This is where the screenwriter’s creativity comes in. But, the text of the screenplay never reaches the audience, so if you write “Bob has fallen in love,” it won’t come across on screen. Human emotion is the heart of story, so it is extremely tempting to simply state it in your screenplay. I love to watch that film and imagine David Fincher’s direction: “Okay, Morgan, just look over here. And it is shown with certainty - he is undeniably frustrated, disappointed, pleased, angry, etc., etc. Scene after scene, his internal life is depicted merely by the context of the scene when we are shown neutral shots of his face. Morgan Freeman’s character, Detective Somerset, rarely shows any sort of facial emotion. “Se7en” is a perfect example of this style of emotional context. She must portray the detachment of her character through the action and imagery of the text - just as it will be achieved in the final film.Īll internal, emotional life must be conveyed through subtext that is derived from context. What this means is that the screenwriter is writing words that are disconnected from the meaning that she is trying to tell. In other writing formats, one might simply write “the mother ignores the cries of her child.” In a screenplay, we would only write exactly what appears on screen:Ī baby cries. The text of the shot is simply the expressionless woman, but the subtext is that she is ignoring the baby. When we see the neutral face of the woman, we view her through the context of the crying baby - which, absent being shown otherwise, we presume are occupying the same space and time. Even though the two shots are entirely separate, the audience presumes that the woman is reacting to the baby (or specifically not, in this case). This leap is indicative our of natural inclination to perceive cause and effect. In the initial experiment, it was observed that when a shot of a crying baby was cut to the expressionless face of a woman, the audience inferred that the mother was ignoring the child. Take this classic experiment in montage theory: juxtapose a neutral face with an unrelated image to infer different emotional life from the character. Leaves may rustle or a character may sweat, but things that cannot be directly observed should not be stated in your screenplay. For that matter, the wind never blows and it is never hot or cold out. ![]() The word “love” should never appear in your action because it isn’t a visible or audible action. ![]() “Action” is the prose that describes what is seen and heard. ![]() Essentially, this means “action” and dialog. Literally, the words on the page of the script. Like film, screenwriting is a medium of inferences - the humanity of your story is expressed entirely through subtext. One of the most unusual and interesting aspects of screenwriting is the dynamic between text and subtext. How to craft a story within a medium of inferences.
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