Got one in my head rn where a naive patriot type applies to the FBI and angers his superior during training and gets sent to some obscure station nobody has heard of. Some old bullshitter (think Danny McBride) has been running a field office and collecting Patriot Act checks but doesn't really do any work. Just like cuts the grass at the place and has ghost employees. He's just living in in a bureaucratic gap. Thinks this guy is here to f*** it all up at first. Let's him in on the scam but the new guy is too ambitious and they get in over their head trying to be like the lowest level version of crooked feds.

Still trying to figure out the comedic style of the dialogue and the characterizations. Only written shorts before

Love the premise. Sounds like nothing that’s out rn

You thinking movie or series for this? Feel like there’s a lot to work with for a full series

Write a pilot that could easily be beefed up into a feature. Seems like a happy medium

Working Title: Fed Up

Very interested to see how this develops

Good luck fam

I’m in the same boat of having only wrote short film screenplays

So after a training montage of Beckett blowing everyone at the training academy out of the water, but somehow drawing the ire of his instructor this is the dialogue I have for when the instructor f***s him over. Trying to capture Malcolm in the Middle drill instructor energy.

Peabody.

Yes, sir!

At ease, brown nose. Pull up Beckett's file. I want to see where this boy is headed.

Yes, sir. It looks like he's to report to Langley.

Virginia?

That's the one sir.

No, no, that's too aspirational. That won't do. I want this boy so far down the ladder I could take a s*** and kill him.

....Sir?

Send him to Egypt

Egypt?

Bumfuck, Egypt, son. Nowheresville. Left at Albequerque.

Well I really shouldn't tamper with-

I didn't ask you to tamper with anything, Peabody. This government is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies run on paper. Mistakes happen all the time. Happy little mistakes.

Bob Ross?

Yeah, Bob Ross... gazes out the window

Right sir, a mistake. You want I should-

It's your mistake now, son. Bureaucracies also run on compartmentalization so... Zips lips

Don't s*** where you eat, sir. I get it.

The only person eating s*** is Beckett, Peabody. He better pack a bib.

I’m finally making progress on my script but keep getting caught up in writing action in a screenplay (and I don’t mean action as in fights & explosions) I mean the stuff under the scene heading:

How detailed do we get? I know it’s supposed to all be in present tense and I know we’re not supposed to write the characters thoughts and feelings but I find myself slipping sometimes in the action parts

If anyone has videos or notes with tips it’d be much appreciated

@twitch could you help me with this brother

Yes I can help you brother. I personally don’t get too detailed and wordy with my action lines. I try to keep it as less is more.

You want to just write what we see. Like you said in present tense.

“Lebron, walks up to the front door, all the lights in the house are off.

He KNOCKS.

No answer. He knocks again.”

That’s typically how I would do it (rough random example lol) But I tend to space my s*** out a lot and avoid doing paragraphs.

Generally you don’t wanna type what the character is feeling or thinking, unless it’s voice over narration. Try to showcase those thoughts through the characters action or dialogue. The audience is smarter than what we think and doesn’t need to be spoon fed what the characters are thinking.

Also my bad I forgot to resend the workshop booklet. I’ll do it after work.

I like to think about the audience more so than the reader. The audience watching the movie isn’t reading the script, so they’re never gonna know those “character thoughts” that you have in mind. So essentially, it becomes pointless to add it to the script, because you’re only adding it for the person who’s gonna read it. But the end goal is people watching it, so only write what we seeing.

My goal is to have a short written by July that I can shoot and have done by the fall.

My brother is taking acting classes so he’s going to be in the cast so he can get practice. And he’ll be FREE

Thanks fam it’s like re-wiring your brain to think differently. Normally when you’re writing you’re taught to be super detailed and in scripts it’s the opposite cause you need to allow for interpretation

It comes with practice I’m sure. Definitely gonna have to go through everything I wrote and fix things but I’m gonna leave it till I’m done with the first draft. If I start going back now I know I’ll get stuck on changing s*** and never finish

But yeah no rush whenever you can send the booklet it’d help me to go back and reference notes when I get stuck

Yeah definitely save all of that editing for the rewrite. Really wit the first draft it’s just about getting it done.

Can you give me an example of character thoughts/feelings you wanted to write?

Welcome to the guild

We all in this struggle together

Already got an idea in my head

Inspiring. I’m hyped for the mjplus debut

For example I’m attempting to write a romance movie and I’m trying to get things across in a subtle way instead of all through dialogue

It’s not really a rom-com but been trying to add a few comedic moments in there and having things come off as funny without detailing their feelings has been tough

Then I read something like Crazy Stupid Love and it does it effortlessly. This made me laugh without even having to watch the scene

Word word but do you have a specific example of what feeling you were trying to convey?

In this Crazy Love Stupid example their feelings is pretty obvious through the dialogue. Jacob hates the shoes, Cal loves them.

It’s honestly a pretty simple scene to write (still good tho)…you wouldn’t need to write “Jacob thinks to himself how much he hates the shows” because his dialogue and action of throwing the shoes away conveys how he feels about them.

Cal getting mad and very bluntly saying “those were my favorite shoes” obviously conveys that he loves them. So writing internal thoughts would’ve been overkill if they did that.

I think you can write a scene like this tho, it’s honestly not hard. Just don’t overthink it.

Alright so most recent scene I’m working on. Son is working with his father at their store. He wants to ask his dad to leave early to go to a fair but too nervous to ask.

I have him sweeping the floor and trying to set the scene like this:

He alternates back and forth from looking at his dad and down to the floor. Finally he blurts out,

“Dad do you think it’d be possible for me to leave early today go to the fair? I promise to come in early tomorrow and stay after to help close”

His dad stops what he’s doing.

So you’re trying to convey the feeling of being nervous?

I think you nailed it bro. I mean the act of constantly looking at his dad as if he wants to say something, but doesn’t, tells us he has something on his mind to say.

Also why is he nervous to ask his dad?

Yeah trying to get that nervous feeling across.

Honestly at one point I had

Son sweeps the floor with a look on his face like he’s holding something in. Finally he blurts out,

But I wasn’t sure if that was too much of telling and not showing

Yeah I prefer what you have now with the looking at dad then looking down. Gives the actor a chance to interpret that and put their own spin on it.

I appreciate the advice. Definitely be overthinking sometimes but it is a different way of thinking. Gotta relearn after having not written in so long

It’s all good fam, all apart of the process. Just remember the audience is smarter than what you think.