Adventures in the Screen Trade (15 page)

Beginnings

The first fifteen pages are the most important of any screen-play. (To which Paul Newman adds: "Yes. And the final fifteen minutes are the most important of any movie." Point well taken: When the end of a movie is the most exciting or emotionaly involving part, then the audience troops happily out of the darkness, and that's how word of mouth is born.)

But for now, we can leave such things as word of mouth to our daydreams. For now, we don't care if they like the movie or not; we want somebody to make it.

And the beginning cannot be overemphasized enough. One obvious reason, of course, is statistical reality. Remember that a major star may read two hundred scripts a year, an executive twice that many.

Remember that poor executive? He's been at meetings and screenings and lunches all week; he's probably spent three or more hours a day with the phone growing out of his ear. Now it's Friday night and what accompanies him home? Screenplays. Groan.

A sludge pile of scripts. Heavy to carry, heavier to wa- through. Maybe he puts it off on Friday. Maybe he even '.i...: through Saturday. But he knows one thing: That pile isn't going to go away. So at some point he sinks into a chair, takes first script, opens it. (He may-I know I would-peek at page, because if that page reads 180, he knows it's probably a properly constructed piece of work, just as if it read 90- is about right.)

Now he may study the format: Does it look like a screenplay? Is it legible or some Xerox that is hard to read and slants across the paper? Finally, he will take a deep breath, turn to the face in. And do you know what he wants at that moment?- -he wants to love it.

Truly. He wants his head knocked off, he's been doing this a long time, thousands of Rocky rip-offs, of Star Wan steals, It's been so long since he's been thrilled by something.

At last he begins to read.

Some screenplays are like Marley--dead to begin with. Westerns. Or disaster films. Or a movie about two octogenarians tending each other through their final days of leprosy. But maybe only Five percent of screenplays fall into the Marley category.

But a much larger percentage than that are dead by page 15. Because by then an experienced reader will either be hooked or bored. And if he's bored, he may skip to page 50, read a few more pages, then on to the end, a cursory glance- -and the ball game's over. All right, what's a decent beginning for a movie? This is not:

FADE IN ON

NIGHT, A THICK DESERTED WOOD, AND A BEAUIIFUI.GIRL running for her life. At least she would be beautiful If her face were In repose-but right now panic distorts her features. She plunges on, the branches of the trees slashing at her clothing. She runs and runs and, with every step, her terror grows. Mow, suddenly, she stops, trying to hold her breath as she turns, looks back, listens.

CUT TO

THE WOODS BEHIND HER. For a moment there Is nothing--then the unmistakable sound of growls, heavy footsteps.

CUT TO

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL as she Involuntarily shudders, begins to run again as we

HOLD.

THE GIRL IS GONE, we can hear her running on, but now the growls grow louder, the footsteps too and as we watch-

A DISFIGURED GIANT appears, stopping where the girl stopped. His face has been hideously burned. He looks around, growling and then, as the sound of a female cry comes from up ahead, he begins to lumber forward again as we

CUT TO

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL and she's tripped over a log, fallen heavily, the wind knocked out. One of her legs has been out and It's starting to bleed* Maybe the sight of the blood spurs her on or maybe she's Just a girl with a lot of courage, but she ignores the pain, forces herself to her feet, runs on, only now, if anything, she's going faster than before and the tree branches are really outting in at her but she Ignores it, goes racing through the night as we

CUT TO

THE DISFIGURED GIANT, growling as he moves after her, and he's strong, you can see the power In his body, but with his enormous size there is also something else apparent-'a lack of speed and

CUT TO

A TREE BRANCH, whipping across the BEAUTIFUl GIRl's face, a slice of blood curls down her cheek and it must hurt like crazy but she ignores it, rushes faster than she ' s ever gone and

CUT TO

THE DiSfiGUReD GiANt, and maybe he senses he's losing her, maybe not, but he throws his horrid face to the heavens and a wild scream of frustration bursts from him and

CUT TO

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL, and the sound is audible and it's not close and she keeps on, keeps on and

CUT TO

THE DISFIGURED GIANT, lumbering forward, screaming again at the night and

CUT TO

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL, and this time the sound Is farther back-she's winning, she's winning and she knows it, but all that does is summon more energy and she's never run this fast, never in her life, and for the first time now. briefly, the panic is less, you can see that, and so what If the woods are thick, so what If her leg and her face are bloody, she's got a chance at survival and

CUT TO

THE WOODS, starting at last to thin out, we're coming closer and closer to the edge of the thick trees and

CUT TO

THE DISFIGURED GIAnT, slowing, panting, he bangs a great hand against a tree In wild frustration and

CUT TO

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL as ANOTHER DISFIGURED GIANT appears suddenly in front of her, and this one makes the first one look handsome and

CUT TO

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL, screaming as the SECOND DISFIGURED GIAHT grabs her, raises her high in his hands, throws her to the floor of the woods, and

CUT TO

THE SECOND DISFIGURED GIANT growling In triumph as he falls on her, pins her helpless, and she struggles, tries to twist and kick and

CUT TO

THE FIRST DISFIGURED GIANT, bursting on the scene-he too drops beside the BEAUTIFUL and as they commence to rip at her clothes--

DISSOLVE TO

It matters not where we dissolve, I suspect our world-weary executive has already closed the script and reached for the next in his endless pile.

Why? I mean, what's so terrible about these pages? It's got fiction, suspense, shock, mystery, blah blah blah. Well, among other things, it's television. This paragraph contains all that I know about writing for television. They need a hook. And they need it fast. Because they're panicked you'll switch to ABC. So tv stuff tends to be- gin with some kind of grabber.

But in a movie, and only at the beginning of a movie, we have tine. Not a lot, but some. Time to set up our people. Time to set up our situation. Time, if you will, to set up our particular world. As I sit here I can only think of one first-class modern novel, movie, or play that begins at full speed, and that's Malraux's Man's Fate. Clearly there must be others, but not all that many, which perhaps underscores the point: In narrative writing of any sort, you must eventually seduce your audience. But sedwv doesn't mean rape.

Here's another beginning that makes a mistake of a different sort, but one no less uncommon:

FADE IN ON

CENTRAL PARK. New York City* A glorious spring dawn.

CUT TO

A COUPLE OF JOGGERS, moving quickly along. Ahead of them is a hill and they start up It, then stop dead, staring, and as they do-

CUT TO

THE TOP OF THE HILL AS FIFTY CAMELS come roaring over the crest of the hill, bearing down on the joggers.

More than likely, our studio executive will stop right there. He may even pitch the screenplay across the room. Why? I mean, it's kind of an interesting visual, fifty camels racing across the Sheep Meadow. You certainly don't sit there and say, "Oh Christ, here's another goddam Central Park camel opening."

And probably, if instead of Central Park the movie began in the Sahara, the executive would read on.

Or if the script was written say, by Woody Alien, he would most certainly continue. Because Alien is a pro, and he understands the realities of the picture business. If he wants fifty camels in Central Park, there must be a valid reason, a payoff somewhere down the line. But few of us are Woody Alien. And this is an amateurish beginning. Do you know what would more than likely go through the executive's mind when he read that? Something like this: "Fifty camels? Where are we going to rent them? And for how much? And where are we going to train them to run in a pack? And who's going to do the training? And for how much? And how do we get the goddam things to New York? What's the going rate on camel shipping? And once we get them there, is the city going to give us a permit? For fifty camels? In Central Park? Is this writer crazy?" And there would go your screenplay flying across the room.

When you write something, if the picture happens, someone must actually go about executing the details of the script. Hardworking technicians, like yourself. So if you get a flight of fancy that entails a sudden snowstorm blanketing Honolulu airport,

there better be a good reason. A crucial reason. Because that is not an easy thing to recreate. And movies are not made by elves and fairies. . . .

Having now shown you what I consider to be a rotten beginning and an amateurish one, it would be nice if I could write you a good one. But since I'm never quite sure what "good" means, the best I can do is put down what I think is the classiest opening I've done-one that, by the way, was never shot. The notion came from a recurring flying dream that the director, George Roy Hill, had as a child.

This was the start of The Great Waldo Pepper. (Waldo, remember, was the story of these daredevil flyers in the twenties, grown-up children who wanted to impress girls and be heroes and fly.)

FADE IN ON

THIS KID. Maybe he's ten, freckled and brtght-eyed. Very American-looking. And we're in CLOSE UP, so we don't know where we are or when, but that doesn't matter; what matters Is that the KID is concentrating on something just as hard as he can, He's staring off and biting his lip and