From Script to Screen: Analyzing ‘The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster’ with Writer and Director Bomani J. Story

As a general rule of thumb when it comes to writing great screenplays and making great movies, one should study the greats. This doesn’t just entail watching the movies on repeat, but also reading the written word – the scripts. And in this day and age, those screenplays are becoming wildly more accessible on the internet. For those that live in the Los Angeles area, you have even greater odds in getting your hands on the shooting scripts from such beloved films and television shows at the Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library.

Being one of those writers and filmmakers who avidly watches and reads great pieces of work from the past, I also seek and dive into contemporary works as well. There are few contemporary films that work their way through the noise and vividly stand out, and when they do, it’s exciting. Truly. You are reminded why you write. Why you make movies and why you watch movies and watch movies on repeat.

I had that exact feeling when I first watched The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster earlier this year, which premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival. And then I had that feeling again, when I had the honor of not only speaking with Bomani J. Story, the writer/director behind this instant classic, but with his key cast, Chad L. Coleman, Laya DeLeon Hayes and Denzel Whitaker. Their collective love and celebration of story through filmmaking was palpable. You can read that full interview here.

From that moment, I knew I had to read this screenplay inside-out that excited Bomani to write and direct, but also this incredible team of actors that had such a, again, collective connection to the written word. You can tell that this filmmaker has studied the greats with great detail, and continues to do so with his work, as seen in The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster.

In this article, we’ll examine how “less is more” on the page elicits an emotional and visual response during the read; the importance behind being specific when naming your characters; how the writer and director work in tandem on the page, and the power of the edit.

Logline:  Death is ever present in Vicaria's world - violence, police brutality, substance abuse - and after watching her mother and brother succumb, she's had enough. Vicaria is going to put an end to all this death...by bringing the dead back to life.

Reader be warned, there are spoilers ahead - but that shouldn't deter you from watching this film when it hits Theaters, On Demand, and Digital on June 9, 2023 - all the while practicing and honing your craft.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

WORLD-BUILDING ON THE PAGE

Sadie Dean: You have this really great sense of world-building both on the page and then to what we see on screen. Which bears repeat watching, to pick up and track what seem like minor elements at play, like the mention of the utility tower and how you track that through the first seven pages, to the bandanas to the cop car. You’re essentially painting this picture and setting up this world basically in one location.

Bomani J. Story: The big thing for me with that was to build a community; to show how everybody's kind of involved, and how the scope of this community and setting the tone. You see Vicaria, and her little protege bouncing the periodic table off and as they're doing that, you get to see these other players who are involved in what their lives are. And you get the sense of geography; the space that you're moving in. And meanwhile visually showing that, because it's one thing to have them just sitting there talking, but I wanted to showcase that, so audiences can be stimulated visually, and auditorily at the same time - that was crucial to me - and just to show the scope and range of this community - the beauty of it as well.

Sadie: It’s all seen through multiple shots, but it feels like it could be one tracking shot from Vicaria to glimpses of this community.

Bomani: I definitely saw it as a consistent, continuous moment, because I wanted to just kind of let the audience sit in it for a while, because you're just coming off of all this slow motion stuff - a really stylized way to kind of come into this world. So, I thought, just letting the audience just kind of feel and sit in this world, see it and, and be in it to kind of be like, ‘alright, we're done with the tricks’ [laughs] where you can kind of understand and go on a journey with us.

Sadie: Now, let’s go into a specific that we chatted about before at SXSW with your incredible cast – the teacher-parent meeting. There’s an array of dynamics that comes into play from a hostile environment to the relationship between father and daughter. Can you kind of talk about writing that on the page, and then how you translated that on to screen day of – knowing that it’s different from what was originally written in the shooting script?

Bomani: Once the actors get involved, they just start making dynamite [laughs] and you start seeing that they're already saying this with their face, you know what I mean? From just like a small smirk from Vicaria, you're just like, yeah, she feels like she won. [laughs] And you don't need to have her say anything. So it was a matter of that and then pacing. When it came down to time, between Laya [DeLeon Hayes], Beth [Felice] and you know Chad [L. Coleman] they just really kind of smacked it out of the park. They made it really easy - if you guys can kind of just say these lines with your face then, what's the point? [laughs]

Sadie: [laughs] They’re so good. There’s this askew framing on Vicaria and Donald in that scene, whereas, on the teacher, it's a squared locked-off shot with her centered in the frame. What was the decision behind doing those framing options?

Bomani: It's an uncomfortable situation. And I always felt like Vicaria and her dad, Donald are kind of seen as, like in this situation, they're seen as the obscure ones when they're not. And she's supposed to be the one that's right in this situation. That's not what it is, so I really liked that contrast between those two of how people might necessarily see it, versus what it actually is. If you look into it, the mental gymnastics that's going on there and as a visual aesthetic.

Sadie: Yeah, and it comes down to trusting your actors.

WHAT IS IN A CHARACTER'S NAME

This is a great exercise for creating characters from the ground up, giving them purpose, strengths, and weaknesses.

Sadie: Now let’s jump into another favorite scene which is the dinner table scene with the whole family. I feel like you really see the meaning behind their names come into play in that scene; Aisha's name means being alive and well, and she is literally with child; and then there’s her mother Secoiya, she’s grounded like a tree; Jada is the wise child. Going off of that and building off of their personality traits and what they’re bringing to the table, literally, tell us about how that scene came to be.

Bomani: Weirdly enough, that dinner table scene actually came kind of late in the game. I'd say it probably came maybe two drafts before the actual shooting script. You want to see how everybody's dealing with each other at a certain point, you want to see everybody kind of interacting. And also just from an emotional standpoint, seeing a family dynamic…you want to show that, and I want to see that.

I just think identity is important. And that scene is also challenging Vicaria. I think sometimes these movies will let these like geniuses kind of just run rampant, but without anybody giving any kind of pushback on an intelligent level. I also thought, because for me, there's a vein of an exercise in intelligence and I think that scene showcases that in a way too because although Vicaria is smart in science, she's still being outwitted by her parents, because she thought she could just ditch school, [laughs] and they figure it out. And then you got this little girl who's outwitting her with like, ‘I know where the monster is, I'm teaching him.’ And then you got Aisha who's also kind of just like, ‘I know our history and this is something that you're ignoring.’ And so, I wanted to make sure we see the exercise, people have different ways of exercising their intelligence, people are smart in different ways. So that was important to me to kind of showcase here too.

Sadie: Yeah, I love that dynamic too, in that they're all challenging each other in some way. How many drafts of this script did you write?

Bomani: [laughs] That's a nice question. I couldn't tell you. [laughs] I wish I could tell you, but I've been through a lot of drafts - there's been a lot of rewriting and ironing.

Sadie: I believe it! With that said though, as you’re going through many variations of these rewrites, how do you know which sticking points to carry through, either big or small, or how do you know you’ve landed on something you know instinctually has to stay no matter what?

Bomani: It's weird, even though like the very first draft is pretty much trash, right? [laughs] And you're pretty much like, well at least for me, it's unreadable. I'll write a script, and I'll hate it. The first draft or whatever. And I was like, ‘Man, this is garbage.’ [laughs] ‘I have no fucking reason to keep going with this.’ But I'll do it anyway, because I'm a glutton for pain. And by the time I get to a draft that I feel is presentable, what I realize when I look back, all the ideas in this I still loved, it wasn't that these ideas are trash, it might have just been, how they're happening.

The only thing is, for instance, in the first draft, Jada necessarily wasn't that big of a character. But as I kind of started exploring, I started kind of finding things and went along, so that's an example of something that was really small in the first draft I did. But then as I kept going, that idea of this little girl, it tracked. It made it all the way through. Kango tracked - like all these players tracked. And all these ideas for this movie tracked. Now, they may have been switched around in certain ways, to kind of serve the story and fuel it, but all of these things - that's what always kind of amazes me whenever I look back, I'm like, yeah, all this stuff still kind of made it in. I didn't really lose it.

Sadie: It’s one of those friendly reminders when you’re in the thick of it, in the weeds, lost and if you just go back to that first draft and remember what got you excited to write that script in the first place, it’ll start to fall into place for you. It’s like the answer was always there on the page the whole time. [laughs]

Bomani: Yeah. Crazy, right? [laughs]

LESS IS MORE ON THE PAGE

Sadie: While reading this, it doesn’t come off like you are withholding information visually – it’s all there on the page. It’s like you’re watching the movie in your head while reading. And I wonder if that’s because you’re a writer/director that you know what you want to see visually and the pacing of these implied cuts. And the wonderful thing about this particular read is that less is more on the page.

Here’s an example of a description that really painted the picture of Vicaria and the world and the emotional importance of this scene:

That just says so much about that bond and what she's doing. And Chris, and now that he's come back to life, and he's trying to find his purpose again.

As the writer/director, how do are you approaching the script in terms of what you’re going to shoot and importantly knowing what can get done day of?

Bomani: For me, when I'm writing, I don't want to think about directing. I don't want to think about producers or actors, I don't want to be thinking about any of that shit. What I want to be thinking about is what is the story? And can anyone pick this up and understand what the hell's going on? And track it, you know what I mean? To me, that's my job. And that's what I'm doing. 

When I'm first sitting down…I tried to kind of just be like this is a story of people doing stuff or whatever - that's what I'm focused on. Can anyone pick this up and kind of get it and run with it? If I didn't want to direct it, could I give it to anyone, and would be able to kind of be like, ‘Oh, OK. I get it.’ And to me, that's what I'm trying to do. Because I don't want to be distracted by that other stuff. The only thing I need to be focused on is trying to tell the best story possible with the tools that I have, which is the pen or the computer at the time. I know there are other directors who want to keep the directing in mind while they're writing, which I think has obviously produced incredible movies.

And then once I start getting into, like, directing to me, they feed off each other. It's a different hat. And I believe, while I'm sitting down and directing, I'm looking at it, I'm trying to find what's happening past the words, what is he saying, what it means, is that what you emotionally mean? What are you getting at? So, to me, when I'm looking at it, that's where I'm coming from and how the actors are going to approach this. And how are we playing to win and what's the most human way to look at this?

The Power of the Edit

The final rewrite for a film is the post-production edit. There are times when you can shoot every line of dialogue, every page of that 4-page scene - but in more cases than not, because of budget restrictions, locations, time, weather, you name it, you get what you can in the "can" and stitch together what's left to the best of your ability in service of the story.

Sadie: The editing in this is just so powerful from the different montages to how we see The Monster. Tell us about the process of working with your editor Annie De Brock in making sure the cut is translating what you wanted to get across.

Bomani: It's always a process of just talking and finding the story. You're finding the moment, trying to make it as cinematic as you possibly can. So, it's always a process of just being like, ‘OK, is this working or not?’ And how can we capture the spirit? Because I feel like, if you can at least capture the spirit of what was on the script, then you've gotten pretty damn far, right? [laughs] Because there's just too many dynamics when you're on set. Not only are you dealing with money restrictions, and time and stuff like that, but you're also collaborating with people. For instance, like an actor, they're delivering awesome lines, and then they get tired - anything could happen, right? If you don't have time to get this, then that line is dead. So, now you got to figure out a way around. It’s just like tap dancing through those dynamics, and really finding how does this look.

And the biggest one I would point to is that creation scene, it's kind of one of those things where you're looking at it and the footage just speaks to you. The same way the words kind of come to you and you’re writing, I think the footage speaks to you a certain way. And to me, it's a matter of following that.

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster will be exclusively in Theaters on June 9, 2023, and will be On Demand and on Digital on June 23, 2023. It will also stream on ALLBlk and on Shudder at a later date.

Looking for more ways to practice your craft? Recommended reading on writing great scenes and writing character-driven storytelling:

SceneWriting: The Missing Manual for Screenwriters written by Chris Perry & Eric Henry Sanders

The Protagonist's Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling written by Scott Myers

This is a book I wish I had available while in the throes of film school and finding my way into screenwriting. Very glad that it exists now. Scott analyzes a number of notable films and television shows from the ground up, leaving no stone unturned and inspiring you to tackle your pages (and re-watch every film and movie covered in his book).