The Screenplay: The Start

Open late, fast, and con brio

Two Lanes to Start

Generally speaking, the tale of an action involves a hero (individual or group) and a Problem (or Predicament); the tale of a man involves a hero alone (and may also be the tale of a group). With the tale of a man, the tale can start with the man, or with the events that bring him forth — his parents, for example, or the parlous time and place into which he will come, for another. With the tale of an action, the tale can start with the hero (blissfully ignorant of the storm that will overtake him) or with the Problem, if the Problem does not originate in the hero’s heart (he may have a burning desire for some goal, for example, and not yet having that goal forms the Problem of the tale).

To start the tale on the hero is generally a weak or calm start. The hero has, until he encounters the Initiating Incident which will launch him on his career, a life in balance, somewhat calm, somewhat serene. If we the audience don’t see the hero in his ‘everyday’ state, then we won’t be able to judge how the Problem upsets and affects him and his life.

But in the Screenplay time is precious. Only 120 pages — usually fewer! Are we to put 2–3 precious pages into detailing the Nothing that the hero’s life is, before ‘anything’ happens?

There is a further problem in starting on the hero’s life in balance, which comes up when the hero is like us in the audience — this is more often than not the case, as the producers of movies want to make us identify the hero. If the hero is like us, and his life is like ours (before the events extraordinary that will hurl him into an entertaining ride), then all the hero-start has to offer us is something we see every day in our own lives. And if this is a common ploy, then such a start will be quite familiar, and a cliché.

Sometimes we can’t start with the Problem, however. Sometimes the Problem arises out of the ordinary life of the hero; sometimes it arises out of the hero’s own hopes or fears. It is not a wise strategy to open with the hero wanting something or fearing something already, with the story ongoing, at the Initiating Incident. The difficulty with this approach is that we the audience won’t know who it is who is wanting or fearing whatever it is. We will define him simply by his desire or fear.

In many genres though we can start with the Problem. In a mystery or policier, we can open with the Crime; in a horror movie, we can open with the advent of the monster and see how the peril threatens and how it works; in an adventure film, we can open with the creation of danger or opportunity that will beckon the hero.

If the hero is unlike the audience, and lives in his own world, the hero-start will be more interesting and unfamiliar than the case of the hero who is just like us. The hero-start of a hero in an unfamiliar faraway world will also introduce us to that world. This will take a little getting-used to, and is the proper and usual way to start such a tale. The extra pages needed to tell of this world and how the hero fits into it are not only entertaining (or at least more entertaining than seeing a cliché) but also needful. We need to know what this world is before we can go on. If the screenplay attempts to tell us about the world while also detailing the Problem and the hero’s first efforts to solve it, we the audience will get easily confused, and be unable to keep up with the dense information we are supposed to absorb. Not all the world must be laid out in the first half-dozen pages, but we need to see enough of it so that we have our bearings, and can understand in general what sort of a place this is and who the hero is, how he functions within in.

Start Late

The general rule of the scene, start late and leave early, also applies to the screenplay as a whole. Start as much as possible in media res and leave out all explanation except what is absolutely needed.

There is a common adage, that the beginning screenwriter should simply drop his first scene of his screenplay, and open with the second. Sometimes the first two, or even three, scenes, can be cut. The audience is very quick to pick up these things, and a minute of screen time is not like a minute of real life. It’s more like a day.

Start Fast

The ideal start will be visual and ‘cinematic’ or ‘filmic’ involving sight and sound and movement; it should in this sense be musical or even poetic (even if it is the poetry of fear or desire). The screenplay should appeal to our emotions right away.

The first image in the screenplay should be gripping, bold, and in general the first image in a movie is its most important. On the page, though, that image will never have so much power as it will on the screen. There is no cure for this but to hope that those who read the screenplay (should the screenplay be written in order to be produced as a movie) are well enough versed in the translation of the written word to the screen, that they will be able to understand the heightened effect.

The audience also understands things much faster when they watch the movie, than they will when they read the description of that movie on the page.

(Composed on keyboard Sunday, June 8, 2008)