I learned something in the studio that highlighted my previous experience with screenwriting. Granted that experience is extremely limited, my eyes have nonetheless already been opened. I previously believed that screenplays were simply a list of directions for the camera operators, actors and sound editors, that there didn’t have to be any sort of entertainment to be had from reading the screenplay itself. The first week of Picture This! has changed my thinking. A screenplay can and should be an interesting and entertaining piece of writing. In fact, this week we learned the mechanics of making it so.

In Putting a Film in the Readers Head, McGee mentions the Master Scene Technique which suggests that the directions for camera angles should only be mentioned when absolutely necessary. Otherwise directions should not come from writing CLOSE UP, LONG SHOT etc. Instead, the reader should be able to visualise the shot by the way it is described. Drawing on McGee’s advice I have adapted a excerpt from a screenplay I wrote in year 12, almost three years ago.

“We pan across the room. Alison is in bed tossing and turning. We see areas of her life before the headaches, certificates, awards and photographs.” It’s cluttered and difficult to visualise on a screen.

Instead I would now write.

“Framed certificates and medals scatter the walls. Among them, photographs of a child grinning widely with her loved ones.

Under the blankets on her bed, Alison tosses her body facing one way to the other and back.

She squeezes her eyes shut. Mouth open. Teeth clenched. Sweat glistens on her face.”

Of course the edited version is still far from perfect. However I believe it highlights McGee’s point that the scene will already be visualised and how exactly the filmmaker decides to portray this their own ‘creative task’.

I’m excited to try this on my own writing throughout the semester. It seems like a fun challenge to tell a story in such a way that the reader can easily visualise it.