How I Write A Script, Part 3: Research

People asked me how I write a script, so here we go with Part 3. This is a follow up to Part 1 where we considered the importance of story concept in the script-writing process, and Part 2 where we discussed brainstorming.

PART 3: RESEARCH

This generally goes hand-in-hand with brainstorming as research feeds that process. I love to go to libraries. I’ve done a ton of research at the Beverly Hill library and at UCLA. Now that I'm at UNC-Chapel Hill, I use their libraries. But of course, there's the Internet which is absolutely indispensable.

When I was researching an original screenplay SNOWBIRDS, which is set in the RV subculture, I signed up for RV email newsletters, joined RV message boards, and swapped emails with RVers from all around the country. Likewise, when I researched TULLY’S WAR, which took place during the Berlin Airlift, I must have read 20 books on the subject. In both cases, anecdotes I picked up along the way ended up inspiring scenes in my scripts. You’ll also find great lines and dialogue in research. In SNOWBIRDS, I feature the bumpers of all three RVs early on, to give the reader a sense of who the respective couples are. Truman and Bernice had a bumper sticker on their RV: “Home Is Where You Park It”. Got that from research.

As great as books and the Internet are, there is nothing better than talking to actual human beings. For a comedy I co-wrote called HAND JIVE, which was set at Venice High School in LA, I visited the campus just to talk with teenagers. Most of them didn’t mind me taping our conversations, once I explained that I wanted to hear their lingo and catch the rhythm of their conversation. Again, this is how you can generate dialogue, riffing off what you discover in interviews.

Almost invariably, what you discover in your research will fuel your brainstorming. I take copious notes from books I read, and highlight anecdotes or stories which I think I can use in the script. Then I type that information into my main brainstorming file. While that may seem laborious, I find something about it that helps to get me ‘into’ the story world.

Word of warning: You can get lost doing research. I’ve known people who would tell me they’ve got this fantastic concept for a screenplay, they can’t wait to get started, then see them 6 months later, only to find out, “I’m still doing research.” Unless you’re writing a 4-hour historical epic, you should need no more than 2-3 months to brainstorm and research and if you can devote full-time to the project, you can likely accomplish what you need in 4-6 weeks. But if you find yourself using research as an excuse to keep from typing FADE IN, that's time to stop hitting the books and start hitting your keyboard!

One anecdote about research. At one point, Siegel & Myers worked on a project with Howard Gottfried, who produced the Paddy Chayefsky movies The Hospital (1971), Network (1976), and Altered States (1980). I remember a conversation in which I asked Howard about how Chayefsky had researched Altered States and in particular the native hallucinatory drug rituals in Central and South America. How much time had Chayefsky spent with locals learning their ways. Howard said, "None," then went on to explain that Chayefsky did most of his research using the collection of "National Geographic" magazines he had in his writer's office. That and his imagination was all he needed.

I wonder what Chayefsky would have thought of Google.

In Part 4, we'll look at character development.