Writing for Film/Filming for Writing: Synopsis (Part 2)

That last post took me a while, and it was getting kind of wordy, so I thought I might take a break and get cracking on my synopsis today! I’ve chosen the second story, because I thought it was the most fun of the three, plus I really, really like ‘The Santa Clause’. It’s just a straight-up amazing movie. Anyway, here’s my attempt at a synopsis:

Seriously, someone give that man an                                    Oscar.

We open with a news-broadcast style report on the existence of superheroes in our world. For hundreds of years, every city and town has had their own hero. Big cities get your standard Superman or Batman figures, large and imposing icons of our times, while the smaller towns have to make do with more run-of-the-mill heroes – they don’t have super speed, but can move at a fairly brisk clip, that kind of thing. Glendale, the town of our film, has Captain Charming – popular, handsome, with the power of ‘charm’.

Claire Kelly, our protagonist, is a young scriptwriter on a popular local soap opera. She’s witty and intelligent, but if forced to cut her time between the show and spending time with her father in his nursing home, limiting her professional career options. One night, driving home from a bad day at work, arguing with her fathers’ carers on the phone, Claire is distracted and hits Captain Charming with her car. Panicking, with an unconscious superhero in front of her, Claire manages to get him in her boot and drives home. Exercising what can only be described as incredibly poor judgement, she ties him up in her basement, against his (now conscious) shouts of protest.

The next morning, Claire has formed a plan. She puts out an online ad for an aspiring actor, which is answered by James Salieri, a young slacker whose parents have cut him off from their fortune, and who is in desperate need of cash. James hears Claire’s plan – dress as Captain Charming and perform small deeds of heroism in return for a small weekly fee. James agrees, and the two storylines branch out.

Claire goes back to work, but is struggling to keep her head above water with the financial pressure of paying James and keeping her father in care, as well as her internal struggle with the ethics of keeping a man tied up in her basement. Her conscience gets to her, and she releases Captain Charming, who reveals his name is Kyle, and he’s sick of the pressures that come with super-heroism. He thanks her for freeing him from his shackles and leaves to become an actor, scoring a part on Claire’s show.

Meanwhile James’s initially clumsy attempts at filling Captain Charming’s tights have begun to gel, and the crowd is embracing this new, energetic hero. He finds that there’s very little heroic work to be done in a small town, and is mainly required to appear at official openings. When James takes it upon himself to foil a purse snatching, his popularity explodes (there are very little actual heroes left) and he starts earning big money through sponsorship deals, and finds himself courted by other cities to be their hero. In gratitude to Claire, he moves her father to a lush new care facility, paying all expenses.

Ultimately, Claire pitches a new show to a large TV network, based on her experiences, and finds herself running things in a big city. We get a final montage of Claire happily running a set, James getting a statue dedicated to him, and Kyle’s terrible acting in a soapie scene. The film ends in Claire’s new city, as a purse snatcher runs right past the city’s hero, who ignores him while sipping a cold one and playing Candy Crush on his phone.

So there’s my attempt at turning my three line story premise into a fully-fledged filmic synopsis. It’s … not great. I did enjoy it though, and I’d actually like to make another attempt next week, to see if I can improve upon it using the things I’ve learnt. For instance, it needs a firmer structure – it’s too loose. While I tried to draw upon the superhero genre, inspired the recent glut of Marvel/DC films, it doesn’t really hit the mark. James’s story follows that particular generic path, but Claire’s is all over the place, starting out like a Coen brothers crime caper before ending in a blase career fulfilment fantasy that could be much stronger.

I do think that this exercise would be extremely helpful in crafting a screenplay, because it locks down your story, meaning that you can focus on the specific filmic structure and terminology that’ll make your screenplay professional and stand out. I think that it’s much easier to grasp a story when it’s written out in easy to follow paragraphs, rather than through the big print of a film screenplay. Anyway, I’m running way over on words again, but I did thoroughly enjoy this activity, and look forward to following it up.