Remember, for all the stylistic flourishes you throw in, screen direction is about functionality.
What is the camera seeing? For instance, from The Limey:
AROUND THE CORNER
He walks down the block. A nice long walk. What we get out of it besides a sense of Wilson -- cool cat; ambling along; loner; sun beating down; not bothered; his shadow doubling him -- is this:
The building approaching. The one he has his eye on. The target. It’s across the street. A kind of flat windowless warehouse with adjoining loading yard. Loading yard surrounded by a chain-link fence -- topped with barbed wire.
The actual geography of where he left his car in relation to this building. Safely around the corner. And how he might practically get back to it, either this same way or via a more circuitous route round another block.
The sense you get in downtown L.A. on a lazy Saturday afternoon that you’re in a ghost town. Particularly in this shabby kind of industrial section.
Plenty of style here. Also purpose: “The building approaching. The one he has his eye on. The target.” This is a walk-through for Wilson, a set-up for what is about to happen. The white space makes it an easy read, as opposed to, say, this passage from Mulholland Drive:
INT. EXT. – CADILLAC LIMOUSINE
The driver, still in his seat, has a pistol with a silencer attached pointing at the woman. The other man is getting out of the car. The woman is clutching the seat and the door handle as if trying to anchor herself. She is visibly afraid.
The man who got out of the car tries the woman’s door, but it is locked. He smiles as he reaches in through the front door and unlocks her door. He opens her door. As he reaches for her, the woman’s face becomes flooded with light. Her eyes dart to the front windshield. The driver, flooded with light, turns just as the late model sedan slams into the Cadillac limousine. There is an explosion of metal and glass amidst thunderous tearing sounds as the two cars become one in death. The convertible screams past with hardly a notice. The driver of the limousine dies instantly as his body is jettisoned through the windshield. The other man is torn as the cars screech over him. The woman is brutally thrown into the back of the front seats as a cloud of dust and flying rocks engulfs her. The disastrous moving sculpture of the two cars wants to climb up the hill, then stops and slides back toward the road The Cadillac tips onto its side. Then all is silent. A fire erupts in the sedan and as the dust clears we see the woman appear, then crawl out of the Cadillac to the road. Her face is vacant. There is a bleeding cut just above her forehead. She stands for a moment clutching her purse – lost , then begins to walk as if in a trance across Mulholland down through the bushes and into darkness.
Damn! The eye rebels, does it not? Incredible paragraph, incredible movie. Why isn’t this broken up with white space? No idea, but wouldn’t it be easier to read it like this:
INT/EXT. – CADILLAC LIMOUSINE
The driver has a pistol with a silencer pointing at the woman. The other man is getting out of the car. The woman is clutching the seat and the door handle as if trying to anchor herself. The man who got out of the car tries the woman’s door, but it is locked. He smiles as he reaches in through the front door and unlocks her door. He opens her door. As he reaches for her...
The woman’s face becomes flooded with light. Her eyes dart to the front windshield. The driver, flooded with light, turns just as the late model sedan slams into the Cadillac limousine. An explosion of metal and glass, thunderous tearing sounds as the two cars become one in death.
The convertible screams past with hardly a notice. The driver of the limousine dies instantly as his body is jettisoned through the windshield. The other man is torn as the cars screech over him. The woman is brutally thrown into the back of the front seats as a cloud of dust and flying rocks engulfs her. The disastrous moving sculpture of the two cars wants to climb up the hill,then stops and slides back toward the road The Cadillac tips onto its side.
All is silent. A fire erupts in the sedan and as the dust clears we see the woman appear, then crawl out of the Cadillac to the road. Her face is vacant. There is a bleeding cut just above her forehead. She stands for a moment clutching her purse -lost , then begins to walk as if in a trance across Mulholland down through the bushes and into darkness.
Lastly, don’t forget subtext. You want subtext in both dialogue and screen direction. How to do that?
Say it without saying it.
(More to come on this subject later…)
