Articles
Trouble With Certain Scenes or Sequences
by Gina Nafzger Screenwriter, Professor of Political ScienceTrouble With
Certain Scenes or Sequences
Additionally,
you may work on a scene for several hours and still feel like it sucks ass.
Hell, maybe it does suck ass. But after a certain amount of time/expenditure of
energy the way to crack it is simply to put it down. That's right, put the gun
down and walk the fuck away.
I had one
incredibly complicated sequence during an assignment Regency had hired me for
back in the day. The major problem was there was a shit-ton of information to
get out to sell the concept, and it was all coming out as expository dialogue
-- which is the last thing you want. Movies are visual -- don't tell me, show
me -- and when you have one or maybe two characters just standing there blabbing
on and on and on about whatever the fuck, it just KILLS a script, it sits like
fucking lead on the page. Even while writing it, you can already see the
reader's eyes glazing over when he sees those long, thick, black rows of
dialogue.
This was crushing
me. How the fuck am I going to make this scene work? I literally came back at
that scene seven consecutive days. So remember, that's seven days I'm not
generating any other new pages either. I've brought my own forward momentum to
a dead halt -- all to try and conquer this one fucking sequence. To strongarm
it into oblivion.
Of course,
I'm the one who got bulldozed. The scene got the better of me, not the other
way around.
Finally, I
decided to put it away and concentrate on a few subsequent scenes I knew would
be somewhat "easier" relatively -- nothing's ever truly easy, of
course -- allowing me to get my groove back. It worked and I did.
Then a week
later I took another look at the sequence and what needed to be done leapt
straight out at me. All it had taken was a fresh perspective. Hey, it may take
revisiting something several times over several weeks or even months. But that
really doesn't matter, does it? Continue onward with the project and come back
to it whenever it feels right. That way you can hold onto your groove and not
come to a dead-stop.
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About Gina Nafzger 
Screenwriter, Professor of Political Science
9 connections, 0 recommendations, 42 honor points.Joined APSense since, January 3rd, 2016, From Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.
