[Quick Summary: Dr. Frankenstein creates a Monster that runs amok.]
Screenwriting still baffles me. It's unlike any other kind of writing.
I have learned a few things though:
1) The closest analogy is still that it's a recipe or a blueprint of ideas.
2) Good writing is like a shot of aged whiskey, i.e., a complete, exciting idea in one gulp. Harder than it sounds to stuff action, geography, emotion into a sentence.
I like how the writers show geography and height in the example below.
Can you see the Dwarf looking through the roof and Frankenstein looking up?
Also, note that the action (Dwarf climbing down) shows us the roof is high without telling us.
INT. LABORATORY - REVERSE SHOT
The head and shoulders of Frank-
enstein in fore, this time, shooting
up to the large opening in the roof
to where the Dwarf kneels, peering
down in. From somewhere beneath the
opening two shining steel rods, placed
about four feet apart, rise into the
air from a momentarily unseen fixture
on floor of laboratory, connecting
with the two high frequency wires,
that drop down from above.
FRANKENSTEIN (sharply)
Come down, then! Help with
these attachments. We've no
time to lose.
His manner is peremptory,
indicating a high state of
nervous tension. The Dwarf,
grasping a rope, which trails
loosely from the roof, lowers
himself with quick agility to
the laboratory level. CAMERA
FOLLOWS HIS PROGRESS DOWN,
MOVING BACK to assume floor
level focus, and we get a
general view of the interior
of the laboratory.
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Sometimes it helps to set the geography for the reader first (guy above on roof) so the following action makes more sense (guy climbs down).
Frankenstein (1931)(8/12/31 draft)
by Garrett Fort and Francis Edwards Faragoh
Adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel (1818)
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