ .. i FILMS TELEVISION M"> FOR THE^ER K 37417 NilesBlvd S3I3l 510-494-1411 Fremont. CA 94536 www.nilesfilmmuseum.org Scanned from the collections of Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum Coordinated by the Media History Digital Library www.mediahistoryproject.org Funded by a donation from Jeff Joseph Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Media History Digital Library http://archive.org/details/practicalmanualOOherm A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF SCREEN PLAYWRITING for theater and television films A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF for theater and television films SCREEN PLAYWRITING BY LEWIS HERMAN FORUM BOOKS THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY Cleveland and New York A FORUM BOOK Published by The World Publishing Company 2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio First Forum printing February 1963 Copyright 1952 by Lewis Herman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, except for brief passages included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52-5175 Printed in the United States of America. WP263 To my most ardent though prejudiced admirers: my wife Marguerite and our children- Stephanie, Judith, and Helmar. The sections "Dialects" and "Foreign Language Dialogue" were originally published in full in The Screen Writer magazine. PREFACE This book is a practical manual of screen-play writing. Its purpose is to supply practical rules and suggestions and to describe practices applicable to the writing of motion-picture screen plays for both theater and television presentation. It should be obvious that motion-picture techniques are adaptable to television production—especially to filmed television drama. The television drama, as produced on film, varies from the feature- length film mainly in the matter of the size of the script and, hence, the running length of the film. This difference operates so that ninety-minute films made for theater showings cannot be cut down for television without affecting their quality considerably, no matter how fine they may have been originally. When this has been done—and it will be done more and more as the major studios release their old films—artistic mayhem results. Violent jump cuts, for example, are the rule rather than the excep- tion. These jump cuts occur not only picture-wise but, what is even worse, in dialogue, in sound, and in music. Characters who have been arbitrarily cut from opening scenes suddenly appear as if from nowhere and disappear again just as mysteriously. Characters intro- duced in the opening scenes of the theater version are sometimes discussed in the TV version as though they were familiar to the viewer, despite the fact that they have found oblivion on the cutting- room floor of the TV studio. These as well as other crudities can mean only one thing: that the theater-length film is not ideally suited for television presentation when it is cut down to size. More and more it must become apparent that the only films suitable for television are those that are expressly written for television. vii Vlil PREFACE With but few exceptions—which will be duly noted and discussed —all the material written in this book regarding feature-length films for theaters can be applied to feature films for television as well. There was a time, for example, when the long shot was proscribed to the television film. This was so because the average home TV image screen was considerably smaller than it is at the present time. Thus, the figures in a long shot appeared so small as to make them almost invisible. But with the advent of the large TV screen, this injunction, together with many others, was lifted. So that now it can be safely said that the TV film script is almost the exact counterpart of the feature-film script. Screen plays must be written for motion pictures other than Holly- wood feature films—for documentary films, commercial films, educa- tional films, and training films. Although screen plays for these use certain basic techniques, writing for them requires specialized knowl- edge that would require another book to detail. Hence, in this book, complete emphasis will be put on the rules for writing screen plays only for feature films for theaters and dramatic films for television. The techniques given will be those that have evolved through the years into a sort of filmic grammar. As such, they have become almost inflexible rules for the making of acceptable motion pictures. The result is that the noncreative segment of picture makers abide by them with doctrinaire slavishness. A corollary result is bad pic- tures. The rules are being presented here, however, in no such light. For the free and creative spirit recognizes no rules. It accepts rules merely as conventions to be shattered if fresh, unfettered creations are to result. Therefore, the rules given in this book should be used only as signposts—or springboards—to creative invention. Accept most of these rules with reservations. Accept them only as steppingstones. And go on from there to create, if you are able, original and imaginative works. LEWIS HERMAN November, 1951 CONTENTS page vii Preface DRAMATURGY 3 The screen play, the screen writer, tools of the trade. 7 Historical background 5? Present studio procedures 12 Screen play classifications 13 Before we begin 15 The story idea, notebook, idea selectivity, idea develop- ment, ideas for free, idea twists, ideas by assignment, research ideas, ideas are not enough. 19 Theme outline, background locale, first act resume, second act development, third act denouement, write for story analysts, names are important, avoid name cliches. 25 The synopsis, personality shading, all cats are gray, conflict from complexities, puppets are not people, is it con- trived?, conflict by opposition, problems breed conflicts, credible problems, universality, emphatic problems, char- acter dossiers. 30 Plot vs. character, plot and character, what is plot?, no beginning nor ending, be chary with crises. 32 Plot patterns, love pattern, success pattern, Cinderella pat- tern, triangle pattern, return pattern, vengeance pattern, conversion pattern, sacrifice pattern, family pattern. 34 Minor-character development, minors are human too. 36 Subplots, integrate subplots, other subplot uses, play ma- jors against minors, major treatment of minors, love in the minors. 38 Dramatic values, motivate actions, shock dramatics, the ix CONTENTS horns of a dilemma, structural unity, straight-line story line, telegraphing. 40 Suspense, someone to root for, write—don't telegraph, don't withhold, the pay-off, suspense tricks, fight against time. 45 The chase, movement in the extreme, universal applica- tion, Western chases, comedy chases, murder chases, build your chase, dialogue impedes chases, suspense chase, chase sound effects, chase direction, anything can hap- pen, picturesque chases. 50 The serial 54 Westerns 55 The gimmick, integrate the gimmick, scene-tag gimmicks. 58 Plants, plant with care, plants must flow, plant without telegraphing, build your plants, pay off your plants. 60 The running gag. character and humor, running-gag pay- off, build with running gag, transition running gags, running-gag props. 62 Comedy relief, why comedy relief?, it must flow, played by minor characters, as natural reactions, relief without comedy. 64 Humor, the wisecrack is king, pictorial humor better, don't contrive humor, real people mean real humor. 66 The flash back, flash backs impede movement, flash backs fritter suspense, flash backs lose immediacy, flash backs make money, flash-back transitions, flash-back uses lim- ited, start at the beginning, flash backs within flash backs, tricky but unnecessary. 7/ Repetition, character traits, repeat figures, avoid undue recapitulation, use dissolves, condense repetitions, when recapitulation is unavoidable. 75 Quick conversions, time is the essence, action vs. character, arguments are not enough, plant conversions, dramatized motivated conversions. J5 Realism, the omnipresent camera, candid realism, infinite details, dialogue selectivity, reel realism is not realistic, don't gild the lily, answer? compromise, of course. yo Semi-documentaries 83 Fantasy 8y Story holes CONTENTS XI 88 Happy ending vs. unhappy ending po Treatment 2 THE FILMIC COMPONENTS 93 The shots 98 The full shot 100 The long shot 101 The medium shot 102 The medium close shot 102 The close shot 103 The close-up 104 Inserts 104 Extreme close-ups 105 Moving shots jo6 The pan shot, follow action only, exit and entrance pans, pan-motivated movement, revelation pan, pay-off pan, medium to close pan, reaction pan, subjective pan, limit the pan, flash pan, transition flash pan, avoid reverse pan. 112 The tilt shot 114 Dolly shots, trucking shots, dolly or cut-in?, pullback dolly, transition dolly shot, re-establishing dolly shot, travel vs. pan, Chinese dolly. 119 The angles, eye-level angle, low angle, high angle, side angle, boom shots, avoid too many unusual angles, point- of-view angles, change angles, reverse-angle shots, reverse- angle revelations, dialogue reverse angles, reverse-angle action. 12J Cutaways, establish cutaways, related cutaways, unrelated cutaways, cutaway action-direction, cutaway comment, cutaway to relieve tension, scene-capping cutaways, lapse- of-time cutaways. 131 Indirection, reaction cutaways, cutaway from death, fore- shadowing cutaways. 134 Time lapses, what are they, how they are used,