Script To Screen: “Philadelphia”
The 1993 movie Philadelphia was written by Ron Nyswaner and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
The 1993 movie Philadelphia was written by Ron Nyswaner and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
Setup: When a man with AIDS is fired by a conservative law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.
Here is the scene in the movie:
There is one huge takeaway from the transition of this script to scene. Can you spot the one I’m thinking of? See you in comments to discuss Philadelphia.
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 posts, go here.