Creating a compelling and convincing world is one of the most important elements of screenwriting. However, it’s one of the least talked about. I think many screenwriting authors and teachers see it as a given – that a world will be built organically when the screenplay’s written. Or that it’s a simple part of the screenwriting process – it’s just about creating believability, and doesn’t really need to be thought about too much. Although elements of this aren’t wrong, there’s so much more to say about worlds. A world is infectious – it affects all other elements of your screenplay, from story to character to dialogue. It doesn’t just hold your screenplay together, it pulls and pushes it into shape. In fact, world is something that can easily make or break your screenplay.
A well-chosen and well-crafted world can create a specific audience experience – a particular tone and feeling that the plot can’t convey by itself. A world also has its own innate dramatic potential, where your choice can both help and hinder how the story’s told. A world can belong to a particular character, too, and by imposing a new world on that character – or bringing a new character into their world – you can create interesting, dramatic challenges that they have to work with. A well-chosen world can also bring a familiar, clichéd story alive again, making it feel fresh and inspiring. Many successful films take a classic storyline and set it in a new, sometimes unusual, world. This helps to make the story feel new and exciting, and relevant for a contemporary audience. Examples include Pretty Woman (scr. JF Lawton, 1990), Enchanted (scr. Bill Kelly, 2007), Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) (scr. Guillermo del Toro, 2006) and Million Dollar Baby (scr. Paul Haggis, 2004).
So, creating a world means far more than creating a location for the story to take place in. Location comes into it, clearly, but a screenplay world is also about:
Paris, Je T’aime (scr. Various, 2006) is a film about a world – a collection of 18 short films that celebrate the city of Paris. Taking as its frame one Parisian arrondissement per short film, the collection, as a whole, explores what it’s like to live in Paris, amongst all of its beauty and disparity. The central theme is love – Paris as the city of love, and also why we love Paris (hence the title). As such, although each short film has its own story world – a comedy mime, a lascivious vampire, a grieving family, etc – the feature film (compilation) draws its components together to explore a single world – contemporary Paris, where there’s something for everyone.
Choose a film and consider what world – or worlds – it presents. Where is it set? How does the world operate? What’s the feel of the world? How does this world – unlike others – enable themes to be explored and meaning to come about? Are there any specific characteristics of the world, such as character types, voice/dialogue and visual motifs? Overall, how potent is the world of this film? Could the film exist in another world?
When developing your story, you should spend as much time as possible building your world. As I’ve already highlighted, it can be something that makes or breaks your screenplay – not just in the sense of appealing to the right producer or director, but also in the sense that it can open up your story to fresh and exciting possibilities. Spending time on your world can really strengthen your screenplay in ways that you might not expect – characters, structure, themes, dialogue, etc. Here, then, I want to talk briefly about some of the ways that you can build your story world – things that you should consider as you’re working on all other essential elements of your screenplay. As I’ve already stated, a story world is infectious – it can dominate your screenplay in many ways. The case studies below will explore some of these ideas in more detail.
When casting the world – working out who you need to tell your story – you need to think carefully about the composition of characters. The protagonist will belong to a specific world, then is likely to be transported to another world, either literally or metaphorically. So you need to know what these worlds are, and how they work for the story. It’s the same for the antagonist – what world do they want to destroy or control, and how does this fit with their situation and personality? You need to think about supporting characters, too, and what they might bring to or from the story world. Questions you should consider include:
When you develop your screenplay’s structure, you should consider the part the world plays in it. Structuring the world means finding the specific ways in which the world operates – internal logic included – and how these might dictate the structure that you use to tell your story. For example, your world might have rules that affect what characters can and can’t do. Your structure will therefore be directly affected by this as your choices of character action are limited. You might decide that your world has a specific past or future – again, this will affect the structure of your screenplay because it means that certain things have already happened or will happen. The world, then, can have a real impact on your narrative structure. Questions you should consider include:
It can be surprising, yet illuminating, to think how dialogue can be influenced by the story world. It’s about voicing the world – finding ways to verbally represent the world. There are sometimes really obvious demands on dialogue, such as technical jargon and words or expressions that belong to a specific world. A film set aboard a spaceship, for example, would require a specific way of speaking that relates to technology, situation and era. But voicing the world goes beyond this – it’s about finding out how the world affects characters’ attitudes, perspectives and topics of conversation. How would money-hungry stockbrokers talk on a night out? What would starving children talk to each other about? Questions you should consider include:
Theming the world is about understanding how the world you’ve chosen demands – or denies – that certain themes be explored. It’s about knowing what stories need to be told, and what meaning an audience might be left with. Genre comes into play here because it can often dictate the theme of a story, or at least some kind of meaning that the audience is expecting. The world of a political thriller might demand themes of corruption and justice, for example. The world of a romantic comedy might demand themes of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. So, when building your world – and considering the genre of your story – you need to think about how specific themes naturally fit, or resist, it. Questions you should consider include:
Melbourne-based screenwriter, filmmaker and lecturer Annabelle Murphy, who convenes the screenwriting provision at the Victorian College of the Arts, has this to say:
Worlds that sing
Creating a rich and believable world for your story is a vital aspect of screenwriting. I believe that one hallmark of all great films, without exception, is a vivid and authentic world – not a setting, but a fully envisaged world. If that world is unique and largely unexplored in cinema, then so much the better. Take The Godfather (scr. Mario Puzo & Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), The Gods Must Be Crazy (scr. Jamie Uys, 1980) and My Life as a Dog (scr. Lasse Hallstrom, Reidar Jonsson, Brasse Brannstrom & Per Berglund, 1985) as cases in point.
A vivid, authentic world brings depth and life to a film. Anyone who reads screenplays for a living will tell you that a film that ‘knows what it is’ and has a fresh authentic voice stands out from the crowd. The simplest way to achieve authenticity in portraying a film world is to know that world yourself. This is why autobiography is often so compelling. Real-life details and events are often so intriguingly specific that they couldn’t easily be imagined by a writer, let alone portrayed with credibility.
But this isn’t the only way. Many of our most loved film worlds are not ‘real’. The Harry Potter series (2001–11), Gattaca (scr. Andrew Niccol, 1997), Blade Runner (scr. Hampton Fancher & David Peoples, 1982), Groundhog Day (scr. Danny Rubin & Harold Ramis, 1993) and so many more stories have been set in complex imaginary worlds painstakingly and lovingly realised by their screenwriters.
So, what makes one film world more compelling than another? For me, there’s a triumvirate of qualities – for a film world to ‘sing’, it must be unique, vivid and authentic.
© Annabelle Murphy, 2012
The following case studies take a closer look at story world, and how each film uses the idea of a world to tell us something about itself – its characters, structure, theme, dialogue, etc.
Ratatouille (scr. Brad Bird, 2007) has two sets of internal logic to deal with. First of all, we have to understand that this is a world where rats can talk – and cook! From the start, we see rats Remy and Emile living an ‘ordinary’ life – they’re scrounging around for food in an old lady’s house, but at the same time making conversation, watching TV and joking about Remy’s knowledge of cooking. This is important in setting up the logic that this is a film where rats have the characteristics and intelligence of humans – albeit unknown to humans themselves (until later). Animation helps with this too, of course. Remy finding himself in Paris is also important because it gives us a sense of reality – this is a place we know, and use of icons like the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe also helps with this.
As the story develops, we then have to understand a new internal logic – that of Remy being able to ‘control’ rookie chef Linguini, and make him cook wonderful things. This is an important part of the story as it’s what puts Linguini in jeopardy in the first place – because Remy can cook, and everyone else thinks it’s Linguini, the challenge is set for Linguini to help restore the reputation of the restaurant. So, to show us this new internal logic, we see a ‘training’ sequence where Remy and Linguini figure out ways of working together – Remy controlling Linguini’s arms for stirring, chopping, etc.
In The Kids Are All Right (scr. Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg, 2010), we’re presented with two distinct worlds: the ‘perfect’, upper-middle-class world of lesbian couple Nic and Jules and their two kids (beautiful house, academically-focused, good wine, etc), and the earthy, lower-middle-class world of the kids’ biological father Paul (organic co-op farm, trendy restaurant, unplanned approach, etc). How this film works is seeing the transition of characters between the two worlds. For example, daughter Joni doesn’t want to be part of this world (she doesn’t want to meet Paul, their biological father), but son Laser does. This changes, though, after their first meeting with Paul – now it’s Joni who wants to be part of his world and Laser not. Paralleling this, mother Nic wants nothing to do with Paul and his world – she’s scared she’ll lose control of her kids – whereas second mother Jules does want to be part of this new environment, and, by taking on a landscaping project for Paul, explores who she is – and wants to be. This is nicely symbolised by the metaphor of the garden that she’s landscaping: a site that needs to be worked on, and new life given to it. Metaphorically, this represents Jules’ own need for growth and ‘work on the self’. In fact, when she first visits the garden, she says that they shouldn’t try and tame it, that it should be fecund – fertile, able to grow, imaginative. Clearly, this is subtext for her own problems in life that, in turn, form part of the story’s drive. Later, when Jules becomes dangerously comfortable in this new world and has a sexual affair with Paul, she realises that it can’t last, and that only when she can unite the two worlds – what she’s learnt from Paul’s world and what she loves about Nic and her family’s world – will she be happy. She does return, of course, and there’s a sense that the old world is now different. It’s been allowed to grow, and will be harmonious once more.
Barbara’s world in Notes on a Scandal (scr. Patrick Marber, 2006) is set up as poisonous, deceitful and desperate from the word go. Her voiceover narration clearly depicts her attitude towards the school she works at, and the pupils and staff in it – very bleak. She stands, looking almost like an old crone, peering out of a window at the playground and telling us of the not-so-delightful things she foresees this term – thuggish behaviour and pupils who don’t want to learn. In her class, she commands the pupils with an acid stare, and, in the background, we hear someone call her ‘poison grandmother’. She watches from the wings as her colleagues flock around new teacher, Sheba Hart, finding pleasure in them making fools of themselves. In the first meeting of the term, the headmaster congratulates everyone for getting their departmental reports in – but wonders why Barbara’s report is only a page long. She replies that she spent all summer writing it. Clearly, not only is she not very well liked by her colleagues, she’s not understood – who is this woman? They know her in the public world, but what’s her private world like?
Barbara’s private world is solitary and lonely, and, as we learn, the only reality is her diary. Key to the narrative of this film is Barbara’s desire to protect her world – to keep it for herself, apart from those she invites into it. This is depicted nicely when, at Christmas, Barbara’s sister-in-law comes into the room that she’s sleeping in. Barbara doesn’t want her in there – she doesn’t want anyone knowing her business – but her cat provides an opportunity for infiltration when her sister-in-law goes over to stroke it. Barbara is very uncomfortable with this event, feeling that her world has been betrayed by the entrance of someone absolutely uninvited. In a similar scene elsewhere in the film, colleague Brian comes to see Barbara, inviting himself into her flat. She’s suspicious at first – what does this man want? – but it soon becomes clear that he fancies Sheba and wants to ask Barbara for advice about wooing her. Jealous and desperate, Barbara lets slip that Sheba’s been having a sexual affair with one of their pupils. But it’s all done in the subtlest of ways, of course.
What’s special about this film is how Barbara’s world dominates everything – how she slowly but surely pushes Sheba out of her seemingly happy world and lures her into her own dark, murky world. Before she’s able to pounce, Barbara’s given an insight into Sheba’s world. It’s a world characterised by family, fun and frivolity, which Barbara feels really uncomfortable in. We see her painfully trying to step into Sheba’s bohemian world, but it’s no good – Barbara must steal Sheba from this life and keep her for herself. So, when the opportunity comes up, she uses her malicious powers to make Sheba think she has no alternative but to leave her own world and enter Barbara’s. Little does she know how it’s been planned all along. Only when Sheba stumbles on little gold stars – the ones she uses in her diary when it’s been a ‘good’ day – does the truth unravel. The gold star is an important object in providing a crack in Barbara’s world that Sheba is then able to prise open. The trail of stars leads to Sheba finding Barbara’s diary, and all hell breaking lose. Barbara’s world is destroyed – physically (Sheba wrecks the flat) as well as metaphorically (their friendship will never be the same again) – until, at the very end, she finds another potential victim.
Drop Dead Gorgeous (scr. Lona Williams, 1999), for the majority of the film, offers us two distinct worlds – Amber’s world and Gladys and Rebecca’s world. Amber lives in a trailer park in the not-so-nice part of town, with her alcoholic – and later disabled – mother. She works two part-time jobs, one cleaning food trays at the local college, and one ‘dressing up’ dead bodies at the local funeral home. Her physical world is far from glamorous, but her inner world – Amber’s personality and attitude – is calm, controlled and pretty idealistic. She never says a bad word about anyone, and just wants to have a good, ‘normal’ life. This is starkly contrasted with the world of Gladys and Rebecca Leeman – a sinister world of greed, deception, and, as we later learn, murder. Apart from the obvious contrasts in their inner worlds – Gladys and Rebecca are, quite frankly, evil – their physical world is also very different to Amber’s. Their family home is a mansion, which we’re introduced to rather melodramatically in an advertisement-style segment; their dress is stylish, almost pretentious; their hobbies are ostensibly bourgeois; even their world views are narrow-minded and, although they don’t realise it, very prejudiced. The clash of these two worlds provides the central conflict for the film – Gladys and Rebecca’s determination to stop Amber (and others) from being crowned Miss Mount Rose.
Towards the end of the film, we’re then introduced to another world – that of Sarah Rose Cosmetics, the company sponsoring the beauty pageant. Although we’ve seen fragments of this world before through its effect on other people – last year’s winner now in the bulimia wing of a hospital and an earlier year’s winner now working in a slaughterhouse – we now see it for what it really is: chaotic and fraudulent. The mass vomiting in the hotel at the state-level competition, brought on by dodgy seafood, and then the company’s headquarters being seized and thus the national competition being cancelled, reveal a world that none of the contestants has been expecting. As well as providing obvious humour, this third world makes it glaringly obvious that Amber deserves better, and could never operate truly in that world. So much so, in fact, that when the newscaster is shot by Gladys, who has escaped from the prison in which she has been recently incarcerated, Amber ‘saves the day’ by taking over the newscast – and is so impressive that she’s hired by the broadcaster and becomes the journalist that she always wanted to be, in a world that’s much more safe and fitting.
Juno (scr. Diablo Cody, 2007) starts by showing us the world of Juno MacGuff, a down-to-earth world of family, friends, bacon bits, barfing, wisecracking shopkeepers and – crucially – teenage pregnancy. In fact, it’s Juno herself who guides us through this world through point of view (she’s our protagonist) and commentary (her humorous voiceover). When she gets pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption, she, and we, are taken into a whole new world – that of Vanessa and Mark Loring. Juno has chosen the Lorings to be her baby’s adoptive parents. And as soon as we meet the Lorings, we know we’re in a totally different world – a world that, we guess, is going to change Juno in some way, and also a world that Juno herself may change. Visually, the two worlds couldn’t be more different. Juno comes from a neighbourhood where the houses are small, close together and have a definite ‘lived in’ look. Vanessa and Mark live in a pristine world where the houses are big, spaced out and look more like show homes than places where people actually live. On her first visit, Juno explores the house, sneaking into the bathroom and trying out Vanessa’s creams and perfumes. This is something she’s not used to. As we see, her stepmother is more interested in collecting pictures and ornaments of dogs.
These two worlds are differentiated by dialogue, too – the voice of the worlds. Just from what we hear – the topics of conversation – we get a real sense of what these worlds are about. For example, Juno’s world is characterised by pee sticks, Sunny D, pregnancy as a problem, teenage abortion, sex, pork swords, menstruation, condoms, balls, a garbage dump of a situation, blood and guts, sea monkeys, Taco Bell, tanning beds and t-shirt guns. In stark contract, the Lorings’ world is characterised by talk of pregnancy as beauty, vitamin water, legal terminology, ginseng coolers, custard and cheesecake yellow paint, reading books about childbirth, and the processes of bringing up a child. Through dialogue, then, not just visual depictions, we feel how the worlds work. We know exactly what they’re about by listening to what their characters say and discuss.
What’s really interesting about the two worlds of Juno is the transition that Mark makes between them, aided – albeit unintentionally – by Juno. From the start, we learn that Mark’s not allowed to have his possessions – guitars, DVD collection, etc – on show. Vanessa’s made him put them all together in one room. Mark’s passion is to be a real musician, not the corporate-driven composer that he’s let himself be, scoring television commercials, for example. When he tells Juno that the score for a men’s razor commercial was composed by him – importantly, Juno knows this commercial well – and that it paid for the kitchen they’re standing in, we get the sense that he’s not happy about it. It’s a means to an end. As we later learn, he wants to be a rock star. He wants to play music that he enjoys, not that merely pays the bills. When Juno jokes how she’s just carrying the baby for them, and will ‘squeeze it out’ soon enough – a line that shocks Vanessa – Mark replies with, ‘Keep it in the oven!’ This is a really important line to signal the uncomfortable space that Mark inhabits – torn between the world of Vanessa and the world of Juno. As soon as he’s said it, he gives a look of embarrassment. Vanessa, naturally, is also uncomfortable with it. But, dramatically, the audience picks up that this is a guy who doesn’t know who he is – or who’s lost the sense of who he is – and that, for him, the two worlds are going to collide. As he says to Juno, ‘Here’s to dovetailing interests.’