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Deborah S. Patz – Author

Author of film books for industry pros and youth

Apr162010

Script as a Road Map: Naming Characters

Scripting a story can be an organic process, and methods of screenwriting will vary depending on the writer. You’ll see the variances between completed scripts of different scribes. A shooting script, however, is not a completed work, like a novel is.

A shooting script is a road map – a set of instructions to be really basic about it – to a movie yet to come. That’s why clear and consistent formatting of the shooting script is essential.

What if the character is “unknown” when first appearing?

When, for example, the character “Fred” is first off screen and speaks the lines labelled in the script as “Voice” or “Unknown Voice”, revealling himself later in the scene to the rest of the on-screen characters… well, the set crew cannot be certain the “Voice” lines are Fred’s and not someone else. To retain the writer’s intention, and to make the road map clear to the shooting crew, in this type of case, label Fred’s off-screen lines as: “Unknown Voice (Fred)”.

What if the character changes names during the story?

Say “Fred” began in the story as “Mr Smith” and only became “Fred” as the other characters got to know him. As your guide, consider… will the different characters (2 different character names) be played by two different performers or by one? If the answer is one performer, then use the same principle as for the “Unknown Voice” above. In this example, start “Fred” as “Mr Smith (Fred)” and let him become “Fred” as the characters get to know him. Alternatively, of course you can label him as “Fred Smith” all the way through the script; however, with this choice, you’ll never really know when the writer intends for Fred to change his name among the other characters in the story.

Overall, remember that yes, you’re creating a road map (of instructions) for the shooting crew, but you must try to keep the writer’s intention wherever possible. The writer’s intention is an integral part of the road map too!

Cheers & happy script formatting to you!
Deb

Apr92010

Inspiration at the Movies: A Night at the Museum

“What if you’re wrong, and you’re just an ordinary guy who should get a job?”
– Nick Daley (A Night at the Museum, 2006)

Hearing these words gives me a kind of backwards inspiration. It hurts when I hear it.

I don’t want to “settle” for an ordinary job. Considering how much waking time is spent at work, we should enjoy it! We should find work fulfilling, stimulating, interesting! We, each of us, are unique and wonderful and interesting… no person is “ordinary”! Why should our work be ordinary?

True that in a creative industry such as this, your career of choice may not be able to cover all those personal financial bills every month. Sometimes the financial challenge is short term, other times long term. We cannot see into the future, especially with freelance work, and those other challenges life sends us now and then. So, a combination of incomes may be necessary to make financial ends meet. There is nothing wrong with that.

So what if the balance of your income sometimes comes from the “other job”! You do not need to re-label who you are based on where you earn the most money. The financial help is just a stepping stone toward – or a safety net to allow you to realize – your career dreams. See it for what is it – part of a bigger picture.

Then you will see how “extra-ordinary” you really are!

Cheers & extra-ordinary good wishes,
Deb

Apr22010

3 Things I Learned About Filmmaking from… the Opera

1. You Can Do Almost Anything, So Long As You Sing It
How you tell a story is what’s important. Sure there are underlying messages beneath the overall framework of the story, but how you communicate the story will determine how how entertaining it will be. You’ve heard “write what you know” and when you think about what you know it may seem a little boring… OK, take the “boring” (which you know so well) and make it interesting by how you express it.

2. The Star System Makes It Happen
Even years ago when operas were first written, Stars helped to shape the final product. Take the Romeo & Juliet opera (by Charles Gounod). As I’ve heard the tale, Gounod was commissioned to write the opera for the opera house owner (who’s wife was going to be the Star). The Star didn’t like one of her solo arias and asked for it to be rewritten. Gounod was unhappy (to say the least) about having to rewrite it, so wrote a solo aria for her that was totally different in tone from the rest of the opera – a waltz. Perhaps he hoped to embarrass her with the “unfitting” aria… but what happened instead was that that waltz aria became his most famous song. How the star system helped push him to create some of his best work!

3. A Story Is Filled Arias & Recitatives
An aria is basically a melodic song, whereas a recitative is basically sung prose. You can’t string aria after aria for an entire opera – it would be too much. You can’t have only recitatives for the entire duration either – it would be too dull. You need pacing between songs and prose. That’s the journey. When it comes to movies, I see the arias as action sequnces, or comedic moments, and recitatives as deeper moments, linking moments. And yes, the right pacing makes it work.

All the best & an operatic shoot to you!

Cheers,
Deb

Mar262010

The PM101 Budgeting Pencil

The what? Am I sure I didn’t mean “budgeting computer” or “budgeting software”? Yep. I’m sure. There really is a PM101 Budgeting Pencil… and it’s unique since it’s more than 50% eraser.

Why? Because no matter how well one writes a production budget, there will always be the job of rewriting, reducing, revising and refining it over and over again. Like any good script that will undergo several drafts before the camera rolls, so will the budget undergo many iterations before becoming locked.

The PM101 Budgeting Pencil is here to remind you of that element of the budgeting process. You write it. You revise it.

Now don’t let all those iterations create panic or fear and block you from writing the budget in the first place. Let them instead release you from writing the perfect budget on the first pass. So in honour of the budgeting process… and in happy anticipation of the publication of the new edition of my book “Film Production Management 101: Management & Coordination in a Digital Age“… I bring you the one, the only and the little odd… PM101 Budgeting Pencil.

Come and join me on FB at www.facebook.com/DebPatzBooks and earn your chance to win a PM101 Budgeting Pencil for yourself. A random FB fan every month for the next three months will win one. And at very least, it will give you a little chuckle – and that’s a good thing too!

So, until then… just write it. Then revise it. Happy budgeting and see you on FB!

Cheers,
Deb

Mar192010

Q&A: How Long Does It Take to Write a Budget?

A production budget? What a question! No answer can be made without further questioning. Here’s a quick look at a few of those “further questions”.

Question: Is this the one of the first times you’ve written a budget?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you a long time.
Consolation: You will understand the detail of every line item on the budget, and so be in a better position to manage the production.

Question: Is the production or script unique compared to what you’ve done before?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you a long time.
Consolation: You will expand your repertoire and expertise with this new budget… plus your previous experience will help you to ask more of the right questions and therefore write a really good budget on the first pass.

Question: Do you have an example budget as reference (one that you did not write)?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you a rather long time.
Consolation: If you do the work to really reverse engineer how the example budget was written, you can write a good budget that will work for the production… catching the incomplete areas and the line items that are inappropriate for your particular production.

Question: Do you have a previous budget as reference (one that you wrote – and ideally, production managed)?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you not such a long time.
Consolation:Your hard work over the years is paying off. In the previous (reference) budget you know and understand where the line items and calculations came from. You know the assumptions under which the budget was written, including which union or non-union rules. You know the script and actual shoot of the previous production and so can identify similarities and differences between that one and the current script – in order to concentrate your budget-writing effort. Every budget you write gets a little bit better… and this one will be an even better reference to you in the future.

What other “further questions” come to mind for you?

Happy budgeting!
Deb

Mar122010

A Location Map for Across the Street?

The next day’s set was in the subway station… right across the street from the production office. Did we really need a location map? I mean who could get lost between the production office and the set?

We made the map anyway, but had a little fun with it. Yes, it had the necessary hospital information and parking directions, but we also included the shops you’d have to pass along the way to the subway entrance – the chocolate shop, the shoe store, etc.

Oddly, on the day the Director showed up at the production office and not at the set. Alas… 🙂

Cheers & a good shoot to you!
Deb