Syd Field Screenplay Quotes

Action is character. What a person does is what he is, not what he says.

Confusion is the first step toward clarity

But over the years, I've learned not to believe too much in luck or accidents; T think everything happens for a reason. There's something to be learned from every moment, every experience we encounter during the brief time we spend on this planet. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it what you will; it really doesn't matter.

The writer's job is to write the screenplay and keep the reader turning pages, not to determine how a scene or sequence should be filmed. You don't have to tell the director and cinematographer and film editor how to do their jobs. Your job is to write the screenplay, to give them enough visual information so they can bring those words on the page into life, in full 'sound and fury,' revealing strong visual and dramatic action, with clarity, insight, and emotion.

During the writing process you're going to discover things about yourself you never knew. For example, if you're writing about something that happened to you, you may re-experience some old feelings and emotions. You may get 'wacky' and irritable and live each day as if you were on an emotional roller coaster. Don't worry. Just keep writing.

La cosa più difficile quando si scrive è sapere che cosa scrivere

When you're in the paradigm, you can't see the paradigm.

All drama is conflict. Without conflict, you have no action; without action, you have no character; without character, you have no story; and without story, you have no screenplay.

There is only now, today, this present moment, this point in time. Waiting for 'someday' is, like striving for perfection, really just an excuse. 'Someday' is a concept that, to quote my mentor, Jean Renoir 'exists only in the mind, not in reality.

What's great about writing a screenplay is that the subtext of the scene, what is not said, can sometimes be more important that what is said. Again, dialogue serves two basic functions in the scene: Either it moves the story forward or it reveals information about the character.

Joseph Campbell reflects in The Power of Myth that in mythic terms, the first part of any journey of initiation must deal with the death of the old self and the resurrection of the new. Campbell says that the hero, or heroic figure, 'moves not into outer space but into inward space, to the place from which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all things, the kingdom of heaven within. The images are outward, but their reflection is inward.

Beginning, middle, and end; Act I, Act II, Act III. Set-Up, Confrontation, Resolution—these parts make up the whole. It is the relationship between these parts that determines the whole.

Sometimes incidents and events in our lives bring out the best in us, or the worst. Sometimes we recover from these events and sometimes we don't - but they always impact us. At other times how we act and react, or deal with a particular situation, reveals our "true" nature and tells us who we really are.

«Τίποτα στον κόσμο δεν αξίζει όσο η επιμονή. Ούτε το ταλέντο: παντού βλέπετε αποτυχημένους ταλαντούχους. Ούτε και η ιδιοφυία: οι ιδιοφυίες που δεν τις αναγνώρισαν είναι κοινός τόπος. Ούτε η μόρφωση: ο κόσμος είναι γεμάτος παραπεταμένους μορφωμένους. Μόνο η επιμονή κι η αποφασιστικότητα είναι παντοδύναμες».

Life consists in action,' Aristotle said, 'and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.' The same with Hamlet, or Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, or Neo in The Matrix: characters who have overcome their doubts and fears, then pushed them aside and acted. It is this action that elevates them into the realm of 'heroic figures.

The Chinese say that "the longest journey begins with the first step", and in many philosophical systems "endings and beginnings" are connected; as in the concept of yin and yang, two concentric circles joined together, forever united, forever opposed. If you can find a way to illustrate this in your screenplay, it is to your advantage.

Hegel, the great eighteenth-century German philosopher, maintained that the essence of tragedy derives not from one character being right and the other being wrong, or from the conflict of good versus evil, but from a conflict in which both characters are right, and thus the tragedy is one of "right against right," being carried to its logical conclusion.

Many times you may feel the urge to sit down and start writing a screenplay but you don't really know what to write about. So you go looking for a subject. Just know that when you're looking for your subject, your subject is really looking for you. You'll find it someplace, at some time, probably when you're least expecting it. It will be yours to follow through on or not, as you choose.

By doing research - whether in written sources such as books, magazines, or newspapers or through personal interviews - you acquire information. The information you collect allows you to operate from the position of choice, confidence, and responsibility. You can choose to use some, or all, or none of the material you've gathered; that's your choice, dictated by the terms of the story. Not using it because you don't have it offers you no choice at all, and will always work against you and your story.

In The Shawshank Redemption, there's a short scene between Andy and Red that reveals the difference in their points of view. After almost twenty years in Shawshank Prison, Red is cynical because, in his eyes, the concept of hope is simply a four-letter word. His spirit has been so crushed by the prison system that he angrily declares to Andy, 'Hope is a dangerous thing. Drives a man insane. It's got no place here. Better get used to the idea.' And it is Red's emotional journey that leads him to the understanding that 'hope is a good thing.' The film ends on a note of hope, with Red breaking his parole and riding the bus to meet Andy in Mexico: 'I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Having a character change during the course of the screenplay is not a requirement if it doesn't fit your character. But transformation, change, seems to be an essential aspect of our humanity, especially at this time in our culture. I think we're all a little like Melvin (Jack Nicholson) in As Good as it Gets. Melvin may be complex and fastidious as a person, but his dramatic need is expressed toward the end of the film when he says, 'When I'm with you I want to be a better person.' I think we all want that. Change, transformation, is a constant of life, and if you can impel some kind of emotional change within your character, it creates an arc of behavior and adds another dimension to who he/she is.

Writing is the ability to ask yourself questions and wait for the answers.

In Thelma & Louise, the dramatic need is to escape safely to Mexico; that’s what drives these two characters through the entire story line. In Cold Mountain, Inman’s dramatic need is to return home, and Ada’s is to survive and adapt to the conditions around her. In Lord of the Rings, as mentioned, it’s to carry the ring to Mount Doom and destroy it in the fire that created it.

Art, he proclaimed, is the process of actually sitting down and doing it. Not talking about doing it, not thinking or fantasizing about doing it, just doing it. Only after the work has been completed and exposed to public view will it be considered a work of “art” or not. If you think you're “an artist” just waiting for that one moment of inspiration to sit down and write, you'll be waiting forever.

A screenplay is a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of dramatic structure.

To tell a story, you have to set up your characters, introduce the dramatic premise (what the story is about) and the dramatic situation (the circumstances surrounding the action), create obstacles for your characters to confront and overcome, then resolve the story.

Many writers—and I read more than five hundred scripts a year—do not realize that a screenplay is a selling document. When they’re writing a screenplay, they’re not writing a movie. They’re writing a script, material that’s going to be read, not seen. And it’s the reading experience that will determine whether the movie gets made or not.

People call it high-concept but it’s really having an idea which you can tell in a couple of sentences, so the head of the studio can call the marketing guy and pitch it, and the marketing guy can say, Yeah, I can sell that.

they should write their brains out. If they get a deal, they should write the assignment, then take time off to write something on spec, then write an assignment, then write on spec. You have a lot more control over a spec script that becomes a hot script. It can put you on the A list faster than waiting four years to get something developed.

and the ones they like are the ones where they can say, yes, that’s a movie. They can see it. Even if parts of it need work; maybe some of the jokes don’t work, maybe some of the characters are a little cliché, maybe some of the stuff is a little repetitive. But if you can see the movie, there’s a chance it might get made, even if they have

Story determines structure; structure doesn't determine story.

The hardest thing about writing is knowing what to write.

A Plot Point is defined as any incident, episode, or event that hooks into the action and spins it around in another direction—

When you can articulate your subject in a few sentences, in terms of action and character, you’re ready to begin expanding the elements of structure and story. It may take several pages of free-association writing about your story before you can begin to grasp the essentials and reduce a complex story line to a simple sentence or two. Don’t worry about it. Just keep doing it, and you will be able to articulate your story idea clearly and concisely.

The dramatic premise is what the screenplay is about; it provides the dramatic thrust that drives the story to its conclusion.

During this second act the main character encounters obstacle after obstacle that keeps him/her from achieving his/her dramatic need, which is defined as what the character wants to win, gain, get, or achieve during the course of the screenplay. If you know your character’s dramatic need, you can create obstacles to it and then your story becomes your character, overcoming obstacle after obstacle to achieve his/her dramatic need.

What if you read a book you like, and want to write a screenplay based on that book? To find out if the rights to that book are available, call the publisher of the hard-bound edition. Ask for the motion picture and theatrical rights division. They will tell you if the rights are available; if they are, they will refer you to the author’s agent.

Hollywood is the only place where you can die from encouragement.” Dorothy Parker

Then I remembered something I’d read in a Kurt Vonnegut novel: when you’re trying to find the answer to a question, the answer is in the question.

read the trades, call the agents, call the production companies, call the agents of the actors she thinks are right for the parts, call the people she knows in the industry; in other words, she’s got to determine if there’s a market for her script.

The thing the writer usually forgets if he gets the rights himself is to ask the person to get releases from the other important people in the story. This is a potential source of legal liability.

Your script has to get past all those initial readers to the head of the studio who reads it and sees nothing but dollar signs. Their job is to pass, so you can’t give them a reason to say no. And the bottom line is money. They’ve got to read it and know if they buy this script (a) they can cast it, and (b) even if they can’t get a big name for it, the picture itself, the idea, the action, or whatever else is in it, is going to sell it. “On the other hand they’ve got to feel free to go to the marketing people and say ‘What do you guys think? Can we sell it in Europe? Will it play Japan?’ The marketing guys are the number-two guys at the studio now, and they’re very important.

Before you write one shot, one word of dialogue on paper, you must know four things: your ending, your beginning, Plot Point I, and Plot Point II.