Strategy for Reading the Script
Three crucial questions should emerge from the first reading:
1. What is the genre or story form? Each story form has a different
dramatic shape and presentation of character and deployment
of plot.
2. Who is the main character and his or her goal? There should
be a distinct main character with a clear goal.
3. What is the character arc, or, to put it another way, how will the
experience of the story change the main character? You should
be able to identify the state of the character at the beginning of
the story and how the character changes as the story unfolds.
Upon a second reading, another set of questions should be
answered:
1. What is the premise of the story? The premise—sometimes
called the spine, central conflict, or engine—of the story is best
understood as the two opposing choices facing the main character.
Often these two choices concern important relationships
presented in the narrative.
2. Is the premise consistent with the main character and his goal?
It should be. If, for example, the main character in the “The
Verdict” is a successful lawyer, then the premise of restoring
dignity to a dissipated life would not resonate. There must be
a link between the premise and the main character.
3. Does the main character transform in such a way that his or
her transformation is credible, meaningful, and emotionally
satisfying?
4. What is the plot in the film, and how is the plot used? Ideally,
plot works most effectively when it puts into place forces pitted
against the main character’s goal. In “A Very Long
Engagement,” a young woman cannot believe her fiancé has been killed in World War I. The lethality of the war as well as
the plot to find him and restore the relationship seem closer
to fantasy than a realistic likelyhood. Unless plot puts some kind
of obstacle in the way of the main character achieving his or
her goal, the plot is not working. Think also of the voyage of
the Titanic in “Titanic” as an example where the plot works
effectively. The ship sinks, and Rose’s hope for love becomes
a memory rather than a reality. Deploying plot in a story can be
a major weakness for directors, so this aspect of the director’s
idea requires considerable attention.
5. How do the secondary characters representing the two choices
of the premise fit in with the premise? Are they two distinct
groups—helpers and harmers? Is one of the harmers more
essential than the others? How? This character, the antagonist,
can be the most critical character of all, determining
the vigor of the main character’s response, the shape of the
character arc, and how we feel about the main character at
the end. The more powerful the antagonist, the more
heroic the sense of our main character at the end. In their
nature and actions, secondary characters serve specific purposes
in a script. The more they resonate as people rather
than story elements, the richer the script will be. Although
we experience the story through a main character, secondary
characters can help the script seem more credible and
compelling.
Let’s return to the genre issue at this point. Genre implies the
dramatic arc of the film. A thriller is a chase; a police story is about
solving a crime and putting the criminal away; a gangster film is the
rise and fall of the main character; a science fiction film is a story
about the threat of technology to humanity. Some genres are internal.
The melodrama is about an interior journey around loss, ambition,
or spiritual rebirth. The situation comedy is about values in life
and the behavior of the main character (e.g., a man pretends to be
a woman to further his ambitions for his career in “Tootsie”).
Westerns also tend to be about values, with the pastoral, free past
representing the positive and civilization and progress representing
the negative. Each genre has a different shape. What is the dramatic
arc, and how does it serve the goal of the main character? If the script does not follow genre expectations, do the changes make the
script better, fresher, and stronger . . . or the opposite?
Now that you have read the script a second time and taken copious
notes, a third reading is necessary to explore dimensions of the script
that could yield a director’s idea.