The balance between structure and imagination sounds easy in theory, but it has been the booby trap that many a stalwart writers didn't make past through the mountain of writing that has taken place in the past century. Movies have been entertaining, but so few have been fulfilling and lasting. The few that hit this balance did it out of sheer accident for the most part. The right actors coming together for the right part, the crew, the director, the time in history when it is released... so many factors that are out of human control play a pivotal role. Though none of this would be possible without the devotion and attempt at bringing it into life, purely based on faith and inspiration. Here is a scaffolding to climb up and start building your story... but it does not guarantee the thrills or emotions, only you can with your know-how of life, your audience, and above all, yourself. http://amplify.com/u/a1827m
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Act One: Set-up
The balance between structure and imagination sounds easy in theory, but it has been the booby trap that many a stalwart writers didn't make past through the mountain of writing that has taken place in the past century. Movies have been entertaining, but so few have been fulfilling and lasting. The few that hit this balance did it out of sheer accident for the most part.
The right actors coming together for the right part, the crew, the director, the time in history when it is released... so many factors that are out of human control play a pivotal role. Though none of this would be possible without the devotion and attempt at bringing it into life, purely based on faith and inspiration.
Here is a scaffolding to climb up and start building your story... but it does not guarantee the thrills or emotions, only you can with your know-how of life, your audience, and above all, yourself.
Amplify’d from thescriptlab.com
Usually the story really begins at the moment when the first character faces the difficulty that he or she has to solve, and it better be a clear difficulty, and he better realize that he must do something. Dramatic form means action, and action brings tension. So the awareness of the tension, and the clarification of what the nature of your tension is, helps to build the whole script.
ACT ONE: ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
TONE: Very quickly you want to establish the tone of the script: is it a serious film, a comedy, a fantasy, a spoof? Let people know right away that it is okay to laugh, to cry, to dream, etc.
THEME: You will also want to establish the theme of the film - what message are you trying to convey: “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, “The underdog triumphs”, “Good versus evil”.
WORLD OF THE STORY: As the story begins, you will introduce the world of the story - where does it take place? What is different and interesting to this world? What are the rules of this place?
CHARACTER INTRODUCTIONS: At the same time, you will introduce the principle characters to the audience. Be specific and original. Let us know their age, how they dress, walk, talk. Give them a scene in which they stand out from the others. Let the audience know these people are special.
PROTAGONIST WEAKNESS: The main character’s weakness(s) must be clear so that the later obstacles can attack that weakness in the second act.
INCITING INCIDENT: The inciting incident (or point of attack) is the moment when the dramatic conflict announces itself. It’s the first perception of the predicament to come, and usually, a moment that is very visual.
MAIN TENSION: And this predicament sets up the main tension around which the story will be built: Will they fall in love? Will they rob the bank? Will they escape alive? Will they do all three?
THE STAKES: The stakes have to be clear in order to show the audience how and why this tension is important to them, or - more importantly - what will happen if the character does not solve his/her problem. It should be huge - a matter of life and death.
OBJECTIVE: A character’s objective or goal is what drives him. This should be very specific, very clear. How badly does he/she want something and what are the lengths he/she is willing to go to get it.
LOCK-IN: The first act concludes once the main character is locked into the predicament, propelling him/her forward on a new quest trying to accomplish a specific goal. Now the reader/audience knows the character, the predicament, and the objective, so everything else is about the future.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1827m
Act Two: Obstacles
Ideally for a 120min film: Act 1 (30min) - Act 2 (60min) - Act 3 (30min) So as you notice, Act 2 is twice the length of Act1 or Act3, this forms for a major body of the film. You can either get the audience with you on a ride or lose them in this crucial chunk of your film. The protagonist will be pushed to his limit in this section and where most would have resigned and gone home, the hero decides to fight until death, if required. By throwing himself into the void of the unknown, that which mostly looks like a lost case, he wins over with his will - turning triumphant and saving the day. Well, that is the easy Hollywood formula to please audiences. Happy endings, who doesn't like to leave a movie with a smile? When you can play the audience against the norms by showing them something beyond their wildest imaginings, that's when you have a winner. It is not what you say but how you say it that makes all the difference. When you can portray ordinary everyday emotions and events through a lens that takes the audience to a unique world that enriches their life - that is the mark of a winning journey. The surprise and joy of discovering this new and magical world of your creation explored through the lens of your protagonist happens here in Act2,. http://amplify.com/u/a1827f
Act Two: Obstacles
Ideally for a 120min film:
Act 1 (30min) - Act 2 (60min) - Act 3 (30min)
So as you notice, Act 2 is twice the length of Act1 or Act3, this forms for a major body of the film. You can either get the audience with you on a ride or lose them in this crucial chunk of your film.
The protagonist will be pushed to his limit in this section and where most would have resigned and gone home, the hero decides to fight until death, if required. By throwing himself into the void of the unknown, that which mostly looks like a lost case, he wins over with his will - turning triumphant and saving the day.
Well, that is the easy Hollywood formula to please audiences. Happy endings, who doesn't like to leave a movie with a smile?
When you can play the audience against the norms by showing them something beyond their wildest imaginings, that's when you have a winner. It is not what you say but how you say it that makes all the difference. When you can portray ordinary everyday emotions and events through a lens that takes the audience to a unique world that enriches their life - that is the mark of a winning journey.
The surprise and joy of discovering this new and magical world of your creation explored through the lens of your protagonist happens here in Act2,.
Amplify’d from thescriptlab.com
This is the meat and potatoes portion... AND the most difficult part of writing a screenplay. Most mediocre and flawed screenplays are plagued by slow or meandering second acts. Keep in mind the main tension - and that your character should always be on the path to resolving that tension.
The second act begins right after the lock-in: the moment when the character is stuck in the predicament and main tension - it is too late to turn back, so he/she must go forward. Now the character aims towards the goal, the objective, and he/she has the first meeting of the obstacles and antagonists or circumstances, always with rising actions.
The first sequence usually presents the alternative solutions. What are the choices? What should be done? And the character selects one alternative, and if it should be the worst one, then he selects another one, and in the meantime, the rest of the alternatives are eliminated. Then the character uses one of the ways to solve the predicament, and it seems to work, and that’s usually the first culmination or midpoint.
But it’s not that simple, because there are consequences of things that happened before that he didn’t take into consideration. He offended somebody. He didn’t do things that he was supposed to do. He forgot about things. You bring those things back in the second part of the act, and at that time they can be entered almost without motivation, because anything that works against your character at that time is acceptable. Any accident, any coincidence is fine because it makes his predicament worse, and therefore we enjoy it. Also it helps to explore the validity of the desire of the dream.
ACT TWO: ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
OBSTACLES: The second act is all about obstacles. It elaborates in great detail and intensity on the difficulties and obstacles the hero faces as he or she struggles to achieve his or her goal. Just when we think the situation can’t get worse, it does. And when there is no way that our hero can get out of the jam, he does, only to end up in a worse jam. Basically, each sequence centers around a new obstacle or obstacles of increasing difficulty.
FIRST ATTEMPTS: Now that the character is locked-in, he makes his first attempts to solve the problem. This is usually the simplest, easiest manner to resolve the problem, and these attempts usually fail.
RAMIFICATIONS: It is important to show the ramification of the attempts, which must result in an increase in complications.
ACTION: Every move the character makes traps him even more. Each actions leads to more entrapment. Be merciless on the character.
SUB-PLOT: A solid sub-plot that carefully intertwines with the main tension in both plot and theme will be a great channel in which to relate the character’s emotions (in regards to the main tension).
FIRST CULMINATION: This is the midpoint of the film. If our hero is to win in the end, this then is the first time the character finds a solution that seems to work. It is a victory. If the script is a tragedy, however, this often a low point for the character.
MIDPOINT MIRROR: The first culmination and ending of the film usually mirror each other: both victories or both failures.
MIDPOINT CONTRAST: The first culmination (Midpoint) and the main culmination (End of Act II) are usually in contrast with each other.
NEW ATTEMPTS: By the first culmination, our hero has failed in his/her first attempts but in failure, realizes the weight of the issue and becomes aware of the correct method in which to resolve the main tension. He/she then can begin new attempts, still faced with new obstacles, that get him/her closer to resolving the issue.
CHARACTER CHANGE: Throughout the second act, the main character starts changing, learning, and developing, or at least intense pressure is put on the character to change, and that change will manifest in the third act.
MAIN CULMINATION: this is the end of the second act and the point where the character sees what he things he has been doing is not what he has been doing. The tension is at the highest point, and this is the decisive turning point. You must convince the audience that their worst fears are going to come true. This moment will change the main character in some way.
FIRST RESOLUTION: This resolution of the second act tension often spins the character(s) into the third act. (Luke Skywalker and Han Solo rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of evil Vader... but they still have to destroy the Death Star.)
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1827f
Third Act: Resolution
How a film starts will hold a viewer's attention through the ride, but how it ends will ensure the journey has been a worthwhile one. It is for this reason that everything else took place, so it better be worth the joy and sorrows of the road that led this far. Audiences can run down a movie that could very well have been 90% of a gem, but if the last 10% dissatisfies them - they'll run down the entire 100% in one go. In fact, one should not even start out on a journey if they do not have a goal - it is like playing a game without a definitive end that could give us the winner; such a game is probably good for one's backyard and personal entertainment, but not befitting an arena to hold public interest. This is a word of caution for experimental and independent filmmakers who fancy their dreams without regard for the audience interest. Your films will possibly be good on a disc distributed among friends and family, but not for serious consumption by audiences and may not cater to the commercial interest of studios. When you strike the right balance, you get to do both. You can portray your dreams beautifully on celluloid as well as satisfy the audiences and the commercial interests of the business. The Matrix, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Casino, Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, Blade Runner, City of God, Infernal Affairs, Oldboy, Citizen Kane, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, It's a Wonderful Life, Finding Nemo... ... One thing in common with these films is a definite ending that satisfies the audience empathy that was aroused through the ride. http://amplify.com/u/a18266
Third Act: Resolution
How a film starts will hold a viewer's attention through the ride, but how it ends will ensure the journey has been a worthwhile one. It is for this reason that everything else took place, so it better be worth the joy and sorrows of the road that led this far. Audiences can run down a movie that could very well have been 90% of a gem, but if the last 10% dissatisfies them - they'll run down the entire 100% in one go. In fact, one should not even start out on a journey if they do not have a goal - it is like playing a game without a definitive end that could give us the winner; such a game is probably good for one's backyard and personal entertainment, but not befitting an arena to hold public interest.
This is a word of caution for experimental and independent filmmakers who fancy their dreams without regard for the audience interest. Your films will possibly be good on a disc distributed among friends and family, but not for serious consumption by audiences and may not cater to the commercial interest of studios.
When you strike the right balance, you get to do both. You can portray your dreams beautifully on celluloid as well as satisfy the audiences and the commercial interests of the business.
The Matrix, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Casino, Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, Blade Runner, City of God, Infernal Affairs, Oldboy, Citizen Kane, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, It's a Wonderful Life, Finding Nemo...
... One thing in common with these films is a definite ending that satisfies the audience empathy that was aroused through the ride.
Amplify’d from thescriptlab.com
The audience has seen the journey through which our protagonist has traveled. Yet the audience still wants reassurance that all is well, that the characters have changed, and a glimpse of his/her future.
Once the second act is resolved, there is usually a twist and new confrontation, which pushes us into the third act conflict. Often this is the result of the plot and subplot main culmination: the conflicts of the plot and sub-plot colliding.
In the third act, the protagonist will demonstrate his/her character arc in the manner in which he/she chooses to resolve the third act conflict. (For instance: In the beginning, a low-down character may choose to lie or cheat to resolve an issue, but since his/her arc has taught him/her morals, he/she tries to honestly resolve the situation).
The character’s new vision and his/her attempt to end the third act conflict leads us to the obligatory scene - a big scene which the audience has been waiting for since the story began.
After that, you have the descending part of the story where we see what happened after the evil won, lost, or whatever. You see ho they live afterwards. And the function of the twist in the middle of the third act is the last test. You shouldn’t believe the solution, very often, if it came directly from the resolution. So you come with something that once more offers the character a possibility to try for the last time, in a different manner.
The main story and subplots are all resolved in differing ways, but all with some sense of finality, the feeling that the conflict is over.
ACT THREE: ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
CONDENSED: Fast. Organized. No new characters. No new locations. The story is unraveling.
TWIST: The final twist is a surprising, explainable, and motivated change in direction of the action.
FINAL CULMINATION: Up to this point, our hero has been tested, has tried everything he could, and there is only one way left, because all the alternatives were presented and eliminated, and therefore, comes the final culmination, often where the main plot and sub-pot collides, which propels our hero head on into a new confrontation with the inevitable.
CHARACTER ARC: The main character is now in a new situation with a new tension, and he/she must have opportunities to go back to the old character and see if there is a change. There should be.
OBLIGATORY SCENE: The obligatory scene the scene the at the end of the film in which the viewer has been waiting and looking forward to. If tension is an eager anticipation of the future, then the obligatory scene is one that the viewer almost consciously expects. In a way, it has been promised to the audience.
RESOLUTION: This is the end. The third act conflict is complete, character arc complete, all issues resolved, and the audience sees the new status quo - or what the future holds for the characters.
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Saturday, July 2, 2011
Trust your instincts and that of your friends.
Hemingway was a winner as long as he did so, he was killed when his friends stopped and with time, he stopped too. Following our gut and being our true self without fear and judgement is what keeps us happy and fuels our longing for life. http://amplify.com/u/a16e6o
Trust your instincts and that of your friends.
Hemingway was a winner as long as he did so, he was killed when his friends stopped and with time, he stopped too. Following our gut and being our true self without fear and judgement is what keeps us happy and fuels our longing for life.
Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com
Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds
EARLY one morning, 50 years ago today, while his wife, Mary, slept upstairs, Ernest Hemingway went into the vestibule of his Ketchum, Idaho, house, selected his favorite shotgun from the rack, inserted shells into its chambers and ended his life.
There were many differing explanations at the time: that he had terminal cancer or money problems, that it was an accident, that he’d quarreled with Mary. None were true. As his friends knew, he’d been suffering from depression and paranoia for the last year of his life.
Ernest and I were friends for 14 years. I dramatized many of his stories and novels for television specials and film, and we shared adventures in France, Italy, Cuba and Spain, where, as a pretend matador with Ernest as my manager, I participated in a Ciudad Real bullfight. Ernest’s zest for life was infectious.
In 1959 Ernest had a contract with Life magazine to write about Spain’s reigning matadors, the brothers-in-law Antonio Ordóñez and Luis Miguel Dominguín. He cabled me, urging me to join him for the tour. It was a glorious summer, and we celebrated Ernest’s 60th birthday with a party that lasted two days.
But I remember it now as the last of the good times.
In May 1960, Ernest phoned me from Cuba. He was uncharacteristically perturbed that the unfinished Life article had reached 92,453 words. The contract was for 40,000; he was having nightmares.
A month later he called again. He had cut only 530 words, he was exhausted and would it be an imposition to ask me to come to Cuba to help him?
I did, and over the next nine days I submitted list upon list of suggested cuts. At first he rejected them: “What I’ve written is Proustian in its cumulative effect, and if we eliminate detail we destroy that effect.” But eventually he grudgingly consented to cutting 54,916 words. He was resigned, surrendering, and said he would leave it to Life to cut the rest.
I got on the plane back to New York knowing my friend was “bone-tired and very beat-up,” but thinking he simply needed rest and would soon be his old dominating self again.
In November I went out West for our annual pheasant shoot and realized how wrong I was. When Ernest and our friend Duke MacMullen met my train at Shoshone, Idaho, for the drive to Ketchum, we did not stop at the bar opposite the station as we usually did because Ernest was anxious to get on the road. I asked why the hurry.
“The feds.”
“What?”
“They tailed us all the way. Ask Duke.”
“Well ... there was a car back of us out of Hailey.”
“Why are F.B.I. agents pursuing you?” I asked.
“It’s the worst hell. The goddamnedest hell. They’ve bugged everything. That’s why we’re using Duke’s car. Mine’s bugged. Everything’s bugged. Can’t use the phone. Mail intercepted.”
We rode for miles in silence. As we turned into Ketchum, Ernest said quietly: “Duke, pull over. Cut your lights.” He peered across the street at a bank. Two men were working inside. “What is it?” I asked.
“Auditors. The F.B.I.’s got them going over my account.”
“But how do you know?”
“Why would two auditors be working in the middle of the night? Of course it’s my account.”
All his friends were worried: he had changed; he was depressed; he wouldn’t hunt; he looked bad.
Ernest, Mary and I went to dinner the night before I left. Halfway through the meal Ernest said we had to leave immediately. Mary asked what was wrong.
“Those two F.B.I. agents at the bar, that’s what’s wrong.”
The next day Mary had a private talk with me. She was terribly distraught. Ernest spent hours every day with the manuscript of his Paris sketches — published as “A Moveable Feast” after his death — trying to write but unable to do more than turn its pages. He often spoke of destroying himself and would sometimes stand at the gun rack, holding one of the guns, staring out the window.
On Nov. 30 he was registered under an assumed name in the psychiatric section of St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minn., where, during December, he was given 11 electric shock treatments.
In January he called me from outside his room. He sounded in control, but his voice held a heartiness that didn’t belong there and his delusions had not changed or diminished. His room was bugged, and the phone was tapped. He suspected that one of the interns was a fed.
During a short release he twice attempted suicide with a gun from the vestibule rack. And on a flight to the Mayo Clinic, though heavily sedated, he tried to jump from the plane. When it stopped in Casper, Wyo., for repairs, he tried to walk into the moving propeller.
I visited him in June. He had been given a new series of shock treatments, but it was as before: the car bugged, his room bugged. I said it very gently: “Papa, why do you want to kill yourself?”
“What do you think happens to a man going on 62 when he realizes that he can never write the books and stories he promised himself? Or do any of the other things he promised himself in the good days?”
“But how can you say that? You have written a beautiful book about Paris, as beautiful as anyone can hope to write.”
“The best of that I wrote before. And now I can’t finish it.”
I told him to relax or even retire.
“Retire?” he said. “Unlike your baseball player and your prizefighter and your matador, how does a writer retire? No one accepts that his legs are shot or the whiplash gone from his reflexes. Everywhere he goes, he hears the same damn question: what are you working on?”
I told him he never cared about those dumb questions.
“What does a man care about? Staying healthy. Working good. Eating and drinking with his friends. Enjoying himself in bed. I haven’t any of them. You understand, goddamn it? None of them.” Then he turned on me. I was just like the others, pumping him for information and selling him out to the feds. After that day, I never saw him again.
This man, who had stood his ground against charging water buffaloes, who had flown missions over Germany, who had refused to accept the prevailing style of writing but, enduring rejection and poverty, had insisted on writing in his own unique way, this man, my deepest friend, was afraid — afraid that the F.B.I. was after him, that his body was disintegrating, that his friends had turned on him, that living was no longer an option.
Decades later, in response to a Freedom of Information petition, the F.B.I. released its Hemingway file. It revealed that beginning in the 1940s J. Edgar Hoover had placed Ernest under surveillance because he was suspicious of Ernest’s activities in Cuba. Over the following years, agents filed reports on him and tapped his phones. The surveillance continued all through his confinement at St. Mary’s Hospital. It is likely that the phone outside his room was tapped after all.
In the years since, I have tried to reconcile Ernest’s fear of the F.B.I., which I regretfully misjudged, with the reality of the F.B.I. file. I now believe he truly sensed the surveillance, and that it substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide.
I was in Rome the day he died.
I did not go to Ketchum for the funeral. Instead I went to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, one of his favorite churches, and said goodbye to him there. I recalled a favorite dictum of his: man can be destroyed, but not defeated.A. E. Hotchner is the author of “Papa Hemingway” and “Hemingway and His World.”
References
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