The Director’s First Script Read-Through
(c) Peter D. Marshall
What a Director Looks for in the First Script Read-Through
A director needs to understand every detail about the story
you are telling. And in order to understand the script, a
director needs to be able to operate in the sub-world of the
characters.
Therefore, one of the main purposes of script analysis is to
find out who the characters are and what happens to them.
(1). First Impressions
1. When you first get a script, the first thing you should do
is just read the script through once – without making any
notes. This is important because it lets you get to know what
the story is about and what happens to the characters.
2. Read the script over several more times
a. This begins the process of understanding the characters and
the events of the script
b. You start to feel things and see things about the
characters
c. This process gives you ideas for backstory and subtext
d. Anytime you find a line of dialogue or an action that is
confusing or doesn’t make sense, make a note of it.
3. Find the facts behind the words
a. Always look for the fact or the reality behind a line (what
does it REALLY mean)
(2) Script Facts
1. Script facts are situations, actions or events that happen
in a story before a scene starts
2. They are not subject to interpretation because they have
already happened (they are in fact, FACT!)
(3) Questions
Your questions are one of the most important parts of your
script analysis. Why? Because they lead to research.
1. Why IS the most important question a director can ask!
“WHY?” Because when you ask someone WHY, you begin to get a
deeper understanding of a situation, problem or challenge and
your approach to solving this question will become
progressively clearer as you go through the script
“WHAT?” To help find out about situations and character,
always ask, “what is the character NOT saying in this scene”
and “what is HAPPENING in this scene for the FIRST time”
(4) Script Stage Directions
Stage directions are the writer’s ideas, suggestions or
concepts for the director, the actors and the production
designer that show or describe various things such as:
1. Certain backstory facts pertaining to a scene or a
character
2. The behavior, or inner life, of a character
3. The staging or blocking the writer would like to see (actor
business)
(5) The Spine of the Script
1. To answer the question, “what is the SPINE of a script,”
just think of the spine in the body and what its purpose is.
Simply, the spine LINKS the story together. And what happens
when one of the links are out of place – you get a disjointed
story (and a pain the back!)
2. The spine is basically the reason for the character’s
journey – it is what the character WANTS and the spine of your
main character will usually run parallel to the central theme
of the script
3. In any film, a character should have only one spine for the
whole story
4. To find a specific character’s spine, look for the
character’s transforming event and its end result
(6) Script Beats and Events
1. Events are things (action or dialogue) that happen in the
scene and once they take place they become facts
2. Every scene should have something happen between the
characters (this is called a central emotional event)
3. It is the director’s responsibility to make sure an
emotional event occurs between characters and that all of
these events are put together in a cohesive manner to make a
story
4. The best way to find the event of a scene is to break the
scene down into a series of beats (or units)
5. The best way to identify a scene beat is find out where the
subject changes – then that is a new beat
6. You should identify, at the very least, three major beats
in any scene (beginning, middle, end)
(7) Back Story (What happened just before the scene)
1. This is the moment in a character’s life just before the
scene starts. It is usually an off-camera beat and it gives us
a sense that the scene is in the middle of something.
2. In other words, an actor does not just “walk in the door.”
They need to know what they were doing just before they open
the door. It can be a fact in the script or something they
make up. But they HAVE to know where they were and what they
were doing before that door opens.
Copyright (c) 2012 Peter D. Marshall / All Rights Reserved
Recent Comments