True Stories 24: 10s—Argo

From last week’s disappointment over how the untrue story of the invention of Facebook got made—and lauded—to this week’s story of how the rescue of hostages from Iran got told with pretty much 100% accuracy when it comes to its major points. That film is Argo [2012] by Chris Terrio.

The funny thing about Argo is that it’s so unbelievable that it’s exactly the kind of story Hollywood would invent, but it’s actually a true story.

Six hostages were trapped in Iran and the CIA was trying to figure out how to get them out when one of the their agents had the fantastical idea to send in a film crew and then disguise the hostages as members of that film crew in order to get them out. And it worked.

Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T29kIOXpj6o

You can tell from that trailer what a fast-moving film this is—and that led to its excitement on screen. One way, as a writer, to be sure your film is fast moving is to look at the number of scenes in your film.

In an average film—from 100-120 pages—how many scenes would you imagine would be there? When I ask this question of most new writers, they respond with 75 or even 100? Their thought process is that, each page being about a minute long, that’s probably about right. But it’s not. The average number of scenes in a script is about 180—in other words, each scene is about a half page.

But in Argo, there are—get ready for it—339 scenes. This film moves fast. Sure there are scenes that are longer than a page [though not many] but there are many, many scenes that are quite short.

Short scenes=a fast-moving script. This is an extremely important point for a screenwriter to remember.

But back to Argo. One of the fun parts of the film’s story is how the CIA set it up. They opened offices on the Columbia lot in Hollywood, took out ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter touting their film. They planted fake news stories. They did everything so that the Iranian officials would think that the Canadian scouting production crew was real—thus giving them entrée into Iran and the hostages [with fake papers] a way to exit.

The fake production company, Studio Six Productions, received 26 scripts for their consideration during the time they were on the Columbia lot—even one from Spielberg—that’s how real people thought their company was!

One final point—everyone going into the film knew that the hostages had been rescued—but the fun of the film is to see the drama of how that happened. As a writer, remember that, because it’s not necessarily about how suspenseful a story is, but about how you uncover the layers of intrigue that let the story unfold.

Next week, a true story of the hunt for Bin Laden: Zero Dark Thirty.

Copyright © Diane Lake

20Nov22

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com