Letters (writing them) in movies

caustic · Sep 15, 2008

I have a "coming of age" tale of sorts, of a young woman (MC) that "finds" herself while her bf/so is away at war. Not it the sleazy way, but in the "life goals" kind of way.

Anyways, during the progress, she and her bf exchange a few letters, then she finds that he didn't tell her about email over there, and they get into tense email traffic.

I don't want to overdue the V.O. stuff, but I don't really see any way around it. The letters, and more emails later on, are the only way they can communicate, and it's pivotal.

Any advice?

clockwork · Sep 15, 2008

Yeah, I think you can really only use voice over or, alternatively, have the character read aloud. I think what's equally important in these scenes is what the character is doing while they're reading the letter. In those sprawling period dramas the character usually goes for a long walk along a country lane or down a wind-swept beach (because that's how we all read letters, right?) - the point is, give the audience something interesting to look at while your character is doing probably the most uninteresting thing they could do in a film! It's a necessary evil sometimes but even if you just transplant them to a library or Starbucks, it'll freshen up what could otherwise be quite boring stuff.

In any case, keep it as brief as possible.

Plot Device · Sep 15, 2008

Of course, there's always ...

Plot Device · Sep 15, 2008

And who could forget ...

Help me, Obiwan Kenobi ....... you're my only hope.

caustic · Sep 15, 2008

clockwork said:
Yeah, I think you can really only use voice over or, alternatively, have the character read aloud. I think what's equally important in these scenes is what the character is doing while they're reading the letter. In those sprawling period dramas the character usually goes for a long walk along a country lane or down a wind-swept beach (because that's how we all read letters, right?) - the point is, give the audience something interesting to look at while your character is doing probably the most uninteresting thing they could do in a film! It's a necessary evil sometimes but even if you just transplant them to a library or Starbucks, it'll freshen up what could otherwise be quite boring stuff.

In any case, keep it as brief as possible.

Hmm. I just thought of Pearl Harbor. This will help I'm sure. It's tough because alot of the tension revolves around letters/emails. I may just have to cut alot of them, and cut the rest of them down.

Thanks for the insight!

jonpiper · Sep 15, 2008

To add a bit of variety, you could interrupt the reading of the letter with a flashback that shows us what the letter writer is writing about.

nmstevens · Sep 15, 2008

caustic said:
I have a "coming of age" tale of sorts, of a young woman (MC) that "finds" herself while her bf/so is away at war. Not it the sleazy way, but in the "life goals" kind of way.

Anyways, during the progress, she and her bf exchange a few letters, then she finds that he didn't tell her about email over there, and they get into tense email traffic.

I don't want to overdue the V.O. stuff, but I don't really see any way around it. The letters, and more emails later on, are the only way they can communicate, and it's pivotal.

Any advice?

Why get hung up on written words? I don't know how common it is statistically, but these days (if we're talking e-mail, it's got to be contemporary) it's possible for people to send one another "picture mail" -- actual movies of one another saying whatever it is that they have to say.

Why not do that? They're sending one another mpegs -- and they get to download one another's messages and actually see and hear each other, but not necessarily be able to communicate directly.

NMS

zeprosnepsid · Sep 16, 2008

Yeah, I was under the impression that it was pretty common in this war (if your script takes place modern day) to talk via video conferencing over the internet.

But if you need it to function like a letter and not a conversation, nms' idea would certainly work. While I'm not sure it's realistically something people do, it's well within the realm of movie believable.

Letters (writing them) in movies

caustic

clockwork

In the zone...

Plot Device

A woman said to write like a man.

Plot Device

A woman said to write like a man.

caustic

jonpiper

nmstevens

What happened?

zeprosnepsid