An excerpt from my script review for TENET which will be available 12/28/20:
4.) Dialogue and Description
Remember, you are not Chris Nolan.
If you’re writing a spec script with a complex plot/twist like Inception, Interstellar, or Tenet you might want to consider writing something more marketable first.
The reason I say that?
An unknown screenwriter is not going to have established managers, producers, actors, etc. take the time to sit down with you to go over the complex visuals you’re trying to accomplish.
You’ll need a few “feathers in your cap” before that happens, so be prepared to battle it out in the trenches before landing those sorts of dream meetings.
(Hell, even Christopher Nolan had to do The Dark Knight before getting Inception up and running.)
And similar to the plot section, the description is where we received the Nolan style mind fuck.
Several action sequences I skimmed with a “WTF?” blossoming in the back of my mind, knowing they’d make more sense onscreen.
I mean think about it, these are fight sequences where characters are both moving forward and backward in time!
And they’re fucking interacting with one another!
Doing so in your own script will first require you to wrap your mind around it and then write it in mentally digestible visuals for your reader.
And if it’s the blocky style that’s in this script? Good luck having a reader make it from beginning to end when there’s a stack of other specs they need to read behind yours.
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