The basics of writing dialogue.
Dialogue has 2 basic functions:
1) To help move the plot along
2) To help develop characters
As the era of silent films will show, there’s no problem with having absolutely no dialogue in a film; it is, however, a useful tool screenwriters can use and when used properly it can be the most memorable quality of a movie.
In the video below we cover the basic function of dialogue, as well as a fundamental mistake screenwriters make when writing it: trying to make it sound realistic.
Movie characters don’t talk like people in real life. Get over that and a whole world of possibilities opens up to you.
Watch our video to find out more about writing dialogue!
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Brett Welcher was a student at Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY, USA) where studied Public Relations at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He is interned at the Raindance Film Festival the summer or 2007 and thoroughly enjoyed his time working with professionals and learning about different aspects of the film industry. In the fall of 2007 Brett returned to the States where he will be finishing his last year in school.
Since then we have lost touch and found this excellent article in the archives. Brett – if you see this, get in touch! We miss you!
