As an exercise, I have come to understand the pure joy of writing a silent film. No dialog.

What about the other end of the spectrum?

Is there some trick to keeping an all dialog scene interesting? Immediately my mind starts to wander to different shots of two people doing different things, maybe even move the camera all over the place but to write the scene that is 100% dialog.

Interesting challenge or mental masturbation? :hmm:

Is there some trick to keeping an all dialog scene interesting?

Unless the whole scene is done to a black screen, then there is no such thing as an "all dialogue scene."

Well, there is -- it's called Radio!

In my opinion the trick with dialogue scenes is the keep the actor's moving and only use stillness for scenes of great emotional intensity.

However, in terms of writing dialogue the basics are:

1) Know your character inside out, so you know what their response will be to any given situation
2) Make sure there is conflict within the scene (not necessarily an argument, but conflicting objectives)
3) Understand that different people use words differently.
4) Make sure that the scene moves the story forward

The most common error that people make when writing dialogue is they have four characters, all pretty much the same kinds of people and they all say the same kinds of things.

In a script you should be able to take away the character names and still tell who is speaking the line, simply by what they are saying and how they are saying it.

Interesting challenge or mental masturbation?

Actually writing for radio is much harder than writing for film -- simply because you have to really get to grips with dialogue -- it becomes your primary tool for story telling.

So no -- I think it's a great exercise, as long as you don't forget that it's an exercise.

In the vast majority of films the moment of highest emotional tension is two people talking to each other --- either just before or just after a highly conflictual action sequence -- so it's not that someone got shot, it's what they say when they are dying that matters.

The trick to dialogue then is understanding that it's about the emotional relationship between the characters that makes it interesting -- interesting characters in complex emotional situations make great dialogue sequences.

Excellent, thanks Clive, some very well put info there. :)

Let's make the assumption that you had tons of folks not show up for the shooting, so ended up doing most of it your self and had to trust the script (which you also didn't write) to guide you through your shooting day. I've now got tons of dialog footage which, upon review, is really boring...thoughts about editing those after it's too late to correct it? I'm using L/J cuts as much as I can to motivate cuts, I'm cutting alot of dialog out to keep the speed up, but MAN what I wouldn't give for an action\silent film next time around.

Watch the EYES WIDE SHUT scene when Nichole Kidman "confesses" to Tom Cruise in the bedroom. In my opinion, that is one of the most intense, dialogue driven scenes ever. Excellent direction, excellent acting and excellent writing are what made that scene. Of course it looks beautiful because it's a Kubrik film. But in that scene, Kubrik and his DP didn't do anything special, unless you count having the camera in the exact right spot to perfectly capture every moment of the actors perfomance special.

There was dialog in that film? ;)

Watch anything by Woody Allen. Even if you hate his films, he is the master of dialogue. I especially love his empty frame technique

I especially love his empty frame technique

Could you elaborate on what this is please?

sorry

Sorry- He'll shoot a dialogue scene with the actors franticly doing different actions like packing a suitcase or puting away dishes, a lot of movement. Anyway, this is all shot from one POV, no cuts with the actors going in and out of frame- then he goes so far as to have everyone go out of frame at the same time so the frame is actually empty for a few seconds. It may seem like the opposite of action, but it actually is so unexpected to the brain that it throws the adudience into suspence waiting to see who will break the empty frame. -Brilliant in my book