Adding unnecessary dialogue?

Aldenard said:

From what I have read, it seems to be best to only allow characters to say what is relevant and important to the plot or perhaps character development. So in writing a segment of a screenplay, I noticed I had an incredibly long period (10-15 pages) without a single scrap of diologue. Should I change the pacing perhaps? Some screenplays, such as Cast Away, seem to have the protagonist speak for no other reason than to state the obvious and so that there exists dialogue, even flimsy. Is unnecessary dialogue sometimes good to lighten the mood or pace the film better?

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In "Cast Away" Hanks' dialogue expressed his inner thoughts, better than using voiced over narration and fitting because people who are lost and isolated are known to speak just so they can hear a human voice. I think if you reviewed his speeches you'd find they contribute to the advancement of the story, one way or another but probably to reveal his advancing state of mind.

I've not ever faced the situation you face so it's a hard call, except to say that 10-15 pages sans any dialogue at all is probably not going to fly.

So, either recrank the sequence in some fashion to get a scene or two or three into it that have dialogue, yunno, scenes you CUT TO: for a moment ot two, then CUT BACK TO: your sequence. Surely there's something else going on somewhere you could go to briefly. Or find a way to squeeze some meaningful dialogue into the pages you have, even voiced over narration might work.

But generally any dialogue you add should fullfill the function of advancing the story as opposed to being just some kind of meaningless fluff or filler, keeping in mind that anything is possible. Think about information you might have wished you could have conveyed somewhere along the line but never found a place to do it so didn't. Lay that information over your sequence as narration. It wouldn't necessarily have to relate specifically to the imagery and could almost be an aside, your protag thinking, remembering, or speculating, but conveying information that will help flesh out the story for your audience.

Again, a hard call from this distance.

Good luck!

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Aldenard said:

While I see your point about people speaking to themselves while isolated from other human contact, a large portion of the things he says aloud seem entirely pointless, such as spilling coconut milk and saying things like "Oops. Should have saved some." Maybe it's just me, but a guy stranded like that speaking like that just rings pretty darn hollow. Again, maybe I'm just being an idiot and I have never been stranded myself, so I can't really speak from experience.

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I rather expect it would take a careful analysis to determine if Hanks' dialogue was indeed "entirely pointless." Remember, Hanks is a world class actor and movie guy, not into "pointless" stuff.

Aldenard said:

As far as voice over narration goes, I attempt to shy away from that because I have heard that is one of the main things new screenwriters tend to screw up, whether it is through inappropriate or useless monologue or just a tendency to throw as much information at the audience as possible.

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Well, here's a clue: don't screw it up!

I think a first time screenwriter is advised to listen to the myriad admonitions of "do's" and "don't's" they'll hear as being applicable to them, but, they should also not shy away from those situations, use the admonitions to learn how to do the things to which they refer ... right, and do them.

The facts are straightforward, you'll probably never get away with 10-15 pages that are entirely free of dialogue. It might prove to be an interesting idea to have your main character do some VO narration over all this imagery in which he or she is thinking about either things past or things to come or some combination of the two, all unrelated to the imagery. It becomes an aside, but one that's relevant to the story in the overall or perhaps specifically to the next sequence. As long as it isn't purely expositional I think you have a good chance of making it work.

But you might also cut away from your sequence of imagery to something else that's happening in your story, and then cut back to the imagery, and then cut away again, so that you end up with a "layering" effect in which you've shown us your imagery but we've also seen a scene that moves things forward, an integrated sequence.

Again, though, a hard call from my vantage.