Russell Bailey

Sometimes you have to ask an expert…

The secret to creativity. There are hundreds, thousands of books written about it. As a writer, or a painter, or a dancer, where do you find your inspiration, or motivation to create? No matter what my accomplishments, or how great of leaps I’ve made in my own art, it always seem that the very next morning doubt has crept in, that I no longer believe or that I no longer want to create.

However, recently I discovered a secret. Music. Or, as I like to call it Muse-ic. I’m not saying that this technique works for everyone, but I have a suspicion that it just might. It doesn’t matter how discouraged I feel, or unmotivated, or even worse, unable to create, I force myself to just put on headphones, and listen to good music.

There is something about it that is like a direct link to inspiration. There are a few different explanations for this that I could shoot a guess at. Perhaps listening to music is a direct connection to all of the artists and art of the past. Maybe it helps me tune into the right rhythm. Maybe its even a connection to a higher power or God.

All I know is that it switches my heart and mind into a different place. Doesn’t matter what I’m thinking, when I put the headphones on, all the sudden I’m not thinking anymore and I’m just feeling. And then there is a flood of inspiration.

Here’s one song that’s been an inspiration to me. I just saw the music video and think that it is kick ass.

Brace yourself, because I am about to give away the biggest secret of film & motion picture:

Its actually an illusion.  The picture isn’t moving at all.  You are simply seeing twenty four still photos flashed before your eyes every second.  In one minute, you’ve processed fifteen hundred unique stills.  They are all perfectly still, but your mind assembles them in a row, leading you to believe that you are actually seeing real life motion, captured on screen.

Visual Storytelling.

I open up most scripts, and I see just two thing: dialogue and description.  The dialogue is usually the characters telling an audience exactly what they are experiencing, and the description is usually telling the audience exactly what the character is thinking.  Both absolutely useless for a movie.

You see, you can’t shoot on film what a character is thinking, and it will bore an audience to death if an actor is actually telling what he is experiencing or feeling.

Ninety seven spec scripts out of a hundred are written like this.  Well, actually, while I’m making up the statistics, it might as well be nine hundred and ninety seven out of a thousand.  And it is a huge red flag to me that the writer – although most likely talented – doesn’t have a clue about screenwriting.

All that a screenplay is, is a story told in pictures.  In essence, a movie is just a picture book.  Since we have a sound track, and since the pictures seem to be moving, most people think that the medium is somehow different, but if you look closely, this understanding of the medium is what makes the difference between the novice writer, and the expert.

The secret to writing a movie: forget that it moves at all.  Forget that you are a writer – you are not.  You are a photographer.  Instead of telling your story with words, think about how you can show it with images.  Imagine that you are trying to explain to a deaf person an experience that you had, and all you have are pictures from your Polaroid camera.  Show those pictures in such an order as to show them your story.  And now, as a screenwriter, know that you can take pictures of absolutely anything you want to get your point across.

When putting your masterpiece together, each sentence of description is one Polaroid photograph.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Describe that photo with one sentence, in the simplest way possible.  Then line up hundreds of these Polaroids in a row, and simply describe each one.

When a reader reads this list of photographs, they won’t realize that they are looking at a series of still pictures.  Their mind will blend it together, and create motion between them, creating a fluid story that they can see.

Just like a movie.

Writers constantly ask how to write great dialogue, and there are seminars and books devoted to teaching how to do this. We hold in such high esteem writers such as Quentin Tarantino and David Mammot, calling them masters of dialogue.  Everyone is so concerned about the subject – and wanting to write the next Pulp Fiction, thinking that great dialogue is the secret to success.  But they are all wrong.

Writers for some reason overlook a very simple fact – if your movie is successful, which hopefully is what you are after, its going to be distributed internationally, and get translated.  Or Subtitled.  Probably both, if it is to be shipped overseas for a worldwide release.  So there goes your dialogue.  So now some of you are probably thinking – great, I hadn’t thought of that, now I have to figure out how to write great dialogue that transcends language barriers.  Wrong again.

What transcends language barriers is the image.  Its the one thing that we do have control over as writers.  We can get so hung up on dialogue, that we forget that a film is telling a story through pictures.  If you remove all of the dialogue from your script, a reader should still be able to completely understand the story – so that when one day a foreigner is watching your film without knowing what the fuck is being said, they can still enjoy it, and follow the storyline.

Probably not the best example, but I was watching the Lindsay Lohan version of Herby for the first time, and I was watching it in Spanish (because I was eating a burrito), without subtitles, and without understanding a word of dialogue, I was able to completely follow the storyline, and get this – ENJOY the film.

So, forget about dialogue a little bit.  The actors are probably going to want to rewrite it themselves anyway.  Focus on telling your story completely through images.

Everything. You have a shitty title, no one is going to read your script. So many scripts come across my desk that have clearly not had a minutes thought put in to them. “Summer,” “True Love,” “One Day in Summer,” “Love Everlasting,” “The Long Summer.” I swear that if one more title comes across my desk that has the word summer or love in it, I’m going to freak out. Not that those are bad words – the problem with these titles are that they are terribly non specific. They tell me absolutely nothing about the script except for telling me that I probably shouldn’t read it. That it would be a waste of my time.

The key to a great title is drawing me into the script. If I have fifty scripts sitting on my desk, the title is going to truly be the thing that is going to help me narrow down what I should read. The title should grab my attention, and immediately make me speculate what the script is going to be about. “Jurassic Park” – a park with dinosaurs maybe? “Back to the Future” – something about time travel right? How about “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” – okay, so that one does tell me absolutely nothing, but it does at least sound original.

So, a title should be very specific. The best titles in my opinion are the ones that either tell you exactly what the movie is about, or even tell you the main character. “Spiderman,” “Batman,” “Hancock,” – I already know what these are before i read it – some sort of superhero flick. Don’t waste your time with a generic or vague title. You may have an amazing script, but if you haven’t thought through your title, that is going to show any potential representation that you aren’t as creative as you say you are.

And don’t even think about leaving your script “Untitled.” Samuel Goldwyn himself will turn over in his grave and come and get you.