Mistakes That Screenwriters Make On Page 1 - Shannan E. Johnson
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2020
- In this Film Courage video interview, Writer/Instructor and Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson (The Professional Pen) shares her thoughts on a Mistakes That Screenwriters Make On Page 1.
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I feel like you could throw any question at this woman and she would hit a homerun.
Exactly. She's so good.
I've watched a lot of other videos talking about screenwriting. She is clear and precise in what she is saying. The others... not so much.
Factually Accurate
My thoughts too. I wish I could take a class from her.
Yeah, she's really concise and to the point.
Her explanation of young writers/creators trying to essentially re-create their impressions from moments in movies that they love is spot on.
Doesn't Tarantino do that all the time?
@vibovitold Yea, but I think she means specifically young writers in this instance & many of Tarantino's points of reference and deeper impressions are more niche and/or come from a different time in cinema. I think I'd be willing to say most if not all creators have done this in some capacity.
2:53 When you drop a truth bomb so atomic that the camera shakes
Damn 😂
Funny story, i got my script to a director who called me and said he was only going to read 1 page and tell me he didn’t like it. He said before he knew it he was on page 12. We are releasing it on this youtube channel this summer. It’s going to be amazing and it all came down to me having to prove my script in the first page...
That's fantastic! Congrats and thanks for sharing!
Congrats 👏🏾👍🏾
I’ll likely be watching that
Gonna watch
Poetic, considering your username. Are you allowed to give us a title for us to look out for?
seriously, who else loves Shannan? 🏆 🏆
I love Shannan too, but jokingly.
🤚🏾
Myself
She'd be a great screenwritng instructor.
She doesn't waste time, everything she says is basically valuable and I'm soaking it all in
It's funny how industry folks talk about what doesn't work which is counter to what we always seem to see. Bad movies are green lit aaaallllllllll the time.
The great irony of all of this.
She doesn’t know anything or have any connections lol, nothing works the number 1 true and only unshakable rule is write a good story that you adjust so many times and rewrite till it’s perfect that’s it.. everyone has 100 opinions
I think it’s more about they green light great movies but then producers and/or directors have a “new vision” for it
the "design by committee" effect
I'm wondering, if a lot of poorly cast, and made movies we see today, are due to film students making movies that automatically get released before going through the Hollywood filter, which would be equivalent to say, science students writing and publishing a dissertation, as part of their syllabus upon graduation.
Having an idea doesn't make you a writer. You need the skill to put the idea down on paper as story- great advice.
And vice versa. Your prose can be majestic, but without a compelling story you're just a wordsmith. A writer tells stories. We'd rather read bad prose that carries us through a great adventure than stick with a wordsmith who has nothing of value to say.
100% true when you first start screenwriting you’re drawing on and trying to create moments as opposed to crafting an actual story. That’s why your first screenplay feels like it’s soooo many pages to fill.
This is so damn true. She knows exactly what she is talking about.
My own take is that if your film/pilot opens with your protagonist waking up in their own bed and there isn't anything inherently wrong with the situation, you've picked the wrong opening moment.
If you open with a character in bed and the alarm clock-radio goes off, (as per hundreds of spec scripts ) and he/she reaches out a lazy arm to hit the snooze button.. have the clock explode and wreck the bedroom, blowing the bed through the wall and out onto the street, because someone's switched the clock for a bomb-clock.
That's a good first page, wrapped up in a big-deal, Yawn opening.
@@terencejay8845 I literally imagined that. Take this as a joke but your comment itself is an interesting opening and I would want to copy that-
I recall a story that began with the character waking up...
in a DumpSter™
@@terencejay8845 But then the saboteur must be central to the story!
Unless your inciting incident is going to be a "problem" and not an "opportunity." A story with a "problem" inciting incident can open with the character feeling pretty good about their life. Everything is seemingly fine until the "problem" gets dumped in their lap. Now they spend the rest of the story trying to fix the problem and maybe by the end they realized their life wasn't as great as they thought, but NOW after solving the problem it finally can be -- or if it's a tragedy, solving the problem can make their life worse than when the story began. (Think "Chinatown.")
The flip side of that is the story opening with the protagonist feeling pretty low about their life, and then an "opportunity" drops onto their plate. (Think "Rocky.")
I'm a simple man. I see an advice video from Shannan E. Johnson and I click it.
This one has encouraged me to pay attention to other departments in films when I think stuff like "oh man this is soo badly written!!".
Corey Mendell covered the 10 page rule I think, but this is a good refresher for that note. Following up with these ideas of doing something interesting that prepares the audience for what to expect from the rest of the film is great.
She's right. It's just like reading a novel, it has to be interesting from the beginning. And it helps if everything has relevance...
I don't personally think what she's saying stretches to novel writing, I've read a lot of books who didn't really kick into gear until after page 100. I think because screenwriting is a primarily visual medium you have grab people's attention straight away whereas book have the luxury of slowly building up.
@@polaroidandroidjeff6383 But there has to be something engaging on page one or two, there has to be something worth investigating or that makes you want to get those 100 pages turning. It doesn't have to be the inciting incident, and it doesn't have to layout the whole book, but it should be telling us something, and it should grab the reader. You only get to make one first impression, after that you can take your time to build up to things, but right at the beginning, you gotta have something to say that makes me go "Oh, where's this going?".
I think novels require more patience, as they take longer to unfold. If I would’ve given up on certain novels in the first hundred pages, let alone the first ten, I would’ve missed out on some incredible stories.
Writing 101 - everything you write has to one of two things. 1. Increase the readers understanding of the characters 2. Move the action forward. Anything else and you're wasting the reader's time.
@@SMacCuUladh exactly! Pages and pages of "Just Wait till the next half of the book. It's gonna be so great" is just bad writing, stalling, and the story should just be shorter.
Writers are the only ones who get it. I could listen to her forever.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Shannan. This video helped me mentally revisit the action movies that people still care about decades after their release:
1. 'Aliens' - After surviving an alien attack on her ship, Ellen Ripley struggles to cope with a world that has changed before she tackles the aliens.
2. 'Die Hard' - While struggling with his married life, John McClane is under pressure when gunmen arrive, but he slowly learns to overcome.
3. 'Lethal Weapon' - Healing from the death of his wife is hard, but Martin Riggs springs to action when his friend's daughter gets abducted.
4. 'Predator' - Despite his confidence in his weapons and combat skills, Dutch has to scale down while defeating a far-powerful enemy.
5. 'The Terminator' - While trying to make ends meet and get educated, Sarah Connor must fight an entity that threatens her existence.
None of these movies start off with the heroes / heroines showing off what they can achieve. If they did, that would kill the suspense.
She just dropped straight FACTS.
dropt strate fax
She sounds like a great teachers.
She is just one person, dipshit. Singular.
Movie moments. Sums up my life! She is so brutally honest you can’t help but listen.
I love her energy when providing answers. It makes me excited about writing!
I'm an editor and Shanon just taught me tons of golden wisdom....
I'm shaking with excitement at the valuable content I am getting.
Great point she made about jumping into something on page one that is not going to carry the story/character forward.
Now that I think about, all of my favorite films and tv shows have strong, opening, characteristic moments that tell who the person/people are! Holy shit!
I’m finally taking my first class this summer I’m so excited!
good luck!!
i bet you your screenplay is gonna be about weaves
@@josephkondrey4060 oh look, a prick.
@@blackdenyce He was probably just joking lol her Channel name is "Queenofweaves"
Congrats You got this! 👍🏾👏🏾
Great teacher! She articulates and shares her wisdom without making the listener feel intimidated or ignorant. Bravo! Thank you film courage for so much great consistency.
This woman is in my head! Everything she says is so right on for me.
her point about 'movie moments' - dang!! That is a good insight!
It can help in the rewrite to think about how the opening scene and final scene compare or contrast, in terms of tone, character, expectations, theme, setting. It might inform the writer how to make changes to the opening. Alternatively, if working on a fifth or six draft, it might be helpful to go back to early drafts and see if an important line or idea got lost along way.
I wish myself luck in the future...
Maybe the 10th bite of this meal will be cooked properly? Nine bites of undercooked chicken is my limit! Get to it on page one. 😉 Good stuff Shannan!
I just wanna say that Shannan is an AMAZING teacher! Learning so much just watching these videos.
beforehand I knew the general idea she talked about, but never how to apply it when writing. She really makes it clear on how to know "ok this is what I need to do" and my next rewrite is definitely going to be better. You can tell she's a wonderful teacher and writer!
She just described the beginning of Mulholland Drive (two people talking in a diner about something abstract, but cool), although it setups the theme.
Right. As much as I like this sort of thing, certain filmmakers completely invert the prescribed way of doing something.
And Pulp Fiction. 2 Random characters you don't see again until the very end of the movie.
The movie moment point really got me. Really punched me in the gut. Especially as a person whose coming out of being primarily a movie consumer to an actual aspiring screenwriter.
I always love seeing Shannen. Thanks for bringing her back, this was a great video. I feel like so many movies are so focused on movie moments rather than the stories. It's like they've built the trailer in their head with all the important scenes and then write the movie around those clips they see for a trailer rather than writing a good story.
Events are not story. Rewrite, focus and rewrite.
Hmmm, please expand on this 😔
I feel like to go back to the "drawing desk" and do it again! Greetings from Brazil.
Thank you for these videos 🙏🏾 Valuable lessons!
Ok, just dropping in after bingeing all the interviews involving Shannan:
These are two incredibly knowledgeable and talented women! I love the interviewer's insightful and creative questions, and Shannan's answers are always logical and bring so many "aha!" moments. Thank you Film Courage for sharing this!!
Great advice. I'm working on selling my pilot after 12 years of development. Episode one needs to grab the reader quickly. Lotta these new shows don't generally start to entertain till Mid season.
In simple words: thanks for all the content you upload to this channel. It's a gold mine for us, amateur writers.
Love this channel. Thanks for da work you do!
Thanks Clinton, appreciate you spending some time with us. Hope you are staying creative during these challenging times.
Love it ... thankful for this information !
We need more of her asap!!
Have you seen all of these - bit.ly/32pCWAF and these - bit.ly/2MxiQx2
Film Courage about to check them out now. Thanks.
Purpose and motivation! The visceral connection... I love it!
Very valuable advice.
Clear, concise and useful advice. This was extremely helpful.
The structure of screenplay is hidden within your story. Every story has a different structure. Opening image is your first impression, so if writer misses it, it immediately gets recognized by the experts.
Thanks for this advice, trying to keep this words in mind while writing
This information is going to be very useful - thank you soo much - now to writing.
What she say is really helpful.
The first page part and her class sounds good!
Thank you :D
Really insightful stuff. :) Shannan sounds like she was a really good teacher.
She’s awesome. I’m fine tuning my 1st 10 pages right now. Great interview!
“I put an explosion in so I caught them wa ha ha” ...👁👄👁”Explosion for what?”😂
Awesome! She gave a very informative and educational response. Thanks Shannon.
Great insights. Very helpful
Oh my gosh! So true! Hard to put what you're thinking unto paper
Another perfect video with Shannan Johnson, the Boss! Awesome teacher!
I love her. She is so insightful!
Wow, she's fantastic! Great insights that are very clearly explained.
very insightful woman, she hit every nail on its head.
Shannan is consistently on the mark, and has a very at-ease on-camera presence. She must be a great teacher in the classroom if she's this good on TH-cam.
I’m going to look up if there is a longer video with her. She’s a fantastic teacher! This whole course is great
Check out the two playlists in our info section for all of our videos with Shannan.
I really appreciate the such a big and important channel like this that post videos such still find the time to answer the subscribers. Taking advantage of that ( in a good way ) i'll ask: you guys have a video showing step to step how to write a script, i mean pro formatation, like how the market will be more likely accept reading it ? Like a video visually showing the structures, like titles, subtitles, paragraphs, pages ? I know you guys do this amazingly all the time by giving important people advices , but in a practical sense, are any videos showing how to format a 'Hollywood template' scripts ? Thanks so much
I sometimes… not all the time, but in a few of my screenplays, like to open with the main antagonist or villain doing something intense or gruesome before we meet the protagonist(s). Not only does it give it that exciting hook right off the bat that’s necessary for the story, but i like the idea of seeing how tough and scary the bad guy is right away and then meeting your protagonist and thinking “how is THIS person gonna overcome or take down that other person?”
Yeah. Antagonists are interesting and essential.
So interesting to hear. I am a studio exec and I personally give something at least 30 minutes, usually thru act 1. If I only read 10 pages I’m always nervous I won’t be able to say I did my due diligence haha
She’s sooo cool! omg I’d love her to come teach a workshop in my school but Im in Paris
So much great writing advice out there, its amazing Netflix turns out so many steaming piles. Yet, here we are.
-nobody knows anything.
-W.G.
Wow, got a college course in just the first two minutes 👏🏼 👏🏼👏🏼 Thanks so much for this interview
Breaking Bad really kicks into next gear in the late stages of season three. I mean, I agree with her, especially when you’re reading dozens of other scripts. You want to be hooked from the get-go. However, sometimes patience can be rewarding. A lot of movies and books can appear average or even dull until you get this amazing payoff that makes everything worthwhile. I guess it all depends on whether or not you trust the writer to take you on their journey, and how skilled they are at planting seeds.
An argument could be made that the fact that Breaking Bad got to season three at is proof that the screenplay probably had something in the beginning that hooked the directors and made them willing to put their faith in the writer.
Breaking bad still ia interesting S1E1 tho, sets up the premise and story and has drama and conflict and exitement. While the story may go full blast later, its still got a good hook early on
The first scene in breaking bad has pants floating from the sky and a high speed RV chase while Walt is in his undies and bodies banging about.
I think if you have already proven yourself with other projects as a professional you will get a little more leeway to get to the good stuff. But as someone just trying to break in, you’d better prove that you know how to craft a story and do it quickly.
“I got the results of the tests back. I definitely have breast cancer.” I open the script with a woman saying that. We never see her again.
God i just heard her first words and I'm hooked.
Omg this was fantastic.
How was this video helpful to you?
the first few pages are about setup: character, world, intentional details for the story. action films open with action: to teach the audience what they need to know about the main charachter's skills. so when the inciting incident does happen, you know that they can or cannot do it.
don't open on meaningless conversations or "cool" scenes that have nothing to do with story.
we all grew up with movies, so we think of and refer to what we've already seen. don't try to replicate what you've seen just because it was cool or powerful.
capture the audience in those first 5 pages. like tv should get to the good stuff on episode 1, your script should do the same.
pitch the same thing that you're writing.
being able to take what you have in your imagination and putting it onto paper is a skill. its hard to do.
It made me think about the other departments and budget. Wasting budget and time on something that doesn’t help the story, yeah good point.
I just quick edited my first page. I had this funny introduction to the character but it didn’t serve the purpose of letting us know a key dynamic that is central to the show. Changed it out for something that is not as funny but serves the story a lot better.
The pilot sells the series.
Her advice helped give focus and methodology for properly pruning my little sprouts to grow stronger for the pitch. Thanks a bunch!
Yes she's very good. I just subscribed to her link. Thanks Film Courage.
Here's a question for film students/teachers, filmmakers, and those in the industry, that's been frustrating me - What IS "good"?
Perhaps it comes down to different philosophies from one person to another, but -
Is a script/film being "good" or "bad" not an extremely SUBJECTIVE thing? That's what I have heard over and over - that there is no scientifically correct way to do it - it is art. So who gets to decide the quality of your script? Isn't it up to whatever given individual is reading it or watching your film based on it? Isn't there simply no "correct" answer in terms of a film or script's quality (characters, plot, etc.)? Sure, there are conventional things like structure, but I'd argue you can bend some of those "rules" as many successful filmmakers do. So what is the deal?
I agree completely. The "rules" suck. Remember when i first read that a series for TV has to be either a procedural, a sitcom, sci-fi, fantasy or drama. What I was writing was sort of "Midnight Run" merged with "The A-Team" - comedy, acton, drama, relationship, witty dialogue. So - none of the categories fit. No wonder TV is taking a dive in ratings. What we all don't want is yet another "dead body at the start of every episode"-show, or "Four ugly women being the Ghostbusters". They dont make fresh original stuff, because they dont WANT IT. They just want to keep paying their cousins and lovers big money to write remakes and carbon copies.
I say - write whatever first page that fits your script, never mind the "rules" - the ones that make those never read any scripts anyway. Write for the art, for the perfection.
Love this woman; she's pretty brilliant!
I enjoy where the beginning is the end. You judge without understanding why they did what they “had” to do or how they got where they were at.
Lovely.
pulp fiction opens up on two people in a diner talking and are absent for 90% of the rest of the film. tarantino won the oscar for that screenplay despite that "mistake" and she goes on and on about that very kind of setup saying its wrong. the two aren't even protagonists and their dialogue is essentially disconnected from the basis of the story more or less. its intriguing and controversial even humorous and organic but outside of them talking about committing a crime there isn't much of a connection to the rest of the film and yet its an amazing screenplay.
Shannan is brilliant!
‘Movie moments’
Only 3:00 in but had to comment. That’s brilliant insight. Okay, back to the video...😏
My college teacher did the zero thing as well. It works.
"The pilot is what sells the series."
Every Star Trek show begins sweating.
I could listen to her talk about screenwriting all day.
This woman is amazing.
Shannan is spot on! The first page of a script is very crucial because the writer has to establish the basics of who this character is in that particular world very early on.
You can't establish ANYTHING on page one of a script, and if you try you will just mess the whole thing up. A film is artwork - sure you need to meet your hero and get into the main story quickly, but "first page"? Most of the best movies and series have scripts where you don't even know the main characters name on the first page, or he/she ain't there at all! A film needs to work well as a whole. The first page needs to work to that goal.
If someone optioned my screenplay I'd be the happiest clam in the ocean. They can use to start a fire. I'll write another. Winter is cold and summer is for toasting marshmallows.
This is potent
Interesting point about the "wait until episode 5" with tv shows. I recently started watching Schitt's Creek, which is now an acclaimed & loved show. I absolutely hated the first 4 episodes and every character, evidently a lot of people did. The consensus seems to be to wait until season 2 and then it gets good. How does a show like that get picked up after a terrible and seemingly hated pilot & first season and not just cancelled outright? I can't fathom how any executive would read the first 10 pages of that pilot script and greenlight it.
S-o-o-o informative and useful. Thanks. I love her accent. Where''s she from?
2:22 Laughed loud at this point.
10:00 I was a late bloomer when it came to learning. As a 22 year old I found a teacher in math(s) I was in the navy and I was taking the course during off times while the ship was underway.
He only gave one of two grades 0 or 100, because if you're doing your taxes you can't turn in a tax return that's 85% correct, a ballistic had best be figured better than 92% or if you're trying to figure out the safe working load of a machine, you can't afford to do C+ work, it's A+ or don't bother.
He would return each test, we would fix whatever was wrong, figure out what we had done wrong in the first place so not to repeat the problem until we achieved the 100% consistently; then he would go to the next thing to learn.
It's funny she mentions two people talking in a cafe since that's how pulp fiction starts but of course you get introduced to a lot of characters pretty quickly in that scene.
What I admire Shannan for is her lack of arogance. That's rare.
Question for Shannan - what do you do when you hit the Act II slump and the wheels get stuck in the mud?
Exactly how I go to a movie, always have.
It is a little bit paradox - if the "cool" (or surrealist, or whatever) opening scene was also relevant, you can only know if you have read maybe not the whole script, but at least a part of it, say at least 'till the inciting incident/plotpoint1. So how are you gonna make a judgement if you reject a script after a few pages? I know as a writer and literary critic that you often in fact can make an educated guess on the relevance of the opening scene just from that scene alone, but not more. So I feel there is a lot of mixing up going on between saying we are judging a work upon aesthetic merits, while actually our real excuse to not read on is time constraints (and some gut-feeling)
not everyone spike about mood, costume and lighting that help move the story along
yassss...movie moments over story lol. It's really serious.
What if those 10-15 pages captivate you? Do you finish reading the script, or read another 10-15 pages to see if those next pages still hold the momentum of the story at the same level It did at the beginning?
They'd usually continue the read unless it becomes very apparent along the way that you have no idea what you're doing, which happens a lot in the second act. So they save their time and stop reading.
@@ShannanEJohnson and Film Courage can the next video be second act mistakes? xD pretty please?
@@ShannanEJohnson yes...seconds act can get a little lost and hard to pace right...good point