Apr 18, 2016

The last three tips are going to roll in your inboxes, I hope you have taken something of value from my advice and your own pens are hard at work!

SCREENWRITING TIP #5: THEME

I can hear you now – “Where is the theme in ‘Transformers One through Twelve?’  ‘Mall Cop?’”  But just because a film is lacking in something doesn’t mean you aim your own efforts to that level.  All sorts of films make a lot of money with incoherent plots, atrocious dialogue, characters thinner than Saran Wrap.  But this is not an excuse to turn out an equally bad screenplay.

And often they probably started out as decent scripts.  You must always be prepared for the meddling and watering down of what you wrote by a whole bunch of people, some well intentioned, some clueless.  That’s the problem with the collaborative process that is filmmaking, there is a lot of input from a lot of people, from the producer to the wardrobe person.  If they are all geniuses you are in good shape.  If they are not…

Having a good solid theme in your script is one of the buttresses you have any control over.  A good theme, a deep strong simple metaphor or universal truth can stand all sorts of assaults.  It also serves as a touchstone you can use in the writing of your screenplay, the editing and the re-writing.  Whenever you are in trouble you can ask the question – what is this story about?

As you write, every character, scene, bit of dialogue, or story point can be tested against your theme.  Courage?  Guilt?  A mother’s love?  The possibilities are endless.  Just choose one.

Plus having a good idea of what the whole thing is about will help you defend your choices against the forces who are going to question your work.  Or to inform the director, producer, actor who is smart enough to ask you.  This way you can relay certain information that you conceived and they are either misunderstanding or not finding clear.  Then it is your job to fix it, because if they miss the point then so will the final viewing audience.

If you have an overall theme to your story then every character should be an aspect of that theme.  “Courage Under Fire”, funny thing, is about courage.  Every character reacts to their fear in combat in a different manner – drugs, over compensating macho bullshit, drinking, defining themselves by their courage or lack of it.  “Mr. Holland’s Opus” is about aspirations, etc. The theme gives your story a unity and strength.

Hopefully a good theme can withstand the bad dialogue rewrites by the directors girlfriend, on camera improvisations by the actors, dropped or added scenes or subplots, whatever is thrown at your screenplay in the long torturous road to the theater or TV screen.