Before you throw yourself into a dynamic exercise routine, experts advise that you take some time to warm up and get your muscles prepped for what’s about to happen. The same advice, however, cannot be applied to the exercise of writing dynamic screenplays. From page one, you need to hit the deck running and not stop until you’re done. Why? Because neither studio readers nor audiences have the patience to slog through the first hour of a script in the hopes it will somehow heat up. If the opening scene’s not a grabber, why should we hang around until FADE TO BLACK?
Think of some of the great films with eye-popping visuals, intriguing characters, daring questions or heartfelt narratives that hooked us right from the start: Big Jake, Citizen Kane, Forrest Gump, Jaws, National Treasure, Raiders of the Lost Ark, While You Were Sleeping. From the first frame, we’re already asking, “What happens next?!”
Consider as well the skillful placement of foreshadowing in films such as Back to the Future where the reference to the broken clock tower later supplied the solution to Marty and Doc Brown’s time-travel crisis. Introduced early (and subtly) to tease our curiosity, such elements of set-up sidestep the cliché of contrivance in the later clinches.
Also critical is that art of the Big Uh-Oh. Just when the finish line looms in sight, there’s suddenly one final obstacle. The uh-oh circles back to a film’s initial hooks and foreshadowing, a good example of this being Jumanji. Hopelessly trapped by his enemy, Alan Parrish fumbles the dice…but rolls the fortuitous combination that will finally release him and his friends from danger. What viewers have forgotten up until now, of course, is the premise that once the game is over, everything will revert to its original state.
Once upon a time in elementary schools far, far away, maps of the world used to display the former USSR in bright red and labeled “Russia,” a blanket title synonymous (in those days) with Communism. Such views seem dated now, as does that 1990 film, The Hunt for Red October, in which a Soviet submarine commander may or may not be trying to defect to the United States. It’s used in this chapter because it effectively illustrates the relationship of hooks, foreshadowing and uh-ohs. In this case, the hook and uh-oh relate to the presence of two Soviet submarines, not just the one. The foreshadowing references a phobia experienced by Alec Baldwin’s character, a phobia which he will be required to confront before the film is over.
Choose ONE of the questions below and answer in complete sentences.
1. Identify three films you have seen which had powerful hooks. What were they and why did they immediately grab your attention? What type of hook do you plan to use in your own film?
2. Identify three films which contained foreshadowing. Did the information imparted seem like a clue at the time or was its placement not made clear to you until later in the story? Do you plan to use foreshadowing in your own story? Explain how.
3. Identify three films in which something unexpected happened just before the end (e.g., a character you thought was dead turned out not to be.) Does your own script contain an uh-oh? Is this plausible based on the sequence of events that led up to its occurrence?
Screenwriting for Teens, (Hamlett) pp. 93-94