The Three Stages of Pitch

One of the toughest things for many screenwriters to come to grips with is the Pitch Meeting. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were so bad at meetings that Steven Spielberg told them, "It's a good thing you guys write better than you pitch."

Lynda Obst, who produced films such as The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001), The Invention of Lying (2009), had the same problem when she started in Hollywood.

In her book, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches, Lynda says that when she first came to town, she wrote notes for herself, as she came to grips with this unusual social event.

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Pitch is transactional theater. The quality of its performance is an important factor in its outcome. Regardless of the nature of the story we pitch—historical drama, cartoon adventure, police procedural, inspirational coming of age, brainless comedy, classic remake—there is a customary structure to both its content and its performance. Each pitch has three stages.

1. The Prep

Before the segue into the pitch, the producer has to prep the room. We do this by talking about the spouse, the boy/girlfriend or lack thereof, Gymboree, yoga, diets, the playoffs (if it's the right season; any playoff will do), or whether some mogul is going to buy Sony or MCA or Disney or anywhere at all. Gossip is currency in prepping the room. Charm rules.

2. The Windup

The job of the windup is to warm up the room. No self-respecting producer should ever rely on the writer for personality and ease. (Notable exceptions are some comedy writers, who are like standup comedians. This brings to mind the perennial question: If the pitch is funny will the script necessarily be funny? Hard-learned answer: No.)

First of all, the writer is likely to be only person in the room more nervous than the producer. Second, his talent is often in inverse proportion to his ability to pitch—read: schmooze. Consider the almost axiomatic observation: Good writers pitch badly and bad writers pitch well. The exceptions—the good writers who pitch well—are a function of gifted personality. They're charming. They are often the most highly paid, more often future directors.

A tip: Writers for whom solutions come too quickly are suspect. The writer should know that the solution to a story point is supposed to be harder than that.

3. The Concept

Then the wired producer must meet his optimal challenge, the mark of a truly gifted pitcher: He must present the concept whole—the miniaturization of the idea. It must be succinct. This is the famous high concept. Its seminal influence is the TV Guide log line.  The most common (and banal) form of the high concept idea is the hybrid: as in "Pretty Woman meets Friday the Thirteenth" (a great-looking whore is dismembered by a horrific, hockey-mask wearing creep). It requires virtually no imagination. By combining the names of past hits, one forms genetically engineered new movie ideas—sort of.

The appeal of these ideas is that they appear to reduce the risk level for the buyer. And they don't take deep concentration to grasp. No limb jumping here. Just by referencing these past hits, we share their patina of success.

Before the meeting the producer should have prepared the writer to be able to tell the story without going into excruciating detail. Members of the pitching party should have resolved among themselves any major plot disputes. This sounds obvious, but I can't tell you how many pitch meetings I've seen go awry through internal debate. Like an escalating marital rift, these meetings dangle perilously on the precipice of collapse unless grand synthesis is quickly found. This is your job (producer). Subtle theoretical issues can remain tactically open as these minor snags often invite debate from the buyer, intriguing and involving him.

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Hello, He Lied    IMDb    Website    Sleepless in Hollywood

First posted: 31 August 2013

'Never go to a meeting without a strategy'

It's a cliche that Hollywood is a place of endless meetings. Woody Allen satirised the practice in Annie Hall (1977).

          A Hollywood Christmas party is in session, complete with
      music, milling people, circulating waiters holding out
      trays of drinks.  It's all very casual.  French doors run
      the entire width of one wall; they are opened to the back
      lawn, guests move from the room to outside and back in.
      It is crowded; bits of conversation and clinking glasses
      can be heard.  Two men, California-tanned, stand by the
      French doors talking.

                      1ST MAN
          Well, you take a meeting with him,
          I'll take a meeting with you if
          you'll take a meeting with Freddy.

                      2ND MAN
          I took a meeting with Freddy. Freddy
          took a meeting with Charlie. You
          take a meeting with him.

                      1ST MAN
          All the good meetings are taken.
 

"All the good meetings are taken."

Lynda Obst, who produced films such as The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001) and The Invention of Lyingh(2009), had a problem with meetings when she started work in Hollywood.

She talks about the lessons she learned in her book, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches.

I got it. If I didn't know what we wanted to accomplish, we couldn't accomplish anything. If we weren't there to score, we couldn't win. I never forgot this lesson. It goes like this: You are a salesman, so bring your sample case. A meeting is either won or lost, so you need a strategy. A strategy implements a plan or an agenda.
     Strategies are devised by intersecting your agenda with that of the other person at the meeting (i.e., "Let's talk about you. When can you help me with my agenda?"). If you have no strategy and just attend a meeting blindly, you lose your edge because you can count on the fact that your lunch date has a strategy.
     Every chance encounter is a meeting, and each meeting is part of a larger series of actions that, when taken together, accumulate into an overall agenda. Agendas can shift, change or adapt, particularly with a new job. But one must always have one. Each move either furthers or obstructs an agenda. Think of it as a board game.
     Sometimes meetings, because they are held in such delightful places, can be mistaken for high teas at which people forget what they're doing and start thinking they're merely having drinks with a couple of well-dressed people with great haircuts. But the truth is that each these well-manicured charmers is, in fact, ruthlessly pursuing his or her agenda. If he is a studio executive, he wants big summer pictures. A producer wants his scripts to be that summer hit. The most wide-ranging fishing expedition of a meeting has its agenda, even if it's only information gathering, friendship building, or propagandizing.
     At lunch with an agent, a producer's strategy would be to win her over and make her aware of his projects. Or simply to go fishing for new hot properties. This is called "tracking," and people are paid to do it. When he has her rapt attention, it's critical that he doesn't bore her to death.

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The following is a sample lunch conversation between a producer and a reluctant literary agent.

Producer: So how was your New Year's? ... Aspen?
  (It's never boring if he talks about her.)
Agent: Hawaii. I was sick the whole time.
  (Shut down—or an opening?)
Producer: How hideous! Did you get a lot of reading done?
  (Lead the dance.)
Agent: Had to. When I finally felt better, it was pouring.
Producer: What you need is a great big auction over your new favorite script.
Agent: I did read a really terrific new writer over vacation.
  (BINGO!)
Producer: You know how I love to work with new writers! Why don't you slip it to me early...
  (A descendant of "sock it to me," slipping a spec is giving a time advantage to
   one buyer with plausible denial to the rest of the buyers. As in, "I have no idea
   how she got it!" A gift.)
... and I'll make your first bid.
  (He can't really guarantee this but why should he? He hasn't read it!)
Agent: Great idea!

The producer wins. If the script is any good.

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Now let's look at a sample conversation between a producer and a preening studio exec over Chinese chicken salad.

Producer: Congratulations on this weekend! Twelve million! You guys creamed 'em.
  (Locker room talk.)
Exec: It was my picture, you know.
  (This is true whether it is or not.)
Producer: Of course. Everyone knows.
  (Flattery will get her everywhere.)
... Your stock must be pretty high this morning.
  (Hoist them on their own petards.)
Exec: I guess so.
  (Fake humility. A new standard.)
... I'd sure love to bring in a big spec this week.
Producer: You could sell anything this week!
Exec: You think so?
  (This is her setup. She goes in for the kill. Now.)
Producer: I'm getting a terrific script slipped that no one has seen. Spielberg is tracking it, but I think I have it exclusively.
  (Spielberg tracks everything, so this lie is borderline safe.)
Exec: I heard about it! I definitely want it.
  (He's salivating now, despite the chicken salad.)
... When can I get my hands on it?
Producer: Friday. It's yours.
  (After she gets her hands on it.)
... In fact, Darren...
  (his chief competitor)
... has been asking around about it, but I'd rather give it to you. You're my main man.
  (Bonding, flirting, joking—depending on gender relations.)
Exec: And you're mine. Even though you're a chick!

The producer wins again. If the script is any good.

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And the moral of the story? Writer, you never go to a meeting without a strategy.

First posted: 24 August 2013

Book review: "The Annotated Godfather"

The Annotated Godfather was, for me, one of those books you see referred to every so often, but never got around to reading. I can now say, if you like the movie, it's worth the effort.

The Annotated Godfather was compiled by Jenny Jones, who also wrote The Big Lebowski: An Illustrated, Annotated History of the Greatest Cult Film of All Time, which is compulsory reading if you're seriously into the Dude.

The full title of the book is The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay with Commentary on Every Scene, Interviews, and Little-Known Facts. That sums it up nicely. The screenplay in view is the official "Third Draft" (completed on March 29, 1971), which incorporates much of Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo's own wording from their final, pre-production draft or shooting script.

While the screenplay is interesting, it's the "Little-Known Facts" that make the book. The Annotated Godfather has has been around since 2007, so those facts have made their way out into the ongoing conversation that surrounds the movie, but it's nice to read them in context.

Francis Ford Coppola arranges a wedding.

Casting and shooting the film were relatively straight-forward, except that the writer didn't want to write it (but Mario Puzo was broke and needed a commercial story), the studio didn't want to produce it, as every gangster picture Paramount had ever made had failed at box office (but the novel was a runaway success and other studios were showing interest), no director would touch the story (twelve directors turned it down, including Coppola, but he was broke and needed a job), the studio didn't want any of the cast, as they were all unknowns, except Brando, and he was considered box office poison (but Coppola outgamed the executives to get what he wanted), and the local Italian-American community banded against the film and amassed a war chest to stop production.

Here are a few quotes from the book, just to give you a taste.

At age forty-five, Mario Puzo owed $20,000 in gambling debts, so he wrote a ten-page book outline entitled Mafia. Eight publishers turned it down.

At a meeting at G.P. Putnam's Sons, Puzo regaled the editors with Mafia stories, impressing them enough to give him a $5,000 book advance. Puzo had never known a mobster or gangster, so he had to do extensive research for the book.

(In 1967) Puzo was so broke, he agreed—against his agent's advice—to accept a deal of a paltry $12,500 option, $80,000 if it was made into a film.

So in April 1969, Puzo was contracted to turn out The Godfather screenplay for an additional $100,000, expenses, and a few percentage points of the profits.

As the 1970s began, Paramount was ranked a dismal ninth among film studios.

Then, over Christmas of 1970, Love Story burst onto the movie scene. With a $106 million return on a $2.2 million investment, Love Story changed the fortunes of Paramount Pictures.

As gangbuster sales of Puzo's book forced Paramount to take another look at their film option, they would try to recreate Love Story's success using the same formula on The Godfather.

Twelve directors turned down the job—many, including Peter Yates (Bullitt) and Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood) because they didn't want to romanticize the Mafia. Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man) was too busy. Costa-Gravas (Z) thought it too American.

Roberrt Evans, Paramount's head of production, sat down with Peter Bart, his creative second in command, to determine why previous organized crime films hadn't worked, and decided it was because Jews made them, not Italians. So, they sought an Italian-American director, a commodity in short supply.

Francis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit in 1939. His father, Carmine, was the conductor and arranger for the Ford Sunday Evening Hour radio program (hence Francis's middle name).

Peter Bart first approached Coppola to direct The Godfather in the spring of 1970. Coppola tried to read the book but found it sleazy.

His father advised him that commercial work could fund the artistic pictures he wanted to make.

His business partner, George Lucas, begged him to find something in the book he liked.

Coppola reread the novel and came to see a central theme of a family—a father and three sons—that was in its own way a Greek or Shakespearian tragedy. He viewed the growth of the 1940s Corleone Family as a metaphor for capitalism in America. He took the job.

With the inexperienced Coppola, Paramount thought they were hiring an Italian-American director who would also come in on budget and be pliable. Although indeed Italian-American, Francis Ford Coppola would not be the director the studio had envisioned.

The first battle was over the picture being a period piece. Coppola was adamant that the film be set in the 1940s.

Paramount had asked Puzo to set the screenplay in the seventies because contemporary films were cheaper to make; no 1940s cars to find, sets to create, costumes to make.

The second battle was over location. Coppola wanted to shoot in New York, an expensive proposition because of the unions. Producer Albert Ruddy had suggested Cleveland, Kansas City, and Cincinnati as possible sites—or perhaps a studio backlot.

In the end the studio gave in, and the film was shot on location in New York.

The third battle, and it was a long and bloody one, was over casting.

________________________________________________________________________

I'll stop there, on page 17 of a 260 page book. If I went on, this post would get right out of hand. Buy the book. It makes for fascinating reading—the true story of how Hollywood made a classic film, and it was not by following the rules they teach in film school.

And just while we're here, I couldn't resist this:

No cannolis are mentioned in the book or shooting script, but Coppola included the detail from his memories of the particular white boxes of cannolis his own father would bring home after work. Richard Castellano, as Clemenza, made movie history by improvising the now famous utterance: "Take the cannoli."

For further interesting reading on this subject, you could try Vanity Fair's article called The Godfather Wars.

First posted: 13 April 2013

Book review: "Hitchcock"

In 1962, François Truffaut commenced a series of interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, via an interpreter. These interviews occurred intermittently over the next five years. The end result was published in 1967, as a book called Hitchcock, though you will sometimes see it referred to as Hitchcock/Truffaut.

Prior to reading this, I didn't know much about François Truffaut, other than Julia Phillips' comments about him in You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again (which is one of the great reads about Hollywood in the 1970s.)

Steven Spielberg had cast François Truffaut in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a film Julia Phillips produced. Truffaut and Phillips did not hit it off.

He was an arrogant, famous French film director and I couldn't help but feel that he was fucking with us all the time.
   I was convinced that the well-known-deaf-in-the-left-ear legend (with a hearing aid as a prop, if you please) was a ploy, like not speaking English, to keep the world at bay and for his own private amusement.
   Still I addressed myself to making him feel comfortable, revered, safe. That was my specialty. Also my job. But deep down I knew he was a prick and it was making me defiant. Fuck him. I wanted my own private amusement.

That private amusement took the form of a bet with Spielberg that Truffaut wasn't deaf. She would find out over dinner, where she would be sitting next to him, on his 'deaf' side.

"At some point during dinner I'll whisper his name and we'll see if he turns toward me. If he does he ain't deaf and I win. If he doesn't he is deaf and you win."

Spielberg accepted the bet.

Halfway through dinner I whispered "François" and he turned minutely in my direction. Of course, Steven argued that it was an inconclusive gesture, and he welched on the bet. I know I won because it earned me François's eternal enmity.

Enmity indeed. Truffaut sniped at Phillips throughout the lengthy filming exercise, including telling the Sunday New York Times that she was "incompetent" and "unprofessional."

It has long amused me that François became Julia's true foe. But I'm like that.

The Truffaut who comes through in this book is a serious cinephile, and so well researched that he knew things about Hitchcock's films that Hitchcock didn't know or had forgotten. I came away from the book with a deep respect for his film knowledge and insights.

I was interested to notice that many of the famous Hitchcock quotes that I've read over the years can be found in this book. Whether they are the original source, I cannot say. Here are some quotes from the book.

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From François Truffaut:

• The only two British film-makers whose works have survived the test of time—and space, for that matter—are Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock.
• The man who excels at filming fear is himself a very fearful person.
• The art of creating suspense is also the art of involving the audience.
• Clarity is the most important quality in the making of a film.
• Cardinal rule of cinema: Whatever is said instead of being shown is lost upon the viewer.
• In real life the things people say to each other do not necessarily reflect what they actually think and feel. This is especially true of such mundane occasions as dinner and cocktail parties, or of any meeting between casual acquaintances.
• If we observe any such gathering, it is clear that the words exchanged between the guests are superficial formalities and quite meaningless, whereas the essential is elsewhere; it is by studying their eyes that we can find out what is truly on their minds.
• Each of (Hitchcock's) pictures features several scenes in which the rule of counterpoint between dialogue and image achieves a dramatic effect by purely visual means.
• Hitchcock is almost unique in being able to film directly, that is, without resorting to explanatory dialogue, such intimate emotions as suspicion, jealousy, desire, and envy.
• Anything connected with fear takes us back to childhood. All of children's literature is linked to sensations and particularly to fear.

From Alfred Hitchcock:

• A film cannot be compared to a play or a novel. It is closer to a short story, which, as a rule, sustains one idea that culminates when the action has reached the highest point of the dramatic curve.
• In the usual form of suspense it is indispensable that the public be made perfectly aware of all the facts involved. Otherwise there is no suspense.
• To my way of thinking, mystery is seldom suspenseful. In a whodunit, for instance, there is no suspense, but a sort of intellectual puzzle.
• I don't really approve of whodunits because they're rather like a jigsaw or crossword puzzle. No emotion. You simply wait to find out who committed the murder.
• I hate to introduce a useless character in a story.
• Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out.
• To insist that the storyteller stick to the facts is just as ridiculous as to demand of a representative painter that he show objects accurately.
• A critic who talks to me about plausibility is a dull fellow.
• In North by Northwest, where the villainous James Mason is competing with Cary Grant for the affection of Eva Marie Saint, I wanted him to be smooth and distinguished. The difficulty was how we could make him seem threatening at the same time. So what we did was to split this evil character into three people: James Mason, who is attractive and suave; his sinister-looking secretary; and the third spy, who is crude and brutal.
• In my opinion, the chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds.
• A mass of ideas, however good they are, is not sufficient to create a successful picture.
• The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.
• One of the cardinal sins for a script-writer, when he runs into some difficulty, is to say, "We can cover that by a line of dialogue." Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual form.
• Sex on the screen should be suspenseful, I feel. If sex is too blatant or too obvious, there's no suspense.
• You know why I favour sophisticated blondes in my films? We're after the drawing room type, the real ladies, who become whores once they're in the bedroom.
• Without the element of surprise the scenes become meaningless. There's no possibility to discover sex.
• When you're involved in a project and you see it isn't going to work out, the wisest thing is to simply throw the whole thing away.

When asked about his habit of making personal appearances in his movies:

• It was strictly utilitarian; we had to fill the screen. Later on it became a superstition and a gag. But by now it's a rather troublesome gag, and I'm very careful to show up in the first five minutes so as to let the people look at the rest of the movie with no further distraction.

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Hitchcock is a big book (367 pages). It consists of the recorded dialogue between Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut, as they discussed every film Hitchcock made, from The Lodger (1926) to Frenzy (1972). After their meetings ended, Hitchcock made one last picture, Family Plot (1976). The book is of most value to directors, though screenwriters will find some elements of interest.

First posted:25 March 2013

Book Review: The 21st Century Screenplay

Linda Aronson is an English-born, Australian playwright, scriptwriter, comic novelist and screenwriting theorist. She has taught screenwriting to professionals across the world, having come most recently from a six-month tour of Europe, which culminated in an appearance at the London Screenwriters Festival.

Her previous book Screenwriting Updated (published in Australia as Scriptwriting Updated) was the leading text on how to write non-linear films, until it was superseded by The 21st-Century Screenplay in 2010.

True confession: I've been talking about writing this review for about a year now, but I kept putting it off, excusing myself that there were other things to talk about instead.

The truth is, I have felt intimidated.

"Linda Aronson is one of the great and important voices on screenwriting."  —Dr Linda Seger, author of "Making a Good Script Great"

The first screenplay I wrote that was ever seriously considered by producers was a story with a parallel narrative. I didn't fully appreciate that fact until long after it had been given a pass by... well, everyone.

Once it dawned on me that I needed to know more about the theory of structure than the usual three-act, single protagonist model, I went looking. And found nothing. Until I saw a reference to Linda Aronson on Twitter. And one thing led to another. I'm still hoping that the interview she agreed to do last year will finally appear here in December.

Now to the book.
 
It's big. Almost 500 pages, including a decent index (thank you). To put it in context, it is almost one hundred pages longer than Christopher Vogler's The Writers Journey. Vogler himself refers to The 21st-Century Screenplay as an "atlas."

"A lucid and eminently useful atlas of screenwriting technique. All the vague confusing things that teachers and studio executives say about flashback, turning points and multiple protagonists are whipped into coherent shape here, in a comprehensive, precise and extremely practical theory. An essential tool in any writer's kit." —Christopher Vogler, author of "The Writers Journey"

It's not really a book, it's a kind of mini-encyclopaedia. It should, in my opinion, have been published as at least two separate books, possibly more. It is divided into six Parts, and some of those Parts are divided into as many as six Sections, and a given Section can have up to eight chapters. There are fifty-six chapters in total.

Part 1 looks at creativity and getting ideas. With expanded examples and exercises, it could be a book in its own right. Part 2 addresses conventional narrative structure and, again, could be a book in its own right. Woven through Parts 1 and 2 are twenty-five "development strategies" which could—this is getting repetitive—provide the framework for a book of their own.

So how is it, 125 pages into this one book, I'm already saying it could be three different books? The best way to understand this is, Linda Aronson has so much good stuff to say, and feels she has so little time in which to say it, that she has tumbled it all out into one place.

And it is good stuff. Even Part 2, which deals with Conventional Three-Act Structure and could have been a simple regurgitation of Syd Field, contains a remarkably different approach to the subject. Regular readers will know I have been working on my own comparative analysis summary of structure theories for years, lining up alongside one another the key outlines of Syd Field, Linda Seger, Michael Hauge, Christopher Vogler, Viki King, Blake Snyder, John Truby, David Mamet, Brian McDonald, etc. Linda Aronson has a completely fresh approach, for which she takes no credit. She calls it "the Extended Smiley/Thompson plan" and says of it:

Playwriting,
by Prof. Sam Smiley

"I first came across it many years ago in a class on stage writing run by Paul Thompson of New York University, who says that he developed it from Sam Smiley's book on playwriting."

The Extended Smiley/Thompson plan is kinda like a beat sheet, but not really. I won't go into it here, other than to say that over the last year I have found myself drawn back to rereading this section many times.

Part 3 is called "Practical Plotting" and provides a lot of common-sense information on the art of screenwriting. Part 6 is called "Getting It On The Page." It rounds out the practical advice section of the book. There's good, solid, practical advice here, but nothing you couldn't find in a heap of other books. 

If those Parts were the whole book, I would say it represented excellent value and that you should think about buying a copy. But there's more here.

Part 4 steps into the largely unexplored world of "Parallel Narrative." Part 5 reports on "Films with Structural Flaws": or Why Films Fail. This is an area that wouldn't make sense without Part 4, so they belong together, preferably as a separate book.

Parts 4 and 5 are what the fuss is all about. 

If you'll be happy writing a few short films, or maybe a couple of three-act, single protagonist features, you don't need this book. Stick to Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge, Linda Seger, or Christopher Vogler. 

But if you've ever dreamed of writing something with the complexity of a Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The English Patient, Crash, Fried Green Tomatoes, City of God, 21 Grams, The Hours, or Memento, you need this book.

To be clear, a parallel narrative is about "two or more complete stories in the past and present." It is not "a linear three-act structure with a chunk of action from two thirds of the way through the story stuck at the start to grab the audience," as found in a film such as Michael Clayton.

I had naively assumed that there was but a single type of parallel structure and had been trying to work out the principles governing that. Linda Aronson tells us that there are "six different sorts of parallel narrative films, each structured differently and each transmitting a different philosophy." To explain:

"These six fall into two main categories: films that jump about in time and films that don't. The films that stay in one time frame are often called ensemble films, and there are three main kinds. The films that jump about in time are often called non-linear films, and there are two main kinds. Finally, there is a hybrid, which is very like one of the ensemble forms, but it incorporates time jumps."

If that sounds complicated, we've only just begun. For example, the non-linear forms include six classes of flashback, and four classes of consecutive story. But don't worry, there are over 250 pages explaining everything.

_____________________________

I won't attempt to summarise it all here. What follows is a brief explanation of each of the six different sorts of parallel narrative films, together with some examples of films that adhere to that structure. For the rest, you need to buy the book.

1. Tandem narrative:

Films with equally important stories on the same theme, in the same time frame, with the action jumping between stories. Same theme, different adventures.

Traffic, Lantana, Nashville, Love Actually, Crimes and Misdemeanours, City of Hope
 
2. Multiple protagonist narrative:

Films about a small team of people thrown together in a group 'adventure'—a quest, a reunion, a siege (emotional/actual). All the main characters are versions of the same protagonist. Same team, same adventure.

Galaxy Quest, The Big Chill, Saving Private Ryan, Little Miss Sunshine, Mystic River

3. Double journeys narrative:

Multiple protagonist films with two characters journeying towards each other, in parallel, or apart (physically/emotionally). Two lives in parallel.

The Departed, Finding Nemo, The Lives of Others, The Queen, The Proposition

4. Flashback narrative:

There are six varieties of flashback, some simple, some complex, each serving a different story purpose. Some films have several kinds.

i) Flashback as illustration: a simple backstory device, e.g., when a detective asks, "Where were you on the night of April 5?" and we flash back to what happened.

ii) Regret flashback: non-chronological fragments from an unsuccessful love relationship (as in Annie Hall and And When Did You Last See Your Father?).

iii) Bookend flashback: a scene or sequence in the present that appears at the start and end of the film, 'bookending' the story (Saving Private Ryan, Fight Club).

iv) Preview flashback: the film starts on a scene or sequence midway or two-thirds through, then flashes back to the start, running through chronologically to the end (Goodfellas, Michael Clayton).

v) Life-changing incident flashback: one life-changing moment is revealed bit-by-bit in one flashback shown several times incrementally (Catch-22).

vi) Double narrative flashback: two or more complete stories centered on one enigmatic outsider are told in different time frames, with the action jumping back and forth between the two. Films in this form drop into two categories according to their view of human nature and each is structured differently. They are:

• Flashback as thwarted dream: (Slumdog Millionaire, The English Patient)
• Flashback as case history: (Citizen Kane, The Usual Suspects)

5. Consecutive stories:

Films that tell separate stories (with different protagonists) one after the other, coming together at the end. Their point is to make a political or philosophical comment. There are four main sorts.

i) Stories walking into the picture: new protagonists will walk into shot and the film switches to their stories (The Circle, Ten).

ii) Different perspectives: different versions of the same event (Run Lola Run); or different characters' versions of the same event (Rashomon).

iii) Different consequences from the same event: (Atonement).

iv) Fractured frame/portmanteau: several stories are split up and held within one story, which forms a frame (Pulp Fiction, The Butterfly Effect, City of God, The Joy Luck Club).

6. Hybrid:

Fractured tandem:

Fractured tandem runs equally important tandem narratives but fractures them, jumping between time frames (21 Grams, Babel, Crash, Three Burials of Melchiades Estrada).

Autobiographical narrator using voice-over:

The voice-over autobiographical narrator, honest or unreliable, can appear in all parallel narrative forms. It causes significant structural changes in double narrative flashback. Some films have a narrator who tells someone else's story, not their own, and who is either a minor player or an unidentified storyteller.

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If you're worried about which is the best approach for your material, there is a whole chapter telling you how to decide.

The only other thing to emphasize is that this is an advanced book. To follow much of it you need to be film literate. No, I mean seriously film literate. If you haven't seen most of the films listed in this brief summary, you're going to struggle to understand the points being made.
 
The 21st Century Screenplay is an extraordinary book. At less than $20, it represents an accessible investment for every serious screenwriter. You won't read and grasp it all in a weekend. It's a book which demands study; it's a book that will reward study. That's not something I can say about every screenwriting book on my shelf.

If you're serious about screenwriting, I recommend that you buy this book.

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There is an interesting article (here) in The New York Times, 21 November 2012, which notices a trend in dispensing with storytelling conventions in the current crop of films.

First posted: 26 November 2012

Book review: Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade

I remember reading Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade by William Froug for the first time years ago, and quoting part of it at a screenwriter's meeting. It was the first book I'd come across which explicitly highlighted the failures of the Three-Act Theory, and I was delighted. Rereading it now, I'm more impressed than ever. 

William Froug is an Emmy award-winning American television writer and producer. Shows he worked on include: The Twilight Zone, Gilligan's Island, Bewitched, The Dick Powell Show, Charlie's Angels, and The New Twilight Zone.

He has also written numerous books on screenwriting, including Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade, Zen and the Art of Screenwriting (I and II), The Screenwriter Looks at the Screenwriter and How I Escaped from Gilligan's Island.

This is a book worth buying, reading and rereading. What follows are some selected quotes:

• My method is simple. See movies, as many as possible, and take from each one the important lessons that each has to offer.
• I never see a film without analyzing the story structure, the core conflict, the line of action and counter-action, the opening signal, the theme, the protagonist, the antagonist, and so on.
• Some screenwriters will think about a story for years before committing it to paper.
• If you can write one really terrific scene per day, you are doing very well, indeed. Sometimes a single scene will take several days to work out properly.
• Don't place yourself on self-imposed deadlines.
• The secret of success as a screenwriter is simple: Keep the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair.
• Work out as many of the story problems that you can before you begin to write. Otherwise, you might very well fall into the writer's worst trap, writing in circles...
• A dramatic story is any series of events having vivid, emotional, conflicting, striking interest or results.
• It doesn't matter one bit how often your story has been told before; you must retell it better, with a fresh and different approach. If you can do that, your story will seem like the newest idea ever presented.
• When you tell an old story in a new way, it becomes a new story.
• Old stories never die, they often merely improve with the retelling.
• Character is story and story is character; they are each by-products of the other.
• I have found character to be the single best story-source for drama.
• The most popular game in Hollywood is recycling. Hardly a meeting goes on without beginning or diverting into discussions of what qualities previous movies had that made them winners.
• If you hope to participate in these professional story conferences, you'd damn well better be film literate.
• In order to create viable art that will hold someone's attention, you must have dramatic tension. Which, in screenwriting, is created by a line of action and opposing forces.
• Tension = Attention.
• Great screenplays have a single line of action and equally powerful opposing forces. 
• Your protagonist does not have to be likeable.
• What you must create is a protagonist who is fascinating, compelling, interesting, and understandable. 
• Scorsese is often called "America's greatest director" on the strength of a body of work in which all the characters in his movies are various degrees of wicked and miserable people. 
• Watching villainy lets people vent their rage in a harmless way.
• Unless the threat is deadly serious, it's a joke and your protagonist will be ridiculed.
• Try to avoid static locations such as offices, hotel rooms, park benches— any place where you are apt to have two or more characters sitting around talking to each other.
• If, on the other hand, the scene must be played in a room, make certain it has a strong emotional dynamic, that something important is being talked about, and that there is tension or conflict between the talkers.
• What works best in scenes is what works best in stories—a strong element of surprise.
• In building your scene, do not tell us where we have been or where we are going next.
• Avoid entrances and exits.
• Scenes will play and write better if each character in your scene has a single goal or purpose for this particular scene.
• Every character must have an attitude to make the scene play.
• Look for the subtext in every scene—what's really going on as opposed to what appears to be going on.
• Creating new and fresh scenes is one of the most important aspects of becoming a successful screenwriter. For this reason, I have lost my infatuation with Syd Field's paradigm.
• If you like formulas, buy Syd's book Screenplay. It will help some writers and hinder others.
• I know Syd Field and respect him; we served on the Writers Guild Academic Liaison Committee together, and I think his contribution to understanding story structure is an important one. But, like all formulas, his tends to wear itself out with repeated use.
• The great American movies usually defy formula writing.
• I attended a seminar on "Film & Literature." One of the panelists remarked, surprisingly, that all movies are told in three acts, to which fellow-panelist screenwriter William Goldman remarked wryly, "Really, I didn't know that."
• The reality is that there are no clearly defined "Acts" in screenplays. An "Act" is whatever you choose to say it is.
• When you structure your movie, there is no one-size-fits-all.
• Modern moviegoers are annoyed when you show or tell them something they have already figured out for themselves. Trust your audiences; they are not as dumb as the cynics would have you believe.
• An outline might be helpful but most certainly is not necessary for all screenwriters. Again, no one-size-fits-all guideline applies.
• The best way to tell your story is the way the story itself dictates. Do not try to contort it into a predetermined form.
• The idea that all screenplays are written in three "acts" is nonsense. The truth is many screenplays use five acts, six acts, two acts, or any number of large, developmental story sections. 
• Avoid rigidity, it is the death of creativity.
• It is helpful to know your theme before you begin to write, though it is not absolutely necessary, but you had better know it before you finish the screenplay.
• A theme is simply a proposition leading to a conclusion.
• Some call the theme a premise or a thesis. It does not matter what you call it, but you cannot write an outstanding screenplay without knowing what it is about. 
• Many screenwriters complete their screenplays without ever knowing what they're about. The result is, almost invariably, an empty and unsuccessful piece of work.
• There is more than one theme in a good movie; there are often many minor themes running concurrently, but there is only one major theme.
• Frank Pierson told an important story about the need to find the theme or "take" on your protagonist before you write your screenplay. Frank had accepted a contract to write what he later titled Dog Day Afternoon, but he simply could not figure out what his protagonist was all about. He finally decided (the Al Pacino character) was a man trying to make everybody happy in all circumstances. 
• The theme of this excellent movie is, If you try to please all the people all the time, you are doomed to failure.
• One minute per page is average playing time for a movie. However, this can vary as much as twenty or thirty minutes for a two hour film, depending on the pace of the director.
• A story must be underway on page one; something is happening or about to happen.
• You do not need to set up your protagonist; your protagonist must "set up" himself or herself by his or her behavior and by the circumstances in which we discover him or her. Nothing more needs to be said.
• Actors can say more with an exchange of glances than all your wordiness can convey. Trust the actors. I do not mean you should trust them as writers—far from it. Trust them to deliver much more than you ever expected from their first performance. Like it or not, if you are determined to be a dramatist, actors will be your lifetime collaborators.
• What your audience does not know but wants to know is an excellent device to hold their attention.
• The way people actually talk to each other and movie dialogue have nothing in common. Your job as a dramatist is to create the illusion of real dialogue. It is easy only if you work very hard at it, edit yourself carefully, rewrite it endlessly, polish it, until the characters say only what must be said and nothing else.
• Write what you truly believe in, what excites you, what you care about—the kind of movie you would pay money to see. That's the formula.
  

First posted:  1 October 2012
 

Book Review: The Starter Screenplay

In a recent interview, Anne Lower recommended several books, including one I’d never heard of before: The Starter Screenplay, by Adam Levenberg. I know Anne gives good advice, so I bought a copy.

Adam Levenberg is a former Hollywood executive (Intuition Productions, One Race Films), and that is the entire point of his book. There’s no advice on formatting or screenplay structure or character development. The executive mindset—something most of us instinctively mistrust—is obvious throughout. Adam spent years as a Hollywood executive, and he’s still in his early thirties. That shows in his book. It is impatient, direct, and blunt. The tone is that of a youthful executive unwinding over a couple of cold ones with a group of peers.

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There are three things you need to understand from the outset. The first is that Hollywood executives divide writers into two classes: those who have agents, managers and/or lawyers, and those who are unrepresented.

Get used to seeing references to the “unrepresented writer” because that's the person for whom this book was written.

The second thing is the concept of the “Starter Screenplay.”

• A Starter Screenplay is a script that gives you a shot at breaking into Hollywood.

And what does a starter screenplay look like?

• There is one hero.
• Events take place in present-day reality, preferably in the United States, usually in a neighborhood or contained location.
• The hero is provided a love interest, a ticking clock, a clear-cut goal, and depending on the genre, either life or death or family and career are on the line.
• (It tells a story) that executives want to make and audiences want to see, featuring characters we'd like to be.

The third thing is this: a "movie" is that type of film which consistently makes money for the studio. Sure, there are other types of films—art house, foreign, doco, experimental, and so on—but to be a "movie," a film has to be of a style that has a track record of positive return on investment.

Executives have been studying the patterns of success and failure for a century. This book is a distillation of all that due diligence. It doesn’t tell The Truth, but it presents a version of the executive mindset that will probably decide the future of your next screenplay, should it get that high up in the food chain.

You probably won’t like what you’re about to read, but you’d be a fool to not want to know how they think.

• Over 99% of unrepresented writers do not know how to write a movie.
• Unrepresented writers ... often think any narrative they imagine or construct is a movie because they are writing it in screenplay format.

And that's why they remain unrepresented. The stuff they've been writing doesn't qualify as a "movie" in the eyes of Hollywood executives.

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You need to read the whole book to get the full picture, but here are a few quotes from The Starter Screenplay to give you a taste of the POV of a Hollywood executive.

• Movies are about heroes trapped in extreme situations. They are forced to do outrageous things and overcome impossible odds to achieve a particular goal.
• Successful movies exploit an audience's desires.
• The cliché "write what you know" inspires countless writers to depict the frustrations of breaking into Hollywood. This is awful advice for screenwriters.
• Stallone ... took a visually dull job (writing behind a desk) and set it inside a boxing ring with people beating the shit out of each other.
• Kiddie movies by unrepresented writers are usually awful. It takes a highly sophisticated expert to entertain kids and adults at the same time.
• If you need more than 115 finalized pages to tell a story, you have not written a movie. Chances are you still have a lot to learn about what a movie actually is. Period.
• Nearly every spec that sells takes place in current day reality.
• Your hero should also be in trouble, behind schedule, and under the gun due to a ticking clock.
• Until you sell a spec, do not juggle the beginning, middle, or end. Keep your movie out of the editing blender and write a linear narrative.
• Heroes are dragged kicking and screaming into their missions.
• Your hero must act. It's never a choice.
• If you've written a thriller where life and death aren't on the line, you have not written a thriller.
• In capers, which are usually heist narratives, freedom is at stake and incarceration is the price of failure.
• Audiences tend to avoid exotic settings. Remember, 50% of Americans have never left the continental United States.
• There is no such thing as a totally new concept.
• Any high school movie needs to feature heroes who are intelligent, speak like adults, and are in the 11th or 12th grade.
• If you can't find two interesting premises inspired by the content of a single random newspaper, you're not thinking hard enough.
• Give your hero a romance, even if they’re already hitched!
• A romance is the best way to prove the hero’s value to the audience. It also makes even the toughest heroes vulnerable and accessible.
• And never forget, your hero must be awesome and memorable. Awesome and memorable. Awesome and memorable. Awesome and memorable...
• Your hero should be 25-40 years old.
• Action movies often show the hero failing at something during the opening sequence. What situation do you think he's placed in during the climax?
• A final sacrifice followed by reward is what makes audiences cry.
• The best villains represent a true threat to our hero.
• We know the hero is going to win, so the only way you’ll convince the audience to suspend disbelief is to make it impossible for us to imagine how the hero can prevail.
• Your hero must achieve their victory by using a specific piece of wisdom, lesson, or action they’ve learned during the events of the movie.
• Screenplays sell if they have a strong concept, a memorable hero, competent execution, and multiple Ideas of Value.
• Ideas of Value are original touches that bring life to your characters, excitement to your action, and creativity to dialogue and situations.
• I'm always amazed when I ask aspiring screenwriters to identify the most memorable moments of their screenplay and they go silent. No wonder they don't get requests—what else are you supposed to list in a one page query letter?
• Before writing a new script, you should read at least ten screenplays of the same genre that have sold in the past year or two.
• Screenwriting is about finding the simplest way to get the point across and a professional can accomplish in one sentence what an amateur may spend pages establishing.
• The best short films hit every beat of a feature.

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Some Don’ts for Starter Screenplays:

• Don’t adapt a book 
• Avoid Biopics 
• Don’t mock Hollywood 
• Avoid parodies (write a broad comedy with a solid storyline, instead) 
• Don’t mention 9/11 
• No Native American stories 
• Don’t invent a superhero (normal guys with impressive strength/stamina/survival skills are okay) 
• No musicals (write a Broadway show instead) 
• Skip the family Holocaust story 
• No charity/good cause stories 
• No epics 
• No drug addiction/child abuse/domestic violence 
• No sequels 

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Ten Tips for Short Filmmakers:

• The best genres to work in are horror, comedy, and musicals.
• Keep it short. Two to five minutes is best, ten minutes maximum.
• Show off! Limit the amount of shots and effects, so every single one can be perfect.
• Stay away from character dramas!
• Create impact! Make the audience jump out of their seats or laugh out loud. Do something shocking.
• Don’t act in your own short if your primary goal is to be a writer/director.
• Break out of the studio rules! Serve whatever audience you want to.
• Keep it simple and film a contained sequence with an immediate problem that evokes intense emotion, such as humiliation, terror, or excitement.
• You are filming an amazing short, not an advertisement for a feature.
• What makes YOU special as a filmmaker? Make sure this is on display. Play it up. This could be your last shot.

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This review of The Starter Screenplay barely touches the surface of the book, but it should give you a fair idea of what to expect. Highly recommended for any screenwriter who is pursuing the Sale-to-Hollywood route. 

First posted:  3 September 2012