Welcome back, Scream Writers. Have you ever noticed that some films are set in locations that feel as much, if not more, of a character than the rest of cast? Just think of The Overlook Hotel from The Shining (1980), with its hexagonal carpet and its labyrinthine corridors, or the USCSS Nostromo from Alien (1979), perpetually wet throughout its womb-like pathways. Hell, Twin Peaks (1990– 2017) and 30 Days of Night (2007) both feature towns that are representative of the characters that populate them (similarly, though perhaps not a character, the town in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is a direct representation of the protagonists shattered brain). Location is important; however, so much of the feeling a location evokes is dependent on the location (or set) itself, the way it is lit, shot, edited (both picture and sound), that it may seem redundant to spend time on it during the writing phase where brevity is everything. However, Robert Eggers’s screenplay for The Witch (2015) demonstrates how to create a powerfully resonant location in concise, powerful writing.
The Witch (a film that I briefly discussed here) is a self proclaimed New-England Folktale that follows a puritan family in the 1630s as they are banished from a plantation and start a farm on the outskirts of imposing forrest. It is soon clear that mastering the land isn’t an easy task, and our family finds themselves running out of food, losing children, struggling with their puritan values, and assailed by supernatural forces beyond their control – forces that tie themselves to the ominous woods that surround them. The focus on the foreboding aspects of the natural terrain is reinforced by the first spoken line of dialogue: “What went we out into this wilderness to find?” The choice of “wilderness” evokes connotations of inhospitality as if the land itself was hostile towards our characters (which, as the audience learns in heartbreaking detail, it very much is). However, as much as the wilds and the woods are character within the film, it is how they are handled in the screenplay that is most impressive.
Our family first finds their little plot of land on page 4:
And on page 5 we see what they have turned it into:
Notice the evocative language: the corn isn’t just small, it’s anorexic; the trees aren’t large, they’re monstrous; the woods aren’t just thick, they’re dark and ancient and stands like giants. In 7/8ths of a page, we have been introduced to our setting with language that emphasizes the inhospitable nature of the landscape. The language is so powerful that the dreadful feeling coming off of the woods lingers throughout the next several scenes; it’s this presence we realize we have been dreading when on page 15:
We’ve already been shown the trees as monstrous but we’ve hoped, against hopes, that they weren’t threatening. But, atlas, we’ve always known they would be and this is driven home for us as we are forced to cross the forbidden threshold with Caleb. We know, or at least we feel that we know, that this threshold was forbidden for a reason and that our crossing was a mistake – one that is too late to set right. We have entered the dark and left all hope behind. However, this is where something interesting begins to happen Eggers’s screenplay.
The reader knows, without a doubt, that there is a dark energy to this location, it has been reinforced with poetic, ominous language; however, after the crossing of the threshold, that language starts to disappear from the script – it seems almost to disappear within the woods itself. Little changes in regards to scenery within the film from this point on, and Eggers’s screenplay demonstrates his understanding of this – having successfully set both the location and the feeling of the location, there is no need to continually beat in what we already know. Thus it is that by front loading the most evocative descriptions of the setting, Eggers’s frees himself from the need to focus on the location of the film and can instead focus his attention on the characters and their plight.
Finally, perhaps the most important part of setting the scene, The Witch’s screenplay sets the mood. Mood may get a bum wrap, depending on who you ask, but it is of paramount importance in establishing the atmosphere of dread that surfuses the story. Yes, the actions in your plot and the choices of the characters will help to build upon the mood of the piece. But by establishing the mood of the location, the location scout or set builders will be able to make choices informed by the intention of the location rather than just the physical aspects of it. Not only does setting location mood help to cement the Scream Writer’s desired mood in the reader but it helps the production to keep that mood within in their mind when making location decisions.
