TALK TO ME: The Power of the Opening 10 Pages.
A deep dive into the first 10 pages of the acclaimed horror movie - with accompanying video clips.
Hello from Hancock Park in the shadow of Skydance’s Paramount Pictures. Despite the clandestine activity by money-hungry/culture-destroying real estate developers who have been seeking to re-zone many of the fabled Hollywood sound stages and lots so they can bulldoze the history of Los Angeles and build over the cultural iconography with over-priced housing and office development, I hope David and Larry Ellison keep the unified Paramount lot in one piece.
I say “unified” because the corner of Gower and Melrose used to be the home of RKO Radio Pictures!
RKO was responsible for some of the most memorable movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood - Citizen Kane, Notorious, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Out of the Past.
When RKO fell on hard times, Paramount purchased some of its studio assets and absorbed the stages. I noticed this one time snacking at Astro Burger and spotted the RKO globe still sitting atop on of the sound stages at the corner. I guess it was too expensive to remove!
This issue will be a little different. I’m breaking down the crucial first 10 pages/minutes of the successful, Saturn Award-winning Australian horror film Talk To Me (2023). I just finished revising my own horror screenplay, and I looked at this film and its script; digesting it, reverse-engineering how its writers showcased their mastery of the craft, and I applied some of their efficiency tricks.
It’s important for any writer — in any medium — to consider their opening pages. For a novelist or short story writer, the first sentence/paragraph is the opening gambit (along with the first three pages). For an essayist or journalist, the lede—the first paragraph— must hook the reader.
For the screenplay (or TV pilot), the first ten pages are the make-or-break moments; the initial promise to entertain. If you were watching a movie at home, if you’re not sufficiently intrigued by the first 10 minutes in, you’re probably turning it off. So are you going to slave over the first ten excessively?
That’s a rhetorical question. To further the analogy, it doesn’t matter how unprecedented any story twist you have in the Second Act. Or if you crafted some clever transition from Act One to Act Two. Or what kind of rousing, tear-jerking moment you pulled from your soul for the climax. None of that matters if the first ten pages do not establish a gripping promise.
I’ve heard many an agent say they stop reading if the first page doesn’t grab them! Most showrunners only read the first 10 to 12 pages of your pilot to make their decision about you.
Let’s crack open the Talk To Me script. Note: I’m just examining the first 10 minutes/pages, so no spoilers if you haven’t seen the film.
Consider these three elements:
the first image;
the first page;
the first 10 pages.
These are critical building blocks for a script — on a creative level and on a commercial level. Remember, if you get someone to agree to read your script (one of the hardest things in the movie business), they want to like your script. Your script could be the answer to their prayers.
Talk To Me begins at a house party. The camera finds Cole, this teenager. He’s searching for his brother. The camera follows Cole as he navigates through a raging party. As the youthful antics amp up, anticipation builds in the audience — is Cole going to discover his brother? And then Cole reaches…
… a locked door! Since this is a horror movie, any and all locked doors are foreboding. We subconsciously ask: “What’s behind that door? What’s the big secret?” And then Cole acts…
After Cole breaks through the door, he finds his brother, and the camera re-orients to give us a view of his brother’s back. It’s laced with blood and scars. Another question is asked: “Jesus, has this boy been whipped or cut? Self-mutilation?”
Cole, being the protective brother that he is, covers up his troubled sibling, who is in some sort of somnambulistic state, mumbling about their mother. Leading his brother out, Cole reminds him that their mom died a long time ago. Cole then leads his brother back through the house to the kitchen and into a bunch of drunk, raucous kids.
As this is a modern story, all the kids whip out their cellphones to record this moment — probably so they can post it on social media to tease the brothers later. True to form, none of the teens appear to give a shit that Cole’s brother has been wounded and is morosely depressed. All they want to do is record the spectacle, like they’re cameramen for some damn reality show.
Cole, getting more pissed by the second, tries to put a stop to the bullshit. He shouts, “Are you serious? Put your phones down! Put your fucking phones away!” And then…
You know what’s awesome? The sound design when the brother grabs the knife off-screen. Okay, now you’re asking yourself, “What the hell? Why did he stab his brother and then himself"?’ And when the screen crashes to black as all the bitch-ass kids flee, we are left with a dozen questions.
Talk about a strong, powerful, provocative first image. This is the kind of first scene that sucks us into the world of the film. Doesn’t matter if it’s a horror, the writing is tight, swiftly paced, and intriguing as fuck.
Talk To Me’s first scene is a lesson in efficiency, ‘cause it does a shit ton of work.
First, the scene shouts — this is a horror film, are you in? If not, that’s cool. If so, then buckle up ‘cause it’s going to be a bumpy ride1.
Next, this scene gives Cole a potent want and a powerful obstacle (breaking through that door is no easy feat). His relentlessness draws us in. The situation is specific, but relatable: how many of you have been at a house party, lost a friend/lover/sibling, and then panicked as you looked for them? We instantly feel empathy for Cole, because we’ve been in his shoes.
This is actually a crucial point about horror films: you want to write what is scary for you. No attempt at trying to guess what the audience will find scary, but what do you find scary. And then amp it up way past 10. One of the writers, Danny Philippou, has a brother (they co-directed the film), so for the movie to open with a scene where one brother is searching for the other, and then there’s a murder-suicide… that probably speaks to a fear Danny has.
Next, this scene establishes the film’s emotional landscape. It’s about family, and it’s going to smack us with shocking moments of family betrayal (note, friends are family that we’ve chosen).
Last, this opening scene pours gasoline on a shopworn horror movie trope — the party scene — and lights a match by injecting a startling twist: the locked door. We get the sense that once the door opens, something unsettling is on the other side. Instead of Cole walking in on his brother dead or bleeding or fucking a succubus, he’s ostensibly fine. True, the scars and blood on his back raise questions. Questions that we don’t get the answers to yet, but at least he’s not in any serious danger.
This first scene, as short as it is, says: this horror movie is going to snatch your breath away. And it will do it a little bit differently, and it’s going to shock you in new ways. This is the promise the script/movie makes on the very first page/opening minute.
Think long and hard about your first page. First, on a purely commercial level, then on an emotional/artistic level. A question you must ask yourself is:
The second you raise the curtain on your story, does the audience know what this script is?
Or are you putzing around on your first page? Or are you setting up mundane things? Or, even worse, are you appealing to the logic chip in our brain instead of our emotions?
Sadly, if you’re doing the latter, ask yourself, will someone want to turn to Page 2? If you’re lucky, they’ll speed-read Page 2, because you didn’t lock your hands around your audience’s throat and start to squeeze.
If your first image fails to engage, if your first image reminds the reader of something they’ve seen before, if your first image fails to nail the genre or put a fresh twist on the genre, then your first image needs to be retooled.
By the time the reader reaches the bottom of page 10, they must be deeply invested in your story and your characters. They have to be thinking, if the rest of the script delivers on the promise of the first ten pages, then I’m going to put my job and reputation on the line and champion this script.
Or they’ll press delete, send you a form rejection letter, and log you in their database as a mediocre writer.
Let’s get back to Talk To Me. After your script’s first image, the next most important image in your script is the first appearance of your main character. It is the strongest, most vital image of that character (note: the first image of every character is highly important). This tells us where the character starts on their emotional journey.
When you’re putting together a casting wish list with your producers, the actor you want to star in the movie is going to read the script, and a huge amount of their decision-making process will be based on the initial image of the character you want them to play.
The movie star will ask: “Do I want to play this role? Do I want to finish this script? Is this a boring character? Is this character right for me?”
The initial image of your main character must also prompt the producer (or executive or agent) to ask: “Do I identify with him/her? Do I care about him/her?”
Here’s the thing to remember: your first image doesn’t have to be mind-blowing. It needs to be specific — universality comes through specificity.
In Talk To Me, the main character is Mia. She’s introduced with a strong first image. One that shows us who she is as a character and establishes the visual foundation for her emotional journey as the movie unfolds. Let’s see how we first meet Mia.
She’s behind glass and obscured. When we get to see her proper, she’s picking at her nail polish. This is an idiosyncratic moment that provides insight into who and how Mia is. As the next chunk of the first ten pages unfolds, you’ll see how all the elements of good storytelling are planted and grow from these first few images.
Next, we find ourselves at a cemetery and understand Mia has lost her mom. While one of the mourners tries to engage with Mia, she’s not really into talking with her parents’ friend. And then we’re at Mia’s home in the kitchen, and she doesn’t feel emotionally safe enough with her father to open up to him either.
So, now you see that Mia falls under the “Little Girl Lost” archetype, and that this is a character-driven horror movie. The directors do a clever job of showing her isolation by keeping her father out of focus and never giving him a Close-Up. We then cut to a first image of another featured character.
This kid, Riley, he’s an angsty teen. And his buddy is selling cigarettes (no doubt, illegal at this age). And Riley feels the peer pressure to smoke, but he doesn’t want to; he still wants to relish his childhood while he can. And his external want is, he wants is his sister to arrive (she’s late) and bring him home. So, from an emotional journey standpoint, Riley is an innocent. But it’s Mia who picks him up, and off they go.
Ha ha — what love about the Mia and Riley relationship is, despite Riley being the younger brother of Mia’s friend, these two have a strong connection ‘cause they can do Carpool Karaoke together.
However, it’s been a couple of pages since that opening murder-suicide, so it’s about time to inject another horror element…
Once Mia noticed something in the road and stopped, we’re mirroring the moment of Cole at the door. Mia shouldn’t get out of the car. But she does!
They agonize over what to do about the crippled kangaroo. Riley begs Mia to kill it, to put it out of its misery. Mia tries to crush its skull with her car, but ultimately, she can’t, and she rationalizes that someone else will come along and deal with it. As the camera lingers on the dying kangaroo, we know Mia and Riley just suffered a new emotional wound. A wound that brings them closer together.
The way the camera lingers on the kangaroo, we’re film literate, so we’re thinking, “This is somehow connected to the story.” Yet, we don’t know for sure. We also sense that a jump scare is imminent. Now, the writers will satisfy the craving, but they’ll do it in their unique way.
This kangaroo image will have a function later in the story, but we have to wait for the exact meaning. Australians maybe have a better sense of how kangaroos function in local mythology, but the worldwide audience has to wait.
Next, Mia and Riley continue on home and…
Okay, so we learn that Mia is part of a white family. There’s no exposition as to why her best friend Jade has taken her in, but something is definitely wrong at her home. It sheds light on the disconnection between her and her father when Mia was doing the dishes.
What these writers do that is top tier is, they make a lot of inferences with the story exposition.
They make us work for the nuggets of information; we’re constantly having to put 2 + 2 = 42
We are introduced to the thematic question of the screenplay. Per Aristotle’s Poetics, this dramatic question — Is it ethical to let a suffering animal live in agony? — determines the structure of Mia’s journey. This is the central question Mia wrestles with as she comes to terms with her mother’s death.
These ethical dramatic arguments are gold in a genre screenplay, because of the moral dilemma the characters will be put through that help shape their final actions. In Talk To Me, Mia picks at the emotional wound when she talks with Jade about the dying kangaroo.
A hallmark of a successful genre film rests on how powerful the character arc is under the sizzle and flash. The more relatable the thematic argument is, the stronger the movie, because the character’s journey revolves around the thematic argument.
Okay’s here what comes next…
Mia and Jade poke fun at each other, but they discuss going to another house party. Jade shows Mia phone-video clips of some wild-ass shit going on at some early party. And since we opened the film with a crazy party where amped up kids chose to record Cole and his brother’s dark moment with zero empathy, zero concern, we can guess the party Jade wants to go to might have consequences.
This is roughly the ten-minute mark in the film, so page 10 of the screenplay. At this point, we need to be sufficiently locked in with intrigue about the horror to come (✅), have been introduced to and connected with the main character (✅), and have the supernatural aspect teased (✅).
And a ton of questions have been posed (✅), for instance:
we don’t know what’s causing all the bizarre behavior that the kids are filming in the opening or on Jade’s phone, and we want to.
we don’t know why the directors lingered on the kangaroo, so is this a symbol for something to warrant that much screentime? That moment gets a few choice lines in the screenplay, too, so it has undetermined story value
we don’t know how Mia’s mom died
we don’t know why Mia is estranged from her father
However, since this is a “Little Girl Lost” story, we know the film will be about a girl who is clinging to the only family she has.
Talk To Me’s hook is simple, but deceptively so. Mia and Jade’s friends somehow got their hands on an embalmed hand. It’s covered with cryptic writing; very macabre. And if you shake the hand and say an activation phrase, the hand acts as a conduit for terrifying spirits to possess whoever is holding the hand.
Over the next 10 pages or so, you get that information, plus where it comes from, the various rules associated with holding the hand, and the consequences of holding it too long. But since that stuff is all handled in the rest of Act One, you can find out what happens when you watch the film (or read the script).
What the writers don’t do is spend any time in the first 10 minutes explaining anything to you. Exposition appeals to the logical part of your brain, and a writer can hold off on that as long as possible, slowly and carefully doling out knowledge to satiate. But you strive to avoid that in the first 10 minutes. Memorable genre films drop your character, and your audience, right into the rollercoaster car as it’s already left the loading dock and is moving up the first incline. Because the first drop in a rollercoaster is the inciting incident.
Anyway, that’s Talk To Me. Hopefully, this has been helpful. Now go to the keyboard, fire up Highland Pro, and take a look at your opening ten pages.
A few other things to remember: this is your opportunity to showcase your writing style. As soon as a reader gets to the bottom of page 1, he or she must know your writing ability, voice, and storytelling skills. Now that doesn’t give you a lot of page real estate, but all three elements can and must burn bright. From jump.
Set the Tone: The initial scenes must establish the overall tone and mood of the film (e.g., comedic, serious, suspenseful).
Avoid Information Overload/Exposition: While establishing the world is important, avoid dumping too much information on the reader upfront. K.I.S.S. must be your mantra.
And remember Steve Jobs’s mantra:
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
HOW’S THE WORK?
We’ve locked dates on my next short film — September 13th & 14th. It’s coming up fast, but pre-production has been going nicely.
What sucks is how onerous LA city and county make it to shoot in LA on private property. I’m happy the recent “Stay In LA” initiative passed, but the VERY next step is making it more practical for non-fat-pocketed studio productions to mount a project within the TMZ.
I also finished my latest YouTube video. It’s on 90s Crime Romances, a vibrant subgenre that vanished with Y2K. Check out the video below:
CHEAP DOPAMINE
Go see James Gunn’s Superman (2025), the strong consensus is that it rivals Richard Donner’s Superman (1978). I’m not sure about that because the novelty of that first color film can’t be duplicated or outdone, and it did everything Gunn’s does emotionally, and then some.
Gene Hackman’s portrayal of Luthor is unquestionably unique — a dash of sly humor with snide remarks that only Hackman, which is iconic voice and twinkle in his eye, could pull off. It’s unrivalable.
Aslo, I’ve been listening to the score as I write this, and while Murphy and Fleming do a remarkable job in crafting their music — it puts you in the right emotional space, however, the indelible music from John Williams’ iconic fanfare is peeks its head up from time to time; it’s as if that music is so baked into the cinematic DNA of Superman, so you have give it its due.
It’s as if Superman cannot exist on-screen without the musical melody that, ultimately, says: This is the story of the last survivor of Krypton. And that’s why Donner’s film will be superior. To me.
I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Gunn — not to take anything away from his craftsmanship and his talent; I just don’t jive with his humor. And that’s okay. I was still able to enjoy and be impressed by the film.
The thing to remember is, he started very much behind the eight ball with this film. The ugly online debates about The SnyderVerse and Zack’s interpretation of the Man of Steel have been nothing but polarizing (that’s being charitable), but Gunn succeeded in overcoming the irrational pre-release hate.
HERE’S MUD IN YOUR EYE
I bet this gets me in trouble, but, oh, well… it’s the artist’s duty to society to mock power, to be an agitator.
In Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), the “civilization” has devolved into three enclaves (Bullet Town, Gas Town, The Citadel). In The Citadel, a cult leader has taken control and rules with the express intent of enriching himself at the expense of everyone else. He exert perverse sexual dominance over women half his age or more! It’s as if impoverishing everyone under his dominion extends beyond necessity; it’s cruelty for sport.
His name is Imorten Joe. He reminds me of the Orange Pig currently ruling like a petulant infant chimp in the government seat at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Let’s look at the egregious, yet hilarious similarities
fucks/r*pes younger women who he keeps in a locked-up harem
has mentally challenged and/or physically impaired sons begging for attention
wears excessive makeup to hide a decaying and repellent face
has health problems that he must hide from his followers
wears physique-enhancing garb to complete the fraudulent appearance of vitality and virility
has rabid cult members who live to earn the smallest modicum of recognition
The dystopia that’s being ushered in — across the globe — where tyranny, lies, and cruelty are the currency of those angling for autocratic power is something we all must fight against.
That’s it, folks!
Be seeing you, sooner than you think!
Free adapted from Margot Channing’s quip in ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
Per Andrew Stanton’s TED Talk, audiences love doing the story math. It makes them feel like they’re participating in the story, not being spoon-fed.
GREAT post! Two sentences that could be revised:
you want to write was is scary for you
The second you raise the curtain on your, does the audience know what this script is?
I gotta add LL’s Mama Said Knock You Out. Intros to verses is critical in hip hop. Hilliard always references Eric B and Rakims all time classic “it’s been a long time” when just referring to moments when someone has drifted on a subject or tasks. Well how many times have people used “don’t call it a comeback”?
L was all over it. He’s “been here for years” doing what? “Rocking my peers”
And “Putting suckers in fear”. That’s all I needed. I was locked in. Oh L wasn’t coming back from nothing he was just reminding you in case you forgot.
Lyrics in hip hop have always driven me as a writer. I think as screenwriters we should look at songs for opening lines and scenes. Especially for details. The way the top shelf MC’s provide details is astonishing. (Nas description of the young hustler in One Love is mind blowing)
Anyway great stuff as always. Can’t wait for more work from you.