Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin June 25th, 2008

Everything in movies is fake. That’s understandable considering the nature of the medium. But in order for a story to work, it needs to be believable. That’s where knowledge comes into play. This is especially true when you look at your premise.

Take Iron Man for example. The key to powered armor is energy. The solve this problem early on with the mini arc generator. They don’t even bother explaining how the arc generator works because if they did, all the engineers would be able to poke holes in it. Just by telling us, and then showing us that it generates massive amounts of energy is enough. We buy it.

Then you look at something like Untraceable. The premise is a killer who can’t be traced through the internet. Even basic understanding of how the internet works would show that it could never happen.

But “reality” is different in every movie. Something that could work in Star Wars may not work in Apollo 13 because they have different rules because they exist in different universes. Certain things like physics, math, etc, are still true because we accept them as universal. But there are aspects that we believe because we understand that Star Wars is a fantasy.

The moment your audience says, “No way!” with disdain, you’ve lost them. Any credibility you’ve built is out the window and they’ve written off the entire film. This is especially true with your premise. If no one will believe your premise, you’re fighting them the whole way.

So do your research. Make sure you stuff makes sense so your audience will believe the lie.

-Penguin

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Penguin June 10th, 2008

I’m used to the whole concept of screenplay structure. You have 3 acts, hero’s journey etc. But what if there was an underlying formula that could tell if your script would be good or not? It seems like they’ve done just that. Created a formula for the blockbuster.

Dick Copaken and Nick Meaney created Epagogix, a neural net that guesses how much a movie will take in at the box office. The most interesting part about the article, is that even if the software can identify areas where a script can be improved, it still needs a writer to improve it. What else is interesting is that it doesn’t seem to care about structure at all. The software seems to care about details.

At the center is the creation of art is the question, “Is there a basic formula?”

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves,” the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote. “It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”

But Hume had a Scottish counterpart, Lord Kames, and Lord Kames was equally convinced that traits like beauty, sublimity, and grandeur were indeed reducible to a rational system of rules and precepts. He devised principles of congruity, propriety, and perspicuity: an elevated subject, for instance, must be expressed in elevated language; sound and signification should be in concordance; a woman was most attractive when in distress; depicted misfortunes must never occur by chance.

Granted, there may or may not be a formula for the blockbuster. Even if there is, you still have to write it. But how can we use this knowledge to improve our writing? We watch great films and ask, what makes it great? We watch terrible films, and ask, what makes it suck? Most importantly, we live life so we can find those memorable moments. Build up our library of small stories that we can link together to make something great.

-Penguin

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Penguin May 15th, 2008

Filmmaker Magazine has an old but fantastic article on “development“.

The first half goes through and discusses the Hollywood system and how writers are undervalued. Granted, this was written in 1995, and having no experience in the system, I wouldn’t be able to say if it’s still accurate. But based on the way business moves, I would imagine it being about the same.

Towards the end, there are some great tips and guides on how to edit screenplays from a producer or director standpoint.

For the producer

• Treatments and outlines are usually a waste of time.
  This applies to original spec scripts, not necessarily book adaptations or remakes. I know as a writer, I find a very general plot outline very helpful as a guide when I’m writing. But I try not to let it guide me too much. My final work ends up being fairly different from my outline. Her point is that the process of writing is a journey. Often times, as you flesh out ideas, the path and destination of the journey changes.
• First Drafts.
  First drafts are the initial thoughts and ideas that the writer has put down on paper. The expectation shouldn’t be that it’s great, but a starting point. From the writing side, the first draft is usually the worst. Not because it’s the first thing that you’ve written, but because all those fresh and interesting ideas are no longer fresh or interesting. That’s because they’ve been written and you’ve read them a couple hundred times.
• Call the writer as soon as you’ve read the first draft, before you talk to anyone else about it.
  The idea is to give the writer feedback right away. I know when I finish a draft I want SOMEONE to read it right away. Someone I can trust to be critical and point out the good and the bad.
• How to talk to writers.
  Always give praise to the good things. Gush about it, because there are going to be plenty of things you’re going to tear down. This builds up the emotional quotient so they’ll push on with the script. Our egos are fragile, and as much as we like to think we can take it, it hurts when you tear into that one scene that we just absolutely LOVE.
• Editing the first draft.
  I like my notes on the page, in the margins. When I go through and make my changes, I’m going to go through page by page. This helps me from having to refer to a separate sheet of notes. Comments about your initial thoughts, what you liked about it, what you didn’t like. But I like questions. Usually these questions arise because something in the script is confusing or something needs clarifying.
• Editing the second draft.
  Talk through every scene with the writer. Find his motivations and intents. This may help you clarify your own thoughts. Also be sure to mark which parts are good and shouldn’t be changed. The tendency is to go and kill everything after this draft.

There are a few more tips, but I found these the most useful.

-Penguin

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Penguin May 7th, 2008

John August has a fantastic post about learning how to write story structure:

My advice for you is to dedicate one day a week to disassembling good movies. Take existing films (and one-hour dramas) and break them down to cards. Think of yourself as an ordinary mechanic given the task of reverse-engineering a spaceship. Figure out what the pieces do, and why they were put together in that way.

Here are the questions you need to ask about each scene or sequence:

• As the audience, what am I expecting will happen next?
• What does the character want to do next?
• Is this a good moment to let the character achieve something, or knock him back?
• How long has it been since we checked in with other character and subplots?
• What would have happened if this scene had been cut? Or moved?

By asking these questions about other people’s movies, you can take some of the pressure off.
[...]
I think you can keep making breakthroughs in your writing, but only by challenging your preconceived limitations.

This is great advice for any novice/intermediate screenwriters. I know I’ve been struggling with the same question. Now to actually get to writing.

-Penguin

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Penguin March 25th, 2008

John August has a nice post on Rethinking Motivation:

In film school, we were taught to look at character motivation as the combination of two questions:

1. What does the character want.
2. What does the character need.

He redefines it as: “Why is the character doing what he’s doing?” “you need to be careful not to stop at the first easy answer”.

I think this is a great way to look at motivation and replaces one of the core questions in Where’s Your Story. Even if the audience doesn’t know why the character is doing what they’re doing. It’s definitely important for you, as the writer, to know why.

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Penguin March 17th, 2008

Source: John August

boring bits of a movie are generally the first things to get trimmed out in an edit, these crucial explanatory moments are likely to get dropped unless they’re written extremely carefully, in the (often misguided) theory that no information is better than boring information.

Keep it short. The audience doesn’t need to care about how your contraption or whatever works. Stargate got it right. Whenever Carter would get into some technobabble, O’Neil would just cut her off.

Use a supporting character. Make sure the character has a function beyond exposition. A villain is a classic choice of this. Just don’t explain everything right before your hero’s death. Another solution is to have your hero “pursue the Answer Man” so there will be a sense of progress.

Let them figure it out. The best way to do this is to build scenes where their discovery is organic and moves the story forward. “A great recent example is the videogame Portal (from the Orange Box), in which the player has to learn how to control a physics-defying device.” In other words, let the characters experiment.

Pre-empt the questions.

For instance, the make-believe science of precognition in Minority Report raised a huge number of causality issues, which you could easily spend the whole movie trying to address.

But it was meant to be a thriller, not a head-scratcher, so I added a scene in which a skeptic (Witwer) catches a glass ball just as it rolls off a table… by showing it as something visual and physical, we’ve preempted endless questions about the physics and ethics of their legal system.

Similies and metaphors. By relating to something that’s easy to understand or easy to visualize, you’ll clue in your audience without getting into the nitty gritty.

Show a clip. “Obviously, it’s not always possible or appropriate for your characters to stop what they’re doing to watch a film. But if it makes sense in context, it’s worth considering. Just keep it entertaining, and brief.”

“Entertaining and brief” is good advice no matter which method you choose for presenting difficult information. Done artfully, the reader should never sense that he’s being told anything. It was just story. To that end, avoid scenes which could be summarized, “Hero learns…” That’s a tip-off that your character is listening rather seeking, observing rather than participating. “Discovering” is an action. So are “confronting,” “exploring,” and “testing.” Put your characters to work, and the audience will never realize they’re getting an explanation.

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Penguin March 2nd, 2008

You can’t tell your hero’s story unless you know who he is. You may have a great wound from the research you did, but if you don’t know anything else about him, he’ll end up being hollow and 1 dimensional.

You have to know everything about your hero. When and where he was born. His childhood. His teenage years. Where did he go to school? Who were his friends? What are his likes and dislikes? Most importantly, you need to know his psychological and moral wounds. You have to know how he thinks. What are your character’s values?

A hero can never be a coward. He may seem like a coward, but in the end, he can’t really be a coward. If he were, there would be no movie. He’d just stop trying at the first sign of adversity.

The backstory that you create for your character is used to turn the film. Think of it as a ghost or a skeleton in his closet, something that has yet to be resolved. Kinship is the key to great ghosts. An uncle dies, we feel bad. His wife dies, we feel worse. His uncle betrays him, we feel bad. His wife betrays him, we feel worse.

When it comes to backstory, less is more. You only need enough to drive the story. The backstory is only important if it generates conflicts, reveals something hidden, or illuminates the present.

Here are some good questions to ask your hero:

• What is the worst possible thing that could happen, short of death?
• How could this be the best thing that happened to him?
• What’s the best thing that could happen to him?
• How could this be the worst thing that’s happened?

-Penguin

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Penguin March 1st, 2008

We’re working our way backwards through 3 questions you should ask your screenplay. We’ve covered “Why should I care?” and now we’re going to ask “Who is driving the story?”

You’ll be surprised by the answer to this question. A lot of times, we think and hope it’s our hero, but that’s not always the case. You can ask the following questions determine who the protagonist really is.

• Who is making the choices?
• Who is taking action versus just reacting?
• Who has the wound?
• Who has the desire that drives the film?
• Who has the major self revelation at the end?

This is not to say you can’t make a great film if your hero doesn’t do this. But you have to understand that your hero is the character the audience has hooked on to. They’re the one they care about. They’ll be experiencing things through him.

-Penguin

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Penguin February 29th, 2008

Of the 3 questions: Who’s the hero? What does he want? Why should I care? This last one is the most important.

Why is it important? First, you need to understand why people go to the movies. Sure, they want to be educated, to be entertained, to laugh. But the major reason is to share emotions and experiences. There is an unspoken contract between the audience and the filmmaker: “I am coming to have these experiences, therefore, you must provide a vehicle for those experiences.” The gateway for those experiences is your hero or protagonist.

Your hero doesn’t have to be sympathetic or even likable. But your hero has to have enough interesting qualities that the audience will agree to follow his story. The audience needs to care what happens to your hero, otherwise, it’s going to be boring. Boredom is the greatest sin of all writing.

Whittled down to its essence, movies are all about values. The values of your hero, the values that you bring as a writer. As a writer, your duty is to reveal your values to the audience. Your values are revealed through your hero. If you have nothing to say, then the audience doesn’t care.

I said before that your hero doesn’t have to be likable, but he does have to be the “center of good”. Now, that’s not to say he has to be a good person. He just needs to be better than the world around him.

Your hero also has to have a wound. We talked about this a bit in research. Your hero needs an area where he can grow, whether physically, morally, or psychologically. It’s this wound that will hook the audience for the ride.

So, we finally get to the question: “Why should I care?” How do we answer that? With empathy. Our hero is the hook for the audience. Our hero is the vehicle for our values. How do we get them to ride along with the film? How do get the audience to care about the hero? Through empathy.

The audience needs to care about your hero. They need to be able to empathize with him. They need to relate to him.

Here’s some common ways to build empathy:

• Make your hero the victim of outrageous misfortune.
• Place your hero in danger.
• Look for empathetic traits to build into your hero: funny, good at what they do, nice

Along with those techniques, every reversal, every mishap, every obstacle that gets in the way of your hero’s progress, builds empathy.

Without empathy, you have no audience. Film is about hitting the emotions of your audience so they can experience something. If you hit the emotions, you can do whatever you like.

-Penguin

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Penguin February 28th, 2008

Every screenplay has a set of commonalities. They all have scene descriptions. They all have character descriptions. They all have dialogue. They’re all formatted. They all have interesting ideas or premises. But most screenplays, 98% of them, from the pros down to the noob, have the same problem. They don’t have a story or empathy.

When you’re writing, ask yourself 3 questions

Who’s story is this? Who’s the hero? Who’s driving the story forward?
What does he want? What is the compelling drive that forces the story to move forward? Why is the hero doing what he’s doing?
Why should I care?

There’s a place for dialogue, scene and character descriptions, but that’s at the end of your script. Not literally, but after the structure for your film works. Without that core structure, the frame, the architecture, your story will collapse. All the other stuff is just paneling. This isn’t to say that you can’t write any of that stuff. It just means they’re not as important as the structure.

If you listen to little kids tell stories, they’re full of exquisite details about everything. But they’re boring. Because they’re linear. Everything is, then and then and then. They tell you everything. Good stories are told on the cut. The go from high to low, positive to negative, good to bad, progress to reversal (or setback). Good stories leave out all the chaff.

-Penguin

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