What School Taught me about Writing Scripts

So when I first decided I wanted to be a screen writer I started out by buying books on screen writing like anyone else would. I then moved on to commentaries and reading scripts I could get my hands on. By time I started writing myself I felt I had a good understanding of what I was supposed to do and how the format should look.

That's when I took a screenwriting class just to make sure I was doing it right! I had a great teacher who seemed like he knew what he was talking about. He even made his own indie flick that was beyond funny. Throughout the two semesters I took with him he taught me that pretty much everything I've been doing is wrong. You can NEVER use screen angles. Don't describe the characters or give them inflection. The actors can figure out the emotions you want them to have delivering a line by reading the script. They don't need you to point it out. Don't make a wordy movie. People want to watch a movie not hear one. So don't have too many monologues or long conversation scenes because no one cares.

I really believed what he taught me till I started listening to the scriptnotes podcast. http://johnaugust.com/podcast or you can listen on ITunes. Well they told me the opposite of pretty much everything my teacher had taught me. You can describe your characters. If it's good conversations you can let it breath a bit. If you need to put a camera direction to make a point than by all means do it. The only rule in scriptwriting is to make it good. If it's good and you follow the proper structure you'll be alright. The worst part is he didn't even teach us that. I always thought that a voice over should look like this;

                                                                                KYLE
                                                                          (VO)
                                                             Random shit to say yo.

But that isn't right. He never once corrected me. He let me go on thinking this was how it should look when the correct way is like so;

                                                                              KYLE (VO)
                                                                   Random shit to say yo.

When you put it under the name like in the first one, well that is for inflection. You know, what he told me never to do.

                                                                            KYLE (VO)
                                                                   (Pissed)
                                                            Random shit to say yo.

So I didn't learn what I was doing wrong in the class, which is the reason I paid for it not once but twice but he also taught me wrong. And every time a student would ask how he got an agent he would change the subject. He told a friend of mine that he should only write one type of script or he would never get signed. What is up with my school? It's like they want to put us in a box and keep us from achieving our goals. Making it in the film industry is hard. Harder than you could ever believe what with it slowly turning into a hobby instead of a career now a days. The last thing we need is for our teachers who are supposed to help us, to guide us, sabotaging us.

Every writer knows that 1 page = a minute. Except when it doesn't. It's more a guide than a hard fast rule. But my school swears it's always true. No matter what. The crazy thing? They don't have a set font for when you write scripts. So every page equals a minute, even when every page doesn't even equal another page. The font you are supposed to use is Courier but at school more often than not they use Time New Roman. Which will add at least ten pages onto a normal sized script.

These are common sense  type concerns that no one at the school seems to understand or care about. Tomorrow I'll talk about what they teach us about production.