I have a bit in my screenplay where the lead talks to an inanimate object from his past for a while. It's obviously not going to talk back. Should I break up the dialog with lines of action? Seems natural to do that. Otherwise I just have a giant paragraph of dialog. I'm assuming that wouldn't be so good. Any advice or examples from other movies?
character solo
- Thread starter ExileOn60WallSt.
- Start date
I'm sure you can find a lot of examples. The first one that comes to mind is maybe one of the scenes from Cast Away with Tom Hanks (maybe when he's talking to the soccer ball named Wilson).
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That sounds good to me. If I were you, I would keep track of when dialog has gotten too long and make the character do something. Just my opinion.
Another thing you might consider, besides movement, is how visually interesting the scene is. You can visualize the scene without dialogue (or with the sound turned off); is the scene still interesting? A guy sitting in a chair talking to a beer can might not be for very long, a guy sitting on a chair running his fingers lovingly over some beloved object and his eyes moistening might be.
Also, is the thing he's talking to interesting? Hamlet talking to a skull is more interesting than Hamlet talking to a tree.
Also, is the thing he's talking to interesting? Hamlet talking to a skull is more interesting than Hamlet talking to a tree.
I just want to say that this was probably the best usage out of an inanimate object ever. Wilson literally becomes a character over time, to the point where you're practically tearing up in the theater (I guess I shouldn't spoil what happened, but if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about).
I'm wondering if this object of yours is going to be used similar to that. Is the object a character, or is it just something for your protagonist to talk to so he can get his feelings and emotions out to the audience. Because if it's the former, it can be something really special. Latter, a little lazy.
This object is pretty much the catalyst for the movie. It's something he had as a teenager but has recently come back into his life quite unexpectedly. There is a moment in the story when he finds himself alone with it and I just want him to express some feelings about it that he can't share with his wife or kids.
Since you put it that way, a few more films I can recommend are MAY, by Lucky McKee, and starring Angela Bettis, and PIN, starring David Hewlett and Terry O'Quinn.
May talks to a doll, and the protagonist in PIN talks to a medical dummy.
May talks to a doll, and the protagonist in PIN talks to a medical dummy.
A somewhat similar example that comes to mind is in Hearts in Atlantis when one of the character (now an adult) receives the old baseball glove from his boyhood friend (it means the friend is dead). It's a relatively short scene however.
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I think you can find lots of somewhat similar examples (while reading a letter from a friend, looking at an old photograph, at the grave of someone the character loved, memories inspired by a childhood toy, etc.). A lot of times if the scene is very long there will be flashbacks or cutaways to other scenes. I'm thinking you want to keep yours "cleaner" without flashbacks. You probably wouldn't want a scene like this to go on for a long time, but if what you have now is one very long paragraph, you can find ways to make it work (plus, if it were ever filmed the director would probably add whatever cuts were necessarily to make the scene more visually interesting).
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