Emotional Context
There's a pretty common trap that a lot of screenwriters fall into, and I've read a few scripts recently that all had the same issue, so I figured I'd bring it up here.
The problem is a lack of emotional context in any given scene.
Here's an example...
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INT. WAREHOUSE - DAY
Sammy and Mike sit at the table. Sammy is smoking.
SAMMY
...and so I said "Yeah."
MIKE
Yeah?
SAMMY
Yeah.
MIKE
What did she say?
SAMMY
Well...
He takes a drag off of his cigarette.
MIKE
What? C'mon.
SAMMY
(laughs)
She asked me to call her some time!
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Okay, what's going on in that scene? Sammy is telling Mike about a conversation he had with some girl.
But ... how does Sammy feel about it? How does Mike feel about it?
You probably inferred some sort of emotional context from the rhythm of the exchange, but what if the emotional context you inferred isn't what I was trying to convey?
What if Sammy and Mike are players, and Sammy's laughing at the idea that he'd actually call some girl he slept with?
But what if Sammy has met the girl of his dreams, and he's really happy that she wants to see him again?
Or, what if he's angry that she would want him to call her, so he laughs bitterly?
Now ... even if you guessed right what I was intending to be Sammy's emotional context for his lines, does that mean that Mike automatically has the same emotional context for *his* lines?
What if Mike loves the girl, and Sammy doesn't know it? How would that change the emotional context of the scene?
What if Mike hates the girl, and Sammy doesn't know it? How would that change the emotional context of the scene?
In short, what do Sammy and Mike feel about the girl, about the situation, and about each other?
All of this is non-verbal stuff, which would be conveyed by performance. But if I as the writer wasn't clear about what emotions the characters were feeling, how could I expect you as the reader to understand the dramatic point I was trying to make?
I could have the entire scene really clear in my head, and it could be awesome in the movie that is playing in my mind, but if I don't convey the nuances of the scene on the page, all that clever visualization on my part is lost.
Sure, it would be possible to infer some of the emotional context of the scene based on what happened before in the story, but what if this was the first scene? If all you had to go on was the information that I was presenting in this scene, and I gave you almost nothing ... you'd be pretty damn confused about what the characters were feeling, and chances are you wouldn't be interested enough to keep reading if I kept writing in such a context-free style.
Let's look at an opening scene that conveys emotional context really well, and actually switches the context halfway through, to see how a good writer did it...
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FADE IN:
INT. GRUBBY HOTEL CORRIDOR - DAY (DIMLY LIT)
A woman's face BACKS INTO SHOT, her head resting against grimy wallpaper. She is tense, sweaty, wide-eyed with concentration. This is CLARICE STARLING - mid-20's, trim, very pretty. She wears Kevlar body armor over a navy windbreaker, khaki pants. Her thick hair is piled under a navy baseball cap. A revolver, clutched in her right hand, hovers by her ear. She raises a speedloader, in her left hand, locks it into her cylinder, twists and reloads.
CLOSE ON
a guest room door, with a small, wired pack attached to its knob.
Suddenly, with a sharp CRACK!, the knob explodes, and the door bursts open.
WITH CLARICE - MOVING SHOT -
as she runs around a corner, through a cloud of smoke. She shoulders aside the shattered door and rushes inside, gun at the ready in both hands...
CUT TO:
INT. HOTEL ROOM - DAY
CLARICE'S POV - MOVING - as she first sees, sitting on the edge of a bed - a FEMALE HOSTAGE. Black, late 20's, gagged, hands behind her back. Then, SWIVELLING... she sees a startled MALE SUSPECT - white, mid-20's - standing by a window with a rifle in his hands. He is turning towards her...
CLARICE
drops into a combat crouch, gun extended, and shouts.
CLARICE
Freeze! FBI!
CLARICE'S POV - SLOW MOTION -
all natural SOUND suspended - as the Suspect faces her with a strange, pleading expression. The rifle is rising in his hands, but oddly enough, it is held across his chest, not pointing. Then another puzzling detail registers...
THE SUSPECT'S HANDS
are taped to his gun, away from the trigger; he couldn't use it even if he tried. Suddenly we hear a metallic CLICK, which reg- isters with unnatural amplification, as -
CLARICE
reacts, drops to the floor, rolling sideways, and -
THE "HOSTAGE"
pulls a revolver out from behind her back, still in SLOW MOTION, raising it in her untied hands. She fires repeatedly, flames leaping from the muzzle; the SOUND is an echoing roar in these close quarters, but -
CLARICE
has come up on one knee, beside an armchair, and is already firing back herself, two quick SHOTS, which send -
THE "HOSTAGE"
pitching over the bed, backwards, to shudder and lie still in a haze of gunsmoke. Clarice rushes to her, clamping one knee down on her gun hand, still keeping her covered in case of movement. HOLD for a few beats... then we hear the shrill blast of a WHISTLE from somewhere, O.S., as normal ACTION and SOUND are restored.
BRIGHAM (O.S.)
Okay, people, good exercise...
Clarice relaxes, lowering her gun. The lights brighten.
PULLING BACK -
we see that we're in some sort of auditorium, with the "hotel room" and its "corridor" built as a training set. JOHN BRIGHAM walks onto this set, thumbing a stopwatch. Mid-40's, ex-Marine. His T-shirt's lettering says "Firearms Instructor / FBI Academy."
BRIGHAM (contd.)
Starling's reaction time was excellent. Let's break. Critique in five.
A class of about forty young FBI trainees, of both sexes, be- gins to rise from their seats, mingling and chatting.
CLARICE
nods amiably to the "Suspect", then gives her "Hostage" a hand up.
It's ARDELIA MAPP, her roommate. Her broad, clever face breaks into a big smile, as they both remove ear plugs. Clarice's voice has just a soft trace of southern accent.
ARDELIA
Damn, Clarice, how'd you make me?
CLARICE
(indicating her gun)
Never cock. Just squeeze.
ARDELIA
(grins)
I love it when you talk dirty.
As Brigham joins them, Clarice can't resist a star pupil's little smile of pride. He frowns good-naturedly.
BRIGHAM
What're you laughin' at, Junior G-Man? She got off four rounds to your two.
He takes out a steel-coiled grip flexer, drops it onto her palm.
BRIGHAM (contd.)
One hundred reps, each hand, every day. Now tidy up, the Section Chief wants to see you.
He nods a direction, then moves off. Clarice, with her smile finally fading, looks out into the auditorium.
SPECIAL AGENT RAY CAMPBELL
sits on the top step of the aisle, looking down at her. He is 53, strongly built. He rises impassively, exits through the back door.
He carries a think manila envelope under one arm.
ARDELIA
who is helping Clarice unbuckle her bullet-proof vest, follows her worried gaze.
CLARICE
What'd I do?
ARDELIA
Stay cool. Just remember to call him "God."
------------
Allllrighty then. Makes my little context-free scene look like chopped liver, doesn't it? That Tally fella knows his stuff.
So, what tools does he use to convey emotional context? At one level, it's actually pretty simple - he simply describes body language and facial expressions.
(There's a larger discussion to be had about sentence length and structure, paragraph length and structure, and a bunch of esoteric writerly stuff that reinforces the emotional impact of the scene, but the big easy lesson here is about body language and facial expressions.)
The screenwriting gurus tell us that we're not allowed to write anything other than what we can see and hear. That's an excellent rule of thumb, especially for beginning writers or writers from other media who are used to being able to write about the internal lives of their characters. But the rule can be taken too far.
I think that we should write about what we can see, hear, and INFER.
And including body language and facial expressions is a visual, cinematic way to allow the reader to infer the emotional context of the scene.
Ted Tally does this well:
"She is tense, sweaty, wide-eyed with concentration."
Here Tally is saying that we can see she is tense, sweaty, and wide-eyed. Those visual clues will allow us to *infer* that she is concentrating.
He does this sort of thing over and over again, showing us visual clues, and telling us the inference that we're supposed to get from it.
And notice how he makes the emotional tone do a 180 after it's revealed that this tense situation is actually just an exercise:
"CLARICE nods amiably to the "Suspect", then gives her "Hostage" a hand up. It's ARDELIA MAPP, her roommate. Her broad, clever face breaks into a big smile, as they both remove ear plugs."
Lots of non-verbal cues there too. "Nods" is an action, but "amiably" is an inference - it allows the reader to understand the emotional context of the action, and gives the performer something to do other than lowering her chin and then raising it again.
"...her broad, clever face breaks into a big smile..."
This is from a character intro, so the "rules" are relaxed a bit, but you can infer a lot of context from the introduction of this character. Also, it's an indication that Ardelia's emotional state is different that what might be expected given the fact that she JUST GOT SHOT. She lost that little training contest, but she's cheerful and happy with Clarice.
"As Brigham joins them, Clarice can't resist a star pupil's little smile of pride. He frowns good-naturedly."
Look at that. Just a couple of actions, but chock-full of inferences and emotional context. All from 17 words. Beautiful.
So, with this "emotional context" idea presented so clearly here (and in almost every other professional-level screenplay), why is it that so many student screenwriters fall short in establishing emotional contexts in their scenes? Why is it that you can read an amateur script and have very little idea about what the characters are feeling?
I think a lot of it comes down to an honest desire to follow the "rules" of screenwriting, and not understanding that they're more like what you'd call guidelines than actual rules.
Movies don't happen in an emotional vacuum. When you watch a movie, you constantly make inferences about the plot, characters, motivations, emotions, etc. It could even be said that one of the qualities of a *good* movie is that it confidently leads the audience to make inferences that are correct to the filmmakers' intentions. 2 + 2 = 4, and all that.
So, if you've been overly worried about obeying that rule about seeing and hearing, and your scripts have suffered for it, I encourage you to loosen that rule just a little bit and give your reader the emotional context of the movie he is supposed to be seeing in his mind's eye. He'll thank you for it.
posted by Steve Barr @ 1:24 PM
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