SCRIPT SAMPLE

Writing Action Sequences: Die Hard

Written by Andrew Watson Thursday, January 05, 2012, 4:14 PM

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Imagine you want to put a nice juicy action sequence into your film. Think about your favourite action sequence that you might want to replicate or make homage to. Now remove the music score that’s running through your head, the noisy sound effects rattling in the background, the beautiful camera angles which give the scene its zip, and the facial expressions of every actor. What you have left over from all that is all you have to work with when writing an action sequence in a screenplay.
Writing action is hard, Charlie’s Angels and Big Fish writer John August calls it “the most difficult and least rewarding things a screenwriter writes, but they’re essential to many movies.” Just how do you capture the essence of an explosion-filled chase sequence, being able to generate the same thrills gained in the cinema on an A4 sheet of white paper? Using the film Die Hard, a fantastic celebration of everything that can be great about the action film, we will try to find out.
The first thing that action scenes do is that they build suspense. The most awkward thing to watch is an action sequence in which there is no stakes, the worst example being 300 in which an army of Spartans win every single action sequence they take part in until suddenly losing in the final battle. At no point is there a feeling that those Spartans are actually going to lose. It’s important that in any action sequence, that we build suspense.
Building an action scene requires two important factors: what you tell your protagonist and what you tell your audience. When the audience knows what is about to happen and can see the solution to the conflict dangling in front of them, they will get bored. When there is a gap between the predicament that the characters find themselves in and the solution that will lead them to safety, only then are we interested.

Page 66:

OUTSIDE THE BUILDING - SAME TIME

Signs of activity along the edges and shadows of the area. Men and vehicles. The SNAP of weapons and breeches. Footsteps running in unison. Powell picks up on this, turns to Robinson, who is standing with the SWAT Captain, MITCHELL.

POWELL

What's going on?

ROBINSON

What's it look like? We're going in.

Every action scene needs a beginning, a set-up. Having finally realised that there are terrorists in the Nakatomi Plaza, the SWAT team strap up ready to attack. Because the penny has dropped halfway through the movie, and that we know exactly what the terrorists planned but the good guys don’t, we have a feeling that this is going to end in disaster…

Page 68:

MCCLANE

Al, what's wrong? Did something -- (realizing) -- Oh, God. You're coming in! That's it, isn't it? Christ, Powell, I told you what you're dealing with here –

…which is reinforced by the frantic shouting of McClane.

Pages 69-70:

THE VAULT DOOR

Kristoff DRILLS AWAY, is rewarded with the message FIFTH LOCK DEACTIVATED. DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE? Nearby, Theo sits at a bank of monitors. Screen after screen pinpoints all the police activity outside, down to the last detail. Theo smiles. Suddenly we recognize that tune he's been whistling. It's "Singin' In The Rain."

THEO

(into a throat mike)

It was the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, expect for the four assholes coming in the rear in standard 2 X 2 cover formation.

INT. LOBBY – NIGHT

Eddie and another terrorist, ULI, take up prone firing positions, using the gaps in the steel partition like gunpoints.

ANGLE ON TWO SWAT OFFICERS

Mitchell and Robinson watch from behind the cover of a police car as the SWAT officers remove a portable welding torch and begin cutting their way through the locks.

INT. 33RD FLOOR – MCCLANE

He moves painfully to the window and looks out. He can't see a thing because of the lights.

Notice the cuts between McClane, the terrorists and the SWAT team? This is giving us the viewer some vital information. We now know that the terrorists are watching the SWAT on a TV screen, not even panicking, Theo indulging himself in song. They know something we don’t, and that makes us fear that the four SWAT guys are about to become toast.

Pages 70-71:

More shots ring out from the building going over the SWAT officers' heads and suddenly the huge dome of one of the spotlights shatters behind Mitchell and Robinson's head. The glow fades. A moment later the next light twenty feet away dies.

ROBINSON

They're going after the lights! The two SWAT officers cutting the garage ate suddenly look up as their cover starts to disappear.

ROBINSON (CONT'D)

Call them back.

MITCHELL

No, they're almost in.

Suddenly the third and fourth lights are shot out and the SWAT men become sitting ducks.

IN HOLLY'S OFFICE – HANS

He calmly speaks into his CB.

HANS

Don't get impatient. Just wound them.

INT. LOBBY

Eddie and Uli fire. They hit one of the officers in the leg, the second one in the arm.

The payoff of all this is that our worst fears are confirmed – the SWAT team are on the rack. Note that there is a sense of weakness and vulnerability that is reinforced in almost every paragraph. Their cover starts to disappear, and then they become sitting ducks entirely. Also notice the incompetence of the arrogant SWAT guy who demands they keep going; nothing gets us more wound up than someone doing something monumentally stupid. The guy in charge of the SWAT panics and decides to send in the cavalry in the form of the armoured car.

Page 72:

INT. 3RD FLOOR – SAME

The service elevator arrives on the 3rd floor and James and Alexander move across the room toward the windows with the anti-tank weapon. At the window, they prepare the weapon for use. Outside the window the armored car has stopped in front of the wounded man and paramedics quickly load them in from the sheltered side of the vehicle. Alexander quickly sights on the armored car.

ALEXANDER

(to Hans, CB)

I have them.

HANS' VOICE

(o.s., over CB)

Fire.

EXT. THE ARMORED CAR

A blast ROARS from the third floor window and the shell hits the armored car. The car pitches forward like a beast whose front legs have been shot out from under it -- its front axle destroyed, unable to move. Alexander looks back at James and grins.

(BREAK)

Page 73:

EXT. POLICE BARRICADE - ON ROBINSON AND MITCHELL

They look on in horror as the armored car sits helplessly on fire. On the police radio channel we hear the SCREAMS OF MEN inside.

The scene is continuing to build its suspense to a crescendo. The screams of good cops just doing their job is a powerful one, especially in contrast to a cold villain who matter of factly tells his henchman to “just wound them.” John McClane has been largely silent up until now, and it figures that this particular action scene will end with McClane coming up with an ingenious way of stopping the terrorists.
This is most common structure of an action scene, in which the hero or the protagonist of the scene makes an action which puts him into danger. Since the antagonist has to be smarter than the hero, often they find themselves in trouble quite quickly. Our perception of an action scene depends on what information we have that the hero doesn’t, and when we know there is a bad guy lurking round the corner, we start to become anxious for the safety of the good guy.

However, this previous scene had one thing most action scenes don’t have: dialogue. Most action scenes don’t have that crutch to hold onto. The biggest difficulty with writing an action scene is to strike a balance between brevity and depth. Going for the most concise description of the action scene will make it take up only a few lines, and could make what you envisage as a two minute scene last only a handful of seconds on paper. However, go into too much depth, too much description, and you are potentially telling both the director and the choreographer exactly what to do.

Returning to John August for a second, he makes the key point you have to consider when writing any kind of scene: “Always remember that you’re writing a movie, not a screenplay. Even though you only have words at your disposal, you’re trying to create the experience of watching a movie”
In other words, you have to paint a picture of the scene. In the previous scene, look at the description of the rocket hitting an armoured car. There are no specific camera angles mentioned and the description is fairly brief, but it still works to great effect: “A blast ROARS from the third floor window” The use of capital letters makes the word stick out on the page and catch the reader’s attention. “The car pitches forward like a beast whose front legs have been shot out from under it -- its front axle destroyed, unable to move.” A clear and emphatic picture of the action has been created to us, full of detail.