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Greetings!
Welcome to a quick sample from the first two lessons of our online/email scene writing class.
Remember, the class emails have 3-4 times more content and there are 2-3 times as many examples. Remember, there is no homework or deadlines. And once you sign up, we will send the complete versions of the lessons you missed. If you are coming here from the ScriptShadow interview, you can check out a fun outtake here upon which I expanded. You can also discuss the lessons with each other in the "Classes and Contests" thread here at Done Deal.
I hope you enjoy this teaser and sign up for the real deal.
Peace, |
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PERSPECTIVE
(Quick Summary)
Perspective is the attitude or point-of-view from which your characters approach a scene or situation.
At a rudimentary level, you want to have the characters in your scene coming from a different perspective just for the sake of variety. However, the more you vary their various perspectives, the more distinct you can make their voices and conflicts.
Theoretically, character orchestration should cover the idea of perspective and make it a redundant topic. In a perfect world and in a perfect script, that would be true. However, there are advantages to looking at perspective at the scene level.
One of the reasons is that it might not be readily evident how a character's big-picture viewpoint translates to the nitty-gritty actions of a scene. For now, let's embrace the fact that searching for distinctive perspectives for each character in a scene will push you to find variety, conflict and surprising character responses.
Notice, how the commercial below is redundant and one-note because there are only two perspectives spread out among its characters.
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ONLINE/EMAIL SCENE WRITING CLASS
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Scenes are to movies what paragraphs are to fiction: building blocks of story. As I finish the first-ever screenwriting book that focuses solely on scene writing, I am sharing craft lessons that will help ALL of your screenwriting.
Once a week or so, you will receive e-mail lesson with some links to relevant clips. Get to it whenever. Even if you sign up in the middle of the class, we will send the earlier lessons, too.
No Homework or Deadlines!
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AVOID REDUNDANCY/ADD COMPLEXITY
Perspective in a Commercial
I included this commercial because I was able to find a clip. In this ad for Burger King's Chicken Parmesan Sandwich, a man discovers that holding a Chicken Parm sandwich bestows great power. The sandwich transfixes the gaze of everyone, including the nameless customers, a dog and his girlfriend (or female friend).  | |
Click to Watch
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As a story, this commercial boils down the perspectives to only two: the main character who has the sandwich and power and everyone else who is unable to look away. I think there are a few reasons to consider at least a third perspective.
I think it's funny and intentional to align the extras (all of the customers except for his female friend) with the dog's perspective: unable to look away. However, there are obvious additional perspectives which would help to clarify the power of the sandwich and also make the two featured characters more likable.
I don't like that his female companion's perspective is also the worst possible reaction. She is reduced to the same attitude as the extras and the dog. Whether the male protagonist is with the women platonically or romantically, when she is weakened,he is too. Why is he with a woman who acts like a dog? Why do we want to identify with a protagonist who hangs out with such a simpleton?
If we give her a Parmesan Sandwich of her own, we could exploit a simple in-between perspective where she is immune to the sandwich's power. She could be amused or even subtly critical of they way he exploits his strange power.
Changing her perspective would make "the theme" stronger by showing that the Parmesan Sandwich prevents her (and us?) from acting like a mindless drone. It also raises the status of the male protagonist because he doesn't associate with a non-special character who isn't even distinguished from the extras.
I am not an expert on advertising, so maybe my evaluation of the additional benefits to this third perspective are not valid. But adding in variety and additional viewpoints are a skill that you will constantly be applying to your scenes.
Let's say there is a big explosion in your screenplay. You might want to emphasize that your protagonist remains calm and strategical in contrast to the faceless crowd that is freaked out and ducks for cover.
Those are two legitimate perspectives. Now, consider they hero's sidekick? You don't want him to be better in the moment than the hero, but you also don't want him to be as helpless as the extras. Could he start helping the injured people? Calm the crowd? Reassure the protagonist that it's okay for him to leave and pursue the antagonist?
There are definitely other options between or other than "remain calm" and "freaking out." That's what you have to look for.
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Remember, you can still sign up for this online/email class and receive all of the content. The first lesson included a video clip, script excerpt and discussion about a scene from Tin Cup where the movie itself has a character perspective that was not present in the draft of the screenplay. There were several advantages to the bolstering of character perspectives in the film. There is also an analysis of a moment from Die Hard where in the aftermath of an explosion, more than half a dozen supporting characters efficiently - a few seconds of screen time each -- reveal their unique perspectives.
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SCENE WRITING EVALUATION - ONE WEEK ONLY
Temporary Service
Want intensive feedback on you scene-level craft? For this week only, you can sign up for a service I only offer a few times per year. Receive up to ten pages of analysis on your scene-writing. I go in to nitty-gritty detail on a few scenes (pick 'em if you want), summarize your overall craft and suggest ways for you to improve your writing. I read ENTIRE script; send it as a PDF.
$499
Details: Sign up by the end of the month and the service will be completed in February. 2011 Champion entrants receive a 10% discount. Email me for instructions on how to redeem.
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LESSON #2
OUT TO LUNCH
(a brief excerpt)
In my recent interview with Carson Reeves, AKA Scriptshadow, we agreed that a great script has to have 60 good scenes in a row. He asked how writers can do this. First of all, you have to be vigilant about looking for ways to tie the obstacles in any given scene to the inner life of your characters. Even when a scene seems trivial.
For example, in The Departed, a realtor shows the Matt Damon character Colin an empty apartment. Disguised as naturalistic small talk, the few beats conflict with Colin's core: challenging his job, his social status and his sexuality. Essentially, there is always a way to reorganize or add elements of a scene to maximize its dramatic effect. In acting this term is called importance and I discuss it and The Departed scene in a back issue of Craft & Career.
The talky first-draft scenes that many novice writers include in their scripts have no business being there. I told Carson that the scenes where the characters sit around and talk over lunch are going to be cut. As your expectations for screenwriting rises, you won't even to think to write that scene. If lunch does not facilitate conflict, then the scene doesn't happen over lunch.
Let me segue into something we discuss in the Champion Labs. It is probably a mortal screenwriting sin to introduce your character in a situation where he or she isn't doing something in his or her unique way. So if your character isn't eating lunch the way he eats lunch, then you can't introduce him in a lunch scene. This concept works in all scenes but since introductions are the first time we see a character, there is an additional burden to get at the essence of the character as quickly as possible.
No opening scenes involving lunches, Mercurio? Is that your rule? No. If you want to have a lunch scene, then your character has to eat lunch the way he eats lunch. The way he eats lunch! This became sort of a mantra in the last Champion Lab and the last Grand Prize Winner of the Champion Screenwriting Competition texted me a few weeks later with: "Am watching
Pee Wee's Big Adventure...Pee Wee is eating lunch the way he eats lunch."
There are plenty of great scenes where character eat lunch the way they eat lunch. The setting, location or action becomes a way to manifest the character. In Three Days of the Condor, the inciting incident is the character going to lunch. The way he goes to lunch prevents him from being one of the several people murdered at his workplace. Something Wild is another movie where the way a character goes to lunch turns into the inciting incident.
The lesson isn't how to write a lunch scene but to show you how several great scenes have taken place in or around lunch. The reason they work as scenes is because the way the storytellers have found a way to reveal the character within the limitations of the scene and situation.
Check out the clip and discussion for Something Wild directly below.
Remember, the full lesson has 3-4 times more material and a
handful of other examples. Sign up for the class above and receive the first two lessons in their entirety.
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NEW CLIP!
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Character and Structure
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SOMETHING WILD
Charlie Goes to Lunch his Way
To understand how good a scene is, you sometimes have to know a lot more than what is in the scene itself. That's the sublime beauty of finding a perfect opening image, opening scene or intro to a character. There should be a deeper appreciation of their elements upon further viewings but they also have to work in the moment upon the first viewing.
In the opening scene, the seemingly uptight and straight-laced Charlie, played by Jeff Daniels, leaves a restaurant without paying. A woman with a bit more edge follows him out and calls him on it. She is Lulu. Heck even his name seems to contrast the titillating Lulu.
From the script:
Her hair is ratted into a spikey nest and several earrings puncture each ear. At 26 she is both old enough abnd young enough to be very dangerous to someone of the opposite sex, especially someone like the unsuspecting Charles Driggs.
Here's the script. Warning, if you start to read it, you will probably get sucked in past its opening scene:
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On the first viewing we aren't going to immediately know all of the surprises and layers of the Charlie character but we see that the set up is all here. We get to see the straight-laced appearance (look at the contrast in their clothes) and we see a glimpse of something else that is going on. This is textbook example of opening image and character set up: to augur the character's dilemma, the two sides of the central issue for the character and the entire movie.
If you watch my new DVD set, you can come back to this scene and look at it as an effective example of what is essentially a meet-cute. The conflict, contrast and "pushing away" is clear on the outer level, but the love, affinity and "pulling toward" is evident in their inner world. The scene's ability to foreshadow what Michael Hauge calls their identity and essence is essential for their romance to work. And all of this is established by making sure that this character goes to lunch the way he goes to lunch.
Remember, the full lesson has 3-4 times more material and a
handful of other examples.
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KATZ'S DELI: LUNCH TIME
In the second lesson of the class, we look at Serpico's first day on the job with his partner, officer of the month, Peluce. You can see their contrast in the shot above. And the next scene is them at lunch at Katz's Deli. And, boy, do they eat lunch the way they eat lunch?
However, I am going to do a little bait and switch. Here's a lunch scene from a completely different movie that happens to take place at Katz's, too. Does she get under his skin? Does she eat lunch her way? Is there a surprising climax?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
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Katz's Delicatessen - in When Harry Met Sally
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Remember, if you sign up for the class, you will receive
all of the lessons in their entirety.
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SNAPSHOT EVALUATION
SAVE 10% ON FEEDBACK FROM JIM HIMSELF
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Sign up in January and use the service after February 1 and you save $20 from the regular $200 price. This service includes up to a page of super-concentrated notes and an optional phone call about how my other services can help you achieve the goals you have for your script and your writing.
Limit of three scripts per writer.
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FREE
KILLER ENDINGS
If you're interested in the coaching or mentoring process, email me and let's have a 5-10 minute chat about your screenwriting goals. No pressure, no sales tactics. After we talk, I will send you the DVD.
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About Jim
Jim works as a story analyst with A-List filmmakers, two of which are part of billion-dollar franchises.
A script he helped to develop has Tom Cruise attached and the author of Boardwalk Empire is a client.
One of his clients has a script on The Black List as does one of the leads (Eyal Podell) from his movie Hard Scrambled.
He is finishing up The Craft of Scene Writing: 14 Steps to a Better Screenplay for Linden Publishing.
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