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  • Hi, I'm Michael.

  • This is Lessons from the Screenplay.

  • From the first frame of "Searching" to the last,

  • everything the audience sees happens on a computer or phone screen.

  • This is the film's designing principle

  • the internal logic that describes how the story will be told:

  • Tell a conventional thriller story entirely via screens.

  • While the plot of "Searching" is fairly conventional,

  • this storytelling approach is used to enhance the mystery

  • and elevates the film to a nail-biting thriller.

  • "It could have been a live action movie,

  • but nobody would have seen it.

  • There's nothing special about it.

  • And us taking this normal story

  • and putting a very unconventional conceit on it

  • is what made it work."

  • To take this constraint and turn it into a compelling film

  • required the use of many clever techniques

  • and the screenwriters, Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian,

  • discussed their entire process in great detail when they came on our podcast.

  • Becauseby the way

  • Lessons from the Screenplay is launching a podcast...

  • today!

  • "Beyond the Screenplay"

  • And you can hear our entire conversation

  • with Aneesh and Sev in our episode on "Searching."

  • I'll have more details on the podcast at the end of the video,

  • but for now, I want to dissect how they made the film

  • emotionally compelling by ensuring

  • the designing principle, theme, and story were perfectly in sync...

  • To investigate how they adjusted traditional screenplay format

  • to convey a plot that takes place entirely on screens...

  • And explore how they took something as simple as typing a text message

  • and used it to reveal character.

  • Let's take a look at "Searching."

  • When writing "Searching," it would have been easy

  • to let the designing principle become a gimmick

  • by thinking only in terms of what is happening on the computer screens.

  • But Chaganty and Ohanian wanted to avoid that,

  • and instead took a different approach.

  • "It would fail if we were writing the movie that took place on screens.

  • What we needed to write was the movie...

  • And our entire process was just a matter of adapting that story to take place on screens."

  • But it couldn't be just any story.

  • The proper cohesion of theme, designing principle, and story

  • is often what elevates a film.

  • "If you're telling a story about something,

  • every page of your script should be unique to that central core.

  • If it's going to be about a father searching for his

  • teenage daughter by using a computer,

  • what are the revelations that can come only from that thing?

  • It can't just be a phone call that happens to take place on a computer,

  • but rather the internet has to be wholly complicit in how she went missing."

  • So as they began writing, they found a theme that resonated with them

  • and connected to the designing principle.

  • "It was very early on we realized it's about connectivity.

  • And in a world where everyone is so connected

  • with all these devices and all these apps and programs and software,

  • what's a story about a father and daughter

  • who live in the same house but are disconnected?"

  • The film opens with a montage introducing us to the Kim family.

  • As young Margot grows up,

  • we see how close she is to her father, David.

  • But after a family tragedy, they've grown very distant

  • each hiding their emotional pain from each other,

  • and in the process becoming strangers.

  • Once Margot goes missing,

  • the only way for David to find out what happened to her

  • is to search her computer for clues,

  • and in doing so he learns surprising things

  • about the person his daughter has become.

  • In this way, the story inherently explores the theme of disconnection,

  • which resonates with the designing principle

  • of telling the story via the technologies that are supposed to connect us.

  • Now that Chaganty and Ohanian had a great foundation for a film,

  • the question became:

  • "How do you write a screenplay about a story told entirely on screens?"

  • To communicate this unconventional story

  • required some unconventional formatting.

  • Contemporary screenplays are written

  • in what's calledMaster Scenescript format

  • and it has remained largely unchanged over the last fifty years of filmmaking.

  • The formatting rules are very specific.

  • From the typeface and font size, to the margins,

  • to the scene headers elements,

  • a screenplay is a document meant to convey the story clearly

  • and aide production.

  • But this format became solidified

  • before we had computers and smart phones.

  • So how did they write a screenplay for a movie that takes place entirely on screens?

  • They didn't—at least, not at first.

  • "We actually wrote what we call a 'scriptment,'

  • which was written much more like prose."

  • "It was 41 pages. It was a really short read,

  • but it was the whole movie written almost like a short story..."

  • Thisscriptmentwas used to secure the actors

  • and get the movie into pre-production, but...

  • "...it was actually our producer Natalie Qasabian who was like,

  • 'we can't make a movie off of a 41 page word document'

  • and she forced us to go and write the Final Draft.

  • I remember we spent our first four days of writing

  • purely trying to figure out form.

  • What should the screenplay look like?"

  • What they arrived at was a variation on the Master Scene script format.

  • Anything that took place in the digital world of the screen

  • would have a simple, descriptive Scene Heading,

  • like: “Google Maps - Google Chrome”...

  • ...while anything that required

  • actual on-set shooting would have a numbered, classic scene header,

  • with an added parenthetical

  • to convey where on the screen the audience is seeing it.

  • "Hold on. You just gave me an idea.

  • To convey text message conversations,

  • Chaganty and Ohanian dropped the text size

  • from 12 points to 9 points,

  • and adjusted the margins to be in between that

  • of the action lines and dialogue.

  • Together, these formatting changes make it clear to the reader

  • who is speaking and where the interactions are taking place,

  • without dramatically deviating from the classic screenplay format.

  • But while clearly conveying how the story is told on screens is important,

  • it is pointless if it is not also revealing character.

  • So Chaganty and Ohanian had to find on-screen ways of

  • expressing the inner life of the characters.

  • In a normal film, a character's behavior is used to betray their inner life.

  • They may avoid eye contact, discard a precious object,

  • or begin to say something, but change their mind.

  • For "Searching," Chaganty and Ohanian had to find ways

  • of translating this emotional behavior to a computer screen.

  • "And we looked on our laptops

  • and we saw buttons that said 'share.'

  • Ok what does share mean?

  • We saw 'close window.' What does close window mean?

  • What does it mean to empty your trash? What it does it mean to delete something?

  • What does it mean to hide something? Search something?

  • These all have emotionality behind it."

  • "Searching" is filled with moments where the characters'

  • interactions with the computer convey their inner life.

  • When David is reporting his daughter missing,

  • he is Googling statistics on missing persons cases.

  • We know he is thinking about how serious the situation has become.

  • At his lowest point,

  • David comes across an old video of Margot giving him a father's day present.

  • Overwhelmed with guilt, he takes an extreme action.

  • Margot holds up a drawing to the CAMERA.

  • Written below: “Happy Father's Day to the BEST DAD EVER.”

  • PAUSE.

  • DESKTOP

  • On Finder, David DELETES the video.

  • Then EMPTIES the trash.

  • But my favorite screen technique

  • is when characters type out a text message

  • and then decide not to send it,

  • because it is both true-to-life and revealing of character.

  • "It allows us to have subtext.

  • You know the characters saying one thing but means something else.

  • And that allows us to have it."

  • This is used several times in "Searching,"

  • and in the screenplay is represented by a strikethrough in the text.

  • Early in the film, when David is talking to his brother,

  • trying to figure out how concerned he should be that Margot hasn't responded all day,

  • we feel how worried he is through the messages he almost sends.

  • The inner life of the character is clearly communicated,

  • simply through text on a screen.

  • "Searching" is a great example of how to marry

  • a classic narrative with contemporary storytelling.

  • It could have lazily applied a gimmick to a random plot,

  • but instead, the orchestration of the theme,

  • designing principle, and story

  • elevate it to a thrilling, cinematic experience.

  • "In our minds, we wanted to tell a story that would be engaging,