Hi. When I want to write emotion in film i.e. 'Mary cries', or 'John is frustrated'....Is it too on the nose to write how their feeling? Is it best to find a way of describing their emotion
Hi. When I want to write emotion in film i.e. 'Mary cries', or 'John is frustrated'....Is it too on the nose to write how their feeling? Is it best to find a way of describing their emotion
"John rips the toilet paper into ten million shreds. JOHN: Goddamn Ex-Lax ain't worth shit."
Show not tell. Let your character's actions and decisions define their feelings/characteristics.
How does the audience know that the character is angry? What do we see that shows us that they are angry?
Personally I think lines like 'his breathing gets heavier' are totally unnecessary, as are sentences like 'he is angry'.
What do we see?
She throws a glass. SMASH! It hits the wall and breaks into tiny pieces, just missing his head. HANNAH You asshole!
STEVEN rushes in, frantically waving a magazine STEVEN The review came! ROB Any good? Steven throws the magazine on the table and rifles through, finding the page. STEVEN Check this out He taps the bottom of the page. 5 stars. STEVEN 5 out of fucking 5! Doesn't get much better than that. He starts to dance. He pulls his phone out and shows it to Rob. STEVEN The calls are gunna start rolling in after this, I tell you that right now.
Yeah, okay I'm no writer. But you get the gist. Write what we see. Don't write 'Hannah is angry'. Don't write 'Steven is excited'. I personally don't think you even need to write 'Steven rushes in, excited'. Write it so we get the idea. And it gives the actors and Director scope to work with it.