First 3 Pages Better Be The Best Of A Screenplay - Cody Smart

can you give an example of what needs to happen in the first three pages of a screenplay I love that because uh you know I teach a class on getting your script contest ready and this in this class we focus on the first three pages and how important they are it used to be that you needed something amazing to happen in the first 15 pages of your script but audience has attention today with social media and everything online you know I'm like much prefer you need to grab their attention right away hopefully in page one not even page three you know for me it's that page one needs to be amazing and I always say that that page needs to show either your protagonist or your antagonist in action and by that obviously I don't mean giant explosion you know you could be writing a dramatic piece that doesn't have that it's more about showing who they are by what they're doing not just describing it I don't like slow openings where they're just waking up going through their morning routine you know and in page three then they leave the house and something happens give me me something right away show me who they are but what they're doing don't just describe it yes you can get away you know with giving us a description when you first introduce your character you know and you're writing like their name their age and a little something about them but if you're also showing us who they are maybe they're in the meds of an interesting conversation debating something exciting you know you're showing us oh these are the type of characters that have a point of view they have an opinion so that could also be showing them in action but I think that that needs to happen in those first three pages you need to show something unique like for example uh an exercise that I love to do with my students is rewriting the opening of friends if you could do that how would you do it because if you actually read the pilot which is great and I love the show uh it's an older show you know now we expect things to happen quicker so I always tell my students okay so how would you get get this amazing teaser and make it quicker well Rachel should show up much quicker in the actual pilot it takes like 10 pages for Rachel to walk through those doors in her wedding dress you know and oh everything clicks for everyone because you know Ross is into her and then the Dynamics start because it starts pretty slow it's good it's funny but it's just the other characters you know they're just talking they're sharing anecdotes about dating in your 20s in New York City which is fun but that could be later in the pilot like you can show a little bit of their Dynamics you know one page of this like fan banter but then introduce Rachel which is the element of surprise that's what we want to see we want to see something shaking the dynamic shaking The Ordinary World of the characters and also in action because as soon as she walks in then we understand oh my God Ross is in love with her and he's like this jittery guy that just gets up because she's there he opens the umbrella and like all of the physical comedy so if you can get something like that in the first three ages of your script and not by page 10 or 15 like it used to be then that's when you're grabbing your audience's attention well if we took let's say Breaking Bad or the Queen's Gambit a lot of things happened in the beginning of those shows but forgive me going back to uh When Harry Met Sally how would we see conflicts within the first three pages it's been a little bit but it's a fairly tame movie What conflict exists what what antagonists exist well they are I always say that the movie's Harry's movie and Sally is Harry's antagonist because he's really the one with the Ark in the movie and if you think even the title it's When Harry Met Sally right like what happens to him this pessimistic person that has to read the last page of their of a book before even starting the book in case he dies or if something happens you know uh he meets his exact opposite the super chipper happy personality that just clashes with him right she thinks that you can be friends with men he doesn't think that you can do that you know things like that so I think that in that case that Dynamic is the way I would introduce it right away and it kind of is there in the script it just takes a little bit because like Harry's kind of saying goodbye to the girl who's his girlfriend at the time but I would get to that quicker I would just have the goodbye happen immediately in the first you know quarter of the first page and then just get them in the car Harry and Sally and her being like Oh you said goodbye and then just get to that banter because that's how I would introduce those characters in action which is the way I think that you should introduce your protagonist you know they should be sharing those points of view right away so she could be you know being all the chipper and he could just bring out his ideas on like books and stuff like that and that's how I would introduce it in the first three pages also because you know when you're talking to writers about those three page count or whatever it's because you want to grab readers attentions and one of the best ways you know to get your career started is to send your scripts you know to competitions and things like that and in competitions imagine that thousands and thousands of scripts that they get right it's overwhelming to even think about and in a lot of competitions the first round they kind of like read the first Pages if they're not really hooked they might pass on it the big competitions are mandated to read the whole thing right away but there's still many to go through that you're reading like that and you're like okay I'm not engaged by Page Three I'm not really advancing you to the next stage so you want you know to really grab that reader's attention and be like okay there's something interesting here the voice of the writer you know that has to come out in those first three pages the protagonist or the antagonist has to be introduced in an interesting way and that's really how you hook your reader why do you say the first three pages have to be the best three pages of the script because you always get a first impression it's like you know the moment you see someone you already get an idea of who they are just by looking at them or something like that when you get a script and you get that first page it's like that first dance that you're having with a script you know if the first page is not formatted correctly for example it's like looking at someone who's dressed terribly and you're like you're getting that impression you know from them so everything needs to look good on the page you need to know screenwriting formatting and that but then obviously it's not just that it's way more than that you have to be introducing a character in an exciting way you have to be revealing the world the tone the genre there's a lot of elements that need to be included in those three pages and that tells your reader that you know your story you know your genre you know what you're saying you know who your characters are and there's sort of a promise of that story you're about to tell so for example in that first page I should immediately know if you're telling a comedy a drama a thriller or what it is or if it's a mashup you know a horror comedy there should be a little bit of both in that first page so I immediately know you know what to expect when I'm reading uh the world should be evident right is this a world where magical occurrences happen I hate reading a script where the magic doesn't happen until page 20 something and there's no little setup of the beginning of anything and then whoa I'm like taking out of the world of the story because like I'm like okay you set up a certain world with certain rules you can't just magically change everything without like little setups I'm not saying a magical occurrence has to happen on page one but you have to set it up as a world where magical occurrences could potentially happen sometimes you plan something like they use crystals you know they're playing with a Ouija board or something just to tell you there's something like that that is okay in this world and then obviously an interesting protagonist or antagonist something interesting in action maybe a Twist by Page Three and then also most importantly your voice and your point of view have to be there as a writer I feel like producers and contests and anyone out there who wants to read scripts is trying to discover new voices that's really what they're trying to do stories are so many out there and so many writers so what makes you the best person to tell a certain story because a lot of people are trying to tell the same story as you right that's why you can't copyright an idea you can copyright a script but not just your idea it's all about your voice your point of view I love for example Juno that's one of my favorite examples because Diablo Cody was her very first script you know she won the Academy Award for this and the story is so simple if you think about it it's a teenage girl that gets pregnant that has been told I don't know how many times but probably hundreds of times it's a simple story she gets pregnant what happens she eventually gives the baby out for adoption you know but what made Juno unique is that a voice it was so impressive of Diablo Cody capture a voice of a generation in this teenagers that talked with a level of banter that had never been seen before you know they were so Snappy so original they just kept you at the edge of your seat because they were witty they were so interesting to listen to they had quick comebacks that just flew off the page you know so that makes that script unique even though it's the stories being told so many times and even in that first page you see that you know uh Juno is taking a pregnancy test at this convenience these store you know and and she's just having this banter with the clerk there about like an Etch A Sketch and things like that you know like they're trying to read the pregnancy test and he's like it's not like an Etch A Sketch you can just like change the answer things like that just show the point of view that a voice so unique the way you're describing things and that's you know what you're trying to discover in those three first few pages of a script especially in a contest you know to get so many submissions producers agents the same get them that first impression that is unique and they want to keep reading you know you get so many scripts when I was working you know at a desk at the studio a million years ago I would just have piled some piles of scripts you know and I would just like glance at them at first and be like oh this first page looks interesting okay I will read this one first you know so give them a reason to read your script right away and want to keep turning pages which is more common a great first three pages of a script or three bad pages of a script s to say that it's more common like three bad pages uh I always say that out of a hundred scripts I would maybe recommend three uh that's not to say that there's nothing in the other scripts that's not salvageable obviously I would say there's a lot to work with most of the times but sadly bad pages are more common than the first three being great and it's sad because a lot of the times the greatest comes after they're just not hooking me right away so a lot of the times as I'm reading the script and I'm giving notes to the writer I'm suggesting you know why don't you move this up to the beginning you know the way for example Breaking Bad did it and that's one of my favorite examples uh when I'm talking about how to do a great pilot Breaking Bad is a very unique case because it's technically a premise pilot which I always say it's a No-No a premise pilot is when basically you're telling all of like the backstory or setup and only at the end the story actually begins and that's boring because if we're writing a pilot what we want is the template for a real episode right because we're only reading the pilot we're not reading any other episodes uh unless obviously eventually you get to write them so what you want where you're reading a pilot is to see exactly what the style and story will be week after week right if you're writing a premise pilot on the story only starts at the end then you are not really giving me a template for what to expect with Breaking Bad the way they did that is so unique because they cheated the system basically and gave us a Flash Forward at the very beginning the pilot starts with Walter in the future you know in like the Winnebago and his undies you know running from everything that's happening cooking meth and everything he's recording himself for his wife and saying this is not an admission of guilds but I love you blah blah we hear the siren of the cops and everything uh so we're like oh my God what did this guy do you know then he had two and we go to the past which is really the start of the episode and this backstory that set up where he's you know a boring depressed chemistry teacher with a teenage son a baby on the way midlife crisis all of that you know then he gets diagnosed with cancer and all of that have the pilot not started with that killer Flash Forward it would have been really slow paced and we maybe would not have been as hooked so that's a great example in those first three pages really hook the reader because they show me the promise of the show this Flash Forward tells me oh okay this show will get really interesting because this person is going to be running from the police or whatever you know cooking meth and then the contrast to this chemistry teacher in the midlife crisis and the rest of the episode kind of follows that pattern you know more like his day-to-day life and showing us his crisis and all of that his diagnosis and everything but we already know what to expect so we're trying to find little tidbits there of like oh my god when is he literally Breaking Bad which is the title of the show when the whole Arc of the show right the five seasons are about Walter Breaking Bad so we're trying to find little plans in the episode of oh my god when is he going to go somewhere that it's going to lead to that opening but those three pages are really what sold the show in my opinion because oh that's the promise of what I want to watch what if I bump it up what if I say I'm gonna give you all the good stuff and the first one and a half and Maya is that premature am I rushing it oh no I don't think so I mean honestly if you can give me a shocker by the end of page one that hooks me even more and I want to read more obviously try to continue delivering and not just give me a Twist then and then just a super passive script as it goes along try and give us some twists and Revelations but the sooner you can hook your audience I think is best and so for your class that you do getting your screenplay uh contest ready it's at UCLA extension at grade school by the way and um so you have people do sort of mock readings and you because I saw in the description that everyone's going to bring one completed screenplay so yeah I mean we do different sort of exercises you know uh the same as we do sort of in my script doctoring class obviously focus in different areas you know one would be more focusing on your script and getting it contest ready and the script doctoring is how you would doctor other people's scripts you know but I like to get those pages you know and sort of like Implement all of these things and try to see how would you how would you hook your audience sooner What would how would you take what's here and work around to really reflect all of the things that we're learning you know all of the things that we've mentioned like they're presenting your character in action or delivering a Twist or showing your voice the world the tone the genre all of that in those first one to three pages of your script and is that really what you're you're working on the entire no it's not the entire course obviously like we we work on that a little bit and then on other areas on how to really improve your scripts and how to you know appeal to contest readers or things like that because obviously it's not just about those three pages if you're sending your script and you hope to win a contest it's about the entire finished work right so we would talk about the structure and we would talk about how the protagonist Arc has to be connected to all of the turning points and how you have to plant all of the right seeds in act one that need to be paid off by act three or for example how you have to have a protagonist that has a clear core wound or flaw that is going to affect the way they go about their Journey right they they have to change they have to Arc and there has to be something set up and then we need to see tidbits of this growth right maybe at the midpoint we have a step back and then things get worse before they get better and tracking all of those different elements to deliver a full thing because it's again obviously the first three pages need to be amazing but that's not your entire script you need to deliver a complete final product right so it all needs to track whatever you set up there needs to be paid off and I think that you need to give your audience credit you know you they love kind of putting the pieces together of all of this planting that you're doing in the script so if you can plan something in those first three pages and then kind of deliver later and have a great payoff then you're connecting with your reader you're connecting with your audience you're giving them the credit that they're putting the pieces together creating the story that they're getting involved in because you're giving them little things to get involved with

Channel: Film Courage

Views: 10,550

Keywords: screenwriting, screenwriting tips, screenwriting 101, screenwriting techniques, screenwriting help, learn how to write a screenplay, ucla screenwriting, cody smart, screenwriting course, screenplay tips, learning, writing advice, writing tutorial, entertainment, movies, film, creative writing, short story, cinema, artists, how to

Id: EpSTPiExygQ

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Tue May 09 2023