Script To Screen: “Adaptation”
A memorable scene from the 2002 movie Adaptation, screenplay by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman, book by Susan Orlean.
A memorable scene from the 2002 movie Adaptation, screenplay by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman, book by Susan Orlean.
Charlie Kaufman is desperate. He’s got a severe case of writer’s block because he’s caught up in his head about a book he is adapting The Orchid Thief. Even though he has resisted his brother’s advice to check out screenwriting guru Robert McKee, Charlie finally gives in. Here he is attending a McKee seminar on story.
The movie version of the scene:
I love that voice-over bit! As a screenwriter, it’s pretty inside business, but it lands really well.
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 Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
For more Script to Screen articles, go here.