10 Screenwriting Tips from Thanksgiving favorite: Planes, Trains and Automobiles!

It’s Thanksgiving so what better movie to extract 10 screenwriting tips from than “Planes, Trains and Automobiles!” Okay so there weren’t a lot of movies to choose from (it was either this or Pauly Shore’s “Son In Law”). Still, any time I get to break down a John Hughes script, I’m a happy man. The thing about Hughes is that he came from a marketing background. So he understood the fact that people have short attention spans. They don’t like to be confused. And they like to understand what they’re getting into. Which is why he kept all of his films easy to understand and, therefore, easy to market. The road trip film is a cinema staple. But its biggest strength (the fact that it’s so simple) is also it’s biggest weakness (it’s hard to make unique). Still, at its core, these kinds of films were built for screenwriters. The road trip angle gives the script a clear goal and forward momentum, and the contrasting personalities gives the script natural conflict. All you have to do is come up with a few interesting characters and scenarios we haven’t seen before. From what I hear, Hughes shot a TON of footage to ensure just that (twice the industry average actually) and there’s rumored to be a 3 hour cut of Planes, Trains and Automobiles somewhere in the Paramount film vault (this cut is 90 minutes). I live about four blocks from Paramount so maybe I’ll head over there before the big turkey day and see if I can find it.

1) If you don’t have a ticking time bomb in your road trip movie, you probably don’t have a road trip movie – If your characters are heading to a destination in your script, they should need to get there by a certain time. And it should constantly look like they’re not going to make it. Here, of course, our characters are trying to get home by Thanksgiving.

2) Look for the visual jokes in these movies – Writers get caught up in the humorous back and forth between their characters when they write road trip movies. It’s all about the dialogue between the leads. But remember, the visual jokes tend to be the ones that hit the hardest. There’s no better laugh in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” than when Steve Martin finishes his shower only to see that John Candy’s used all the towels and the only dry one left is a tiny washcloth. Never underestimate the power of visual jokes that are just WAITING to be found.

3) The idiot shouldn’t think he’s an idiot – With Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis films becoming so popular, self-aware comedy has become huge. But remember it’s not the only way. Some of the funniest characters are the characters who have no idea that they’re grating, that they’re smothering, that they’re annoying, that they’re rude. The idiot shouldn’t always think he’s an idiot. He should think he’s the smart charming guy. That’s what makes John Candy’s Del Griffith so memorable. He has no idea how annoying he is.

4) If characters are stuck together, they better really be stuck together – What drives me craaaaazy in these scripts is when writers keep their characters together for no logical reason at all. If there’s a moment where characters would logically split up, you either have to come up with a believable reason why they don’t or you should split them up (and reunite them later somehow). That’s what happens here. They finish the bus ride and, during lunch, Steve Martin just says, hey, there’s no reason for us to be together anymore. And they go their separate ways.

5) The two things a buddy road-trip movie MUST have – When you write these movies, there are two things you must adhere to. Assuming, of course, you already have two characters with friction between them, the first is that things need to KEEP GETTING WORSE for these characters. At first it’s the plane being diverted to a different airport. But later it’s getting robbed. Later still it’s blowing up a car. And the second is that the IRRITANT character needs to KEEP GETTING MORE IRRITATING. At first John Candy’s just leaning on your shoulder on the plane. But later he’s sleeping on you with his hands between your legs. And later still, he almost kills you by slipping your car between two semis.

6) Give your comedy more leeway by avoiding caricatures – I learned this one from critic Leonard Maltin. He noted that the reason this movie’s occasional slapstick scene (them nearly crashing into two semis) didn’t disrupt the film’s more serious tone, is because neither main character was a caricature. They both had real goals, real lives, real backstory, real emotions, real frustrations. They were genuine. And because we believed them as people, we bought into the sillier parts of their adventure. Had they been hamming it up for the screen and thinly drawn and “caricatures” of real people, the movie would’ve quickly devolved into empty nonsense during those sillier moments.

7) Caricatures work great for one-scene characters though – One place to go wild with caricatures, however, is with one-scene characters. These guys don’t need to be deep, so you can have fun with them. Owen the redneck Truck Driver (“My wife’s so strong her baby came out sideways and she didn’t even scream”) is a great example.

8) If your story’s fast, write fast – This is by no means a hard and fast rule. Every writer should develop a method that works for them. But there’s something to be said for writing fast when your story’s time frame is fast. This story takes place over three days and John Hughes wrote it in three days. There’s something about the energy you write with when you’re writing fast that matches the energy of a fast story. Keep in mind, though, that Hughes routinely does 20 drafts AFTER his first draft.

9) Write that scene an actor is going to love – Steve Martin, who was really hot at the time of this movie, said he signed on because of two scenes. The scene where he curses out the car rental attendant with 18 “fucks” in one minute, and the “seat-adjustment” scene in the car. You have to be thinking of your actors when you write because actors are the number one element for getting your script purchased. What scenes in YOUR script will an actor be dying to play?

10) Write the dramatic version of your comedy first – Again, I don’t think every comedy should be written this way, but I know Judd Apatow does it a lot (and tells all his writing disciples to do as well). To make sure the emotional beats are there, the reality is there, and the characters are authentic, write the DRAMATIC version of your comedy first. Then, as you rewrite, start looking for and adding jokes. Although I have zero evidence to indicate this is how “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” was written, it sure feels like the kind of movie that could’ve been written that way.