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Developing an Idea

Ideas for a short film can come from a multitude of sources. On the special edition DVD for Stephen Spielberg's Duel, author and screenwriter Richard Matheson talked about where the inspiration for the story Duel came from, discussing the genesis of his original idea. Driving home after hearing about the assassination of President Kennedy, he and a friend were tailgated by an aggressive truck driver and forced off the road. "I presented the idea to a number of series on television," recollects Matheson. "And they thought it was too limited."

Finally, Matheson wrote it as a novelette which was later published in a national magazine and received the attention of Steven Spielberg. Once Universal Pictures optioned the story, Matheson was commissioned to write the screenplay.

Matheson deliberately wrote it as a straight suspense story about how an ordinary man would respond to this situation. He specifically did not reveal the identity of the truck driver to increase the suspense.

"I'm a visual writer. When I wrote the story Duel, I saw it happening in my head, so I could transpose it into script form very easily. When I write a novel, I see it in front of my mind's eye," he recalled in the interview on the special edition DVD. Although Matheson wrote the screenplay, he reflects on the interplay between the screenwriter and the director, recalling the ways in which Spielberg contributed to the story. Often, during the development of a film, the development of ideas - like the entire film production process itself - is collaborative in nature.

Writing a treatment

A treatment is one of the earliest documents prepared during the pre-production process. The treatment is simply an outline of your story from beginning to end. You don't have to include dialogue. This is an extremely powerful way to play around with your story without having ideas set in concrete. As Benjamin Craig notes: “A treatment is a narrative version of the story in a script, presented in story format, describing the main action with little or no dialogue. Many writers use treatments as a way of fleshing out their stories in narrative format to map out the flow of the action across the major scenes in the script before they start work on the dialogue. This way the writer can be sure that the story flows correctly before they commence the actually script. Most treatments are no more than 2-5 pages.”

Writing a screenplay

A screenplay is the shooting script that is used by actors during rehearsal and on the set. Screenplays are written in a particular format to make them easily readable.

When writing a screenplay, you need to follow some fundamental rules to ensure it's easy to read:

• traditionally screenplays are written using the font Courier;

• use at least size twelve;

• begin every scene with a slugline;

• write character names, important props and sound effects in capital letters.

If you're serious about screenwriting, there is also a great piece of software that you can use called Celtx, which incorporates screenwriting and storyboarding features side by side. This software is available for a variety of platforms. Download this PDF from The Oscars website which explains how a screenplay should be formatted.

Previsualisation and Storyboarding

Storyboarding is the process of previsualizing your film using a pencil and paper. Storyboarding is a very powerful way of visually planning your film before you start shooting. Some filmmakers, like M Night Shyamalan, put a great deal of effort into their storyboards. On The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan had planned every single frame before he started shooting.

Other directors also use storyboard extensively. In the previsualisation featurette on the War of the Worlds DVD, Steven Spielberg talks about how he often scribbles indecipherable images which are later translated by a more talented artist.

Ridley Scott is another extremely talented and successful director who quite often draws his own images to convey what a scene should look like. His pictures are so well-known that they are referred to as 'Ridleygrams'. When he was making the seminal 1979 film Alien, 20th Century Fox was so impressed with the quality and detail of Ridley Scott's storyboards that they substantially increased the budget for the film.

When making War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg used 3D animation software to pre-visualise sequences that involved visual effects.

"On a movie set, you're reacting - as the actors do - to what's around you," said Spielberg in the War of the World featurette on previsualisation. "The general environment is very inspirational. The general environment, at least, tells me where to put the camera and how to stage the scene. I prefer, frankly, making things up as I go along, right there on the day. I mean, that's the way I think I've done my best work, is just really to conceive stuff without any preconception. George Lucas really inspired me to do previs and to animate all the storyboards. The storyboards are moving, electronic digital storyboards."

During the production of War of the Worlds, the sets weren't constructed until the previsualisation was complete, meaning that when Spielberg arrived on the set, everything could be filmed the way it was planned.

In the documentary, Steven Spielberg reflects on how he has traditionally drawn his own two dimensional sketches of what he wants in a particular scene. Often, these sketches are translated by professional artists so he can more clearly convey his vision to members of the cast and crew.

"We basically are able to create these entire worlds and fly through them freely. We animate the characters, we animate the cameras, we do everything that a visual effects house would do but we do it on a more basic level.

"Whenever we had a scene that involved what had been previsualised, I invited all of the actors over to the computer and I showed them the entire sequence so they knew exactly the size of these leviathans."