The Hero's Journey

A movie is structure. ~Richard Brooks

Screenplays are structure, and that’s all they are. ~William Goldman

Screenplays are structure, the greatest ‘idea’ in the world is not enough to produce a satisfying film. ~Peter Jackson

Screenplays are structured stories, pure and simple. ~Christopher Boone

A screenplay is a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of dramatic structure. ~Syd Field

Screenwriting is all about structure (and other things). There are several major theories about structure, one of the more famous is "The Hero's Journey." You can learn about it by reading Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, or Christopher Vogler's book The Writers Journey. 

Or, you can learn about "The Hero’s Journey" from puppets, by watching this Glove and Boots video. (And find out why recent Adam Sandler films sucked at the same time. Bonus.)

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First posted: 15 August 2013

The Hero's Journey

A movie is structure. ~Richard Brooks

Screenplays are structure, and that’s all they are. ~William Goldman

Screenplays are structure, the greatest ‘idea’ in the world is not enough to produce a satisfying film. ~Peter Jackson

Screenplays are structured stories, pure and simple. ~Christopher Boone

A screenplay is a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of dramatic structure. ~Syd Field

Screenwriting is all about structure (and other things). There are several major theories about structure, one of the more famous is "The Hero's Journey." You can learn about it by reading Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, or Christopher Vogler's book The Writers Journey. 

Or, you can learn about "The Hero’s Journey" from puppets, by watching this Glove and Boots video. (And find out why recent Adam Sandler films sucked at the same time. Bonus.)

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"Finding Joe" - the documentary

Joseph Campbell

You've heard of Joseph Campbell, the bloke who wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces back in 1949. He is the person most closely associated with the phrase which has become the standard description of a story in screenwriting circles: The Hero's Journey. 

Campbell's work (and, no, I'm not buying into the debate about who first did what, when) was massaged and recycled by Christopher Vogler in his book The Writer's Journey. 

Now we have a documentary—Finding Joe—written, produced and directed by Patrick Takaya Solomon, a guy who spent many years directing commercials and action sports films dealing with snowboarding, motocross, skateboarding, etc. It was Campbell's book that first inspired Solomon to become a director. 

Years later he decided to make this documentary. It is not a biography. It doesn't provide any critical perspective on Campbell's life and work. Instead it consists of a series of interviews and dramatizations of what some people believe could be the practical application of Campbell's theories in real life. 

Finding Joe includes a substantial number of film clips, and interviews with people like Deepak Chopra, Mick Fleetwood, Rashida Jones, Tony Hawk, Catherine Hardwicke, Laird Hamilton, Robert Walter, Akiva Goldsman, Sir Ken Robinson, Robin Sharma, Lynne Kaufman, Alan Cohen, Brian Johnson, Joseph Marshall III, Rebecca Armstrong, Chungliang Al Huang, David L. Miller, Gay Hendricks, David Loy, and Norman Ollestad. 

Here's the trailer.

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