The first thing I
learned about screenwriting in the educational system of college, was that if
you want random speech out of characters in the background you write ad lib instead of talking indistinctively. This is because, like everything in
screenwriting, it’s faster, saves time, saves money, and compensates for all
the paragraphs and spaces in dialogue, therefore, it saves trees. I was eighteen, and embracing my bang-less hair.
And finally, the most wasteful thing
I learned in screenwriting, is that it’s really hard to screen write. Not like
writing a book it’s easy, I bet it’s the worst, but in screenwriting
you can’t be carried away. No to the adjectives, no to the beautiful figures of
speech, most importantly, no to the metaphors (which technically is a figure of
speech, but the important kind and more exclusive). This however, doesn’t
explain how one of my teacher’s favorite character descriptions is “He looks
like he could piss ice water”, referring to Warden Norten in Shawshank
Redemption. This description is all the more genius; because first, it defines
the character fast and brilliantly and second no one’s really going to read outside
the page, so it’s a bit of special information for whoever made the movie and
cares about the script. But it’s also not entirely visual and pragmatic as the
art of screenwriting requires, it’s not exactly a metaphor either, but to be honest the
definition of a metaphor itself is a metaphor. The whole thing is just a big
incognito.
I write in the American screenwriting system, because:
1 - I fell in love with it,
2 - it's basically what everyone uses,
3 - it's Tarantino's way.
Okay, not everyone uses the traditional screenwriting
format, but those exceptions are mostly European directors living somewhere in
rural France who like to paint. Don't get me wrong, but instead of college
teaching me to love these excluded human beings producing experimental stuff
and movies about war in Siberia, (where the only thing you see are landscapes
of mountains in black and white and a man narrating his early life), it just
showed me how some erudite film lovers can be real douchebags. I'm sorry dear
art teacher who loves hip music but has something deeply revolting against
Christopher Nolan, you're a douchebag. Just because I love what the people
love, does not exclude value out of my personality, does not mean I can't
equally love Orson Welles or Bergman or Truffaut. You're looking at the biggest
fan of Film Noir who also happens to appreciate the immersive state of the
Marvel Cinematic Universe. I mean... I'm not saying I'm a total saint, to be
honest I've bitched a lot over someone not having yet watched "The Wizard
of Oz", but come on! Victor Fleming made it possible for a fairy to drop
out of the sky in a bubble in 1939 and still produced the second biggest
classic of our time that same year ("Gone with the wind" just in case
you forgot... that's okay). All I'm saying is, if you're gone be a douchebag
about it, you better be a Fleming supporter douchebag about it.
When I was, maybe ten, well... Probably ten. I went to
the super market with my friend Lili, because that's something we did every
week along with our moms after school. It all just eventually ended up in a
late dinner or two hours of conversation, with either me or Lili begging to get
home or begging to stay if we were in the mood. On the drive to the supermarket
that day I was probably ten, out of nowhere I turned to my friend and said.
BRUNA
I'm gonna write a soap
opera,
and it's gonna be called
"Traded Ties".
(Don't
worry I positively know how to write book dialogue, I just love this one more.)
Anyway, "Traded Ties" or "Exchanged Connections"
in a more literary and metaphorical translation, sounded way better in
Portuguese. I ended up, not producing a soap opera, but writing a romantic
thriller stage production about a girl and a guy (played by a girl) who fell in
love but were destined to be apart. (Because she was rich and promised to
another, and he was poor and always fanatically wearing the local soccer team's
uniform). I starred in it as the star-crossed lover girl, and Lili was my evil
fiancé who kept me from being with the love of my life. Most of our class
and some confused students watched it, which made room for a sequel (to which I
don't remember the plot, but I'm pretty sure involved baby dolls) and a last
production based on my favorite anime show at the time "Mew Mew something".
(It still doesn't beat the extraordinary plot involving kid witches and they're
frog like mentor of "Ojamajo Doremi").
That was my first contact with writing something that
would later be played, interpreted and watched. My next endeavor with writing
characters and giving them voice was in drama class, in eight grade. We had to
write a play, and the best one would be rehearsed and presented. I got placed
with my friend Mary Swan (needless to say she was obsessed with Twilight) and a
boy, who I happened to have a crush on. We wrote a drama about the tense
backstage of a Talent show, and the plot evolved around someone sabotaging the
best contestant who happened to be initially played by me. That was also the
first time I had to pitch my story to people (the class and the teachers), even
though I didn't know at the time it was a pitch per say. Needless to say we won, but the play was never produced,
still it's a great add on to my dream curriculum, impulsive of my true nature
that, one year later, at thirteen, I discovered was reality: To write for
movies and make money out of it. I was going to be the youngest person to win
an Oscar for best script, and I'd direct something by the time I was sixteen.
Hahaha, didn't happen.
Why do I write in English? Let's just say it's all my
Portuguese teacher's fault, teachers are suppose to excite you in school not
make you load their area of expertise. Even though, that's what most of them
do. My teacher told me I made too many writing errors, whereas all my English
teachers throughout the years (apparently they're more replaceable than
Portuguese ones) have told me that I could write. So, I fell in love with the
wrong language, much like the girl from my first play at ten.
When I learnt about writing movies I knew I wanted it
to be universally understood. That's mainly why I do it, and because there's
something about the way they talk that just fascinates me and everyone else
that dedicates to it. The loading for my mother language stopped in college (I
pretty much stopped loading everything and everyone in college), when my
creative writing teacher awarded me with an 18, making me accept that maybe the
whole "you can't write in Portuguese” drama was just an imposition of the
school system everyone fights against, but no one cares enough to change (and
that's a universal reality). Still, the next semester when I started to
actually learn screenwriting, despite my previous self taught experience of
forever, with an actual screenwriter New York established female teacher, I
asked if I could write in English, somewhat I express myself better that way.
She said.
TEACHER
Sure!
And I
said.
BRUNA
Oh yeah! Finally I'm doing
what I
love with no judgment or
fake enthusiasm!
On my
first assignment I got the following review:
"This
was great, but I think it's too easy for you to write in English."
I laughed
and keep on doing it.
