how to write a film script fast

Even if you’ve written a script before what follows is the simplest fastest way to write another. And if your aim is simply ‘to have written a film script’, I can think of no better method. My first script, by the way, I wrote over a long period of time just throwing everything down and then editing and changing the order of things. It was time consuming and quite hard going. Then I tried the below method. It was a breeze compared to the former torture. A doddle.

What’s your film to be about? This is the wrong starting point. Instead think of a cool location you are into. Say, post World War 2 Berlin. Now think of a film that you really like. Even a famous one will do, say Casablanca.

Next relocate it. That’s right, the single biggest and most important thing about a film is where it is located. This is made of place+people who exist in that place.

So lets relocate Casablanca to Berlin 1952, just after the wall has been built and people are trying to flee to the West through tunnels, across the wall, even in one case in a home made hot air balloon. Let’s make Rick into a girl, call her Carla- she runs a bar for beatniks and disaffected folk wanting to flee the East. But Carla is also in with the nascent STASI, supplying some information to stay open. Suddenly an old flame of hers, who dumped her years before, say when the Russians invaded, wants to escape. Needs Carla’s help as Carla has been given details of an escape that will happen. What will Carla do?

See, it’s easy. And it’s even easier with an obscure film that no one else can remember. Obviously when you relocate Star Wars to 10^th century Baghdad there are going to be loads of changes- and only you will know in the end what your model was- but the key thing is- with a model in mind you never lose perspective, your story will GUARANTEED to work as a story from the word go.

OK. Next you watch the film, your model film and every five minutes pause it and write down what happened in those five minutes. Not what they said- you’ll change all that- just what happened. Now you have a dramatic breakdown of the film into maybe 20 sections. Now using one of those three act guides you can further break your information down. That is, you divide the film information you have into three acts: set-up/conflict, rising action, climax/resolution. There are many guides that cover this in detail- most well known is Robert McKee’s ‘Story’.

Now you have a numbered treatment of your model film. Print it out and set it next to your keyboard. Using this you create an exact parallel version for your new location. Beat by beat you copy the original. That’s what you do when you run out of inspiration of course, since, as a creative type, you will naturally have loads of great ideas that are not anything like an exact copy (albeit in a different location) of the original. But the key thing here is that when your ideas dry up you don’t have to stop- you just make a transcription of the original in the new location. In other words there is nothing to stop you, no excuses at all!

When you have your treatment the writing of the dialogue will be easy. The treatment will be around 5-6000 words and a script is usually around 20,000 words. So you’re a third there already. For the dialogue ignore the original. Here you just let the characters you created do the talking. As the dramatic structure is all set up it's easy. Just ask yourself what happens in the scene and what do the words need to make happen. Then write it. And remember, dialogue is very easy to fix, unlike bad structure.

There you are: your first film script, fast.