Recently I had the unfortunate pleasure of reading a comment by a gentleman who only represented himself as “Bob”. Bob was unhappy about the fact that over a year ago I wrote a commentary on the state of Friday The Thirteenth fan fiction. Along with his misspellings, lousy sentence structure, ongoing tirade of insults, and foul language, he put across the point that I quote, “about script form its waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy better than Novel form. Dats the bottom line cause I said so.”
Well, my friend, I am underwhelmed by your argument.
So, rather than simply commenting and being ignored, because I actually can write in full intelligible sentences. I will do one better and show the truth about the use of the film script and pros in the telling of a story.
To do this I've taken a scene from my book The Mask of Jason Voorhees and rewritten it in the form of a scripted scene. I will show you that below. Then I'll show you the same scene in it's original pros form. After I will make a final comment on this issue and we can put it to rest, hopefully....
Here is the scene written as a script:
EXT. CoffeeShop- DAY
MEDIUM SHOT:
JASONIZED PHIL and LEWIS (See FX) cautiously walks past the window of the CoffeeShop.
FX: Ghost Effect (Lewis)
CLOSEUP on window. We see a little girl's face in the window. She is excited. She waves behind her.
MEDIUM SHOT:
The door to the CoffeeShop opens and six children and five adults come out running out.
The children surround JASONIZED PHIL and start jumping up and down.
THE SIX CHILDREN
(All laughing and yelling excitedly)
Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason....
The adults pull out cameras and start shooting pictures.
CAMERA FOCUSES on FAT SLOPPY GUY IN RED POLO SHIRT.
FAT SLOPPY GUY IN RED POLO SHIRT is holding a video camera. He is shooting JASONIZED PHIL.
JASONIZED PHIL lifts his machete and swings it. It cuts the heads off five adults . The bodies start to fall to the ground. FAT SLOPPY GUY IN RED POLO SHIRT is one of them. He drops his camera.
FX: Blood spray, cut off heads, headless bodies, headless body that drops camera.
FIVE OF THE SIX CHILDREN
(Laughing changes to screams)
CAMERA PANS AS: The five children scattter and run away.
CAMERA FOCUSES ON LITTLE GIRL 1.
LITTLE GIRL 1 is holding the hands of two adults. Parents?
LITTLE GIRL1
(bothered)
Mommy? Daddy?
LITTLE GIRL 1 looks up.
LITTLE GIRL1
(screams hysterically)
POV. LITTLE GIRL1.
CAMERA PANS: We see that both Mommy and Daddy are headless.
FX: Blood is flowing from necks.
MEDIUM SHOT:
The bodies of Mommy and Daddy fall backwards. LITTLE GIRL1 gets dragged down with them, because is holding hands.
WIDE SHOT: We see a crowd of people running at JASONIZED PHIL. JASONIZED PHIL starts hacking down the crowd.
FX: Body parts coming off, half bodies, blood spray.
BIKER comes up behind JASONIZED PHIL with tire iron. BIKER hits JASONIZED PHIL in the back with the tire iron.
MEDIUM SHOT:
JASONIZED PHIL turns and grabs BIKER by his leather jacket. JASONIZED PHIL lifts BIKER off the ground and throws BIKER.
EXT. SMOKEY'S PUB-DAY
MEDIUM SHOT:
BIKER flys through the front window of pub.
FX: break away glass.
EXT. MAIN STREET-DAY
LONG SHOT:
Crowds of people charge JASONIZED PHIL. JASONIZED PHIL continues to hack them down.
FX: Falling bodies, body parts, blood, blood spray.
They were just passing the coffee shop when there was a loud bang on the window. Then the door to the coffee shop opened and six children of various ages followed by several adults came stumbling out. The children surrounded Phil and started jumping up and down and shouting, “Jason...Jason...Jason...!”
Then some of the adults started shooting pictures of him. Another sloppy looking, balding, fat guy in a red polo shirt was standing back from the crowd shooting him with a video camera.
Then he heard one of the adults say, “God, what a jip. What do these hicks think, that some dork in a hockey mask could actually be scary.”
Oh, so I'm not scary enough? Phil thought, enraged. Well, let me remedy that.
With that Phil lifted his machete and swung it in a wide arc, cutting off the heads of five of the people in the crowd in the process. Suddenly, the shouts of the children turned to screams as the peoples' heads fell from their bodies and their blood sprayed the crowd around them.
Then the kids started to scatter. One little girl had been holding her parents hands when Phil decapitated them. She began to scream hysterically as her parents bodies, their hands locked on hers, began to fall over, taking her with them.
While this was happening, Phil was busy hacking his way through the crowd. Arms, legs, and half bodies fell in his wake.
A biker toting a tire iron charged Phil and hit him in the back with it. Phil turned, grabbing him by his leather jacket and threw him through the window of Smokey's Pub across the street.
Other people tried to jump him as well, but they were either cut down by Phil's machete or knocked into the crowd as Phil back handed them.
Bring on the blood bath. Phil thought, as the crowd continued to assault him.
My question to you is which form dramatizes the scene better? Which one tells you more about the characters and situation? Which one is more emotional? Which one is more engaging to the reader?
I think you know my answer to this. Pros are a device for tell a story.
A script is a device used by filmmakers to give an outline of a scene.It is used to give them and the actors a quick reference for their work, which is telling a story “visually”. It is a very clinical and limited way of viewing a scene. Though it does have the dialogue, it lacks a personal point of view. It lacks the insight that gets the reader involved with the characters. It really doesn't bring characters to life. That is left to the actors and the “art” of the filmmakers. Thus, when it comes down to it script form is a shallow comparison to that of pros.
Feel free to witch and whine, but I think I've made my point... _________________ T.T.F.N.
William Pattison
www.homestead.com/f13bloodbath/enter.html www.outpostvevetta.com
The Truth Isn't Out There, It's Right Here...
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