Week #5 – Enhancing Stories
This week we dived into Sternberg’s perspectives on screenplay writing and then did some writing ourselves!
On Monday we discussed some revelations and confusions evoked from Claudia Sternberg’s Written For the Screen (1997), which we followed up with some related examples from screenplays.
Sternberg epitomises the different ways screenwriters can interject their style or voice. Sternberg details style into two streams; The Stylistic Paradigm (Sternberg, 1997, pp. 80-87) refers to a screenwriter’s practice through devices, genre and ideas, and the Imagery and Language of Images (Sternberg, 1997, pp. 87-91) refers strictly to linguistic tools, such as simile and metaphor. In the first section, Sternberg outlines that the screenwriter’s choices in syntagmatic requirements of the text-type (scenic structure, character action and dialogue, time and place of specification) form the stylistic paradigm of the text-type. (Sternberg, 1997, pp. 80). In the second section, Sternberg emphasises that action and henceforth screenplay imagery, can be greatly assisted by via “decodable constructions”. (Sternberg, 1997, p. 87). This refers to metaphor, simile, comparisons, descriptions. She argues that these methods are more telling than action descriptions as screenwriters can “substantiate moods and emotions”. (Sternberg, 1997, p. 87).
The very opening passage is a quote by Sergei Eisenstein which introduces the style notion:
“And the scriptwriter is right to present it [the script] in his own language. Because the more fully his intention is expressed, the more complete will be the semantic designation. Consequently, the more specific it will be in literary terms.”
(1925: 35 cited in Sternberg 1997, p. 80) .
I particularly enjoyed Sternberg’s Written For the Screen (1997) reading as it introduces screenwriting in a similar light to that of a literary piece or film. It focuses on the creativity and art of the screenwriting craft, rather than regurgitating classic screenwriting formula and conventions. This fresher perspective shattered our assumptions of fixed format, such as in Mckee’s Description reference. Stayci advised that opinions about style and description are firm and often opposing in the screenwriting world – as evidenced in the contrasts between Mckee and Sternberg because the screenplay is such a collaborative document.
There were some fuzzy question marks about terminology which served as a good glossary/screenwriting vocab bank when we discussed them as a class:
Master scene technique: the way the action is set out on the page with paragraph breaks.
Scene text: everything that’s not dialogue.
Big print: ACTION describing what is happening on the screen, written in present tense.
When asked to source examples my group focussed on the screenplay Thelma and Louise. (reference!) My group found an example of screenplay language reflecting genre as aforementioned by Sternberg (1997, pp. 82-3)
Thelma and Louise’s description of a character as a “ladykiller” exhibits the screenplay’s language reflecting the ‘world’, and also serves as being ‘stylistically reminiscent of diction’ (Sternberg 1997 p. 83). Another example of this kind is when Louise is described as a “waitress in a coffee shop… too old to be doing this” (p. 1)
On Wednesday we looked at THE scene from Up and were asked to plug a segment of it into screenplay form, as a group. I collaborated with Ben, Eve and Jasmijn in a google doc and we were happy with our screenplay on the first 30 secs. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rifKcYHhzvcI1A9OVjqUtwkSF8tQZpszDqKrMLYYYbc/edit?ts=5abb0475
We then read another group’s version of the same scene and gave them feedback:
Question: Considering Sternberg’s reading from Monday, do you feel you were able to make stylistic choices for this exercise?
Improvement: At times we felt it was too poetic, too brief and not specific enough. There are some minor corrections that could be made such as the irrelevance of the word ‘brightly’ after the word flashes because the first implies the second. There are some spelling errors.
Compliment: Good opening and specifically the use of the word ‘Launches.’ Even when brief, there is a really great jumping off point for elaboration. The initial descriptions are spot on for each scene. Molto Bene
We received this feedback on our screenplay:
Question: Do you feel that everything included was necessary to the audio-visual storytelling?
Suggestion: To condense your descriptions so as to create more succinct sentences
Example of an effective piece of writing: “On the half rotten fence stands a sign: SOLD”
We then made revisions accordingly, cutting back on some superfluous descriptions and simplifying actions.
We then compared our screenplay to Pixar’s and made some interesting comparisons/discoveries:
Specificity – noun that only applies to that sector of society, as in Carl’s family
Remove all seems to be, seemingly appears etc. (there are of course exceptions – ie creating suspense)
Slugline is a tool – use it!!