If they read the first seven or eight pages and it's heavy, they'll just chuck it. “If you’re a development executive for a streamer or studio, and you have to read seven scripts over a weekend. A palm tree lazily wafts in the evening breeze…,” says Shane. Outside cars stream by in the City of Blah Blah Blah. As you’re running through a deadly shoot-out, what are things you might see? What would stand out? Pretend you’re a camera as you run through a shoot-out - that’s the essence to me of how to make the thing come alive on the page,” adds the auteur.Ĭontest opens in 6 days | Remind Me Keep Your Descriptions Short and Sharpĭescription is all good and well, but is it stopping your screenplay from gathering the can’t-put-down momentum you need to really draw in readers? “ you open up a script to the first page and there’s a big block of text that says: meet So-and-So. “Most of us haven’t been in a deadly shoot-out. Writing action scenes from the perspective of one person not only allows the audience to share your protagonist’s adrenaline rush as they battle to survive - it also unlocks fun details that give your scene specificity. It’s desperate and harrowing and we feel every moment.” That feels like an action scene that’s huge, but it costs nothing. He didn’t have a lot of money to film it so he did something incredible - he did a subjective plane crash, all from the point of view of one person, and it’s riveting. “Plane crashes are hard to film, and expensive, too. “Joe Carnahan did something remarkable in a film called The Grey, in which there’s a plane crash,” he recalls. Subjectivity is the key ingredient when it comes to action, says Shane - the feeling of being in one character’s shoes as chaos unfolds around them. Listen to it in full below to discover even more… Shane Black - the screenwriting auteur behind Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Nice Guys, Iron Man 3, and plenty others - dropped by Script Apart, my podcast in which great screenwriters revisit their first drafts of acclaimed movies, to discuss his 2005 festive film noir Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, lifting the lid not only on that cult classic but on his writing process in general.Īcross a fascinating ninety minutes, he revealed why “curiosity is the opposite of fear” in life and in screenplays, as well as why the screenwriting process he swears by involves filling up a shoebox in his cupboard for months on end with “stray thoughts and ideas that I then tip on the floor in search of connecting threads.” Here are a few great pieces of storytelling advice found in the episode. Shane Black, one of the most respected and influential screenwriters in modern cinema shares tips on how to write explosive action.
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