"Yadda Yadda Disquisition Talky-Talk," said George Clooney

I would rather read a book on a plane than try to watch a movie cut and bleeped to mid-air PG.  On a recent flight to Las Vegas not only did I catch a basic point about memorable screenwriting, but I witnessed why The Descendants lost the Best Picture Oscar to The Artist.  And that was just glancing up from Tolstoy from time to time, Coltrane on the iPod...but I digress.

In scene after scene, the King family and those around them sit or stand still, just talking—one missed opportunity after another.  Why bore your audience with static visuals (even if that is Hawai'i in the background) when actors can add dimension to their words with actions? Action can contradict the words, emphasize them, work in counterpoint to them.  A variety of activity from subtle to strenuous can add another axis to the film's picture and the sound.

During casting for Hatboxes, a section of "blah-blah-blah" in the script caught our attention. Hearing the reader—the person who utters the other side of conversation while an actor auditions—have to run through several sentences to get to the actor's next line started to sound alarms, especially since the characters are just sitting there talking.  Actually, it's just one person talking at some length.  As I hear her words in my head, she goes from seething to despairing to mortified, and that could be enough, but laying her words over some actions that can punctuate her speech gives us a better shot at success.

Nothing's writ in stone.

Susana Darwin