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Shape
Your Screen Story--
Topic
Sixteen: Send your hero to hell. Use your
opposing attacking forces to pound the hero with
adversity. Make the hero struggle to adjust,
accommodate, or escape. Promote the opposing
attacking forces Make your hero "mad as
hell".
Topic
Seventeen: Help your hero with his or her plan.
The Hero's plan to defeat the Opposing/Attacking
Force involves performing a multi-step Task. Hero's
task is daunting, sustained, high risk, and almost
impossible to accomplish. Other characters insist
the task is too difficult, but the Hero values the
Win and the Prize so highly that he will risk
failure, defeat and death to succeed. Make the Hero
summon up Courage, Confidence, and Determination.
Promote the Opposing Attacking Forces and thwart
your hero so his plan fails Use a close character
to push the hero face-to-face with the moral
deficiency at the core of the hero's
character.
Topic
Eighteen: Create the final struggle. The black
moment. In order to set up the final victory of the
hero, you need to create a situation in which the
audience will fear that the hero is finished,
beaten. The resilient and resourceful hero At this
point of the script you need to make your hero use
all his or her cunning, strength, and courage to
get an edge on the villain. Discovery of the
weakness You need to help your hero seek out and
find an undiscovered weakness in the opposing
force, and move aggressively to attack it. The
final attack Show the audience how the hero
prepares for and marshalls forces for the attack
The final conflict Make your hero do battle with
the opposing forces and defeat them, not by raw
power or superior forces, but by means of strength
of character, persistence, cleverness and courage.
Enjoying the Win and the Prize. Reward your hero by
letting him or her savor the Win and collect the
Prize. Make the hero realize how his or her world
is going to be different. Dramatize in action how
the hero's world is going to be in the
future.
Topic
Nineteen: Organize your story material. Put
your cards and notes in the order in which the
material will play in your movie. You may have
already done this along the way or left it till
now. If not, do it before beginning to write
scenes. Make a list of the scenes that will be in
your movie. This will be a rough list. Keep the
descriptions of the scenes short. Use sentence
fragments. Just get down what you think the content
of the scene will be. Track the hero's Key Decision
Moments. This is a vital part of the screenwriting
process. For every act that the hero performs,
there is a moment previous to the act when he or
she decided to take the action. You need to plan
which "decision moments" will be in your
movie.
Some
Thoughts To Ponder--
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Being
or becoming a screenwriter.
Or where do you fit in the whole business
of making movies?
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Topic
Twenty: Create the interplay among your Hero,
the Goal, and the Task.
Topic
Twenty-One: Creating and controlling the
Opposing and Attacking Force.
Write
The Draft--
Topic
Twenty-Two: Get ready to write script. At this
point you have completed your research, created the
Story, and shaped the Story in the order in which
the scenes will be played in your movie.
Examination of the fundamental unit of the
screenplay: The Scene. Flow. How to build energy
and surprise by manipulating FLOW. The Edit. How to
capitalize on the energy of the cut from scene to
scene.
Topic
Twenty-Four: Write the first 10 pages. Set up
your movie. What are the first great scenes in your
story? Your first five scene/sequences must be your
best presentation of the forces that will contend
and battle it out to the finish. Detailed examples
and comparisons from produced movies: Witness, and
The Terminator. If you can write these first pages
really well, those pages will energize the writing
of the rest of the screenplay. You might have to
rewrite the first ten pages ten times, or fifty
times, but it's worth the effort to get them
feeling strong and dramatic, and true.
Topic
Twenty-Five: Setting--the unsung
hero...
Topic
Twenty-Six: The setup and payoff. Alternating
current from beginning to end.
Go to: Seminar
Topics
27-38
Go back to: Seminar Details
Page 3
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