A short one today and not a screenplay review.
I just finished writing a synopsis of a feature film of mine for a producer.
Synopsises aren't easy to write. It's hard enough to write a feature film in long form, to then ask a writer to re-write that same story in summary form can be daunting.
Here I want to share a quick guide to writing a good synopsis quickly and easily.
WHY DO I NEED A SYNOPSIS?
Because people are time-poor and nobody wants to waste their time reading a script that sucks.
A synopsis is a short form version of your story that allows the prospective producer/investor/talent to decide if they want to spend the time reading the entire full length script.
HOW LONG SHOULD A SYNOPSIS BE?
I suggest writing three synopsises of different lengths. They are....
1) Logline - this is one sentence that sums up your entire film. See my previous post on loglines here.
https://deconstructthescript.blogspot.com/2016/04/loglines-article.html
2) A half to full page synopsis. In this version only touch on the major elements of your story. The hero, their goal, obstacles, the hero's flaw, the antagonist, stakes, urgency and the basic plot points of your storyline.
3) Long form - 3 - 6 pages. The tighter the better. Aim for closer to the three pages end of that spectrum than the six pages end.
Remember, the goal of synopsises are to get people interested in reading the full script.
Your synopsis needs to read fun and fast.
SHOULD I GIVE AWAY THE TWIST IN THE SYNOPSIS?
Not in the logline.
But yes, definitely in the medium or long form version of your synopsis.
I have never met a producer who doesn't want to know what the hook or twist is.
The hook or twist is often the very reason producers get onboard with a project. To not let them know for fear of it ruining the surprise is shooting yourself in the foot.
SO, HOW DO I WRITE A SYNOPSIS?
There's a saying that goes something like, "If you want me to speak for an hour give me the day to prepare. If you want me to talk for five minutes give me the week."
Meaning, it is harder and requires more preparation time to condense what you want to say into a shorter form.
The same holds true for writing a synopsis. You'll find the 10 page version easier to write than the 1 page version.
And it is with this 10 page version that I suggest you start.
Open two documents side by side. In the first document you have your completed screenplay. The second is to become your long form synopsis.
The average screenplay length is 100 pages. (roughly) So to get this number down to 10 pages you're essentially looking to compress 10 screenplay pages into one synopsis page.
Very often a screenplay will start with a hook that if often 3-5 pages long. Try to condense this hook into half a page. Remember, if 10 screenplays pages equals one synopsis page, then 5 screenplay pages equals half a synopsis page.
Go through your entire script working like this. Read a section of pages until you find a natural break in the storyline then summarise that section into synopsis form, keeping in mind the ratio of 10:1.
It will take you while, but there's no great technical skill required here. All you do is read your script then summarise. Do it section by section and after a time you will have your 10 page synopsis of your script.
Ok, that's a great start, but ideally, you want a 5 page version. 10 pages is still a little too long.
How to get there?
Close the original screenplay document. Save, then duplicate the 10 page synopsis.
On this duplicate start to edit out the beats that aren't really important.
In a screenplay you have a lot of small beats that are necessary for the story to have texture and feel real. What you do now is remove the smaller story beats that aren't critical to understanding the main storyline.
A great test to know if a beat is important or not, try removing it, then re-read your new synopsis. Does your synopsis still make sense without that beat? If so, good, you've removed a smaller beat that's not important. If not, then you have identified a beat that is critical for your audience understand the story.
Repeat this process over and over until you have halved your synopsis from 10 pages to roughly 5 pages.
You now have two synopsises, your 10 page version and this 5 page version.
Next, you need a 1 page synopsis.
Save and duplicate the 5 page version of your synopsis.
Now, on your new copy of the 5 page version, you're going to start fusing beats together.
Read two beats side by side and rewrite them as one fused beat. This will involve really stripping back your story to its essence, but it's a relatively easy process.
The more you go over your beats, the more you will come to realise how many beats you can remove and the general plot of your story will remain comprehensible
Simply repeat this process until you have whittled 5 pages down to 2.
Then take those two pages and look harder. Repeat the process of removing beats and seeing if the plot still makes sense without them.
You'll find that in the one page form you will focus on the hero and their main storyline. Almost all ancillary characters will fall away, except for key supports and the antagonist.
It's ok to cut the B storyline. In a one page synopsis no one expects to get all the detailed nuance of each character and how they relate to the others. All they really want are the broader strokes that paint a general picture.
SUMMARY
Start with a ten page synopsis then work your way down from there.
You'll want three lengths at the ready for when a producer/agent/talent requests a synopsis.
1) Logline
2) 1 page synopsis.
3) Long form 3 - 6 page synopsis.
FINAL TIP
Get your synopsises done before sending out your script. It's better to have a great synopsis at the ready than to have to tell someone who is interested in your story that you'll get back to them in a few days when you've had a chance to write a synopsis.
You look professional when you have your synopsis at the ready.
Wednesday 5 February 2020
Sunday 2 February 2020
2019 BLACKLIST - #3 - DON'T WORRY DARLING
A psychological thriller about a 1950s housewife whose reality begins to crack, revealing a disturbing truth underneath.
This script landed at #3 on the 2019 blacklist with 19 votes.
It's written by the Van Dyke brothers.
This was an interesting script.
Its central premise is - "is the main character crazy?" Which is a very done subject. I'd go so far as to say cliche. However, in this script, they manage to wrap this trope in a very contemporary subject matter - sexism.
Let's look at the story and see what they've done right and where they could improve.
We start in 1950's cliche, white, perfect America. The town is nondescript, it's one of those perfect places right out of a magazine. Here, we meet Evelyn, the hero of our story. She's a housewife in an era where the majority of women were led to believe that it's a Man's world, and all women exist to please their husbands.
We first meet Evelyn making love to her husband, Clifford. The sex itself is pretty good, and Evelyn even seems into it, but directly after she hurries away to the bathroom where she uses a female contraceptive.
Clifford really wants to start a family but Evelyn is terrified by the notion of being weighed down with the permanency of kids.
Evelyn longs to have a career of her own. She even has intense dreams of being a surgeon. But these dreams are so vivid and real, they feel like memories.
This is where the story starts to twist. The first question is, are Evelyn's dreams just dreams, or are they deeply buried memories?
We soon meet Betsy and Joe, their neighbors. Betsy and Joe have the picture-perfect family. Two kids, Joe working hard, Betsy really good at all things homely. While Clifford aspires to their family paradigm, Evelyn is horrified by the notion.
It seems that Evelyn is a modern woman stuck in a 1950s culture.
When Clifford discovers that Evelyn is using a contraceptive they have an argument that involves a lot of yelling, a broken mirror and a temporary loss of patience and civility between them. But the next day, they both pretend that everything is fine, that nothing happened. They go back to their usual routine.
While on her way back from shopping, Evelyn sees her husband's car parked at a seedy motel. She investigates and sees Clifford enter room 1.
Evelyn has to know what's happening in that room, even if he is having an affair, she has to know. Something very strange happens when she opens the door to room 1.
There's a blinding flash of white light and Evelyn wakes up in a machine that looks like an MRI machine. She's hooked up to this futuristic device with a myriad of tubes and wires. Her legs are atrophied from lack of use.
She freaks out, and manages to get out of the machine, she tries to crawl out of the small dimly lit room she finds herself in, when she suddenly sees Clifford, he rushes her and injects her with a syringe.
When she wakes, Evelyn finds herself in her bed back in 1950.
It was all just a dream.
Or was it?
From here, things only get worse. These visions become more frequent, and as Evelyn investigates she comes to believe that she is from the future, 2050, to be precise, and that her 1950s reality is really just a simulation, her real body is back in 2050 hooked up to that futuristic MRI machine.
The premise and the question of the story becomes, is Evelyn living in a simulated reality or is she going mad?
The problem with the 'Is the hero mad or not?' question is that you have to answer it at some stage. There are only ever three answers to this question.
Yes, they're mad, and they're imagining all this craziness.
No, they're not mad, this craziness is really happening.
OR
You leave it unanswered. You let the audience decide if she's crazy or not.
It's hard to get any of these endings to work well.
I won't ruin it by saying how this script ends, but it's an interesting screenwriting point to look at.
The SETUP and the PAYOFF.
For your film to feel rewarding, your payoff needs to be bigger and more unexpected than your setup.
I talk about the importance of unpredictability in screenplays a lot. If the audience can see where the story is going they'll tune out and become bored quickly.
The same goes for your central story premise - if you set up your story to look like it's going to go a certain way, and then it does, there's no sense of reward to the viewer. Essentially, what they expected to happen, did.
This is an example of your payoff not exceeding your setup.
If you can twist your story at various places and constantly keep your audience guessing right up until the very end, then you will have succeeded. Your payoff will be greater than your setup.
Think about your own film-watching experiences. Think how many times you have watched a film and felt like it was a waste of time, you came away thinking, 'was that it?' You don't want that to happen to the audience of your movie.
MAKE SURE YOUR PAYOFF IS GREATER THAN YOUR SETUP.
I liked Evelyn a lot in this story. It's funny, as there weren't many instances of ACTIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY - that is where the hero actively goes out of their way to do something good for someone other than themselves. This being the strongest form of empathy and the best way to get us to love your hero.
While there wasn't much ACTIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY, there were bucket loads of PASSIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY.
That's where we feel sorry for someone because of the bad things that happen to them.
Evelyn's life is loaded with sexism. She isn't allowed to pursue a career, her place is in the home, she is supposed to cook clean and make babies.
The reason we like Evelyn is that she stands up for herself. She's not just letting herself get pregnant, she is ACTIVELY taking a contraceptive. When she finds her husband go into the motel, she ACTIVELY investigates and discovers this crazy futuristic world.
The keyword here, you may have noticed, is ACTIVE.
We love heroes who stick up for themselves. We love heroes who actively go about trying to better their life.
Now, if the writers had taken the passive approach, if they had written Evelyn not taking contraception, and that she didn't stand up for herself when Clifford confronted her about it, or that she didn't investigate further when she saw Clifford at the motel - there's no way we would have loved her quite so much.
Her life would still be awash with sexism, there would still be all the passive positive empathy beats, but we wouldn't really care about her.
AUDIENCES CARE FOR HEROES WHO CARE FOR THEMSELVES.
I'm not saying self-love in a narcissistic way, I'm saying heroes who have enough self-respect to stand up for themselves, despite the consequences of doing so.
AUDIENCES RESPECT HEROES WHO RESPECT THEMSELVES.
This brings me to a very broad point about screenwriting in general.
FILMS REFLECT LIFE.
The more I analyze films, the more I come to realize that what works in life, works in film. Think about who we LIKE in real life and why we like them. All those reasons transpose perfectly to the world of film.
The more nuanced and detailed and layered your characters are the more real they feel.
The more life-like you can write your screenplay, the more it will resonate with readers, producers and finally, your audience.
One last thing I want to look at in this screenplay was the OPEN-ENDED GOAL.
Films with a closed-ended goal tend to do better than scripts with an open-ended goal.
A closed-ended goal is - X must do Y to prevent Z.
An opened-ended goal is more ambiguous.
In this story, Evelyn's goal is to discover if she is crazy or not.
How does she achieve that? Even Evelyn doesn't know how to do that.
Take the film Saving Private Ryan, for a great example of a closed-ended goal.
The title of the film tells you what the GOAL is.
Save private Ryan.
It doesn't get much more closed-ended than that. When your goal is tangible, your audience feels oriented. At any given time in the film, they know what is happening and why.
When your audience doesn't know what the hero needs to do next they start to feel disconnected from the story.
Where possible, try to write your story with a CLOSED ENDED GOAL.
In summary, I enjoyed this script. It has Olivia Wilde attached to direct, which is a good start. IMDBPRO has a new writer listed in the writing credits, so I'm going to imagine that the final shooting script will differ from this current draft. How significantly is yet to be seen.
If I was a producer I would consider this script depending on the talent you could get attached to it, and I wouldn't let it run anywhere over a $3m budget.
This script is more sci-fi than horror, but it could very well find a huge audience because of the central premise subject matter being - sexism.
I'll track this project and look forward to seeing how the creatives bring it to life - if they do.
This script landed at #3 on the 2019 blacklist with 19 votes.
It's written by the Van Dyke brothers.
This was an interesting script.
Its central premise is - "is the main character crazy?" Which is a very done subject. I'd go so far as to say cliche. However, in this script, they manage to wrap this trope in a very contemporary subject matter - sexism.
Let's look at the story and see what they've done right and where they could improve.
We start in 1950's cliche, white, perfect America. The town is nondescript, it's one of those perfect places right out of a magazine. Here, we meet Evelyn, the hero of our story. She's a housewife in an era where the majority of women were led to believe that it's a Man's world, and all women exist to please their husbands.
We first meet Evelyn making love to her husband, Clifford. The sex itself is pretty good, and Evelyn even seems into it, but directly after she hurries away to the bathroom where she uses a female contraceptive.
Clifford really wants to start a family but Evelyn is terrified by the notion of being weighed down with the permanency of kids.
Evelyn longs to have a career of her own. She even has intense dreams of being a surgeon. But these dreams are so vivid and real, they feel like memories.
This is where the story starts to twist. The first question is, are Evelyn's dreams just dreams, or are they deeply buried memories?
We soon meet Betsy and Joe, their neighbors. Betsy and Joe have the picture-perfect family. Two kids, Joe working hard, Betsy really good at all things homely. While Clifford aspires to their family paradigm, Evelyn is horrified by the notion.
It seems that Evelyn is a modern woman stuck in a 1950s culture.
When Clifford discovers that Evelyn is using a contraceptive they have an argument that involves a lot of yelling, a broken mirror and a temporary loss of patience and civility between them. But the next day, they both pretend that everything is fine, that nothing happened. They go back to their usual routine.
While on her way back from shopping, Evelyn sees her husband's car parked at a seedy motel. She investigates and sees Clifford enter room 1.
Evelyn has to know what's happening in that room, even if he is having an affair, she has to know. Something very strange happens when she opens the door to room 1.
There's a blinding flash of white light and Evelyn wakes up in a machine that looks like an MRI machine. She's hooked up to this futuristic device with a myriad of tubes and wires. Her legs are atrophied from lack of use.
She freaks out, and manages to get out of the machine, she tries to crawl out of the small dimly lit room she finds herself in, when she suddenly sees Clifford, he rushes her and injects her with a syringe.
When she wakes, Evelyn finds herself in her bed back in 1950.
It was all just a dream.
Or was it?
From here, things only get worse. These visions become more frequent, and as Evelyn investigates she comes to believe that she is from the future, 2050, to be precise, and that her 1950s reality is really just a simulation, her real body is back in 2050 hooked up to that futuristic MRI machine.
The premise and the question of the story becomes, is Evelyn living in a simulated reality or is she going mad?
The problem with the 'Is the hero mad or not?' question is that you have to answer it at some stage. There are only ever three answers to this question.
Yes, they're mad, and they're imagining all this craziness.
No, they're not mad, this craziness is really happening.
OR
You leave it unanswered. You let the audience decide if she's crazy or not.
It's hard to get any of these endings to work well.
I won't ruin it by saying how this script ends, but it's an interesting screenwriting point to look at.
The SETUP and the PAYOFF.
For your film to feel rewarding, your payoff needs to be bigger and more unexpected than your setup.
I talk about the importance of unpredictability in screenplays a lot. If the audience can see where the story is going they'll tune out and become bored quickly.
The same goes for your central story premise - if you set up your story to look like it's going to go a certain way, and then it does, there's no sense of reward to the viewer. Essentially, what they expected to happen, did.
This is an example of your payoff not exceeding your setup.
If you can twist your story at various places and constantly keep your audience guessing right up until the very end, then you will have succeeded. Your payoff will be greater than your setup.
Think about your own film-watching experiences. Think how many times you have watched a film and felt like it was a waste of time, you came away thinking, 'was that it?' You don't want that to happen to the audience of your movie.
MAKE SURE YOUR PAYOFF IS GREATER THAN YOUR SETUP.
I liked Evelyn a lot in this story. It's funny, as there weren't many instances of ACTIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY - that is where the hero actively goes out of their way to do something good for someone other than themselves. This being the strongest form of empathy and the best way to get us to love your hero.
While there wasn't much ACTIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY, there were bucket loads of PASSIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY.
That's where we feel sorry for someone because of the bad things that happen to them.
Evelyn's life is loaded with sexism. She isn't allowed to pursue a career, her place is in the home, she is supposed to cook clean and make babies.
The reason we like Evelyn is that she stands up for herself. She's not just letting herself get pregnant, she is ACTIVELY taking a contraceptive. When she finds her husband go into the motel, she ACTIVELY investigates and discovers this crazy futuristic world.
The keyword here, you may have noticed, is ACTIVE.
We love heroes who stick up for themselves. We love heroes who actively go about trying to better their life.
Now, if the writers had taken the passive approach, if they had written Evelyn not taking contraception, and that she didn't stand up for herself when Clifford confronted her about it, or that she didn't investigate further when she saw Clifford at the motel - there's no way we would have loved her quite so much.
Her life would still be awash with sexism, there would still be all the passive positive empathy beats, but we wouldn't really care about her.
AUDIENCES CARE FOR HEROES WHO CARE FOR THEMSELVES.
I'm not saying self-love in a narcissistic way, I'm saying heroes who have enough self-respect to stand up for themselves, despite the consequences of doing so.
AUDIENCES RESPECT HEROES WHO RESPECT THEMSELVES.
This brings me to a very broad point about screenwriting in general.
FILMS REFLECT LIFE.
The more I analyze films, the more I come to realize that what works in life, works in film. Think about who we LIKE in real life and why we like them. All those reasons transpose perfectly to the world of film.
The more nuanced and detailed and layered your characters are the more real they feel.
The more life-like you can write your screenplay, the more it will resonate with readers, producers and finally, your audience.
One last thing I want to look at in this screenplay was the OPEN-ENDED GOAL.
Films with a closed-ended goal tend to do better than scripts with an open-ended goal.
A closed-ended goal is - X must do Y to prevent Z.
An opened-ended goal is more ambiguous.
In this story, Evelyn's goal is to discover if she is crazy or not.
How does she achieve that? Even Evelyn doesn't know how to do that.
Take the film Saving Private Ryan, for a great example of a closed-ended goal.
The title of the film tells you what the GOAL is.
Save private Ryan.
It doesn't get much more closed-ended than that. When your goal is tangible, your audience feels oriented. At any given time in the film, they know what is happening and why.
When your audience doesn't know what the hero needs to do next they start to feel disconnected from the story.
Where possible, try to write your story with a CLOSED ENDED GOAL.
In summary, I enjoyed this script. It has Olivia Wilde attached to direct, which is a good start. IMDBPRO has a new writer listed in the writing credits, so I'm going to imagine that the final shooting script will differ from this current draft. How significantly is yet to be seen.
If I was a producer I would consider this script depending on the talent you could get attached to it, and I wouldn't let it run anywhere over a $3m budget.
This script is more sci-fi than horror, but it could very well find a huge audience because of the central premise subject matter being - sexism.
I'll track this project and look forward to seeing how the creatives bring it to life - if they do.
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