HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY

Meeting Two.

We are seriously coming on in leaps and bounds. The night before our second meeting my friend and I spoke on the phone to go through our list of requirements. “I’ll get the cork board and some index cards” I told my friend and she told me not to worry about drawing pins (aka thumb tacks) or highlighter pens as she’d already got those. We agreed that I would bring much fattening food to sustain us throughout the day and that we would have to stop for a power lunch. “THAT’S BRILLIANT!” she exclaimed – “we are almost there – do you think we should call an agent now?”.

So. I duly arrived at her house with above mentioned paraphernalia and takeaway coffees like they no doubt have in Hollywood film meetings. We sat down and stared at blank cork board. We ceremoniously unwrapped cork board and index cards. Spread the highlighter pens and pencils about the table and then decided to take a picture of ourselves looking important.

Beyond that and our delicious lunch (do you think we could get away with calling four fish fingers each in two slices of bread a “power lunch?”) I’m not really sure how far we got. She was disappointed because she thought we were going to be watching films all day and I hadn’t really got my head around any subject matter. Never mind. We had a go.

We did lots of reading out loud from our “Save The Cat” book. Got a bit confused about the exact meaning of “midpoint” and “end break” and other stuff in general.

I also read her the notes I had made – minus line one because I wasn’t sure why I had written it:-

“Moral of the Story?”

All I had written was “TWAT’S LIFE”

Which I thought was a strange thing to write, but worth considering – sort of like “Bug’s Life” only about Twat’s instead of bugs – “My Family And Other Twats?” Would that work? But then I realised that it said “THAT’S LIFE” I just couldn’t read my writing.

Underneath that I had written:-

Audience?
Cost?
Killer Title?

Logline? (any mention of the word “log” made us childish and frankly unprofessional).

We agreed we couldn’t really work out our audience until we had written the screenplay
We agreed we couldn’t really work out our budget until we had written a the screenplay
Title – ditto.

We went over the things I had discovered we needed to do. “We must know what our movie is about and what happens to him or her” I stated. Followed by:-

“ACTION = WHAT HAPPENS
CHARACTER = WHO IT HAPPENS TO”

and she was looking at me like I was a fuckwit because, well it’s not exactly rocket science is it.

Then, to claw back some credibility I announced that “Action is Character and that what a person does is what he is and not what he says”.

Silence….and I was thinking “shit she’s going ask me what I’m talking about and I haven’t got a clue”.

“What are you talking about?

We swiftly move on. Discuss our thoughts and ideas and basically fall around laughing for the entire day.

At one point I mention “driving about listening to Eminem” and she writes “driving about listening to M & M”.

The whole day disappeared in a flash. It was such fun. Not sure what happens next. More of the same – brainstorming sort of stuff (aka no ideas whatsoever).

So. what happens next? When we’ve filled up our cork board with index cards? (I note the “Save The Cat” fails to tell us how to actually write the bloody thing) and we’ve found out how to present the script?

Any ideas?