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Whether you're writing a script about an spy going behind enemy lines during the Cold War, a comedy about a couple on the verge of divorce taking a package tour of Europe, or an epic romance like “The English Patient” you're going to run into characters who don't speak English. How do you write that in a script? Do you look up the words in a German-English dictionary? Do you write it all in English and pay someone to translate it for you later? Or is there a special format thing to do when people speak a foreign language in a film script?

The first thing to consider is your audience. A film delivers information to the audience and your script should deliver the same information to the reader. What do you want the audience to know? Do you want them to understand the person speaking German? Or be confused?

Think of your lead character. They are the audience surrogate. Do THEY speak German? Is the audience supposed to know what these German-speaking people are saying? How will they know what they are saying? Is your lead character supposed to know what these German-speaking people are saying? How will he know what they are saying? Usually the audience and lead character get the same information - so the answer to the above questions will be the same.

If the lead character and audience don't understand German, it doesn't matter what they are saying. We don't understand it. They could be talking about their pet goldfish for all we know. In that case, you might just say they are having a conversation in German (in your action), or maybe even do something like this:

KLAUS

(mile a minute German)

BERNARD

(replies in German)

You don't need to write what they actually say, because the audience (and reader) will never know what they actually say.

I have a script called “Viper Force” about commandos behind enemy lines who are discovered by a patrol. They try to bluff their way out by answering "Da" or "Nyet" to anything that is said to them. We have no idea what they are agreeing or disagreeing with. They get some strange looks from some of their answers. Eventually they answer something completely wrong and the patrol draw their

weapons. We never know where they screwed up - we have no idea what they were being asked. If we are supposed to understand what they are saying, you might use subtitles. But it's almost impossible to create a situation where the audience "understands" German with subtitles, but your lead character isn't supposed to understand. Can't he just look down and read the subtitles?

This was a big problem in adapting Michael Crichton's “Congo” - in the novel, only one character speaks sign language, and a major part of the story is how he chooses to translate what the gorilla says to the others. In a novel you can take us inside the head of one character, and have him be the only one who understands. In a film everyone hears the dialogue and reads the subtitles - we have no way of knowing who *doesn't* understand... so any subtitled dialogue is automatically understood by every character on screen. This limits the way you can use language in a film. If one character understands German, everyone understands German!

If your characters are speaking subtitled German, try this:

KLAUS

(German, subtitled)

No, Fritz! You put the potato down

the FRONT of your bathing suit to attract

women while at the beach!

You can also just say in the description/action line that the following exchange will be in German, subtitled in English. Whatever is most simple. But it all comes down to the audience - what information do you want to give them? If a character speaks German and the lead isn't supposed to know what they are saying, it doesn't matter WHAT they say. If the lead is supposed to understand German, you need to write the dialogue in the language the READER understands, but indicate that it will be spoken in German then subtitled.

AFTERWARD

I never set out to write screenwriting articles and books, I'm a working pro screenwriter with a couple of producers wondering where their script is... But back in 1991 I complained to the editor of a screenwriting newsletter that no one writing for them had ever sold a script that got made... and ended up being an unpaid writer for them. Now I had to figure out how to explain how screenplays worked and why they sometimes didn't work. Suddenly I found myself writing about writing for a bunch of publications including Writers Digest and Movie Maker and the Independent Film Channel Magazine. Oh, and Script Magazine. Some written advice I gave some fellow pro writers ended up becoming my book “The Secrets Of Action Screenwriting” and the Blue Book series followed. Once I began looking at how scripts worked (or did not) I couldn't stop writing articles – and now have a website and a blog and about 7 books worth of screenwriting articles on my hard drive.

If you liked the information in this Blue Book and want more - for *free* - check out my Script Tip of the day at http://www.ScriptSecrets.Net - there are 380 of them in rotation, and when I get to 500 I'm putting it on automatic and going to the beach.

I also have a blog where I chronicle my adventures in Hollywood and talk about my favorite films and generally complain a lot. http://sex-in-a-sub.blogspot.com Don't let the title fool you, there is no sex involved, it's a terrible note I got from HBO on my rash Dive! movie. You can read about it on the blog.

You can also follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/wcmartell every once in a while I might say something funny, and I often post links to articles from my vault.

And if you could do could do me a favor and write a review of this Blue Book at Amazon, that would be great. I'm not asking you to lie and write a good review if you didn't like it – be honest! Any problems you had with the book will be used to improve the next version (which you will probably plug right into your skull). But if you *did* like the book, if you would be so kind as to tweet your friends, FB status them, mention it on message boards, Google Plus your circles, and call everyone in your cell phone contact list at 4am while drunk and tell them you liked it; that would be great! The Blue Books have always been a word of mouth thing – no advertizing, people who like them tell their screenwriting friends. So if you liked it, please don't keep it a secret!

Because people always ask: “The Secrets Of Action Screenwriting” is coming soon to Kindle, Nook, and other platforms (and paper, too).