Script To Screen: “12 Monkeys”

From the 1995 movie 12 Monkeys, screenplay by David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples.

Setup: A miscalculation sends Cole [Bruce Willis] back in time to 1990, and he finds himself incarcerated in an insane asylum with a clearly insane Jeffrey [Brad Pitt].

Here is the scripted version of the scene:

The movie scene:

Questions to ask to analyze the scene:

• What elements in the movie scene are the same as the script?
• What elements in the movie scene are different than the script?
• Regarding the differences, put yourself in the mindset of the filmmakers and speculate: Why did they make the changes they did?
• How did the changes improve the scene?
• Alternatively are there elements in the script, not present in the movie, that are better than the final version of the scene?
• Note each camera shot in the movie version. Which of them does the script suggest via sluglines or scene description?
• How does the script convey a sense of the scene’s tone, feel, and pace through scene description and dialogue?
• What ‘magic’ exists in the movie that is not indicated in the words of the script? How do you suppose that magic emerged?

I’ll see you in comments for a discussion of this scene from 12 Monkeys.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a series on Go Into The Story where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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