Mar
7
Exciting Coincidence?
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“A strong inciting incident is an event that happens to the protagonist, never an action by the protagonist“, I said.
Then I asked you for exceptions, i.e. strong Inciting Incidents that are actions by the protagonist.
Now have a look at the first three responses I received: 1.) THELMA & LOUISE, 2.) PULP FICTION and 3.) KING LEAR.
Look at them again and see if you remember 1) who causes the inciting incident and 2)how does the character end in the story?
The answer is baffling.
1. Louise kills a man. The end: Louise dies.
2. Vincent kills Marvin. The end: Vincent dies.
3. King Lear excludes Cordelia. The end: King Lear dies.
“If the protagonist triggers the story, he/she dies at the end of the story”.
Story rule or rubbish?
Either way, for these three striking examples, Tom, Brett and Margaret each earned themselves three months Premium Subscription. Well done.
Recently UNK blogged about Inciting Incident (another exciting coincidence: one day earlier, someone hit my web site using the key words inciting incident definitions.) and among his favourite I.I.’s he lists COOL HAND LUKE.
Here we go:
4. Luke cracks open parking meters. The end: Luke dies.
OK. It is getting quite convincing now, if you ask me. Does it mean that EACH TIME a protagonist incites the story, we have a down ending? Probably not. Perhaps the readers of this blog just have a slight predilection for somber movies. 
Anyhow, I found the examples you sent to me striking.
Here are some more exceptions to the “event-not-action” rule I received later:
- Simon: “Not my kind of thing really, but what about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?”
- Simon D.: “What about any story where the protagonist activates something, like the Princess and the Frog in the pond, Pandora’s Box etc”
- Jim: “If Russell Crowe is the Protagonist in ‘Yuma’, then it happens in that.”
- Chris: “3 Movies that the protagonist is responsible for the inciting incident: Scarface, June, O Brother Where Art Thou.”
- Robert: “Chow Yun Fat’s Hitman character accidentally blinds a girl during a hit on a triad boss that he is carrying out. Therefore he himself sets in motion the “inciting incident” and for the rest of the film sets out to redeem himself and possibly help the bling girl regain her eyesight by doing more “hits” to pay for the operation!”
Thank you all! It was a great exercise.
WHERE TO START
As to screenwriting theory, there are so many sources of conflicting advice it is difficult to know who to listen to. Each new piece of advice can be as convincing as the one that came before it. What should you do?
How do you choose who to listen to?
Do you take the word of
- the most influential,
- the most popular,
- the most convincing,
- the loudest,
- the most confident,
- or maybe what they perceive to be the safest.
As a person who dishes out daily doses of advice I am as guilty as anyone out there who tries to offer opinions of what you ’should’ do.
The fact is, at worst people do not have any idea what will work for you, and at best they can only rely on their own experience. Certainly I give you the benefit of what I have learned through my work, but you still have to work out what will work for you.
I am still learning, things still take me by surprise. You may have read me say before, I am of the opinion you can learn something from every person you meet. Your job is to not blindly accept what you are told but collate it, cogitate on it and apply it in your own unique way.
Work out the approaches that suit you best, that fit what you are trying to achieve and how. Which stories resonate with you, and enthuse you, separate out those that leave you cold.
You can never take the same journey twice, your journey is yours and yours alone, but you can learn about possible pot holes and beauty trails from people who have traveled a similar path before you.
Here I have to confess something: all the above (except the first four words “As to screenwriting theory”) was taken literally from Chris Garrett’s blog on blogging. When I read it, I found it so completely true for pretty much any field of learning, including ours.
My own little piece of advice on where to start learning?
Just write, every day, undisturbed by what you learn or what people say. While you are doing so, go through the list below. And take your time.
1. Read McKee’s STORY, or better: listen to the audio book. You won’t learn too much about the craft, but you’ll get a feel for what you’re in for. If you have less time and you want to be fashionable, read Blake Snyder’s SAVE THE CAT.
2. Take a craft workshop. Mine, Hauge’s or John Truby’s. Read the stuff they have published.
3. Watch movies a second time to break them down into acts, sequences and plot points. Dozens of them, until you start seeing the light.
4. Carefully choose a story consultant you can trust and you like to work with. You will continue to learn, but now specifically about your own strengths and weaknesses.
At this point, you will have found your vision and direction. You will see which of the savants out there fall within your view on storytelling. Read their books, join their seminars.
Finally, you are on your own, confidently.
And while you just continue writing, your craft will improve, and improve, and improve…
CONFIDENTIALITY KILLED THE CAT
My apologies if you were re-directed here from the newsletter. The article will be re-published at a later stage.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING? YOU AND YOUR HERO?
It has been the core of my consultancy and teaching: the protagonist needs a clear and present desire.
Nothing new, though, Michael Hauge has been teaching this for much longer. In the context of Michael’s visit to Australia in two months, I interviewed him and the full text will soon be available to my clients and for subscribers of The Story Dept. Here’s an excerpt:
Karel: Two problems I often find in screenplays by inexperienced writers are 1) the choice of protagonist and 2) the key qualities of the protagonist. Would you mind giving us an insight?
Michael: In almost every case where the problem seems to be choosing the wrong protagonist, the writer isn’t clear about what the story concept is, about what the hero’s visible goal is.
In other words: if the writer is operating under the belief that they just need to portray characters and show them going through a situation in their life and let’s see what happens, then that’s the quicksand they have stepped into. Because movies are about heroes who are pursuing specific visible goals.
It is about stopping the serial killer, about escaping from the panic room or from N.Y. or from Alcatraz, about winning the love of another person or winning an athletic competition. Or it’s about getting the buried treasure. But the goal must be specific, must be visible, must have a clearly defined end point.
The first part of the full interview is now online on the Premium Ed. As usual, it will be visible for a few days only. After that you will need a subscription to see it. Part two and three will follow over the next few days, as well as a podcast (audio) version of the telephone interview.
NO POV, NO PLAY
The RATATOUILLE DVD shows has 1 (one) deleted scene. It is a long, uninterrupted travel from a wide establishing shot of the Paris skyline down to street level, through the Auguste Gusteau restaurant and ending on Remi, our hero.
The shot could have been spectacular, reminding of the opening shot of TOUCH OF EVIL and its pastiche in THE PLAYER.
Brad Bird’s commentary talks about the reason why it was cut and it is simply: Point of View.
The natural question that would occur is “Why would you cut this spectacular shot?”, because it is obviously great. “I want to see that film!” Well, I feel that way, too.
The problem, once you get passed the initial sort of rush of seeing this very elaborate shot that shows you a lot of different things in one shot and very impressively, is that it is no character’s point of view.
It is just a sort of God-like shot where you’re presented this whole world and it is spectacular and there have been many fine shots like that – Touch of Evil being one – that were great but I felt that this is Remi’s movie and it needed to be Remi’s perspective.
And I want to know the emotions that lead up to Remi looking into the kitchen. I don’t just want it laid on a platter, you know, just cut to Darth going “You’re my son, Luke.”
We should be with Remi when he has that moment. We should know how he is experiencing it and what is he feeling when he is experiencing it. And you kind of aren’t, this way.
It did lay everything out, but I don’t think that it took the audience with it.
-Brad Bird
Brad Bird’s reasoning confirms what I have written about ‘omniscient POV’: it is weak, or worse, it doesn’t work.
Movies are inherently about empathising, even identifying with characters.
When you step out of the protagonist’s POV, it should be to shift to another POV, never to take an omniscient POV.
Omniscient POV is devoid of emotion.
Read some more about Point of View here.
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Feb
8
When talking about story structure, many people talk about where exactly in the story the structural element needs to happen. Often this is expressed in terms of a page number, or even a percentage of the film’s total duration.
I would prefer to leave such quantification aside for a moment and rather look into what these structural elements need to achieve.
For the inciting incident, here is my most important conclusion:
The inciting incident is a major event happening to the protagonist, never an action or decision by the protagonist.
When before I stated that the inciting incident must be a ‘deus ex machina’, I was wrong. Although it may seem so for our hero, it can but doesn’t need to be an act of God. But in any case it must be beyond the control of the protagonist.
To demonstrate that an action by the protagonist cannot work as an inciting incident, let’s look at two films that had a lot going for them but still failed to break out at the box office.
The following logline of Somersault, from a document published by the Australian Film Commission, claims to contain the film’s starting event. It says:
- A teenage girl runs away from home, hoping to find herself through love, but the people she meets are as lost as she is.
If the girl running away from home is the starting event, (i.e. the inciting incident), this is not a strong enough trigger for the story. But are we missing something? Why does she run from home? This is what we find on iMDB:
Heidi, 15, runs away from home after her mom sees her kissing mom’s boyfriend.
That, to me, reads like a pretty powerful inciting incident to the mother’s character. Not to the girl, because she started it in the first place.
McKee is absolutely right when he says the inciting incident should force the protagonist to act.
If the cause of the girl’s running away is not important enough to mention in the logline, it is probably not big enough to kick off the story. And the audience wouldn’t get the point that the story has effectively started. Such a ’soft launch’ of a film should be avoided at all cost.
Similarly, in what I believe to be the inciting incident of LUCKY YOU, Eric Bana’s character decides to bet all he has (i.e. the pawn ticket of his mother’s wedding ring) in a game of poker against his dad. When he loses, I feel it was his own mistake and he could have avoided it. It is not strong enough to start the movie.
Both films performed relatively poorly, given the exposure they had at the time of release. It certainly was not just because their weak inciting incidents, but I do believe it might have had something to do with that.
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Sep
25
Anyone Can Cook
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Earlier this year, a friend of mine bought an expensive High Definition Video camera. He had saved up for it for a long time. In stead he could have bought a second hand Subaru. But he doesn’t care he doesn’t have a car. He has a dream. The Australian Dream.
Australia is a hands-on type of nation. When I arrived in 2001, it didn’t take me long to get my first short film off the ground. So many wonderful people, eager to get their hands dirty and help me out. After all, filmmaking doesn’t have to be the cumbersome, expensive art it used to be. In a way it is still cumbersome but the essentials to capture and reproduce images have become so cheap they are now within reach of anyone with a job or a credit card.
The largest short film festival in the world started in Sydney. Meanwhile Tropfest has spilled out to all major Australian cities and even the rest of the world . The fact it started here in Australia is no coincidence. When an Australian wants to do something, he doesn’t first sit down to ponder about how it is usually done and then wait for an opportunity to arise so the job gets a bit easier. The Australian goes for it. ASAP.
You can hear me coming: despite all the good intentions there is a downside to this “let’s just do it” attitude. In the case of filmmaking, I cannot shed the impression the Australian believes there are shortcuts. What is the easiest way to get your idea on the screen? You hire or buy a video camera, get some mates to stand in front of it and “just do it”. We are all made to believe this is how it works. Practical guides to the use of digital equipment make it seem like child’s play.
It is an illusion that has cost us dearly in recent years. I have seen a fair few movies lately that were all made with lots of enthusiasm but not a lot of thought gone into the screenplay. What is it with movies that people just cannot stop believing the illusion? At this point I must add that what sets my friend with the HD camera apart from the crowd, is this: he had first invested a significant amount of money in learning the craft of screenwriting.
FINAL GOODBYE FINAL DRAFT?
Only yesterday I received an email from which I quote:
“I have about 3 ideas for scripts, they would be produced entirely by my friends and I. I need to put the first drafts down I am trying to round up a script writing program to make it easier.”
There is the other myth: Final Draft will help you write your script. (On a separate note: soon that myth may be forever buried, when Celtx takes over. They have just released version 0.995 and it is starting to look better than anything on the market. Interesting detail: Celtx is free. At least no money will be wasted on the illusion that software could spit out a story.)
In his book STORY, Robert McKee makes the point:
“If your dream were to compose music, would you say to yourself: “I’ve heard a lot of symphonies… I can also play the piano… I think I’ll knock one out this weekend? No. But that’s exactly how many screenwriters begin: “I’ve seen a lot of flicks, some good and some bad… I got A’s in English… vacation time ’s coming…”
The essence of story is not rocket science. I keep repeating: it is a learnable skill. But a skill that must be learned nonetheless. What you cannot learn is the inspiration, the need to tell a specific story. Yet so many people with the desire to tell that story believe they can get away without properly mastering the craft. They want to build the house without a notion of engineering. They want to compose a symphony without knowing a C from a Cis. They want to serve a bouillabaisse but can’t even cook a ratatouille.
If you were hoping there might be a new generation waiting to jump in and rejuvenate this general malaise, the following might put a stop to your optimism. At a networking event earlier this year, I spoke with a university student who had taken a screenwriting class the previous year. Asked about the one thing she took away from that class, she answered:
“I guess, that you can break the rules and still get away with it.”
THE OMNIPOTENT FUNDING AGENCIES
Having recently caught up on some Australian films of the past few years (see my previous post) and listening to feedback from others on more recent films (Clubland, West, Suburban Mayhem etc.) it seems these pictures are unable to connect with a mainstream audience. Or any audience, for that matter. It’s no longer an issue of getting the audience into the theater, if those who saw the films are not entertained. There are strong indications the problems don’t lie in the execution but in the bare essentials of story. Yep, they are breaking the rules.
But where did things start to go wrong? I believe the lack of understanding of the principles of story has become endemic for our entire industry. Not only do writers lack the skills: producers and funding decision makers fail to see the flaws in screenplays. As long as the ‘elements’ are in place, the film will get made. The ‘elements’ being: cast, technically experienced crew, government funding etc.
On the government’s role: while preparing development notes for a government funding application, a particular paragraph in the guidelines struck me.
“What is the point of view (POV) of the script? That is, where is the audience positioned in relation to the script? Are they close to one central character? Is it an omnipotent POV?”
An “omnipotent POV”?? Somebody has lost the plot here. Point of view is crucially important in a story. The terminology should be second nature to anyone even remotely involved in screenwriting, let alone the funding of it. If even the funding agencies cannot get their act together, why would anyone expect the writers would? Interesting to note that the same funding agency has been reported to have feature drama screenplays assessed by documentary film makers. Go figure.
Recently a young filmmaker submitted a rough cut on DVD with an application for post-production funding. The application was rejected. The assessor didn’t like the film? Correction: the assessor didn’t like the screenplay. The rejection was justified in a multi-page assessment of the screenplay. The assessor did reference the DVD but the brunt of his tirade was directed at the script.
Why am I concerned… Very concerned…
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Apr
24
NOT Story
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Last year I attended Linda Aronson’s PLOT CONSTRUCTION WORKSHOP and was disappointed with her analysis of Michael Mann’s THE INSIDER. Indirectly that disappointment would lead to the creation of this blog.
Rather than opening a dialogue about why THE INSIDER works for some people and not for others, Linda treated it as an example of a failed script. To her defense: it was only part of that night’s workshop and time constraints didn’t allow her to divert.
THE INSIDER not only put Russell Crowe on the celebrity map with a Best Actor Nomination, the movie was also nominated for another six awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. That’s a pretty good result for a ‘failed script’. As a matter of fact, it smells a bit like my not so smart move to call WOLF CREEK a ‘missed opportunity’ in terms of screenwriting at the offices of Australia’s Film Financing Corporation.
Linda Aronson’s workshops got me thinking and inspired me to the idea of an online forum about issues like this and about story structure in general. Australia doesn’t have a screenwriting culture which recognises the importance of story development as opposed to script development.
We have an abundance of script assessment services happily charging writers hundreds of dollars for a full screenplay assessment without assessing the story’s overall dramatic structure first. Does any established producer / government funding body / Hollywood Studio read a full-length spec script without judging the story outline first? Right.
But enough of this sub plot for now. Back to the main story.
THE INSIDER – SCHINDLER’S LIST
I don’t recall Linda’s argument about THE INSIDER in detail as I have the arrogant habit to shut down when I am not allowed to argue my point. In essence, I believe the bottom line was: the casting of Al Pacino shows that the filmmakers considered his character the protagonist (Russell Crowe was pretty much a nobody on the international scene until that movie) but Pacino’s character is too weak and underdeveloped to carry the movie for its runtime of over two and a half hours.
A lot of movie buffs (including members of the Academy) will agree that THE INSIDER worked, despite its slightly unconventional structure. Linda is right: the script does not follow a straightforward three act plot.
Instead I believe here are two main stories with three acts each, hooked into each other very much like SCHINDLER’S LIST in which we first follow Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) who’s objective it is to get as many Jews into the factory as possible. Once we are well into his journey’s second act and over an hour into the film, Schindler (Liam Neeson) witnesses the clearing of the Krakow ghetto which demarcates his first act’s turning point. Now his objective is to get the workers out of the factory and into safety. Think about it: the Schindler character doesn’t really have a strong enough dramatic objective to get the story to that point. But Stern does.
Similarly, in THE INSIDER it is Wigand’s (Russell Crowe) Second Act objective to get his inside information safely to Bergman (Al Pacino), at which point we’re already into Bergman’s Second Act, which is all about getting the information to the public through his television show. Obviously we are now only talking about what Vogler would call the Hero’s Outer Journey, i.e. the ‘visible desire’. But I believe the Inner Journeys of these characters very much follow the same structure.
I would love to hear your view on these (admittedly rudimentary) story analyses. To me these two movies illustrate that:
- it is a myth that a movie should have three acts.
- it is a must that major characters have three acts.
However…
SYRIANA recently scratched a thin layer off my confidence in the traditional three act story structure. For a short while at least. To say that writer/director Stephen Gaghan is not really a slavish follower of the Syd Fields and Robert McKee’s of this world, is a bit of an understatement. Instead he learned from reading Tolstoy’s diaries in which the novelist explains his four main driving principles, the first of which is NOT “story”. Instead, in order of priority Tolstoy lists: Transition, Context, Story and Character.
McKEE vs. TOLSTOY
Clearly, this approach to screenwriting works for Gaghan who won earlier accolades with his script for Soderbergh’s TRAFFIC. Showing structural similarities with the latter film, SYRIANA paints a multi-textured, multi-protagonist tapestry giving us a hint of an insight in the complex issues that govern the world of the oil trade and middle-eastern politics. If you dig it, it’s riveting cinema and you’ll want to watch it again. If you don’t, you certainly have a valid reason for that.
SYRIANA is a brilliant piece of screenwriting but it appeals to the mind rather than the heart. Because of that, I don’t believe this type of political manifesto will mobilise the masses any time soon. Audiences today firstly want to be emotionally moved rather than intellectually engaged.
The above consideration is only an introduction to what I find one of the most entertaining discourses on screenwriting I have recently heard. In a podcast of nearly 90mins, Gaghan talks to CREATIVE SCREENWRITING MAGAZINE about his journey to screenwriting stardom, about his writing process and of course: SYRIANA.
Go to CREATIVE SCREENWRITING to find out how to download this podcast as well as other Q&A’s with the writers of CAPOTE, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE etc. If you’re having trouble with that, you can download the 80Mb Gaghan show directly from here: www.ozzywood.com/podcasts/Syriana.mp3
DVD COMMENTARIES
Not a lot of DVD’s come with a commentary that is useful from a story or screenwriting perspective. Hence the excitement when we do find one that sheds a good light on the movie from the writer’s pov.
Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST comes with a commentary track by Hollywood legend Ernest Lehman. And although he doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the actual writing process, he reveals a goldmine of facts and anecdotes about his working relationship with Hitch. Ironically, it’s another movie that wasn’t written following the screenwriting text books.
Speaking of which: a great analysis of NORTH BY NORTHWEST can be found in a work that I have been recommending a lot lately: Paul Gulino’s SCREENWRITING – THE SEQUENCE APPROACH. This book offers only about twenty pages of theory, followed by a thorough dramatic analysis of such great and diverse works as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DINER, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST and TOY STORY. The basis is the Aristotelian Three Act model, the principles of drama and anticipation as taught by the late Frank Daniel.
LOOSE ENDS (potential spoilers warning)
THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN: Wonderfully crafted feel-gooder. The only problem with this movie is its title. A more appealing label would have drawn even more people to the Box Office and made word of mouth easier. Hopkins is sensational and most side characters go beautifully against cliche. Somebody on IMDb calls it “A Chick Flick for Guys”. So true.
V FOR VENDETTA: When your name is Wachowsky, you don’t have to worry about story structure or character development. As long as you have a strong concept, the fans will queue. I applaude the subversive concept of portraying Guy Fawks as a hero but I wish I could have loved this movie more. The story would have been helped with a more rigorous development of the V / Evey relationship. Also, the Wachowsky’s have the bad habit of leaving their heroes for too long, one of the problems I seem to remember sunk Matrix III.
THE PROPOSITION (DVD): Now this one is out on DVD, I would recommend having a look at it from a story structure point of view. I sincerely enjoyed this movie until the scene when Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) throws the keys to the jail in the sand. To me this marks the end of the second act, which comes way too early in the movie. It also takes the wind out of the sails of the Stanley / Martha subplot which up until that point had been really nicely developed.
KING KONG (DVD): If you don’t like the 1933 original, you probably won’t like this one either. After all you’re expected to empathise with an ape and his consenting playmate. Despite the groundbreaking and breathtaking visuals in Jackson’s KONG, the real action after The Longest First Act in Human History (that is not counting SCHINDLER’S LIST) starts with a dino stampede which just briefly looks downright clumsy. But I didn’t mind it and the FX only get better towards the movie’s phenomenal finale on top of the Empire State.
In terms of Jackson’s (or rather: Fran Walsh’s) structure and drama skills, I’d like to refer again to a great article in Paul Gulino’s SCREENWRITING – THE SEQUENCE APPROACH in which the author makes a razorsharp analysis of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. It shows weaknesses that have been largely ironed out in the later installments of the trilogy and now also his version of KING KONG.
But I think I love this movie for a different reason. Peter Jackson is one of the very few living directors who can handle a colossal production like this and still retain a fresh, innocent and boyish feel. You forget the years of preparation and the sheer unmanageable machinery involved in getting this on the screen. It’s the type of magic which George Lucas has long lost.
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