From Story to Screenplay.

Notes

The Stories

Over the past two or so years I wrote around two hundred short stories, many set in Denmark. The stories began with observations of a place and people, then with a leap of imagination they were transformed into fiction. The characters have no originals save for a gesture or phrase. From the briefest description a story unfolded .

Stories

The stories serve as synopses. I took one recent story and used it to generate plot development and to provide the impetus for other plots. It was in the fantasy meets police procedural mix genre; the experience of writing the story helped to create the fuller screenplay and new characters. The act of disbelief in the story provided a context for how the ordinary can become the uncanny.

Towards the Screenplay

Stories can run on description and dialogue, and remain textual. It is up for the reader to use the other components of the sensorium. Film and television join up more of the sensory dots. Nevertheless the screenplay must give directions. In a story you might labour on the description of a location – an important dimension in TV series, whereas in a screenplay you need only attach the photographs.

About the next slide

• I give in the next slide the beginning of a story. In a screenplay there might be a montage of the act of eating a fruit and going down on his girlfriend. It helps to characterize him. What do you think of him? How old do you think he is? You can picture him, his age, his life, his personality all by the simple act of eating the fruit. In a film you might only suggest the sexual link – through the looks and headshakes of the women passengers with CUs of their faces. Look of disdain. But you need write that in somewhere.

The start of a story

• “On the Metro, a man was eating a fruit like the way he went down on his girlfriend and instead of her complaints and smacking him on his head; it was his white business shirt that took the full brunt of the mess.”

Existential

The story is about consequences: “It would have to be at that moment, when he

was destined to be interviewed by the head honcho from the Swiss office. They were a pain in the ass for punctuality and presentation. A woman in her fifties holding her groceries grimaced as she watched the mess he made of the fruit. He had bought the fruit as an attempt at integration and saying I care for Difference & Diversity. ”

Tension

• “His mountain bike the joy of his limited time for recreation, was gone! Therefore, he had to walk. This took its toll on the shiny black shoes as the pavement was under construction. There was a grey milky substance in parts that splashed onto his shoes and the bottoms of his trousers. He did not have time to clean them. For the first time he noticed his neighbours who were mostly wearing hoodies.”

Robert Bresson

I have the Pickpocket(1959) in mind when I think of the man eating the fruit. One sees in the Pickpocket shots of hands and pockets. It is Oliver Twist in synecdoches. Think of the fruit, the shoes. In my story he is going to an interview and needs a clean white shirt. It is neorealism, we feel for him, but know the end!

Essentialism

Is it conceivable or viable to think of the story and screenplay in essentialist terms? In classical philosophy idealism posited the notion that the thing had an ideal form and could not be known except in terms of its attributes.

Goats & Seals

Without dubbing how can you convey the consciousness or inner processes of animals, Michelangelo Frammartino’s superb Le Quattro Volte (2010) pulls it off brilliantly.

The Story

• A spotted seal (Phoca Larga) in undulating motion careered through the belt of water that lay between the island and a sandbank. It hauled itself up in a strenuous effort to its usual haunt. Then with the morning sun on its underbelly it would sunbathe with its eyes half-shut. There were cirrostratus clouds and an interlace of discount airline plume traces. So it was almost a clear sky. Almost. The sky was constipated elsewhere. He was never totally asleep or in an REM stage. Then as was his habit, from the upside down position he looked across at the humans.

The Screenplay

• Ext. bank of sand near the harbour of Nordby the main town of Fanø

• We see cars and people going along a seal’s line of vision.

The Story• A family in a boat which had stayed over the permit time was frantic lest

the officials in the orange speed boat would fine them. It was not Miami though! Flipper wasn’t around either. They would have plenty of time. But nevertheless in the distance the orange boat was drawing in fast. The seal knew the craft. He rolled over and slid into the water. His head became a beach ball. He watched as the family scrambled into their seats and put on life jackets. The boy eating his ice cream was not amused. With everyone secured. The father in his mid thirties started the boat just as the orange boat veered in their direction and then turned toward the marina. There was probably a sigh of relief and perhaps some annoyance in the mother’s look at her husband, as if to say, “Once again, hmmm” The seal swam near the bank and waited. He had learnt it was not finished yet, even though the family boat was motoring off to the mainland, there was still the orange boat.

Using the story