DWPFF: Scripting

[RonaldMontgomery]

I find it helpful when writing to first sketch the page and write the action(s) in each panel. Then I need to do the panels again with stick figures...it's like the story is in a mist, and I have to try hard and discern what's going on.

Do you all do this?

[Pixelpushing]

Originally Posted by RonaldMontgomery

I find it helpful when writing to first sketch the page and write the action(s) in each panel. Then I need to do the panels again with stick figures...it's like the story is in a mist, and I have to try hard and discern what's going on.

Do you all do this?

are you sort of spotting dialogue as well with that ?

if i writer gave me some of those sketches i probably would think its cool and helpful, as long as he wasnt too attached. i think i would sort of do my own layout without looking at his then compare the two and take what i liked out of both.

[RonaldMontgomery]

Originally Posted by Pixelpushing

are you sort of spotting dialogue as well with that ?

if i writer gave me some of those sketches i probably would think its cool and helpful, as long as he wasnt too attached. i think i would sort of do my own layout without looking at his then compare the two and take what i liked out of both.

I don't share the sketches with the artist. They usually come up with a better layout.
I don't put in the dialogue at that point, but I'm very inexperienced.

[Magnus]

I visualize a freezed moment in the setting with the characters. Then I "move around" on the "timeline" to find the right moment, then I "move around" in this frozen space to find a good angle, good cut. Then I write what I "see".

I've done some screenwriting before starting on the comic arena. Maybe that's why I do this "cinematic trick" in my head as I'm writing.

I'm pretty new at writing comic scripts, so I haven't had much chance of working with artists, but I've been working with 3 different ones and sometimes they capture exactly the vision I had when writing it, and sometimes they create something I hadn't visualized but which is a lot more wicked than my vision. Both are awesome feelings when you get the result. Even if an artist does something a little off, I won't correct that (unless it somehow loses some of the meaning or information that I wanted in the panel/page.), since I put my faith in the artist overall feel, style and technique.

[mikeexner3]

Originally Posted by Pixelpushing

lol at modern adapt with ben getting struck down so far in distance, that was about the most undramatic thing i have ever seen.

Not to mention the fact that when Luke has his initial reaction to it we're looking at... his shoulder! Brilliant.

[jrod]

I'm not really a big fan of the writer/artist divide. If you're at a point where you find yourself drawing layouts for the artists, you're probably not collaborating all that well - that's my thought, at least. I like to loosen up scripts a bit and work out the nuts and bots over phone calls, file sharing, etc unless, of coursed, I have a very specific layout/idea in mind, then I get into the hardcore specifics. But every writer is different and ever artist is different.

[RonaldMontgomery]

It's just too amorphous if I don't have some kind of idea, rough map, whatever...but I don't think of comics in a cinematic way (motion), and I wonder if that influences how I approach the work.

[r nelson]

Originally Posted by Pixelpushing

I am curious for both the most seasoned writers and newer ones about how much do you visualize what you are writing?

For my part, I think in terms of story first. I plot out beats, and then add rough dialogue, and then think about the best snapshot that each panel will represent.

By this point, I have a pretty clear picture in my head of what it MIGHT look like, and do my best to describe that without dictating too much to the artist. By doing so, I think my panel descriptions are clear in what they need while being open enough that the artist has room to maneuver, making them a partner in the story-telling aspect of the work.

When I get art back, sometimes it's close to what I had "seen" in my head, sometimes it's not close at all. It's almost always a far better layout than I'd envisioned, though.

For me, this is what makes writing for comics so much more interesting than writing prose. When I get art back for a script I wrote, it's like I'm seeing something I know intimately, but for the first time.

That's pretty damn cool.

- Richard

[The Anti-crest]

I write dialog first. Dialog tells most of your story so you have to really know what people are saying to know what they are doing.

I visualize a lot of what is going on, and take notes, sketch and so forth the enviroments that people are in so I know how they will treat those enviroments.

But i also wrote 10 pages of two people sitting in a subway talking and eating fruit. So this might not work for everybody.

[Dan Hill]

I draw thumbnails merely for my own use to try and get the pacing of the page down, see how things fall on the page. I'm not beholden to any of it, it's just something I do to help myself. I leave the majority of that stuff to the artist. The only time I'll go against that is when I want a specific angle for whatever reason.

Most of the time the artists I've worked with have come up with far cooler ways to portray a scene or action than I have. To me one of the best parts of being involved with writing comics is getting art back and seeing the choices the artist has made.

[Tara]

Originally Posted by r nelson

For me, this is what makes writing for comics so much more interesting than writing prose. When I get art back for a script I wrote, it's like I'm seeing something I know intimately, but for the first time.

That's pretty damn cool.

- Richard

Tom and I were talking last night about that very thought. The sweetest thing about this for me is knowing that when this is done, my imagination will have become tangible in a really awesome way. On top of that, others will get to see it and form their own thoughts about it. That's a great feeling.

[arseneau77]

I don't draw anything out, but I definitely visualize every detail of my scripts. That said, the image in my head is very likely to change somewhat as the writing progresses but really I don't even start putting it into script format until I can 'see' the movie or comic in my head.

That's why I also like to add shot angles and 'camera' details in when I write. I don't use them as hard 'rules' for the artist or director or whoever's interpreting my work, but I find that, by doing that, that other person is much more likely to get what I was trying to put across visually. I've been told by both artists and directors that it's one of their favorite things about the way I write.

For me, it's all about the planning and play out of the visuals, even though I am most definitely a writer and not an artist or photographer. And it's also why I''ve never been overly successful at writing prose...it's too...well...too non-visual I guess.

[jrod]

This thread's getting away from itself with everyone saying what they're doing and no-one commenting on what the other people are saying - can we pause this thread for a little while until I have the time to get in here and get back to the discussions?

Thanks - Ill be in tonight at some point.

[jrod]

Ok, I'm back - sorry to get all fatherly but I saw someone post how dialog tells most of the story and no-one was arguing with him or her and I figured no-one was listening to each other. I mean, you have to take issue with that comment if you're making comics - at the very most dialog tells 50% of your story but even that's pushing it. People see the art and the actions and the scenery and the little pieces of added information. Dialog should never, ever, ever be used to tell your story in comics - it should supplement and enhance the story you're telling through art.

Maybe this is a good time to start talking dialog because this is really what separates the good from the bad. As writers, we like to think that the dialog is so important because that's the part of the book that people will 100% attribute to us but, that's kind of bullshit. If you want your awesome dialog to stand in front of the art than you should write prose. For a good comic, the dialog just becomes natural, it blends in with the art and becomes essential but not obvious.

When I teach dialog in class I always start with the disclaimer that I'm not going to actually teach anyone anything. We have a discussion on voices and pacing and even lettering techniques but we don't sit down and say, "Ok, here's how you do dialog." Because, honestly, with dialog - I'm kind of becoming convinced you either have it or your don't.

The problem a lot of comic folks fall into is telling their story through dialog. The problem a large subset of those folks have is telling their story through bad dialog. There was this one guy who wanted me to look at a story he was working on. He went out and got a top-notch artist and inker and colorist and letterer - they put together a bunch of pages and they were GORGEOUS. I mean, this was a good art team. So I read the pages and I realize that the main character is just kind of walking around, talking about what happened before the first page. And not even talking to anyone, just internal narration. And the prose was good and the story this guy was telling was good but you go out of your way to bring this team together, you have them at your disposal, they're making awesome pages, and you develop ten pages of a person walking around by himself and talking about all of this great action that the reader's not seeing.

It's a prime example of trying to tell your story through dialog.

Now, that doesn't mean you can't have long conversations in a comic. Bendis obviously does this, but Bendis doesn't have the character telling the story, the story is the character talking about whatever the character's talking about. There's a subtle difference there - one's ham fisted and attempts to move the plot along by jamming five pages of action into one page of dialog, the other's designed to set-up the action we know we have coming.

So that's the big trap, and that's what we try to get around in class.

We also stress the importance of learning to write natural dialog. We'll do table readings of good scripts vs. bad scripts to see how important it is to just hear someone say something. I encourage folks to get tape recorders and to record themselves acting out their dialog. I also encourage people to go where the dialog is - go to places where you see a wide-range of human emotions and observe the way people talk. I tell them the DMV is a good trip to make once a year, just to hear everything you can possibly hear within an hour.

We then do a really fun exercise. I love this exercise. And I think I'll try to set this up in another post since I need to find some stuff and I'd rather post this, first.

So let's start there....

[jrod]

So the idea for this exercise is to isolate a person's voice and to translate it to a different scene. So, as an example, start by watching this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY

Notice Alec Baldwin's mannerisms, how he speaks and what he says, and then write a short scene where Alec Baldwin's character is talking to his mechanic who he believes is ripping him off. But don't just think about the actual words - think about how you'd represent those words. In this scene, Alec doesn't allow anyone to get a word in, he's confident, he talks fast, he curses a lot, he doesn't take anyone's bullshit - what would he say and how would you lay it out. Would you space his speech out over several pages, or will you try to confine it all in one page, use the dialog balloons for effect, have them packed into a panel, almost taking it over, physically blocking out the people he's talking to? Maybe even have a visual gag, where the person he's talking to is actually peeking around his dialog balloons, it may break the fourth wall a bit but it could work - the reader would get how bossy this person is if his words are physically pushing the person out of or against the panel.

Now watch this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkh6if8TL2U and cast Chigurh as a psychologist and the gas station attendant as his patient.

This scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l63SRpGXBHE and write a scene where the Penguin and Batman get into a car accident.

This scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYSzx_zy-98 and write a scene where Deniro is on Pacino's talk show.

This scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTDhgR3p12w but move it to a health care town hall meeting.

This scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm3Cgj61rRs and have Crumb giving a motivational key note speech.

If you do one of these, first say how you would represent the speech, if there are any tricks you'd do to bring the character out. Then write the actual dialog. It's kind of fun, so have fun with it.