Guest Post: Planning Action Sequences [David Bishop]
A remarkable phenomenon is happening. Over 100 writers are participating in the Go On Your Own Quest initiative and have signed up at the GOYOQ Forum. As Shaula Evans, one of the three site moderators [along with Debbie Moon and David Joyner] wrote to me recently:
There’s a great synergy there: lots of moral support, lots of brainstorming. It’s a really fantastic group of people, and some of them have some impressive industry experience, too.
There have been some great discussions on the GOYOQ Forum, so why not some guest posts here on GITS? Absolutely!
Today: David Bishop.
This was written in response to a question posed on the GOYOQ Forum: When do you plan your action sequences?
Long answer: I’ve written a lot of action-adventure comics, where the audience expects big action set pieces every few pages, so the methodology I stumbled across there is the basis for what I do in screenwriting. First step: identify where you need action scenes — I try to avoid them running back to back, that quickly becomes both breathless and repetitive. Next, what’s the plot point that needs to be advanced, and how does the scene or sequence affect the characters emotionally?
Most comics I write have a single protagonist, so my focus is on their emotional journey. They need to have something at stake, emotionally as well as in terms of their story arc. Can they infiltrate the enemy’s HQ and extract the MacGuffin? What happens when their plan goes awry, etc. Nailing down the stakes helps me judge how long a sequence should last.
Then there’s the choreography of the action scene itself — how characters and objects move in time and space during it. I direct amateur dramatics and even musicals sometimes. While I leave the choreography of dance sequences to people with expertise, there are similarities between dance and action sequences [or they can be both at the same time, as in West Side Story].
I remember a podcast interview with John Logan, talking about how the killings in Tim Burton’s version of Sweeney Todd were the film’s dance sequences. There’s a lot of people getting their throats cut, so the filmmakers were conscious of the need to make each killing different. They did that by focusing on stakes — plot and emotion — but also by choreographing sequences with movement and visuals.
Which leads on to visuals. Is there an overall visual aesthetic for the project? Should each action sequence adhere to that, or should they have individual looks? How can they be made individually unique yet still be part of a greater, unifying narrative visually?
For example, you might have three sequences of characters running/being chased through the woods — how to differentiate these? Night or day? Fast or slow? Unseen pursuer or both apparent? What’s the tone of each sequence? If they’re all similar, do you need all the scenes?
The Bourne films and first Transporter movie are great at making each action sequence visually distinct [check out the fight sequence where Statham covers himself in oil to fight off at least five guys, and compare it to all those car chases — very different!].
Short answer: have “action sequence here” in initial synopsis. Flesh out stakes, identify visual choreography in treatment. Nail down locations, pacing in step outline. Write and polish while scripting.
Thanks, David. That is a polished response coming from a professional writer based in the United Kingdom. I look forward to reading more observations from the GOYOQ Forums.
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