Get it Right: Research and Details

,I once read in a script: “The helicopter music from Apocalypse Now plays.” And readers, I howled with rage unto the heavens and woke the neighbors. It’s not so much that I care whether famed anti-Semite Wagner gets his credit where it’s due, it’s that a writer would be so lazy as to actually use that description rather than taking the three minutes on Google to find the title of the music. [Apocalypse Now + music]

Most Rouge Wave readers are fairly sophisticated – the heartfelt response to the Black List entry is one example – but I consider this an egalitarian, omnivorous blog meant to entertain, inspire and educate. So for less experienced writers get out your post-its and write: Google. Wikipedia. Now bookmark those sites and get your money’s worth.

Because we live in an online world, doing research is fairly easy. The days of staring at a blurry microfiche at the library are long gone. That’s a nice way of saying there’s no excuse for the incident above. If you aren’t sure of something LOOK IT UP. Because a reader will spot your oversight instantly - and it makes us cranky. We’ve already discussed the disadvantages of a cranky reader. Readers are pretty smart. Don’t underestimate us. Or maybe we’re just residually cranky but in any event if I have the smallest doubt about the authenticity of something in a script, I am the reader you do not want to have; my Google trigger-finger is formidable.

I read a script a few weeks ago that was set in 1852 and mentioned a play that some sophisticates were out to see. Hmm. The title was vaguely familiar to me. Isn’t that….I Googled….the play Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated! Ha! I was right. But hold on, he was assassinated in April, 1865. So…how is it that this play is showing over ten years earlier? I don’t think so. Well, let's see, when did the play first debut...1858. And it is on stage in 1852? Gotcha. Now, I know many of you are rolling your eyes – GEEZ – who cares?! Well, all right, the error above was not a big deal; I noted it but it really didn’t make a difference in the script. The point is check your facts. Because if you don’t we will and it’s just embarrassing for everyone. I am, admittedly, a stickler for detail. But how do you know the reader who reviews your script is not? Don't take the chance.

The helicopter music example, however, is an error so monumentally lazy that it telegraphs to the reader that this writer is cavalier and I guarantee, as we investigate the taped-off crime scene of the script, that it will be just one of many clues that the script is DOA.

Does every script require mountains of time-consuming research? Not necessarily. Here’s the beauty part: audience expectations. Your average movie-goer has consumed copious amounts of movies over the course of their lives. So audiences have a certain shorthand understanding of things in movie world. So if you are writing, say, a professor or academic of some kind, movie goers will instantly believe you if your character wears a sweater with elbow patches and glasses. Now: what kind of professor was Harrison Ford in WHAT LIES BENEATH? No – get your hand off that IMDB-finger – just off the top of your head, what did he do? Well, can’t quite remember but it involved his ability to make that paralyzing poison he later uses on Pfeiffer. Right – good enough, that’s all we need to know. If we go back and watch the movie really carefully paying special attention to the scenes in which Harrison talks about his job you’ll find that the dialogue is in a lovely, vague, movie-professor speak. Aha. Because in the movies, audiences have certain associations and expectations of a professor and all we have to do is meet those expectations and we’re good to go.

Any real professor, nurse, doctor, cop, fireman or lawyer (to only name a very few) fumes when they watch a movie about their profession. It’s not really like that! We never say that! We don’t do it that way! Right, right and right. Of course not. But this is the movies.

Dear readers, I have come full, beautiful circle: If you are considering writing a script about a genetics professor don’t let your blood run cold at the thought of mountains of research on a topic you don’t really understand. Depending upon the depth you will go into in the script (hint: audiences would be bored stiff watching a real geneticist) simply research the jargon and what the environment might look like. I guarantee you that if I am reading a script about a scientist who is doing experiments and TURNS INTO A FLY – I’m pretty happy when I see him in a white lab coat, beakers, a periodic chart of elements in the background and glasses on his nose – because really, he's going to turn into a fly!

In WHAT LIES BENEATH the only thing that is really pertinent to us as viewers is that Ford is a sweater-wearing, intelligent man who goes to work on a campus each day. It establishes his character and sets up that he could make some kind of poison. But again, watch the movie carefully and you really won’t hear any distinctly specific, scientific professorial-speak about the poison or the research. But that was a calculated move on the writer’s part. The writer understood that we just needed the ringers to help audiences buy that Ford is a professor. Of some kind.

If you are writing a script like LORENZO’S OIL – well, you better do your research, no two ways about it. Or THE INSIDER – you can’t gloss over facts there. Or a BEAUTIFUL MIND. You need to know what you are talking about and to develop some expertise in the area or the believability factor is out the window before you begin. Can you go too far? Absolutely yes.

I read a military-action script by a US Marine gunnery sergeant and believe me, this guy knew his munitions. But he went overboard. His exciting action story was totally buried under accurate but overwhelming and boring descriptions of each gun, helicopter, grenade, Humvee or tank in every scene. My eyes swam with numbers and at a certain point I asked him – is this a big helicopter, this H9J30-jigger-rigger-940B? Yes, he said, that is the biggest helicopter the military makes. GREAT I said – then just write – “The biggest, heaviest helicopter the army has ever made rises up from behind a sand dune in a deafening roar.” That’s all I need to know. This is one huge helicopter. When his movie gets made, then he can sort out exactly which gun and exactly which helicopter. The expertise of the writer and subsequent detail totally obscured the story.

The bottom line is you will always have at least a little research and fact-checking to do in your script. Neither be too detailed nor too lazy. Ask yourself: how pertinent are the actual facts here? How much can I get away with explaining or not explaining and still keep the audience hooked?

Worse – far worse – than being too detailed is coming off as lazy or ill-informed. An over-detailed writer can always pull back but a writer who hasn’t bothered to fact check a detail or research a topic is just asking for a PASS because he or she didn’t care enough to do the homework and worse, didn’t think anybody would bother to check. Au contraire.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.