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Screenwriting Clinic

You can find rules and guidelines@ Screenwriting Clinic.

Welcome to the Screenwriting Clinic Contest! Basically, I find WritersCo far too geared towards a declining art form (fantasy fiction) and an obsolete one (poetry). So this contest will deal with working with the tenets that make a good MOVIE!

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NEWS!

This contest is OPEN for submissions until Monday June 30th! Not much time, kids! Please read the rules at Screenwriting Clinic!

Prompts

July: The Montage

A montage is loosely defined as a collection of images showing the passage of time in film. Or "a compressed narrative" as Wikipedia puts it. Honestly, I can't think of any examples right now, but I want to say it's common in espionage movies. If I think of an actual example, I'll post it.

Let's say you're writing a crime script. Your protagonist, bill, is a seasoned bank robber. He's robbed fifteen in eight years, and never been caught. Please don't write Bill, because he's a cliche, but for argument's sake, let's say you want to let your audience see proof of his skills. You really don't want to write fifteen separate bank robberies, so you decide to use a montage. In it, there'll be brief scenes from a handful of the robberies, perhaps with a date and location in text on screen. It might look something like this.

In this, we'll also use a new tenet: the V.O. (voice over). This entails a character talking over the scene (narrating) and is denoted by putting (v.o.) next to the speaker's name in the script.

1. Ext. Los Angeles, CA outside Generic Bank-- morning

As we FADE IN from the opening credits, we SEE BILL MACMASTERS strolling along the sidewalk next to Generic Bank. The morning sun casts a reflection on his bald head, and he sweats profusely in the heat; as well he should, dressed in a heavy legal coat and three-piece suit.

MacMasters (v.o.): I wish I had a good way to hook you into this. I could say "oh, I robbed my first bank when I was three. I walked fifteen miles in the snow to get there.

MacMasters laughs a dry, humorless laugh in voice-over as he enters the bank.

CUT TO: (note: this is an optional note that you are changing scenes. Note that any time you change filming locations, you should have a new scene.)

2. Int. Generic Bank-- morning

MacMasters sizes up the bank, looking around, smiling amicably at two security guards. One smiles back, the other yawns.

MacMasters (v.o.): It's just not that interesting a story. Not at first.

MacMasters moves as if entering the first teller's line, but jukes suddenly and swings his arm around the yawning guard's neck, his other hand drawing a gleam of silver from the heavy overcoat; a pistol.

MacMasters: Nobody move!

The scene freezes, catching MacMaster's face in mid-shout. We can SEE the words 'Generic Bank, Los Angeles: 1988' slam onto the screen to the sound of a two shotgun reports.

MacMasters (v.o.): Okay, it was a little interesting. I ended up earning quite the reputation for it.

We enter a MONTAGE of MacMaster's bank robbery career. We see images from five robberies besides Generic Bank. Each scene shows MacMasters, in a different wig and pair of sunglasses each time, grabbing a guard as he did in the opening scene. Each scene ends the same way; with the name of the bank, city, and year slamming onto the screen as the scene freezes, catching MacMaster's with a half-crazed, smiling shout on his face. In this way we progress from 1988 to 2003.

CUT TO:

Okay, that's a generic, really quick example. But that, basically, is a montage. Another example is showing days pass by showing the sun rising and setting in ultra-fast-forward. One more is showing two characters having a 'night on the town' through brief flashes of them shopping, having dinner, riding a bus, and finally ending up at a destination where a scene occurs.

So write a montage! Connect two scenes with it somehow... for example, the characters plan an evening out in scene, MONTAGE, then get home in scene.

Any questions? Ask!

Note: There may be dialogue in your montage. However, understand that the point of a montage is to cover a lot of narrative ground in a very short time. Soliloquizing? Bad idea.

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Entries

1. [Ash] - 102.Contests.Screenwriting Clinic July 08

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Past Winners!

1. Nightshadow - 82.Carla - May Contest: Character Detail

2. [Ash] - 102.Contests.Screenwriting Clinic June 08 - June Contest: Negotiation scene

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Related Wikis

Credits

Contest host: [Mister Saint]
Dividers by [Kachi]

2008-05-25 [Mister Saint]: I plan to put up examples just as soooon as I have time to do them. The one thing about it is, screenwriting format would be a *pain* to do on WritersCo wikis. It's why I've chosen to focus on ideas rather than format. But I'll work on it! Meanwhile, everyone should consider this a test run.

2008-05-26 [Mister Saint]: mkay. there's an example of play at the bottom of the prompt! Prose really doesn't need an example; I'm reasonably sure we're all familiar with that. ^_^

2008-05-29 [Mister Saint]: Hey, not that I mind a person winning by default for being the only entrant, but that's what's going to happen at this rate.

2008-05-29 [Nightshadow]: Come on, guys, I'm not even a writer. Hop to it and don't take this kind of shet from a visual artist. ;3

2008-05-31 [Annie]: Oh my goodness...I was waiting to get a little thing telling me when comments showed up on this page like it does for all the other pages I've seen...I thought after commenting it would let me know. Apparently not...lol. Anyway, now I know...I'm on it!

2008-05-31 [Mister Saint]: hee... nah, I think you have to have edited the page or placed it on your watch list before you'll get updates.

2008-06-01 [Annie]: Ahh, I see. :P

2008-06-02 [Mister Saint]: If this gets some more interest, I might write up some screenwriting format info for people to use. In the mean time, I highly recommend Syd Field's guide to screenwriting; he's one of if not the preeminent screen writing teacher in the US at least.

2008-06-07 [Mister Saint]: deadline's sunday, kiddies!

2008-06-08 [Mister Saint]: I'll judge these tonight, so anyone who wants to enter, there's still time. By tonight, I mean about seven hours or so from now.

2008-06-09 [Mister Saint]: Right! This period's winner is [Nightshadow]. Carla showed off her reticence (obviously) and her eccentricity with the strange nail-biting ritual she's got going on. Character elements were introduced, not bashed over our heads, but with subtlety. [Annie]'s entry showed a complicated relationship, but didn't really show us that Len had memory loss. She seemed more forgetful or even air-headed; however, her character was swiftly defined, and an interesting dramatic interchange presented!

2008-06-09 [Mister Saint]: A new contest will start TOMORROW!

2008-06-10 [Mister Saint]: New contest up! If you don't get the reference, watch A Few Good Men. Seriously.

2008-06-15 [Mister Saint]: Okay! I've got a clearer example up and clarified the prompt some. Any questions, fire away!

2008-06-15 [Ash]: That is a terrifying example... But it clarifies.

2008-06-16 [Mister Saint]: Excellent!

2008-06-16 [Nightshadow]: That's basically what I said, Valient. XD

2008-06-18 [Ash]: It does it's job. Anyway, I should have my entry back up this weekend hopefully.

2008-06-27 [Mister Saint]: This contest closes if I don't get at least one more entry for this period.

2008-06-27 [Ash]: If you give me a couple days, I can tell a few people who would enter.

2008-06-27 [Annie]: There's still 3 days! -frantically throws papers around- Wah1!!1!!! :P

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