Planning & Writing Dialogue for your film.

Adam Sale

The most difficult way to tell a story is through pantomime. Alfred Hitchcock stated "When telling a story, we should only resort to dialogue, when it is impossible to do otherwise." Walter Disney would leave out the dialogue right up until the point in a sequence where he could see just how little was needed. One of a scriptwriters cardinal sins comes when he or she hits a difficult part of a scene and says "we can cover that by a line of dialogue." Dialogue should be treated as a sound among other sounds. It should be given no more precedence over a groan or sigh or squeak. It is the actions of the character that will lend credibility to the lines that he or she speaks.

Surprisingly, most memorable character traits come from the lines they have delivered. In my opinion, this happens because the actions reinforce the lines subtly as to create the emotion behind the words that become so cherished amongst moviegoers.

If a cartoon character is not acting, he is not living.

In order to compose a well written script, you need to become aware of the characters attitudes and emotions. Former Disney director Woolie Reitherman spoke, "I've heard enough words. I want something going on now. Attitudes. You must know the thoughts, feelings and passions if you are to know wheter the words are right." In order to achieve this, scriptwriters compose monologues for their characters. A monologue lets the scriptwriter explore the character in depth, from all angles. Monologues include the characters feelings on certain issues, cherished moments, favorite foods, fears, family life, where he or she works or goes to school, how that character feels about his or her environment. Creating a past for your character, enavbles you as the writer to make decisions as to his actions and words that shape his or her future. William Faulkner wrote "The only subjects worth writing about are the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself."

"It becomes our duty as writers and poets to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor, hope and pride, compassion and pity which have been the glory of his past." If we do not strike these chords in in our viewers, we lose our audience.

To aid in theirwriting, the Disney writers followed four rules that are outlined below.

1) Do not write dialogue that describes what you see. If a characters eyes are droopy, his feet are dragging and his arms are dangling limply by his sides. It would be a waste of that characters energy for him or her to pronounce "Boy, am I tired."

2) The words and thoughts behind them should be privy to this particular character. Key phrases, accents, expression and timing make this character unique. Take the Star Wars Movies for example. Han and Luke are two very distinct personalities. If we were to take the core personalities of these two characters, and reverse them so that Hans personality now resided in Lukes, and Luke in Hans, it would be readily apparent that Luke was no longer Luke regardless of the fact that his physical being was still present.

3) Dialogue must be written so that there is something to animate. The words must reflect an attitude that can be portrayed in a drawing or an emotion that can be shown. Lengthy exposition lacks strength

4) Dialogue must be written so the voice can contribute something. Voice actors are usually quite eager to help develop your unique character without altering the meaning of the line. A lot of times this can be achieved with a chuckle, cough, swallow or gulp. Porky Pig, for example, had the endearing quality of stumbling comically over his words at the end of a sentence, before coming up with an acceptable alternative. This quality that Mel Blanc imbued upon Porky was perhaps the swine's most memorable trait. Keep in mind, professional and amateur scriptwriters alike plough through numerous revisions before settling on a final draft. The constant revision process allows a writer to refine his script and eliminate all unnecessary exposition and scenes that detract from the ultimate goal of the piece. If a script is treated as a haiku poem or a limerick, the writer is able to provide enough information in a compact well though out format that will allow the reader to arrive at conclusions for him or herself.