Day 13

How to begin your screenplay: know your ending.

I discovered this fascinating article on The Script Lab website. It is extremely useful to aspiring screenwriters, especially those in the outlining stage. It suggests that an ending cannot simply be 'discovered' by the characters, in order to produce closure, the ending should dictate the correct beginning.

"If you know that your hero finds the treasure, beats the bad guy, and gets the girl in the end, it makes sense for him to have none of that in the beginning. He should be down on his luck, alone, and beaten.

Think of Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. In the film’s opening sequence, Indy is all alone somewhere deep in a Peruvian jungle, facing eminent death by the hands of a tribe of Hovitos warriors, his traitorous companions have been killed, and the idol, which he risked life to obtain, is taken by his arch rival, Belloq. This is the perfect beginning to Lawrence Kasdan’s screenplay because in the end Indy again faces eminent death - this time by the hands of the Nazi’s - but he’s not alone. He has Marion. And Belloq is destroyed. And Indy comes home with his prize: The Ark of the Covenant.

So if the ending is the key, what makes a good one? Happy endings are for story book princesses, not necessarily for a movie. Film endings can be happy but also tragic, bitter sweet, hilarious, etc. What is important is that the ending is satisfactory and believable.

In the end of Randal Wallace’s 1996 award winning screenplay ‘Braveheart’, our hero William Wallace is tortured in London square: hanged, drawn and quartered, emasculated, and disemboweled, only to cry “Freedom!” with his last breath before being beheaded. Clearly, this is not the happiest of endings. But it is satisfactory. If all of his Scottish mates hiding in the crowd came rushing out of the woodwork at the last possible moment to rescue him, battling their way through throngs is English soldiers, the ending would become trite and unbelievable, and more importantly, the theme of freedom and the power of martyrdom would be fleeting."

You can read there full article here.

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