Energise!

I did go to the London Screenwriters Festival and it was good. Very good. I almost didn't go, I'm very glad I did.

But that's not what this blog is about.

It's about something screenwriters talk about in relation to scripts but something I have never seen defined: "Script energy".

This came to mind because of John August and Craig Mazin's podcast this week. You can listen here, the relevant bit is around 33 minutes - but why not listen to it all?

[Of course, it was a risk writing this before I finished listening to the podcast and, of course, they carried on and said much of what I wrote here, but less pedantically. But what the hell. I'll leave it, it was still my realisation, at the time.]

So "energy": Craig is talking about scenes ending with an energy that propels the viewer forward. But what is this energy? Just saying "your script lacks energy" or "this scene lacks energy" is unhelpful. Am I supposed to fry it with 20,000 volts? Okay, disingenuous, but still. What. Is. It?

So I applied some of the old mind power. And this is what I came up with, you may feel differently.

When talking about this energy we're actually talking about the viewer's reaction. It's not actually energy in the script, it's the energy the script generates in the viewer. I got a grip on it by looking at a scene which lacks energy (a metaphorical scene, not a real one):

Let's say someone watches this metaphorical scene, and at the end of it they sigh and say "so what?" The scene engenders nothing in the viewer, or rather it engenders boredom, disinterest. An emotional state of nothing much really. That scene has no energy.

A scene that brings about any emotional state reaction is a scene that has energy. But that's not all of it.

A scene could of itself be complete, it could start somewhere, cause an emotion and then complete. It still wouldn't have the energy we're really talking about because at the end of it there is no impetus to continue. The viewer could just stop and be satisfied. And we don't want that. (Want to know a reason why you get out of a scene as early as possible - that.)

What we want is the viewer to cry out "What happens next???!!!" They want to know, they must know what happens next. They cannot stop watching they have to know.

And, in my view, that is the energy, it's the desire to keep going, keep watching, keep listening, to stick with it because they have to know. (In horror it's a kind of negative: they have to know, but they really don't want to, but they have to...)

'Nuff said.

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What's on the turntable? "BWV 1004 Chaconne by Bach" by Steve Hackett from "Tribute to Bach"

Is that a good idea?

Do you listen to the John August/Craig Mazin podcast? You don't? Oh my, you should. The inside skinny (which is deeper than just "the skinny") on writing things, with particular reference to the Hollywood experience by two people who really know what they're talking about. Go here.

Anyway the interesting question of the week this time around was "Which script should I write next?" to which, in essence, the answer was: The one you'd love to see. The one you'd pay money to go and see.

Which is cool. It decided me on my next TV script (something which would be appointment TV for me) and just this evening, while watching the not-very-good Mummy 3, I had an idea. Just a concept really but, though I say so myself, it is awesome.

Scott at Go into the Story is keen to encourage writers to think of idea after idea (spend time each day just generating ideas), and learn to judge what are the excellent ones - anything less than excellent isn't worth working on. I admit I don't do that, at least not the way he suggests, but I do have ideas constantly. (I'll drive down the road, see someone standing by a wall - and invent a story idea as to why they're there based on the way they look, how they hold themselves and their emotional tone.)

Are you having enough ideas?

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What's on the turntable? "Wicked Windows" by Jethro Tull from "J-Tull Dot Com"

Celtx forever

Hello peeps. It's been a while since my last major onslaught in this here locale.

As you may, or may not, know I write scripts using Celtx. It's a lovely bit of kit, and free. It's been around for years and is looked after by a friendly bunch of Canadians (is that a tautology?) so is totally solid as a product.

But I'm not trying to sell you Celtx. Well, perhaps I am because I can't see why anyone would want to spend any money on a screenwriting program when they don't have to.

Except there was a reason - but it's just been eliminated.

There was one, and only one, reason to use Final Draft to my mind, and that was if I was suddenly recognised as a great scriptwriter and had to work with organisations too hide-bound and bureaucratic to think that they could use anything else, I'd have to switch.

Because there's no practical way of converting from Celtx to FD and back again.

Or, at least there wasn't.

Enter, stage right, John August screenwriter and tech-savvy person with clout in the industry.

Last week he launched Fountain. All Fountain is is a way of writing scripts using just a text processor (you could use NotePad on Windows). You have to follow a certain style but if you do then it can be understood by another computer program and converted into a PDF or FDX (Final Draft's latest format).

I thought this was jolly good. Though I'd still prefer to use something that formats on screen.

But this week John released the killer Highland which is an application that can convert between FDX, Fountain and PDFs. Yup. John has an application that can take a PDF and turn them into Fountain, and from Fountain you can go to FDX (or PDF).

Which means I no longer need to think about changing to FD.

All that's needed now is for the Celtx team to modify their text importer to recognise Fountain and we're set.

Some people are bound to whine about potential script theft being made easier. Well John does have something to say about that in the blog. I'm not going to discuss it since I agree with him completely.

But what it means for me is that I can go on using Celtx forever.

And that makes me happy.

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What's on the turntable? Unfortunately nothing but recently I have mostly been listening to Nathalie Nordnes.