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Dear Writer,
Welcome to the 22nd issue of Craft & Career.
My Champion readers are immersed in reading scripts and I am finishing up my scene writing book. Like a screenplay, my book has taken on a life of its own and I am following it where it takes me. I think this book will be a welcome addition to the screenwriting education literature.
Our newsletter is approaching 5,000 readers, 90% of whom have come aboard this year. I wanted to share the craft column from our premiere issue, Exploitation of Concept -- in a slightly revised version.
For charter subscribers, as promised, I follow up briefly on a concept from Tangled. Check out my What Would the Boss Do? column for some musings on opposites. In the Champion Corner, I reprinted my personal testimonial on a Champion sponsor who is giving the 20 Feature Finalists an awesome prize.
We will be back this month with quarterfinalist announcements and footage from my new DVD set and a pre-order offer for newsletter subscribers only.
If you have any questions about screenwriting, please be a part of my new project. Click over there to the right. I look forward to addressing your questions in my new DVD set.
Thanks for reading. And keep writing!
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CRAFT CORNER:
EXPLOITATION OF CONCEPT
by
Jim Mercurio
Exploitation of concept isn't addressed in any of the screenwriting books I have read. It's one of the last skills that I see amateur writers develop. One reason might be that the writers aren't aware that this is a necessary craft. Ironically, it may be one of the most important principles to understand.
Exploitation in this sense means the clever usage of your resources to maximum effect. Exploitation of concept means that the story premise and situation you set up must be the basis for all that follows, and that you must take it "all the way" within those boundaries. One reason this skill does not develop quickly when beginning screenwriting is that a stylized approach to storytelling is not what interests people when they begin their love affair with writing. There is a romantic notion that, as an artist, the magic is in using your creativity to take the story anywhere you want. But the truth is, the magic in commercial concept-driven screenwriting is the methodical and calculated exploitation of the very narrow "what if" of the premise with which you begin.
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Tangling with Tangled:
Making the Inside Out
(As promised in last issue's discussion about Tangled. here is a short follow up on a craft element that it executed well.)
Movies are supposed to be visual and to show instead of tell. Inner conflict and the warring sides of cognitive dissonance are hard to "show," but several times Dan Fogelman's script found a way to turn the internal into external. He found ways to visually externalize characters' dilemmas.
I discussed the Snuggly Ducking scene where Flynn takes a cue from Rapunzel's language (that the world is full of ruffians and thugs). He makes her face the literal manifestation of her fear in the seedy Tavern.
There is another scene where a character literally creates a tangible nightmare from the recesses of another character's darkest fears. To keep her in the tower, Gothel instills a fear in the young Rapunzel that the outside world is full of dangerous people who will hurt her. When Gothel discovers that Rapunzel is falling in love with Flynn, she warns her that Flynn is selfish and that once he gets the crown from her, he will abandon and betray her.
Flynn, it turns out, isn't what Gothel describes, however, Gothel's plan with the two henchmen involve binding and gagging Flynn and posing him so that it appears that he is fleeing in the boat despite Rapunzel's pleas for help. The scene creates the worst-imagined scenario for Rapunzel and pushes her to doubt herself and regress back to the safety of the tower.
In a way, this is what all stories do. They make the landscape of the story world rise up to become the hardest, and simultaneously, most appropriate challenge for the characters. With the verbal "alley-oop" and a plan that has a clever theatricality to it, this moment illustrates how to set up and execute a scene that visualizes the inner fear of a character.
For you regulars jonesing for new "stuff", how about we create some new "stuff" with your material? Check out the offer below. Or check out some of the old A-List blogs with some cool material that has become the basis for a few topics in my book and DVD set.
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After working with Jim for a brief time, the one word that pops into my head is - "WOW!" I've worked with and spoken to many of the top script consultants in LA, but Jim is truly the BEST OF THE BEST! This is how I would like compare Jim to the other top notch script consultants in LA: The Normal Script Consultant Approach - Find everything wrong with your script, then tell you everything that you MUST take out because it just won't work... period.. Any solutions? Nope... but you can always work on it more, then pay me for another service. Jim's Approach - Find everything that isn't currently working (in a non-criticizing, non-judgmental way) then use creativity, originality, and knowledge to try to find a way to solve the problem and make it work. If a scene, subplot, etc. just isn't working, Jim will offer a solution. Bottom line, Jim evaluates screenplays from an entirely different approach than all the rest. He's the Master when it comes to character development and using the "Sequences Approach" to properly structure a screenplay. Jim is also funny and extremely easy to talk to. My only regret - I wish I would've found Jim five years ago when I started screenwriting. It would've saved me a lot of money and a lot of time.
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EXPLOITATION OF CONCEPT
(continued)
A challenge that might help you stay true to the concept is to nail a logline or a couple of sentences that capture the concept in all of its facets. If we decided the concept-capturing logline for Liar Liar was a lying lawyer must win back his son and wife, then a straight-forward scene in family therapy might be acceptable. However, that scene wouldn't fit in with what we understand as the concept.
Would it be enough to say Liar Liar is a story about a liar who has to tell the truth to save his career and win back his family? No, because this would allow for the entire second act to contain scenes that didn't involve the magical curse/conceit. Let's nail it with all of its facets:
A habitual lying lawyer's son puts a curse on him that prevents him from lying for 24 hours. In that time period, he has to win a court case (with a client who demands he lies) and win over his son and ex-wife.
For any given scene to work in the second act, it must incorporate the major elements of the concept. The "curse" is the biggest hook in the logline and therefore must be a part of every scene. You can't have a 5-minute set-piece scene that has nothing to do with the curse.
Understanding this principle could have really helped the writers (can I even use that word?) of Land of the Lost. If the unique premise/concept of the story is that these characters are time travelers stuck in a land with dangerous dinosaurs and lizard men, then how in the hell do you justify a sequence where the characters get high by a motel pool? That scene could have (and has) been in a bunch of other movies. Even if it's the funniest thing ever, it's generic and doesn't belong in this movie. Concept-wise, it's a non sequitur.
I have read body-switching scripts with a Ten-Little-Indians whodunit mystery where the person who solves the crime does it with deductive reasoning just like Columbo or Sherlock Holmes. The problem is that he or she also solves the mystery without any special insight from the body-switching complication. Here's a hint for that story: If the solution isn't tied to switching bodies, don't switch bodies.
If you consider the Freaky Friday premise of a daughter and mother switching psyches, you don't then have them go after Indy's Lost Ark, do you? No. Why? Because the concept has no intrinsic connection to the eventual goal/plan. However, the most recent remake of Freaky Friday is a short and clever film with a few inspired moments of sticking to its concept.
The scene that starts Chapter 5 on the DVD puts the mother and daughter (having already switched psyches) and the younger brother and the mother's boyfriend in the car on the way to school. The scene advances the story, complicates the situation, and foreshadows. But more importantly, notice how EVERY single line of dialogue relies on the premise of the switched psyches for its meaning and humor.
Here is a transcript of the scene.
Mother is in the front seat with her feet on the dashboard. She battles for control of the radio station with the boyfriend.
DAUGHTER (mother's psyche): (to mother) Feet down. (to son) Harry, could you settle down?
SON: Bite me!
MOTHER (daughter's psyche): See? Do you see what he does behind your back?
DAUGHTER: Anna!
MOTHER: Mom! Excuse me. And while I'm apologizing let me just say to the whole car how truly sorry I am for being such an insane control freak all the time.
DAUGHTER: You're not controlling, Mom. I'm the one who should be apologizing for my flagrant disregard for anyone's feelings but my own.
MOTHER: Well, at least you have a great sense of style. Not like me.
DAUGHTER: Enough.
MOTHER looks at "her" credit cards.
MOTHER: Platinum, cool.
DAUGHTER: Don't even think about it.
MOTHER'S BOYFRIEND: Am I supposed to follow this?
MOTHER: It's nothing, darling.
(Note: the word "darling" is this line's raison d'etre and why it fits in with the concept. A-list screenwriters see there is no point to the line if it's just "It's nothing.")
He grabs mother's hand
MOTHER'S BOYFRIEND: One more day.
MOTHER: Yeah, it's great we're getting married, isn't it? Even though my husband died. How quickly I've been able to get over it.
DAUGHTER: Just pull up here. Mom, out of the car.
Notice that except for perhaps the son's line ("bite me" - which is a catalyst to complicate the situation), there isn't a wasted beat or conflict. Even the boyfriend's lines use the dramatic irony that we know more than he does. Everything is driven by and faithful to the concept. And as soon as they get out of the car, the next moment mirrors this scene where the daughter (mom's psyche) now has to interact with the teenage male love interest with a continuing clever exploitation of the body-switching.
Consider watching this movie or studying this scene if you are writing a script with a strong fantasy conceit like Liar Liar, The Nutty Professor, The Mask, etc. However, these gimmicky comedies are not the only sort of stories where this skill is important.
Another movie that exploits its concept very well is Memento. In the story, Leonard Shelby has no short-term memory and is on a quest to find his wife's killer. However, his condition makes him easily manipulated and his decisions very untrustworthy. The morality and authenticity of his quest come into question.
Let's look at the scenes/sequences in Memento from around minute 46 to minute 73 of the movie. We'll focus on the scenes that are in color. To show you how elegantly and seemingly simply the story exploits the premise that he has no short-term memory, I will describe them in chronological order unlike the way they appear in the film:
Natalie - who is pissed off because Leonard killed her boyfriend - removes all of the pencils from her home and then gets Leonard mad by telling him she is going to use his condition to manipulate him. She pushes his buttons by saying that maybe he is a freak/retard due to getting an STD from his wife, who she calls a whore. He hits her. She runs out the door. He struggles to find a pencil to record the fact that she is lying. She goes outside, gets in her car, and just sits there.
He struggles to find a pencil but can't. She sits in the car for a moment and then comes back in and says Dodd hurt her and gets him worked up to help her. She writes him a message reminding him to get rid of Dodd. He notices his fist is bruised but doesn't figure out he is the one who hit her. He leaves and is freaked out that Teddy is in his (Jimmy's) car. He freaks out when he gets in his (Jimmy's) car and finds Teddy. "Who the fuck are you?" Teddy warns him about Natalie - that she will use him and has ulterior motives. Leonard writes the warning down. But without any context, he later sees his own note about not trusting Teddy, so he scratches out the comment on Natalie's picture about not trusting her. Ironically, he does take Teddy's written advice in the scene about which hotel to stay at. He checks into Discount Inn on Teddy's advice. He meets a prostitute and asks her to place some objects - comb, clock, stuffed animal - around the room. He tells her that after he is asleep, she should to go into the bathroom and slam the door. (He is trying to remember the night his wife died by reenacting some of it.) He falls asleep. She slams the door. He gets up. He sleeps. A door slams. He gets up and notices the stuff around the room. He opens the bathroom and sees a prostitute, who recounts to him what he told her. He tells her to leave. He gets in car. Leonard gets in the car. He burns the items at a bonfire. He wonders if he has done this before. Flashback to his wife, with a self-reflexive thematic touch: He chides her about reading a coverless book multiple times. "I thought the fun was in finding out what happens next?" Leonard drives his (Jimmy's) car and Dodd pulls him over because he recognizes Jimmy's car and clothes. Dodd pulls out a gun. Leonard takes off. Dodd breaks the window. Leonard runs away. Leonard runs but he's not sure why and whether he is being chased or chasing. He sees the note about Dodd and then assumes he is the chaser, so he moves toward him. But when Dodd fires a gun at him, Leonard realizes that he is the one being chased. So he runs away and decides to hijack Dodd at his motel. Leonard finds the room, grabs a bottle of alcohol for a weapon, and waits. Soon, he loses his memory and is confused about why he is holding the bottle. "I don't feel drunk." "I don't feel drunk." Oblivious to why he is in Dodd's bathroom, Leonard takes a shower. Then, when Dodd comes back, Leonard attacks and overtakes him. And then when he sees the note to "get rid of him" from Natalie, Leonard tapes up Dodd and calls Teddy. Do you see how it's all an organic extension of the premise? Look at the specificity in the first scene. The concept/premise allows the femme fatale's actions to be original and unique: hiding pencils, asking him what will make him mad, telling him her plan. And he can't escape her trap because he uses a contextless note on a picture of Teddy's as a reason to ignore his warning.
All of the obstacles to capturing Dodd are specific to the character: He is spotted because he thinks Jimmy's car is his; he can't remember if he is the one chasing or being chased; he forgets that he is lying in wait in his hotel room and the comical obstacle to the battle with Dodd is that he decided to take a shower since he was in the bathroom and couldn't remember why. It's not just that the Nolans are creative. Their gift is their creativity within the context that they set up.
Now the other important part of the concept is that the story is told in reverse chronological order. Let's look at a chunk of these scenes to see how they are shaped to accommodate and exploit this part of the concept.
Here are the scenes in the order they played in the film as well as comments about them.
Leonard runs but he's not sure why and whether he is being chased or chasing. He sees the note about Dodd and then assumes he is the chaser, so he moves toward him. But when Dodd fires a gun at him, Leonard realizes that he is the one being chased. So he runs away and decides to hijack Dodd at his motel. Leonard finds the room, grabs a bottle of alcohol for a weapon, and waits. Soon, he loses his memory and is confused about why he is holding the bottle. "I don't feel drunk."
Note: Telling this story backward creates a convention-bending chase scene and some spry humor: a chase scene where the character is not sure if he is the hunter or the prey. And he accidentally breaks into room 6 instead of 9 because he reads the note upside down. In the background, we hear a car commercial with a bunch of numbers - years and prices. Together, they are an ironic reminder of how untrustworthy numbers and facts are without context.
Leonard drives his (Jimmy's) car and Dodd pulls him over because he recognizes Jimmy's car and clothes. Dodd pulls out a gun. Leonard takes off. Dodd breaks the window. Leonard runs away.
Note: There is nothing super special about this event. But it's much more interesting in reverse order because it answers the question: How the hell did Dodd end up chasing him?
Leonard gets in the car. He burns the items at a bonfire. He wonders if he has done this before. Flashback to his wife, with a self-reflexive thematic touch: He chides her about reading a coverless book multiple times. "I thought the fun was in finding out what happens next?" Note: This works as more of a mystery/suspense beat. What are those items?
He sleeps. A door slams. He gets up and notices the stuff around the room. He opens the bathroom door and sees a prostitute, who recounts to him what he told her. He tells her to leave. He gets in car.
Note: Once again, this moment piques our interest because we don't understand it yet. Also, since this is the first time we see the items and they are in a dark room, it allows us to have the same subjective disorientation as Leonard. We are not sure where we are, and we think that maybe we are in his house or in a flashback with the wife - which confuses us because it's not in black and white, but color. Also, note that if this were told chronologically, it would be redundant to have the prostitute explain what he asked her to do.
He checks into Discount Inn on Teddy's advice. He meets a prostitute and asks her to place some objects - comb, clock, stuffed animal - around the room. He tells her that after he is asleep, she should go into the bathroom and slam the door. (He is trying to remember the night his wife died by reenacting some of it.) He falls asleep. She slams the door. He gets up.
Note: Because we already saw the event he is discussing, it could be very boring to watch him explain it. So the conflict in the scene takes a slightly different angle: He struggles to get the prostitute to understand what should be simple instructions. At one point she even tries to use the brush. He stops her quickly - which is a nice way of showing us that it was his wife's.
He freaks out when he gets in his (Jimmy's) car and finds Teddy. "Who the fuck are you?" Teddy warns him about Natalie - that she will use him and has ulterior motives. Leonard writes the warning down. But without any context, he later sees his own note about not trusting Teddy, so he scratches out the comment on Natalie's picture about not trusting her. Ironically, he does take Teddy's written advice in the scene about which hotel to stay at. Note: It's not clear who he should trust. Because the story is told backward, we, like Leonard, don't have the context and information on which to decide whether to trust Teddy.
He struggles to find a pencil but can't. She sits in the car for a moment and then comes in and says Dodd hurt her and gets him worked up to help her. She writes him a message reminding him to get rid of Dodd. He notices his fist is bruised but doesn't figure out he is the one who hit her. He leaves and is freaked out that Teddy is in his (Jimmy's) car.
Note: The pencil hunt is a great big question that piques our interest. And in the film, this scene raises more questions. What is really going on? We, like him, actually believe she just showed up and that she was hurt by someone else.
Natalie - who is pissed off because Leonard killed her boyfriend - removes all of the pencils from her home and then gets Leonard mad by telling him she is going to use his condition to manipulate him. She pushes his buttons by saying that maybe he is a freak/retard due to getting an STD from his wife, who she calls a whore. He hits her. She runs out the door. He struggles to find a pencil to record the fact that she is lying. She goes outside, gets in her car, and just sits there. Note: Not only is this a great scene with surprising choices, it pays off the sequence by giving concrete answers to the last two sequences, which raised questions and doubts. Finally, we get some resolution and it's pretty satisfying.
_________________
The challenge in telling this story backwards is that you have to shape scenes so that they withhold information that would be revealed if the story were chronological. This creates suspense but also mimics the protagonist's limited and frustrated point-of-view. You also have to find alternate angles or focus for scenes -- like the prostitute who is confused by his instructions -- to avoid repetition or information that becomes boring exposition when the story is told in reverse order.
Every story has its own parameters within which it must stay. The cleverness in Blades of Glory is its exploitation of the skating world: rules of the league, training, partners, loopholes to the rules, the stuffy judges, dangerous and infamous ice tricks, the implicit sexuality of skating pairs (the homophobic main pair and the incestuous rivals) and a chase scene on ice skates. If I dared to watch the film again, I am sure I could point out more ways that it exploits its concept. If you need more examples from it, consider it your homework.
Memento and Freaky Friday are very different movies, but I hope that I have shown the implicit and shared craft at work in both scripts and the resulting movies. Each of these scripts treats its concept like a piece of dough or clay and then proceeds to kneed it and mold it into every possible cool shape without ever breaking a piece off. These principles transcend genre or tone. Watch how the filmmakers set up (and pay homage to Memento) Dory in Finding Nemo.
Your challenge is to retain your material's underlying honesty and passion while you cleverly wrap it up in a bundle that explores all of (and only) the interesting permutations of your setup. If you can do this and take your concept all the way then you can master an elusive screenwriting craft which can lead to marketable work.
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WWTBD?
(continued)
The Joad album has a plethora of songs about immigrants and people migrating out of desperation or hope to find a place to call home. The song starts with the singer/narrator's bag packed; he is ready to leave the "the pain and sadness we found here." His physical journey takes him out on the road, which begins with the simple wish to drink from the Rio Bravo's muddy waters; that is, across the border. The song culminates with the "across the border" that is ultimately bigger than any physical place: For what are we
Without hope in our hearts That someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters And eat the fruit from the vine I know love and fortune will be mine Somewhere across the border Even without the allusion to religious iconography in the end, the song offers hope for everyone's journey - home, to our new home, to our new country, or to our new "home" in the great beyond. The song's eternal optimism is amazing. It is one of the most optimistic and beautiful moments in his entire oeuvre, and it creates the climax of an album. (For you youngins: A long time ago musicians would sequence their songs with purpose to create a short story-like experience. And listeners had the attention span to, well, listen to them all, too. This was called an album.) However, the ultimate power of the moment in the album is enhanced or created by its placement right next to one of the darkest moments of this or any Bruce album. Like the match cut in 2001: A Space Odyssey from the weaponized bone to the spaceship is possibly the widest gap in time between any two shots in the history of cinema, the silent seconds before "Across the Border" starts and the end of the previous song create perhaps the biggest gap of all his albums between desperation and hope. What is the dark moment that precedes "Across the Border" and throws into sharp relief its grace and beauty? The song is called "The New Timer." In it, a young man leaves his family to look for seasonal work across the country. He meets a friend on the road who shows him the ropes. He imagines his family at night but never gets a chance to go back. He splits up with his friend and only sees him again briefly in a passing freight train's grain car: "He shouted my name, disappeared into the rain and wind." His friend ends up murdered for no reason. One cold night, the main character makes his camp and sits alone with his machete by his side. He is overcome with the disturbing thought that ends the song and leads us into "Across the Border": My Jesus your gracious love and mercy
Tonight I'm sorry could not fill my heart Like one good rifle And the name of who I ought to kill Yikes. The choice to buttress this stark and dark moment with "Across the Border" is masterful storytelling. This principle of opposites drives a lot of great art and narrative. It's why you have a calm stillness before your climax. It's the basis of character orchestration. It's how you make a scene full of hate resonate with love. It's the principle behind sequences.
The absence of something makes us yearn for it more. The opposite of a thing makes us ponder the essence of the thing. Some times the best way to get at something is to get at what it's not. This is why a romance has to, in some way, deal with loss or loneliness. It's why capturing the serial killer at the end of Act II in Se7en should scare the crap out of you. And it's why Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces has the newly blind director, who carefully navigates walking down stairs, share the frame with a young boy who effortlessly jumps down them.
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THE CHAMPION CORNER
Each of the Top 20 Feature Writers
Win two Sessions with Life Coach
Rhona Berens, PhD.
(From Jim: Here is the article I wrote last year about Rhona.)
THE VALUE OF VALUES
I am proud to say that I have chosen sponsors and prizes that have a real impact on writers. All of our prizes lead to understanding the market, improving your script or craft, gaining exposure or getting you and your script ready to be shown to the world. In other contests, winners might wonder, "What am I supposed to do with that prize?" I am proud to say that none of the prizes on our list should elicit that response.
I'll admit that not all people have the same attitude toward growth that I do. It's not a coincidence that my contest is called "Champion." My strength as a writing coach lies in seeing the best in someone's work and in themselves and encouraging it. Teaching, mentoring, coaching, and therapy have always been a part of my life. Going both ways! I even think of directing as being a champion...you push the 50 people who join your team to do great work, the best work they are capable of doing. Sometimes the process is less gentle on a film set than with clients or students, but the same principle holds.
How good am I at figuring out what people's natural strengths are? And how organically does being a life coach flow from Rhona Berens' essence? Let me tell you. Before she even told me that's what she was doing for a living, I asked her to be my coach. I don't have enough room to explain that but let me tell you a story...
To read the rest of the article
Champion Screenwriting Competition's more than $40,000 in prizes is made possible because of the generous support of its sponsors: Virtual Pitch Fest, Truby's Writers Studio, Rhona Berens, Ph.D. and Its on the Grid, A-List Screenwriting and iScript.
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What Would the
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OPPOSITES
REACT
Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make
A prayer that he could never make. Actually, I always thought he wrote that prayer a few years later on the Ghost of Tom Joad album, in the song "Across the Border."
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