Script To Screen: “Saving Mr. Banks”

A fun scene from the 2013 movie Saving Mr. Banks, written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith.

Plot Summary: Author P.L. Travers reflects on her childhood after reluctantly meeting with Walt Disney, who seeks to adapt her Mary Poppins books for the big screen.

Here Pamela is in a story meeting with the project’s screenwriter and songwriters, early on in the creative process.

Here is the scene from the movie:

Some key small, but significant differences:

• At the beginning of the scene, the three members of the Disney creative team jump up from their chairs to which Pamela adds this dialogue: “What’s happening? What are you doing?

The fact Pamela expresses her confusion creates more tension, emphasizing her Fish Out Of Water experience (i.e., Hollywood, Disney, filmmaking).

• Note the camera shots as the song begins, cutting from each of the Disney team to Pamela who looks on with extreme concern. Again this heightens the tension.
• Instead of “Hold it,” this is what Pamela says: “No, no, no, no, no, no.”

More emphatic and creates greater conflict.

Two additional details in the movie add a marvelous touch at the end.

• After Pamela says that great line — “Well, unmake it up” — she crosses out the word in her script. That little visual underscores her resistance to what she’s hearing and seeing.
• Cut to the piano where Dick exchanges a knowing glance with Bob, then a Close Up of the sheet music. And there underneath the song they are currently playing is the music for “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. Dick quietly slips the sheet music out of view, suggesting visually that if Pamela has an issue with “responstable,” heaven knows what she would do if the guys sing that song.

It’s a wonderful one-two punch to end the moment and drive home just how far apart these two sides are. Tiny details, but resulting in a masterful little scene that is a microcosm of the overall dynamic at work between Pamela and the creative process making Mary Poppins.

You may read my interview with Saving Mr. Banks screenwriter Kelly Marcel here.

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.

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