I think I’ve found my enthusiasm for writing again, after the last year (plus) being pretty much mojo free. I’ve been working on draft 12,347 of a script that’s twice as old as my kid - and responsible for nearly as many grey hairs - writing with the director for a few hours most afternoons during lockdown.
We’re taking a lot of the script back to basics and rebuilding scenes with a greater sense of purpose, working in more subtext and making sure they point in the direction of our story. A couple of the early scenes have necessitated some pretty comprehensive re-thinking, including introducing new, or re-imagined, characters. I came to the scene where we introduce our protagonist, and realised the character intro was actually pretty terrible. It felt generic, lazy, and performed the magic trick of being both too long to be punchy; and too short to tell us what we needed to know. It got me thinking about character introductions in scripts, and how other people do them.
Normal well-adjusted people would have a look at a couple of scripts, get some ideas, and go off and bang out a solid character intro. I am not, as many people will confirm, entirely normal. Hence I have spent the last five days analysing the character introductions in nearly three hundred of the scripts in my script library. Everything from Quint in Jaws (bloody brilliant) to Ripley in Alien (extremely cursory), Penny Lane in Almost Famous, to Marty McFly in that movie about the car thief whose mom keeps trying to bone him before he turns his dad into a violent sociopath, plagiarises Chuck Berry and bankrupts his Dad’s boss.
I’d love to say this is because I am a truth-seeker, thirsty for knowledge and a deep analytical desire to unravel the mysteries of the universe through empirical study. In reality it’s because I am slightly obsessive, bloody minded, and generally don’t know how to stop doing things once I’ve started them.
I’ll try and put a link to a PDF of the collated character introductions somewhere. It’s definitely not all of them - it’s a lot, don’t worry! - but I left out many which didn’t feel particularly noteworthy, or didn’t bother to introduce characters at all, which I saw was a trend in some of the older scripts: Chinatown, When Harry Met Sally, Some Like it Hot, and rather let character emerge through an accumulation of dialogue and action. Note: You have to be bloody confident in your writing to get away with this.
(This is also sometimes true of ungrateful bastard directors who are writing with cast already on board and therefore don’t need to waste their precious unicorn-riding time with fripperies like describing their protagonists - PTA et al. )
I’m still processing what I’ve learnt from all this idiocy. But one thing's for sure - and it’s a cut-and-paste from any sensible writing about screenwriting anytime anywhere - there is no right way of doing it. Some writers do it it several ways in the same script. However one could say there is a ‘most effective’ way, generally based on the type of film you’re writing.
Character intros consist of a few common elements:
Name. Obvs. 97% of the time in CAPS.
Age, specific, which is a bit weird unless there’s a specific reason for being specific.
Age, unspecific: 20s, 30s, etc. Or my favourite which is ‘probably in his forties’, which imparts just the right amount of devil-may-care attitude on the part of the writer. “I’m guessing this dude is about forty-five from the thinning hair and significant waistband overhang, but I HAVEN’T EXACTLY LOOKED AT HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE”.
A description of their physical attributes.
Along with age this is the most common. The trick is to find some way that gives us something more than just a aesthetic picture of the character:
‘LUKE, a sullen-looking student with a shaved head and a failed goatee, raises his hand.’
‘Reverse on Reb Groshkover: a short, merry-looking fellow with a bifurcated beard.’
‘John Laroche drives. He’s a skinny man with no front teeth.’
These from Hell or High Water:
‘TOBY HANSON, late 30’s, a kind face marked by years of sun and disappointment, rides shotgun. It’s not the face of a thief, it is the face of a farmer.’
‘Behind the wheel is TANNER HANSON, 40, his brother’s opposite in every way: mustache, shaggy hair, an air of danger that attracts as many women as it repels.’
A description of what they’re wearing. In such a manner as to impart character.
Take this description of Carolyn Burnham from American Beauty: ‘A very well-put together woman of forty, she wears color-coordinated gardening togs and has lots of useful and expensive tools.’
A sub-genre of this is where characters are described by something they might wear, as in this from Tina Fey’s Mean Girls script, where Cady’s mom is fabulously described as ‘The kind of woman who would still wear a fanny pack’.
(Mean Girls also contains this gem: ‘Her gym clothes consist of the tiniest shorts ever forged by man, and a bandanna for a shirt.’)
Certain articles of clothing are often used as symbols of character: Tweed jackets, horn-rimmed spectacles, white tank tops, killer heels, plaid shirts, faded Metallica t-shirts, letter jackets, floaty summer dresses, Brooks Brothers suits, Italian suits, ill-fitting suits and so on. All of these are signifiers of a certain type of person, and one has to ask whether you view this as useful shorthand, or unhelpfully generic.
A description of what they’re doing. In such a way as to impart character.
A character chewing a toothpick in scene 8 is definitely gonna shoot somebody before this f*cker’s done.
Ex Machina: ‘The hands of the young man writing code. This is CALEB. He types fast, with two fingers.’
I particularly like this one from 25th Hour: 'NATURELLE, in her early twenties, has the lean body of a runner. It's cold outside but she doesn't seem to mind.’
Often this is coupled with a description of clothing as above. This from American Gangster: ‘A white Bentley pulls up, disgorging Jackie Fox - the original Superfly - and his entourage. With his trademark tinted Gucci glasses on, he happily poses for anyone with a camera - including the Feds - before going inside.’
Some writers prefer to shorthand the recognisable ‘tribe’ the character is from. This works if you’re dealing with archetypes, often in comedy, or stylistically you just want to get shit done and move on. Personally I find this a little cursory but it is effective and can read as confident.
These from 20th Century Women:
DOROTHEA (55, short grey hair, Amelia Earhart androgyny)
JAMIE (15, New-Wave/Punk)
JULIE (17, Something subversive below her good looks)
ABBIE (28, Sophisticated NYC art-punk type)
WILLIAM (Mid 40’s post-hippie type)
MARY, (40’s academic)
It’s no surprise that John Hughes takes this all the way in The Breakfast Club, a movie intentionally and entirely consisting of archetypes:
‘We see CLAIRE and her FATHER sitting in their car in the parking lot. Claire is the prom queen and is clearly a snob.’
‘We are in BRIAN's car. His MOTHER is there and so is his little SISTER. He is sort of a nerd.’
‘We see ANDREW and his FATHER. Andrew is clearly a jock; he’s wearing a letterman's jacket with lots of patches on it.’
The great unknown. I’ve historically subscribed to the Roy Walker approach to character description: ie. ’Say what you see’. If it’s not something you can see in the moment, it’s a bit of cheat to shoehorn it in the script. But lately I’ve come around to the idea of the more lyrical descriptions of character, which set a tone not only for the character, and the others who interact with that character in the movie, but also a useful steer for the reader (and potential director, actor, costume designer, hair and makeup) in imagining how these things might be signified elsewhere in the script in a way that’s powerful and revelatory.
Sometimes it’s simply a description of useful character traits that will become clear as the story develops:
‘RUSSELL HAMMOND, 27, presses the buzzer with the nose of his guitar-case. It's obvious from moment one. This is the star of the band, the charismatic one.’
‘GEORGE McFLY, 47, is absorbed in a BOXING MATCH on TV. He’s balding, bored, uninspired; a man who lost at the game of life.’
‘At the center of this technological rat-nest is NEO, a man who knows more about living inside a computer than outside one.’
But in other cases it’s more of a ‘screw your wafty screenwriting rules, my character is a total badass, and I will describe him/her as such in as much detail as I require thankyouverymuch.’
So here are some of my fave character descriptions that tell us a bunch of stuff that we can’t possibly know from looking at our character, and in many cases never even find out during the movie, but add something that feels necessary/awesome:
‘MICHAEL CLAYTON’S FACE -- A PHOTOGRAPH laminated onto a Kenner, Bach & Ledeen ID card -- FILLS OUR FRAME. It’s a man’s face. Son of a second-generation cop’s face. Father of a ten-year-old boy’s face. A face women like more than they know why. The good soldier’s face.’
‘He is L.B. JEFFERIES. A tall, lean, energetic thirtyfive, his face long and serious-looking at rest, is in other circumstances capable of humour, passion, naive wonder and the kind intensity that bespeaks inner convictions of moral strength and basic honesty.’
‘Then, entering a plane of focus is VINCENT. He walks towards us...an arriving passenger. Suit. Shirt. No tie. Sunglasses and expensive briefcase say "confident executive traveler." The suit's custom-made but not domestic. His hair and shades are current, but it would be difficult to describe his identifying specifics...grey suit, white shirt, medium height. And that's the idea…’
‘This is LESTER BANGS, 25, the rarely-seen God of a then new art-form -- Rock Journalism.’
‘David makes for an incredibly glamorous and attractive couple in their late twenties who are waiting outside - DANNY and HELEN. Helen is as far from anyone’s idea of an aunt as one can get. She’s no more beautiful than Jenny, but she’s dressed both appropriately and spectacularly, in early-60s, pre-hippy Bohemian gear. She turns heads in a way that Jenny is not yet able to. Danny too is attractive, but soberly so. David and Jenny are, in a way, paler, less striking versions of these two.’
‘COSTELLO is never the threatener. His demeanor is gentle, philosophical. Almost a shrink’s probing bedside manner. He has great interest in the world as he moves through it. As if he originally came from a different world and his survival in this one depends on close continual observation and analysis.’
‘Sgt. ED EXLEY, 30, bespectacled, is at the desk with a YOUNG OFFICER. Exley is an up-and-comer. Burning with ambition. The faster he rises through the ranks, the more resentment he leaves in his wake.’
In conclusion I would say best practice is to choose a style that matches the way the rest of the script is written, and give the reader exactly as much as they need to understand each character - what makes them particular. But don’t fall into the trap of writing something long and generic when a couple of words do the same job.
| | Here's the PDF for your amusement. | |
| | Here's the PDF for your amusement. | |
And finally…
Rising like Neptune from out of the deep, QUINT walks the sidewalk in the pool of his own shadow. He is a sleek and sinewy specimen, inches over six feet, and with a face making it hard to determine where the scars leave off and the wrinkles begin, though he is no older than fifty.
Badass.
