Vol7

Many scenes were shot outdoors so we used natural light, which made things easier in some ways. However, that poses its own challenges since we sometimes had to rush in order to beat the sun, looming shadows, etc. and your Dialogues are very important in long career as a screenplay writer informed the effective structure of your film. What is your approach to dialogues?

Dialogue can be tricky. My first two short films had very little dialogue and were primarily visual. Both films had only one big dialogue scene between two characters.

Dialogue ideally should come from necessity in terms of telling the story. In those two films, the characters were isolated and speaking to others was not a major part of their lives. “Upside Down” was completely different. The characters were all verbal and expressive, (except for Mrs. Sunderson who does not speak at all), so it was clear that dialogue was going to be necessary. The danger is over writing or relying too much on words rather than images. I always tell my students to first see if they can tell the story or the scene visually before resorting to spoken words. For example, in the scene where Gigi is taunted near the LGBT center, I thought it more powerful for her not to respond verbally. I wanted her to look her taunter in the eye and have her face speak rather than say anything. The scenes with Sunny and Mrs. Sunderson are silent except for one line at the end of the scene where they play Scrabble. I never thought of having dialogue in those sections. Aside from that, I try to make sure that each character has their own voice and that there is a reason for them to speak. But I still sometimes err on the side of too much dialogue so it is a constant learning process. This concept really hits home when I’m editing and discover that some lines weren’t