Checklist for Reading And Evaluating Screenplays

CONCEPT/PLOT

1. High concept; big canvas for films; intimate drama for TV.

2. Imagine the trailer. Is the concept marketable?

3. Is it compelling? Screenplay should deal with the most important event in these particular characters’ lives.

4. What’s at stake? Life and death situations are the most dramatic. Potential for characters’ lives to be changed.

5. Screenplay should create constant questions: Will he make it? Did he do it? Hook an audience with a ‘need to know’, and they will watch the rest of the film.

6. Original. Please, no more screenplays that start with a character waking up in the morning, so we can see what kind of person he is by the junk he has in his room and his walls. No more genre parodies.

7. Is there a goal? Is there pacing? Does it build?

8. Begin with a punch, end with a flurry.

9. What are the obstacles? Is there a challenge for the heroes?

10. What is the screenplay trying to say, and is it worth it?

11. Audience wants to see people who care, not two hours of gimmicks.

12. One scene where the emotional conflict of the main character comes to a crisis point.

13. Hero must have a choice, the ability to affect the outcome.

14. Non-predictable; reversals within major plot and within individual scenes.

15. Once reality parameters are built, do not violate. Limitations call for interesting solutions.

16. A decisive, inevitable, set-up ending that is completely unexpected. Best example, of course, is ‘Body Heat.’

17. Action and comedy emanate from character, not from off stage.

18. Is it believable? Realistic?

19. Happy ending or at least a definite resolution one way or other.

20. Castable parts. Roles that stars want to play.

21. Young characters. Older audiences can relate to young people, because they were young once, and young audiences can relate too. But young audiences have trouble relating to older characters.

22. Heart. Good screenplays have strong emotions at their center. An almost subliminal quality; need to read between the lines. Films with heart – ‘The World According To Garp’, ‘Diner’, ‘Local Hero’, ‘American Graffiti’, ‘Terms Of Endearment’, etc., and, of course, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Heart can be negative emotions: ‘Body Heat’, ‘Chinatown’. Avoid mean-spirited films.

TECHNICAL

1. Story construction and structure; three acts, two plot points.

2. No scenes off the spine of the story; no matter how good they are, they will simply die, and destroy the momentum of the film.

3. Screenplay should direct the reader’s eye, not the camera.

4. Begin screenplay as far into the story as possible.

5. Begin a scene as late as possible, end it as early as possible. A screenplay is like a piece of string that you can cut up and tie together – the trick is to tell the entire story using as little string as possible. No shots of cars driving up to houses, people getting out and walking to the door. Use cuts.

6. Visual, Aural, Verbal — in that order. The expression of someone who has just been shot is best; the sound of the gun going off is second best; the person saying ‘I’ve been shot’ is only third best.

7. The Hook; inciting incident. You’ve got ten pages (or ten minutes) to grab an audience.

8. Triple repetition of key points: get through the story as quickly as possible, but for the audience’s sake, work on the essential points two or even three times.

9. Echoes. Audience looks for repetition. Useful for tagging characters: ‘Annie Hall’ (‘La De Dah’); ‘Indiana Jones’ (‘I hate snakes’); In ‘Body Heat,’ Lowenstein’s dance steps. Dangerous element; if it’s not done right, it looks real stupid.

10. Not all scenes have to run five pages of dialog or action. In a good screenplay, there are lots of two-inch scenes.

11. Repetition of locale — mark of a well-structured screenplay. Helps atmosphere; allows audience to get comfortable. Saves money.

12. Small details add reality. Research.

13. No false plot points; no backtracking.

14. Silent solution; tell with pictures.  Reference: the last seven seconds of ‘North by Northwest’.

CHARACTERS

1. Character entrance should be indicative of character traits. first impression of people is most important. Great entrances: Rebecca De Mornay’s character in ‘Risky Business’, strolling into the house, posing in front of the open window; Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders’, leading the way through the jungle, using his whip to snap the gun from a traitor’s hand.

2. Root for characters; sympathetic. Recent example of this: Karen Alien’s character in ‘Star-man’ . Screenplay opens with her watching a home movie of her dead husband. From that point on, it is no contest; the audience is hopelessly sympathetic and on her side — all in less than a minute of screen time.

3. Dramatic need — what are the characters wants and needs?  Should be strong, definite; clear to audience.

4. What does audience want for the characters?  Are we for or against this character, or could we care less one way or the other?

5. Character action — what a person is is what he does, and not what he says.

6. Character faults; characters should be ‘this but also that’; complex. No black and whites, please. Characters with doubts and faults are more believable.

7. Characters can be understood in terms of ‘what is their greatest fear?’ Gittes, in ‘Chinatown’ was afraid of being played for the fool. In ‘Splash’, the Tom Hanks character was afraid he couldn’t fall in love. In ‘Body Heat’ Racine was afraid he’d never make the

big time.

8. Character traits independent of character role. A banker who fiddles with his gold watch is memorable, but cliched; a banker who has a hacking cough and chainsmokes is still memorable, and more realistic.

9. Conflicts, both internal and external. Characters struggle with themselves, and with others.

10. Character ‘points of view’ distinctive within an individual screenplay. Characters should not all think the same. Each character needs to have a definite point of view, in order to act, and not just react.

11. Run each character through as many emotions as possible — love, hate, laugh, cry, revenge.

12. Characters must change.