What The Shawshank Redemption can teach you -- even if you hate it

I hate The Shawshank Redemption.

There. I said it.

I also said it during last week’s zoom kickoff for this year’s Script School program. Former TSA Prez/Education Director Bob Giordano had just dropped our first homework assignment on us: read The Shawshank Redemption. And that prompted my outburst.

Bob made some remark about how it has made more money than I will ever make. (He’s right, although most of those funds came from video rentals and TV showings. It bombed at the box office.). And current Prez Mark Naccarato responded, “I knew there was something I didn’t like about you.” LOL!

Those are typical reactions I get whenever I state how I feel about The Shawshank Redemption. And trust me, this wasn’t my first such declaration. I’ve gone against the popular line of thought on this movie many times before.

I am, after all, a contrarian.

My former news boss, Mike Pirtle, pegged me as a contrarian a long time ago. I remember my fellow news writers and I were touring the new Mass Communications building at MTSU at the time. (Dating myself, I know!) Anyway, Pirtlemon, as I liked to call him, led the group up a flight of stairs to the second floor. It was one of those staircases where you reach a landing, then have a choice to go up a second set of stairs on either the right or left of the landing. He started up the right side with everyone dutifully following on his heels. I was the only one who took the left side staircase. To which Pirtlemon proclaimed, “You are such a contrarian.”

So, my dislike of The Shawshank Redemption, when seemingly everyone else holds it in such high regard, is only natural.

Why I Hate It

The truth is, I don’t really hate The Shawshank Redemption.

I hated that it was on repeat all the time when Ted Turner got ahold of it back in the day. Every time you would turn on the TV, there it was.

I got sick of seeing it all the time.

But that’s beside the point. We’re talking about the screenplay, after all.

What I really hate is that every so-called screenwriting guru out there (that includes you, Bob!) has lauded it and thrust it on others for years as a great screenplay to be studied and emulated. It’s like one person praised it and everyone else decided they’d lose cred if they didn’t as well.

Talk about following the pack!

That said, the screenplay -- written by Frank Darabont of The Walking Dead fame, by the way -- was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. But, I never fell in love with it or held it in the sort of esteem others have.  (Neither did The Academy, by the way. Forrest Gump more than deservedly ate it and everything else up on the Oscar stage that year!).

And, it’s 32 years old! (Come on, Bob! Let’s find something more current to read!)

OK, sorry. Just had to vent...

Some Lessons

Reading screenplays is one of the best ways to learn the do’s and don’ts of this craft. I have been a reader for screenwriting competitions by both the Nashville Film Festival and Austin Film Festival and, boy, have I read some clunkers!

As for The Shawshank Redemption, page one is just too dense. I mean look at it! It’s just a solid page of action lines. A string of description that goes on and on and on.

What’s wrong with that, you ask?

Well, the screenwriting gurus I spoke of before will be the first to tell you that readers don’t like to read heavy blocks of text. If your eyes are roaming left to right (like yours are while reading this), then you risk losing their interest. You risk boring them.

Readers like to be directed down the page. Here’s why:

Shorter lines

make

the script

read

faster!

See what I did there?

So, lesson one from Shawshank: Don’t overwrite your action lines! Use shorter sentences. Use shorter blocks (no more than three lines of action before you break with a paragraph or dive into dialogue). Vary your sentence lengths. Some long, some short. You can even skip words sometimes. Use fragments.

What else can you learn from The Shawshank Redemption? I asked one of those AI gurus and it spat out a lot of stuff about it being a great example of pacing, character evolution, and dialogue. Then it started on about the great performances in the movie from Morgan Freeman and --

Wait a minute. Hold on.

Performances? Now it’s talking about the movie, not the screenplay. And let’s be honest, there’s a difference. Interestingly, the beginning of the screenplay and the movie are a bit different. The movie actually weaves images into the testimony during the opening hearing. Because all that testimony and dialogue is boring to look at on screen. Hmm.

Then there is the length of the screenplay itself. It’s 117 pages. That’s OK, but by today’s standards it’s pushing the preferred length of a screenplay. Most “gurus” suggest keeping your scripts under 110 pages and advocate for as few as 90.

So, I guess you really can learn from it. And hate it at the same time.

-            G!