Dispatch from The Quest: Brandon Cohen

Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the subject of Scene. Today’s dispatch: Brandon Cohen decides he’s going to be a taskmaster when it comes to writing scenes for his upcoming script:

There’s a wonderful quote I heard about writing scenes from French filmmaker Jean de Resnais: “scenes are like feathers on a bird. Each is beautiful when plucked out individually, but in order for the bird to fly, all of them must work together.” Pretty deep stuff, right? I must reveal that I just made that quote up and Jean de Resnais is not a real person. Quotes from French people just sound so much more intelligent.

I apologize for having to lie to you, but I think that fake quote gets across the main thing I took away from last week’s lectures about scenes. I have a tendency, especially as a comedy writer, to basically write each scene as a sketch. This isn’t a horrible approach — in doing so, it gives each scene a beginning, middle and end. There is a set up and a payoff. There aren’t lulls in the action that make some parts funnier than others. BUT, it’s extremely important to not lose sight of how each sketch fits within the overall scope of the movie.

There are a lot of comedies that feel like a bunch of sketches loosely strung together into a plot. Most of them are pretty bad, but not all of them. Anchorman comes to mind as a movie that does this very well. Still, we can’t all write Anchorman, nor should we really try. We laugh at Anchorman, but I don’t think anyone really walks away from that movie feeling any emotional connection to it (unless you associate it with a time in your life where all your most hated co-workers at a job you detested seemed to quote it incessantly to the point that you can no longer enjoy the movie).

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. To be honest, if I had to choose between an audience thinking my movie was the funniest movie ever, or feeling an emotional attachment to it, I’d probably go with the former. However, a good movie should be able to do both.

An important thing I need to keep in mind is not to let comedy take the place of story and theme. I have a tendency to just write scenes that I think are funny, and they are funny (if I do say so myself), but in the larger scheme of the movie, I end up doing myself a disservice. I insert characters into scenes that probably shouldn’t be there, I have the protagonist act in a way that isn’t typical of their character, and I generally just include scenes that don’t really serve any purpose other than to get a laugh.

For my Quest feature, every time I come up with an idea for a scene, I’m going to act like an asshole bouncer at an exclusive club. I’m going to have a list of VIP (themes, structural goals, emotional goals), and the scene idea is going to be some nerdy dude wearing cargo pants and sneakers who has no girls with him. “Sorry, you’re not on the list.” I’ll turn away, feeling kinda bad for him, but this is the life I’ve chosen. If he can talk his way in by justifying his narrative function to the story then “Okay, hurry on in before my boss sees me.” If not, “This is the last time I’m gonna tell you, I don’t care how bad of a Yelp review you write for the club, you ain’t gettin’ inside.” The nerd turns away, crestfallen.

I think it will be a challenge to write in this manner, but it will definitely improve the larger structural problems that I’ve had with past projects. As I dive into my Quest project, I’m going to do my best to keep the beautiful words of Jean de Resnais in the back of my mind, and remember that scene = point.

In our weekly teleconference on Sunday, we did table readings of some scenes the group wrote. Not only a great opportunity to workshop material, but also remind us that screenwriting is fundamentally scene-writing. The basics of that process — What is the point of the scene, What is the scene’s beginning, middle and end, Why are these characters in the scene, and so on — are critically important because we need to be able to craft one entertaining scene after another, each one moving the plot forward. Brandon’s right: We can’t be satisfied with mediocre. Instead we need to bring out own asshole bouncer who will push us to write great scenes.

Tomorrow: Another dispatch from The Quest.

About Brandon: NYC native, fan of all things comedy. I cry every time I watch Big Fish, Forrest Gump and Marley & Me. Don’t judge me. Twitter: @brandandco.