What kind of knowledge do you need to write a script?

Are you talking about a movie or TV script, a drama script or a novel script?

I only told three of them.

Movie scripts include three different scripts, namely, movie literature scripts, movie storyboards and movie completion scripts. Nowadays, almost any domestic film released and shown has these three scripts at the same time. As far as the contents of these three scripts owned by a film are concerned, they are basically the same, but they are jointly completed by creators in different positions in the film, appearing in different stages of film production and playing different roles.

Film literary script

The creative activity of film literary script is the first link in the whole creative process of film. This is written by a film writer. Among all film creators, the screenwriter is the first person to get in touch with the material of life. He was the first person who got inspiration, inspiration, impulse and thought from life, analyzed, selected, processed and refined the material, made it a specific theme of a movie, conceived characters and plots, organized it into a complete and unified pattern, and designed an art form corresponding to the content.

The script of film literature is the basis of the film, which has clear provisions on the theme, characters, plot, structure, style and style of the future film. When a director realizes a movie literary script on the screen, it is usually impossible to fundamentally change the above content. For example, it is impossible for him to change the stories originally told in sequence in literary scripts into episodes or flashbacks; Nor can he direct a comedy script into a tragedy. Unless he rewrites the movie literary script before shooting, it shows that the literary script is "the basis of a play".

Film literary script is the guarantee of film success. After a director has a good script, he can organize a creative team and start working. The leading department of the film factory examines and approves the film literary script, and fully evaluates its ideological and artistic quality before issuing production instructions and investing production funds.

The second movie storyboard

It is also often called a director's desk or a director's script.

A movie consists of scenes and shots. After getting a satisfactory literary script, the director should make some more detailed shooting plans, such as how many shots are used in this scene, from what angle, from what distance, and in what way (push, pull, shake, move, etc. ). In this script, which plays can be shot in the same scene? Which plays can be made in the same season? Wait a minute. All these things are usually not clearly defined in literary scripts, and some problems are not even defined at all (for example, the location and scene of shooting are not specified), so the director should formulate them on the movie storyboard according to the movie literary script. Only in this way can the film crew start their work according to the very specific instructions of story board.

The writing style of storyboards varies according to the director's habits. Some directors like to do it alone, while others like to discuss and study with their creative staff (photographers, artists, sound recorders, makeup artists, props artists, etc.). ), and finally work it out.

Third, complete the template.

It is also often called a lens notebook. This is what the reporter did after the whole film was filmed. The director doesn't always follow the leadership of the storyboard in shooting. He often has a brainwave to change the plan on the storyboard and make some additions and deletions. The task of completing the script is to record all the technical and artistic contents of the film that has been produced and finalized, and specify the number of feet of each shot in detail. For every copy of the film sold, a complete copy is attached. In this way, film theorists can use it as a research material, for example, by comparing it with literary scripts and storyboards, to see what has changed and to think about the reasons for the changes. The film projection department can check the copy according to it to see how damaged it is and repair it accordingly. Finally, I want to make it clear that in spoken English, we often habitually refer to movie scripts as movie scripts for short. In this book, we also agree with this idiom, and call the movie literary script a movie script.

Written form of movie script

To be sure, movie scripts don't have a fixed written form like letters or telegrams. Its written form is even freer than a drama script. For example, in a drama script, time, place, role list, etc. Always write at the beginning, then the content line, and the scene description written in the gap between lines and enclosed in brackets. There is no such rule in movie scripts. A film screenwriter can decide what kind of writing form to use according to his own preferences or the needs of the script content. Here, I can only divide the text forms of movie scripts into two categories according to a established habit.

What's the difference between novel creation and script creation?

Readable script

This type of script is very popular in the Soviet Union and China. Most of their written forms have the following characteristics: (1) The scripts are not only available for shooting (customarily called "patability"), but also pay great attention to the rhetoric and literary talent of the written language. It not only provides a basis for the director to shoot, but also can be a kind of text book that ordinary readers can read and appreciate directly. For example, the Sino-Japanese storm, the red female soldier, anxious to return, the late rain and so on; China translated and published Soviet screenplays Xia Boyang, Red Berry and Song of Lovers. Even when reading a book, it gives people no less aesthetic pleasure than a novel. (2) The text paragraphs of a script are often divided by the temporal and spatial changes of the scene, but not every temporal and spatial change indicates the time and place. But through the description of the plot, those contents are naturally reflected. In this way, readers can maintain emotional coherence when reading, and they will not "5. County railway station. A cold winter night. " Text breaks like this. For example, this passage by Xia Boyang:

At the railway station in the small county, there are buses parked. In the window of the headquarters carriage, the lights are brilliant. There are intermittent brass trumpets, the whistle of locomotive dispatching, the clang of buffers and the flute of trailer members ... In the gorgeous carriage of the headquarters, an officer in the uniform of Captain Kabelev stood in front of a map marked with a large front.

If the script is written according to the camera recording, the time and place will be marked in front of these two paragraphs. For example, a line can be written at the beginning of the second paragraph: "6. Inside the headquarters carriage. Night. " There are even some scripts, in order not to interrupt the emotional coherence of readers when reading, the writers simply do not divide the paragraphs of the text by the time-space transformation of the scene, but by the relatively complete stage of plot development. For example, the American movie script Kramer vs Kramer wrote a series of different aerial scenes in the same paragraph: first, father Ted took his son to the park to play and chat with his female neighbor, then he called his son in the office, and then he wrote that they had dinner together at home ... (3) The shooting techniques were not clearly defined (such as "close-up", "advance" and "fade out"). For example, the beginning of the Soviet film script "Should Defend Her" (translated as "Defense Words" again) reads:

In the bustling street, there stood a handsome young man leaning against the iron fence and waiting for someone. We stole a look at him from the tailor's shop and looked at him carefully. We were out of our minds. The seamstress just leaned against the glass window and looked at it. Later, she finally turned around and said to me:

Although this passage does not specify how to shoot, it is not difficult for an experienced director to imagine the shooting position of the lens. For example, the sentence that I added a bullet suggested that the camera was shot from the room towards the window facing the street, and there would be a close-up of the seamstress. The last sentence implies that the heroine who is trying on clothes should appear at the exit. This writing method has certain advantages, which can let the director actively exert his creativity, and will not let the reader spoil the mood when reading because of the interference of those technical terms.

Second, unreadable scripts.

This kind of script is very popular in western countries and Japan. They have the following characteristics: (1) The screenwriter regards providing filming for the director as his only responsibility and purpose, and is not prepared to read his own scripts in words. Therefore, the direct sketch of action or picture is often adopted, which does not pursue literary talent and is unreadable. For example, the script of the Japanese film Naked Island:

2. Dawn

The sea is still sleeping.

People are also sleeping.

There is the sound of paddling in the morning fog.

A small junk is on the shore.

There is a poor peasant couple on board, namely, Qian Tai and A Feng.

Mrs. Qian is a stout man in her thirties and sixties.

A Feng is a woman in her mid-twenties, with a dark face and narrow shoulders.

There are four barrels on board.

Each of them lifted the barrel with a pole and went ashore.

A script like this is incomprehensible to the general reader. (2) The natural paragraphs of the text are divided into scenes (sometimes even refined into shots). At the beginning of each paragraph, a special line is used to indicate the field (or mirror) number, the location and time of the scene, and so on. For example, the paragraph in Naked Island listed above is marked with the venue number and time at the beginning: "2. Dawn ". The following paragraphs also indicate the location, such as "22. Terrace "and" 23 Dryland ". And "24 Pine balls on the beach "recorded the contents of the lens. This paragraph is a scene that only includes an empty shot.

(3) Such scripts often specify the shooting method technically, and even give many more specific instructions to other creative personnel of the film crew (director, acting, shooting, recording, artist, etc.). ) detailed. For example, the French film script "Love in Hiroshima" begins with this description:

What's the difference between novel creation and script creation?

At the beginning of the film, two pairs of bare shoulders appeared bit by bit. All we can see are these two shoulders hugging each other-head and butt are outside the painting, which seems to be covered with dust, rain, dew or sweat, whatever. The main reason is that we think these dewdrops and sweat have been polluted by the "mushroom cloud" that is gradually drifting away and dissipating.

In this passage, the playwright clearly put forward the technical requirements of shooting method, lens distance, picture composition and character modeling. Because this kind of script looks closer to the director's storyboard, people often call it a lens recording script or a technical script.

Of course, the division of these two different writing forms is only relative, and many words are in between. They not only pursue literary talent in written language, but also give some brief hints on shooting methods when necessary. This kind of writing is quite common in our country today, and blessings are written in this form. I have seen many scripts written by beginners with lens recording, and many technical terms have been added between words, such as "close-up", "fade out", "push" and "pull". Because they haven't understood the connotation of those director terms and the logical basis for their use, just to decorate their own scripts, people look a bit like watching movie scripts. In fact, those terms often make people in the industry frown and shake their heads after reading them, and sometimes even feel a little redundant. For example, a young man wrote: "A wisp of smoke rises from Ran Ran on a copper pot (close-up)." In fact, people who have a little knowledge of movies will know that it is a close-up shot after reading this sentence, and then it is redundant to mark "close-up".

In my opinion, it is not suitable for beginners to use the written form of lens recording script. That style should be based on your in-depth knowledge of film director and production. Without this foundation, it will be self-defeating

What's the difference between a novel and a screenplay?

It can often be seen that some well-qualified novelists are interested in writing screenplays, but after they spend a lot of time and energy, what they write is often not produced, or even if it is produced, it is not a good work. This makes them very angry, because if this part of life is used to write novels, the result will be much greater than this. So they came back disappointed on a whim. From then on, they never dared to write any plays easily, and warned other novelists not to write plays either.

Why is this happening?

It turns out that although novels and movie scripts both write stories on paper with pens, there are differences in narrative methods, means and rules of conception. Although both writing novels and scripts need to use thinking in images, the thinking in images in movies is quite special, which is called film thinking. This kind of thinking requires the playwright to always develop artistic imagination from the standpoint and viewpoint of the photographer when conceiving. There is always a screen in his mind, and all the life in his mind can only appear in this box. It's like a playwright always has a stage in his mind when he is conceiving. We know that everything that appears on the movie screen is very concrete and real. If a car comes, it must be a car or train, not a car or train or any other car. This feature is not found in the novel, and the text description of the novel needs to be imagined in the reader's mind to become an image. For example, Jia Baoyu in A Dream of Red Mansions, different readers may imagine Jia Baoyu with different looks. But once a dream of red mansions is made into a movie, Jia Baoyu can only be played by actors. It is precisely because of this feature that film thinking is more evasive than novel thinking.

For example, in portrait description, you write, "When a person walks in his forties, he can see at a glance that he is an amiable person." This doesn't meet the requirements of the movie script. Because "kindness, kindness and likability" is only an abstract and vague description of personality, the director can't understand what these personalities are. Why not write like this: "A man in his forties came with an infectious and satisfied smile on his chubby face. He kept nodding to passers-by, and those familiar with him-old and young-patted him on the shoulder, held his hand and even scratched his head. " Of course it's not necessarily a good joke, but at least it's photogenic.

Novelists try to make readers have a correct imagination of the appearance characteristics of characters through text description, and often need to describe portraits in great detail. Sometimes, this portrait description is even vast. Although the portrait description in the movie script is specific, it should not be too complicated and trivial, because the shape of a character can only be realized on the screen through the cooperation of a series of creators such as directors, actors, makeup artists and costumers. It doesn't make much sense to be too specific, just grasp the key details that can reflect the character characteristics from a certain side.

Dramatic script creation

Drama common sense

First, the meaning and characteristics of drama

Drama is a comprehensive stage art that uses literature, dance, music, art and other artistic means to create images and reflect social life.

The basic feature of drama is to express the theme of a brother through the story of actors playing roles. Different from pure literary works, it evokes readers' experience and association through words, revives the images in the works in readers' minds, and achieves the effect of infecting and educating readers. Drama, on the other hand, should give the image to the audience, let the image act on its own and give the audience a direct feeling. Specifically, the characteristics of drama are as follows:

1. comprehensive

Any form of drama is a comprehensive art form centered on the performing arts and absorbing various arts. For example, drama and traditional Chinese opera combine lines, performances, music and art, and China's plays, especially Peking Opera, are more comprehensive.

As a comprehensive art, drama mainly includes four categories:

The first is literature. Drama performance needs a script, which is the literary basis of performance. It creates a preliminary conception and image for stage art, just like the blueprint of architectural engineering.

The second is performance. In the form of drama, performing art is the center, which can recreate the images and stories provided in the script and become a stage art, mainly relying on the performances of actors, such as singing, chanting, expressions, characters and so on.

The third is music. This mainly refers to the vocal design and instrumental accompaniment in traditional Chinese opera and Chinese opera. Music design should be based on the ideas, characters and plots provided by the script. Its main function is to set off the characters' thoughts, feelings and psychological activities, create an atmosphere, and serve the development of the plot to shape the characters.

The fourth is painting. This mainly refers to makeup, clothing, scenery, props and so on. Some art designs directly shape characters, while others provide a typical environment for character activities and create an atmosphere for plot development.

According to the needs of plot development, it is the most important feature of drama art to combine the above artistic forms closely and harmoniously to form an organic artistic whole and a unified artistic style.

Step 2: Stage

Drama has to be performed on the stage, which makes it very strict in time and space compared with novels, essays and other artistic varieties such as movies and television. In script creation, we must pay special attention to the capacity of the works, strictly select materials and carefully organize materials.

The "three unifications" in western drama theory illustrate this feature. "Three unifications", also known as "three unifications", was first put forward by Italian drama theorists in the Renaissance, and later determined and popularized by French classical dramatists. The "three unifications" stipulate that script creation must abide by the consistency of time, place and action, that is, only one story can be written in a script, and the dramatic action must take place every day. Boileau, a French classical drama theorist, interpreted it as "a story that needs to be completed in one place and one day, so that the stage is full from beginning to end."

As a fixed rule of classical drama, the unity of three is a serious constraint on script creation, and it is inevitable that it will be broken eventually. But as a form of drama structure, it can make the script structure more concentrated and rigorous, and some playwrights have used it to write successful works.

Due to the limitation of the stage, drama must be highly concentrated in the following aspects:

First, people are concentrated. In drama creation, there are many characters and scattered brushwork, which can't create vivid and full images and even cause the stage to be crowded. Therefore, a drama, even a big drama, always focuses on writing a few characters.

Second, contradictions are concentrated. Drama can't show the contradictions and struggles of life as calmly as novels. Drama must grasp the main contradiction, put the characters in the whirlpool of contradictions and struggles, and realize the characters' character through sharp and fierce conflicts.

Drama can't completely follow the natural form of contradictions and struggles in life, but should make the process of contradictions and conflicts more concentrated. The process of raising, developing, intensifying and resolving contradictions must be completed within one hour or two or three hours. Therefore, in the long river of life, drama must choose those parts with the sharpest contradictions and conflicts and the most stirring thoughts and feelings of characters to form a reasonable, hierarchical, real and fascinating plot.

Third, the plot is concentrated. The concentration of drama contradictions makes the story less complicated. In a drama, months, years or even decades of events should be concentrated in a few days and hours to form a simple plot clue that runs through. The arrangement of the secondary line should also strive to be lively and closely cooperate with the main line to avoid beating about the bush and usurping the host's role.

Fourth, the scene is concentrated. Novels and movies can provide broad scenes for characters and stories. If a play is suitable for stage performance, people and events from all over the world and Qianshan must be condensed into one or several scenes. Therefore, choosing a scene to provide a typical environment for the characters is of more special significance to drama creation.

3. The sharpness of the conflict

Although various forms of drama have different means of expression, they all have one common feature, that is, there must be dramatic conflicts.

The so-called drama conflict refers to the contradictions and struggles among the characters in the drama, between the characters and the environment, and between the characters themselves, which is a concentrated reflection of the contradictions in social life in the drama art.

The contradiction between characters (including the characters themselves) cannot be simply understood as the confrontation of opposites, or the analysis and contradiction of two viewpoints and two propositions. Drama conflict refers to the character conflict between the characters in the play or the character conflict of the characters themselves. "Seriously speaking, only this contradictory relationship composed of distinct personalities is the real' drama conflict'." So some people say, "The play is in the heart."

Contradictions and conflicts are the basis of drama situation and the motive force of plot development. Drama mainly portrays characters and expresses the theme of works through characters. In drama theory, many people also emphasize the position and role of drama conflict in drama works to varying degrees. For example, Voltaire believed that every scene must show a struggle; Hegel regards "the conflict between various purposes and personalities" as the "central issue" of drama; In Drama Law, the French drama theorist Brent clearly regards conflict as the essential feature of drama art; Since then, many theorists have agreed with Brent's point of view, thus forming a concept to explain the proposition of "the essence of drama"-conflict theory. For a long time, there has been a popular view in China's drama theory and criticism that there is no drama without conflict. Therefore, drama conflict embodies the inherent law of drama creation.

There are many ways to express dramatic conflicts in the works. (1) may show the conflict between a character and other characters, some people call this way external conflict. (2) it may also be manifested as the inner conflict of the characters themselves, which some people call inner conflict. These two ways of dramatic conflict sometimes develop independently, and sometimes they are intertwined, interactive and mutually causal. (3) It may also be manifested in the conflict between man and the natural environment or social environment, and it also needs to be dramatized. When some plays show the conflict between the protagonist and the social environment, they often humanize the environment, that is, dramatize the conflict between the protagonist and other roles. For example, in Hamlet, the social environment faced by the protagonist is a "prison", and Claudius and his courtiers are precisely the humanization of the social environment. In addition, in some plays, the social environment often becomes the background that affects the characters, giving the protagonist an external sense of oppression, like the indigenous people who are ready to rebel in emperor jones. In the absurd drama, sometimes the social environment is materialized, that is, it is turned into symbolic props, resulting in the effect of "scene metaphor", such as chairs piled up on the stage in Chair, infinitely expanding bodies in Amadi or Escape, and so on.

4. The particularity of language

Drama can't be described by the author as scenes, plots, psychological activities and other elements like novels, but must be mainly expressed by the lines of the characters. Dramatic language (mainly lines) is the main form of dramatic art. It has the following characteristics:

The lines of a play must be easy to understand, short and vivid.

(2) The characters in drama lines are much heavier than the dialogues in novels. The characters depicted in the novel can be described by the author, and can be described by portraits, psychology, dialogues, actions and so on. And all this can only be expressed by lines in the drama. In addition, the description of the scene, the narrative of the plot and other characters also rely mainly on lines to play.

③ The dramatic language should be action-oriented.

Second, the type of drama

From the content, nature and aesthetic category, there are tragedies, comedies and dramas. Divided into one-act drama and whole drama according to the length of space; According to the times, there are historical dramas and modern dramas. From the form of artistic expression, it can be divided into drama, opera, ballet, opera and so on. We focus on drama and one-act drama.

Drama: A foreign art form, which was introduced to China from Europe at the beginning of this century. Drama is mainly based on dialogue, with actors' lines and actions as the main means of expression, occasionally interspersed with music and dance, and mostly based on real life.

One-act drama: China's traditional drama is divided into acts, which was learned from Europe.

Curtain refers to the curtain in front of the stage, and once opened, it is a scene. Each scene uses realistic scenery to fix time and space. The curtain is divided evenly according to the plot paragraphs, which is roughly equivalent to the segmentation of the novel and the chapters of the poem.

A field is a small segment divided in each scene. During the break, the curtain is generally not closed, only the second act is closed, and the second act is opened after the scene is changed. There is also a scene that changes after turning off the lights and then turning on the lights, which is called "dark turn".

One-act drama (commonly called "mini-drama") is too small in length and capacity to organize, intensify and transform contradictions as calmly as the whole drama. It requires more concentrated contradictions, simpler plots, more compact structure, rapid development of dramatic conflicts and simpler endings.