How a Screenwriter Thinks

Analysis of Emily Carmichael writing a scene.

A few weeks back, I featured a 26-minute video of Hollywood screenwriter Emily Carmichael (Pacific Rim: Uprising, Jurassic World 3) writing an impromptu scene as part of a fun challenge sponsored by Vanity Fair.

I was so impressed with the video, I played it for my Writing the Feature Screenplay class in the DePaul School of Cinematic Arts. While watching it a second time, I took notes about how Emily’s approach to writing the scene revealed some interesting insights into the mindset of a professional screenwriter. Here are those notes:

• Screenwriters are line conscious: At points, Emily says, “Why is this line breaking weird… This is not worth two lines.” This is absolutely true. Every screenwriter I know pays extreme attention to how lines end. Part of this is most writers fight for line-space because we tend to write long. So when we go after widows and orphans, we do so in part to save lines. It’s also because aesthetically, it can bother a writer to have a line featuring a single word. It just feels off and suggests inefficient writing.
• Employ italics: Screenwriters want to make sure the reader grasps what’s going on in any given scene. Thus, we use italics in scene description (a tiny digital voice) and dialogue (a rich doctor) to convey to a reader, “Hey, this is important. By the way, some writers prefer to use underline or bold or both or all three. The point is we want to make sure the reader gets what we want them to get as being significant in the scene.
• Direct without directing: In the scene, Emily includes this scene description: “The world spins around Haley.” She goes on to explain that she’s trying to suggest a camera shot in an oblique way to the reader (and eventually director) to convey something of the character’s inner state of mind. The current style sensibility is to avoid using camera lingo and directing jargon, however, we can use psychological writing and individual paragraphs to suggest camera shots.
• Use our assets: Everything in any given scene — characters, physical objects, locations (what I call narrative elements) — represents an asset for a writer. Case in point in Emily’s scene, the push cart which she introduced as part of the doctor’s deal, but can be used later in the chase sequence.
• When working with studio notes, look for the note beneath the note: The final note Emily deals with is this: “We need this to be Haley’s introductory scene. Emily response: “I think when you get that note from somebody, what it means is there needs to be a moment right at the top of the screenplay, right as soon as we meet that character, that exists to tell us who she is.” Don’t just take the note at its face value. Oftentimes, the note is really about something beneath the note.
• Default to revealing character through action rather than dialogue: Movies are primarily a visual medium and Emily makes the point two times to it’s better to reveal character through action rather than dialogue.

Per this last point, Emily tosses off something which is quite profound for writers: “Characters taking action based on internal motivation is the essence of drama.”

I love this quote because it embraces the spirit of a screenplay universe having two worlds: The External World of Action and Dialogue, the domain of the story’s Physical Journey, and the Internal World of Intention and Subtext, the domain of the story’s Psychological Journey. There is an interplay between the two worlds and if there isn’t, you will more than likely have a lifeless script.

If you haven’t checked out the video, be sure to do so. It’s fascinating to watch a professional screenwriter do what they do for a living.