A QUIET PLACE Part 2: Dialogue, Action & The Theme of Your Screenplay

In the first installment of this podcast, we looked at A Quiet Place in relation to writing action and discussed how all of screenplay formatting really exists for one purpose: to isolate visual moments of action.

By isolating visual moments of action we can hypnotize the reader into seeing, hearing, and feeling the story in their mind’s eye, rather than simply reading it on the page. We can invite them to tell themselves the story of the movie, rather than having it spoonfed to them.

We explored the idea that each image in your screenplay, just like each image in your movie---every line, every comma, every period---is really a cut. An isolated moment that, when bumped up against another isolated moment, draws the reader into your script and allows them to make connections to tell themselves the story of what is really going on.

So by now, we understand what the word “Isolate” means. But what about the other three elements of formatting: Visual Moments of Action?

And how does all of this relate to theme and character and dialogue and all those other elements of A Quiet Place and screenwriting in general? Well, that’s what we’re going to cover in this podcast.

So since we now understand the idea of Isolated in Isolated Visual Moments of Action, now let’s get into the concept of Visual. The next idea is Visual.

Visual formatting in your screenplay means that there is something visually exciting about each image.

Another way to think of that is that there is nothing normal in your script, and the reason there is nothing normal in your script is because there is nothing normal in the world. Everything in the world is really freaking weird. Your most normal friend is really freaking weird. You are really freaking weird.

Your desk doesn’t actually look like a desk. Your desk has something weird about it.  Maybe it’s a scratch, maybe it’s a toothbrush sitting in a pen holder, maybe it’s the way that your papers are stacked up with a little crystal on top of them.

Your desk has something weird about it and you have something weird about you, and every moment in life has something weird about it, and if you don’t see it, you are just not looking closely enough.

And if you aren't looking closely enough, that means that your reader, or your viewer, has to do the work of seeing, rather than you doing the work of seeing.

Visual means that you are going to do the work of seeing each moment. You are going to do the work of finding that little hooky thing, that little special element, that little thing that makes it just slightly cooler than normal. That every single thing you write is going to be something that is worthy of shooting.

And here is why that is important: every single thing you write is freaking expensive.

A Quiet Place had one of the craziest production schedules ever.

It was released about 5 months after they finished production, and think about that. Think about how short that is. Post-production was the biggest part of this movie. You had to cut this whole film together and actually use sound almost like it was a character in the film. This movie was all about post, and its rush to release date was insane.

In fact, they even had to reinvent the creature during the post-production process because John Krasinski wasn’t happy with the creature that ILIM had created; they actually went back to the drawing board and reimagined all that visual work. So that timetable is intense.

Why were they able to pull it off?  

Well, actually Krasinski has talked about this. They were able to pull this off, and they were able to pull it off on such a low budget, because he wrote it (as did Bryan Woods and Scott Beck) to cut together in exactly the way they had written it.

Unlike most scripts, which basically throw the ball to the director and go, “Hey dude, you figure it out,