Two children yell at each other as they dart around the room. Rinaldo, slumped in a large, worn leather chair, hangs a cigarette over an ashtray with one hand. The other, pushes through the little hair that remains on his head. He tilts his head back, closes his eyes and presses the cigarette to his lips. Filling his lungs, he then exhales a grey cloud of smoke into the room. He slams his fist down onto the arm rest.
The children, eyes wide, flee the room. Rinaldo glances at a photograph across the room, a picture of his wife. He sighs, heaves his body up from the chair and ambles towards his childrens room, picking up a football along the way.
This is a very short piece of screenwriting I completed in class a few weeks ago. The goal of the piece was to take a poorly written introduction to a scene, and then rework it using the conventions we have learned about, such as using the correct tense, trying to avoid adjectives, keeping the writing succint etc.
What Works?
I think in terms of painting a picture of Rinaldo it does very well. The first two sentences describing him are the strongest in the whole piece my opinion. I think that you get a very clear sense of the kind of man he is. Obviously worn out from balancing his work and home life tenuously and somewhere around middle age because of his thinning hair and not the healthiest of men represented in his smoking habit. And while he is clearly upset with his children for creating so much noise, he eventually goes to play soccer with them.
This part “Rinaldo glances at a photograph across the room, a picture of his wife. He sighs, heaves his body up from the chair and ambles towards his childrens room, picking up a football along the way.” I thought was quite strong too. Its trying to hint at the loss of his wife prompting him to put in the extra effort for his children like she would have had she still been there. An important aspect of the exercise prompt was to capture his “guilt” at him not being the best father he could be. I tried to do this above by implying his wife had passed, and perhaps I could have done something extra here but I think it adequately represents his guilt when he sees his wife, and realises that perhaps he could be doing better for his kids even though he is tired from work.
What Could be Improved?
Firstly, I think perhaps the children could have been better described in a different piece. To be fair, I didn’t really see them as all that integral to this particular seen other than just representing what Rinaldo is neglecting. But in a longer form film you would obviously need to describe them further if this was an introductory scene.
I also thought that this sentence was … somewhat clumsy “Filling his lungs, he then exhales a grey cloud of smoke into the room.” I just couldn’t think of a better way to phrase it in the right tense at the time. Something like “He draws air deep into his lungs, then exhals a grey cloud of smoke into the room” might have been a better way to write it for example.
Lastly, as touched on before, there might have needed to be something more about the wife or lack thereof, although I do like the ambiguity it leaves. In a short exercise like this it doesn’t really tell you everything you need to know, but perhaps thats alright. I had imagined that, in a longer form, the film/short film etc would go on to explain the loss of his wife and why he was raising his two children alone.