WRITING GERMAN

I was just reading script notes from an example that a reading service posted. The feedback was rather lengthy and detailed, good when you're paying for it. My favorite part was when they pointed out that the writer had failed to properly describe the setting, "LA doesn't have any brownstones", it read. They encouraged the scribe to do more research before writing about a particular area.

Germany, France, and Great Britain are offering big incentives for Hollywood to come and shoot some film there. Speed Racer, Inglorious Bastards, Valkyrie, and many other films took advantage of a large tax credit offered in Berlin.

That said, one might consider not only writing a budget-oriented screenplay, but one that is set in Europe, specifically Germany, who offers the highest benefit.

With eight years of experience living and working in the motherland, I'm here to offer tips on what to, but better yet, what not to write into your germanically set script.

STORY

Don't write a script about Nazis, a coup against them, or anything even somewhat related. Tarantino took the last cookie from the jar, he produced the last great idea on this era, it's been done a lot of ways, and it's all been done, don't try it.

SETTING

To keep it on a budget, set your script-allemagne in this century, it will save money on costumes, vehicles and the like. You'll rarely see a classic car; don't expect to set a GI in post war Berlin, driving around a giant 1940's Buick, they'll have to ship that in extra. Rely on the standards: BMW, Mercedes, Mini-Cooper, VW Bug, Golf, Polo, Scirocco... not familiar with Scirocco? See, this is more research than you think!

CHARACTERS

Germans do not speak to each other in English with German accents. Instead, consider Oxford English in the northern half, and a slight southern drawl in the south, such as Bavaria. I'd rather you just subtitle the whole thing but that will kill the script, god forbid that someone has to READ lines in a film while the dialogue is in the native language.

For people "in the know", we say that Germans are "americanized". This means that they wear deodorant, shave and shower, change their clothes regularly. Should you be compelled to set your story in Belgium, the above will not be as applicable.

CLICHE'S

You'll want to stay away, or maybe use, some of the usual stereotypical elements of people in the country, such as:

*an electrical engineer who is over forty and still lives with his parents.

*women who are thirty that marry guys over fifty.

*very left-oriented people that wear scarves, even in the hot summer, and eat "Musli" (granola).

*businessmen that do not normally speak English but love to throw in keywords like "UP-TO-DATE".

*Turkish street-sweepers and cleaning ladies.

*Polish workers that also do menial labor but consider themselves to be more German.

SCENES

However enticing, don't set the following scenes in the listed place, it's not realistic.

INT. MAIN TRAIN STATION - NIGHT
Don't set a love scene here, it smells like pee.

INT. PUBLIC BATHROOM - DAY
Never set any scene here, except for a murder.

EXT. AUTOBAHN - DAY
No chase scenes here, it's usually bumper to bumper; keep it to under fifty miles per hour. Yep.

That's just touching the tip of the iceberg, you can see that you have your work cut out. Visit, if you can, if not, then buddy up to some Germans online, I'm sure they'd be willing to share.

Oh, and one more thing: if it's about the "Wall", everyone wanted it to come down, and then complained about all of the easterners and the costs of reconstruction later.

Achh! Oh, don't include that expression either, rarely heard. Unless it is a Nazi-era retiree, and then you have to question whether you should be writing about that.