Make those first ten pages work!
by William S. E. Coleman
Most of us have been trained to write our opening ten minute techniques as they come down to us via Ron Peterson via Syd Fields and other Hollywood gurus. In this format the first ten minutes lead directly into the film proper. The first ten minutes may center on character, plot, or action. Ideally, in this style of screenwriting, the first ten minutes slides into the continuing narrative of the script.
A fine example of this is found in Peter Weir’s Witness. In its rich opening a whole culture is shown. There is some dialog, but much of it is in Pennsylvania Dutch. Most is conveyed with a flow of visual images. Main characters are introduced and depart to the world of the “English.”
There are possible variants in establishing the basic character and plot elements of a screenplay. The earlier James Bond flicks opened with a high-energy action sequence (often with skiers) that was barely connected to the main film. We are reminded just how great our hero can be when faced with adversity, but there is little to do with the plot to come. The first ten minutes of the typical Bond film is a short film in itself. You could go home and feel like you have seen a complete story and not have a clue as to what the rest of the film is about.
Raiders of the Lost Ark’s wonderful opening is loosely related to the rest of the film. We get to know Indy’s resourcefulness and bravery and one of the villains in the action to come, but we are given no idea of the content of the plot to come. In fact, the object that is the center of the scene—a golden statuette—plays no part in the main action of the film. At the end of the ten minutes we cut to Indy in a classroom. The bold contrast between the man of action and the scholar sets the scene for the rest of the film. It isn’t connected, but it works.
Many pop novels now open with a series of fragmented short scenes that gradually begin to come together and assemble into the main action of the book. Each of these could be a ten- minute opening. We stay with the writer because each scene is exciting. A skilled novelist gives us some inkling of where the book is going. If they are well written, we are patient and trust the writer to bring the main plot together after as many as 50 pages out of a 300-plus page book. We can learn a lot from these since many pop novels are merely treatments of films to come. Check out the novel Jaws and you will see what I mean. It could be shot right off the pages. In fact, it was.
Citizen Kane has an opening hook—the death of Kane as he says the single word, “Rosebud.” It moves from a dark Gothic opening to the satirical, jazzily cut newsreel that presents Kane’s life in outline. The two elements are longer than 10 pages, but there can be some give in establishing these first moments. It is a life we will explore more deeply in out of sequence scenes that build slowly and inevitably to the final climax, the revelation of the real importance of the word, “Rosebud.” It’s boldness is in its change of style and tone. Paulene Kael was quite right in saying that Kane has much of the style of a 1930s screwball comedy.
Casablanca opens with a sense of the city itself before it moves into Rick’s. A key plot device is hinted at—the letters of transit—but we are well into the film before we arrive at its main conflict—how will Rick and Else act when they meet once again? I have not timed it, but I suspect it is at least thirty minutes before we get to the main action. For at least 20 minutes we are more concerned about knowing more about Rick and what part those letters will play in the action to come. Somehow the opening breaks all the rules and works. The entire screenplay is masterfully structured and executed even though some of it was written during production.
Can we break the rules? Only if we are masterful in our storytelling, only if we sweep the reader ahead in our narrative. No matter how we open our screenplay, we must never let a reader get a toehold on us. We have to keep them on their heels from the first line or action.
In all these approaches to the first ten minutes one thing remains in common: a central figure is always present. This happens in What Lies Beneath, but the first ten minutes extends into almost 50 minutes of vagueness. Possible plot threads emerge and disappear. One dealing with the possible murder of a wife next door is summarily dropped with a two-line exchange. The result is a mess that extends into the last half of the film. See it—it is a lesson on how not to write your first ten minutes, and especially how not to write a complete film. Nothing leads to the next thing. Almost everything we’ve read in the past few years at ISA meetings is better.
In building an opening sequence, one uses a series of scenes. A scene is a building block, a short piece of action or character development. Several of these are fit together until they add up to a complete action, a sequence. The scenes creating a sequence form the foundation of the grammar of film. Films are built on the rising action of a series of sequences.
I believe that one of the essential skills a screenwriter must have is the ability to write very short scenes that reveal character. Good actors can make terse dialog work. A star with a presence can make his or her just being there serve the storyline. The term for this kind of acting is “stillness.” It is an extreme kind of focus and concentration that happens as the actor does nothing else. No movement, no gestures. It often occurs while listening. Catherine Deneuve is a master of this. We look at her and her incredible beauty, and we fill in the blanks. Harrison Ford existed for the first part of his career as a non-actor. Deneuve is a mystery that challenges us to be interested. In Mosquito Coast Harrison Ford learned how to act. He’ll never be a Jack Lemmon.
Lemmon did it all. Like Cagney, Lemmon was almost too energetic for film, but his stillness could be just as eloquent. Lemmon’s opening moments in The China Syndrome give him no meaningful lines. Most of what he says is technical jargon, but with it and his presence he lets us look into the first moments of a troubled conscience. A beginning screenwriter has no idea who will be the star, but it is a good idea to have one in mind as you write. I often write for actors, using their voices and presences to aid me in creating a character.
How do you write good material for an established star? On assignment. That is a glib answer. Actually you write for two kinds of actors: those who have an established presence and never deviate from it or those wonderful chameleons who slide inside a role and become it. In one form of writing the actor is the role; in the other the actor becomes the role by transformation. One thing for sure, if you write for Arnie or Stallone, you don’t write long speeches or big emotional scenes. You use their stillness and their complete lack of acting ability to your advantage. You give them something not to do between action sequences. They are there. That is why they are stars.
Many years ago TV’s Playhouse 90 did an adaptation of a Faulkner story, Tomorrow. In it an older retarded man is the caretaker of a logging camp closed for the winter. His lonely world is invaded by a pregnant woman whose term is at its end. He feeds her. They sit in shared silence. She asks him, “Don’t you ever get lonely up here?”
He replies, “Sometimes.”
This line appears in the first ten minutes and defines the central character with one word. That is daring writing, and writing dependent on the actor hired for the role. Richard Boone and Kim Stanley played the terse scene beautifully. Both were Method-trained. Boone broke your heart with his one word reply. In one word, you knew the man and his life. Now we could get on with the plot. The young woman dies in childbirth, the man tries to raise the child on his own, and authority moves in to take the child away from him.
Most films now run close to two hours. Back in the studio days many ran under 90 minutes. Now many studios do not consider a script that is under 90 pages. Even though many current releases run more than two hours, studio readers toss aside scripts that are more than 120 pages long. I suggest that we all study these shorter films. They set out the foundation of their stories deftly and in less than 10 pages. By then, they are well into the action.
You can study this difference by watching Don Seigel’s 1958 Invasion of the Body Snatchers and then Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake. Both have their merits, but the first is the better film. It is lean and mean and almost too propulsive. Seigel accomplishes in much less than ten minutes what Kaufman takes 20 to do. If you haven’t seen either of these films, see the older one first. If you have seen them, run a stopwatch on them as you watch them again. They epitomize the difference between the old and new Hollywood. Sadly, the 1958 version is somewhat mutilated by its framing story. It was added after Seigel delivered his final cut.
When writing, I use my Method training to write my shortest scenes. I plunge myself into the characters’ emotions, feeling them as I write a handful of lines. This immersion allows the character to speak on their own. In a way, I let them speak instead of making them speak. More importantly, I keep my dialog sparse in the first ten pages. I try to convey my opening set-up via physical actions.
Jim Uhls, who wrote The Fight Club, after reading one of my scripts, recommended that I have no scene longer than five pages long. He believes that writing even shorter scenes is better. Read his script. You will see what I mean.
Final Draft numbers the pages for each scene. As I write I often review the length of my scenes. Good editing and frequent cutting can make a long scene work, but readers do not see that possibility. If your scenes are too long, you go into the round file. This is especially true of your first scenes. You hit and run.
How many scenes can you have in your first ten minutes? The answer is simple. A lot. If you only have one, you probably do not have a good opening.
When you do your first ten minutes well, you take another risk. You have raised the bar for the rest of your script. If your opening is good, you have to get better in the pages to come. That challenge can be daunting or very exciting. Once in a while I write an opening ten minutes and look at it. At that moment I know I can’t get better. I place the scene in my file and hope that inspiration will come later. Sometimes a piece has to mellow and grow a bit in one’s subconscious.