“screenplays should be experienced […] as a form of cinema itself” whereby “both, although via opposite polarities, are audio-visual (the screenplay cueing the images and sounds in our mind)” – Chris Dzialo

In the above quote, Dzialo contends that screenplays are more than just a written text, that instead they are somewhat of a middle ground between literature and film. Though, they are ‘opposite polarities,’ as a screenplay is a purely written medium, and cinema is audio-visual. Dzialo suggests however that screenplays are more than a written medium – that they also contain sounds and images, but instead the text cues them to exist in our minds.

Authors like McKee advocate that a screenwriter should remove all camera related phrases like ‘cut to’ and ‘pan to’ from a screenplay because they might take a reader out of the audio-visual experience and remind them that they are reading a screenplay, not a film. McKee and Dzialo would probably get along, as they have similar points of view. McKee would have a reader of a screenplay be fully immersed in the screenplay, and not thinking about the film production process as they read, instead immersed in the audio-visual experience that is being created in their mind – as what Dzialo proposes is happening when a screenplay is being read. Other authors, like Ann Ingelstom, argue that vocabulary like ‘cut to’ and ‘pan to’ are actually a useful tool for helping the reader visualise the screenplay. Yet, she does not that if this ‘extrafictional voice,’ as she calls it, is used, then ‘‘the reader is always aware of the text’s purpose to become a film.’ (Ingelstrom, 2014.)

Whereas, someone like a director who is writing the screenplay to his own film might have a more practical approach. They probably won’t dawdle as much on the mechanics of what is a screenplay really and see it more as a stepping stone in their production process.

Dzialo’s point of view might suggest that a screenplay is more than just a means to making a film, that a screenplay should also be enjoyable as a stand-alone piece of literature. After all, if screenplays should be experienced ‘as a form of cinema itself’, then should they not therefore be as enjoyable as cinema?

If Dzialo is on the right track, however, why do not more people read screenplays more enjoyment in the same way that they watch films, or enjoy books? Perhaps because screenplays are not as readily accessible. Or is he wrong altogether, and screenplays are not able to be a stand-alone medium and are always intrinsically tied to the film production process. As Ingelstrom puts it, the text’s purpose is to become a film. So screenplays may be in some ways a form of cinema, but they cannot be experienced independently of the cinema.

Below are some examples of films that have sequences that show good visual storytelling.

Du Levande – Roy Andersson

• Though there is some dialogue in this sequence, I love the way he walks around the table, carefully picking up the chinaware, measuring it thoughtfully. Also the way the others are positioned against the wall, dressed in stiff clothes, and the decoration of the room. For some reason I find it ridiculously funny.

• Cross cutting b/w Gyllenhaal’s character and the letter being delivered.
• Tells us about his character and sets up the storyline of the film – letters from zodiac killer.
• Shows us that he’s an illustrator – also essential to the film.

• Begins at 32:00
• Good short little sequence – no dialogue. Clearly shows the waiter’s interest in her.

• Some dialogue, but functions more like music track to link together scenes like in a montage sequence.
• Sequence tells us a lot about the character and the decisions he’s made

Whilst reading the assigned Ingelstrom reading for this week, it occurred to me that Ingelstrom directly contrasts McKee’s opinion on the use of the extra-fictional voice in screenplays (e.g camera directions.) She deems them to be a useful part of the writing, able to help the reader visualise the film, in contrast to McKee, who considered them to be taking the reader out of visualising the story. Ingelstrom does concede, however, that these notes could possibly have been added during the production process of the film, but this is not possible to know because most published screenplays are these final versions, not earlier drafts or spec scripts.

These extra-fictional voices are helpful also to add extra info, and to help the reader such as the example she notes from the king’s speech: “For ease of reading, Bertie’s stammer will not be indicated from this point in the script.”

So this appears to be a controversial topic, one that most screenwriting manuals disagree with, indicated by the quote from Field: ‘the writers job is to tell the director what to shoot, not how to shoot it.’

Only screenplays that do not have scene headings can not use extra-fictional voice (because these are also types of this technique) – but these are rare. I’d like to have a look at one if I can find one – it seems difficult/impossible to write a clear screenplay without using scene headings.

Ingelstrom notes finally that if this style of writing is used rather than a fictional voice, ‘the reader is always aware of the text’s purpose to become a film.’ Yet I would argue this is not a bad thing. A screenplay is not a novel – its purpose is to be adapted. so how can the use of camera directions and ‘we-form’ then be bad? if you want readers to be immersed without this then just write a novel.

As Ingelstrom concludes, these techniques are tools available to the writer. So to say you can’t use one or the other like McKee does is actually very limiting, and why would you want to limit yourself as a writer?

This week I decided to read the screenplay for The Revenant, a film I found personally very engrossing and influential. It is written by Mark Smith and Alejandro G Inarritu, who is also the director of the film. As I brought up in a blog post last week, we discussed in class how the guidelines for screenplays can be bent or broken, especially if a director is writing a screenplay for his own film.

Firstly I noticed that the screenplay contains a lot of camera direction, for example in the opening page:

This is one of the things that last week’s reading told us not to do, but in this screenplay it is abundant.

I also noticed that there is hardly any dialogue in the screenplay. As many joked at the time, Leonardo DiCaprio won the Oscar just for grunting in pain a lot – which is what drew my curiosity to want to read the script in the first place: how do you write a screenplay with minimal dialogue but still advance the story and create a clear visual blueprint for the director? I feel like as a writer with little screenwriting experience, aka yours truly, it would be easy to fall into a creative writing trap and begin to write the script as if it were a novel instead of a screenplay. I imagine you’d have to be very careful with choosing words that are appropriate and tell the story visually.

I think this a good thing to keep in mind whilst moving forward through the studio and thinking about the final project. Dialogue can easy be a cheap and easy way to advance the story and create exposition, but it is more difficult to do this skilfully through visuals alone.