Term 2: Week 4: I've got structure coming out of my ears

Monday

We had our first screenwriting class in ages, taken by our glamorous Hollywood-resident Richard. We recapped subjects we'd done before like theme and structure, but found plenty more to cover in that.

I dread to think what Richard thought of our round robin attempts at writing outlines: each of us contributed one aspect of the story (character, goal, theme, inciting incident etc) in the hope that a coherent story would be built. In some cases we had moderate success, such as a story about a depressed firefighter, but others were hilarious in how awful they were. I don't think any of us will forget the claustrophobic submariner, whose reaction to his claustrophobia was to lock himself in a toilet... And who eventually realised he was the "most experienced on board"... And, of course, the illegal immigrant girl who was drugged and, while she couldn't move her arms or legs, she could go to the travel agent to book a flight home.

I like to think that this isn't a reflection of our true potential as filmmakers, but instead a symptom of that kind of collaborative and directionless writing.

Tuesday

Today, we were looking at character and dialogue. The character game was very fun, as we invented backstories for photos of real people and answered questions like "what sort of underwear are they wearing?" about them. It invites stereotyping (excepting Harry, who came up with a rather lovely story), but the point is that when an audience member first sees a character they make just the same assumptions, so we have to contain as much information as possible in those first impressions.

We were also asked to consider thinking about our characters as if they were real, and I had something to refer to, since character is something I've always been interested in. No simple stuffed toys for me, mine always had elaborate personalities and backstories, and the full accompaniment of character flaws and eccentricities. More recently, my advanced higher drama play led me to make my favourite character: Holly Fray. I think my approach is that I have to fall in love with them a little bit, since if I can't admire and love them, how will an audience, and how will I be able to put them through the rigors of a dramatic situation? The script to that play is actually posted here, and yes it's very dialogue heavy but it's the theatre, and that's allowed.

We also dicussed our premises, and picked one for all of us to write. It's horrifying how a story which intially sounds fun and easy to write actually would cause structural nightmares. I find it quite annoying how restrictive cinema structures are - this isn't to say that I reject the idea, I know that it's right, anyone who's seen a badly structured film would agree, but it does mean that a narrower range of stories can be told, and that action is necessarily distorted to meet the requirements of the three act structure. Anyway, as we come to understand it more I'm sure it will get easier to craft stories which do work, and in the meantime I can always indulge my theatrical tendencies in private.

Wednesday

What a jolly way to start the day: share three things you don't like about yourself.

That happened, and then we ate chocolate fingers (thanks Julia!) and it was definitely easier than eariier in the year.

Then, for something different, we talked about conflict and tension, and the reasons and methods surrounding them. We also touched on the curious way we feel tension even when we know the outcome, which is explored in a cognitive context here if you're interested (I'm a bit of a science geek, and this actually formed a large part of my argument against Verfrumdungseffekt... Anyway... It's a really great website that: the ideas and theories of a film theory lecturer from the University of Wisconsin).

My tutorial was late in the afternoon and it went very well. Richard agreed with me that the initial idea was weak, so the resulting script was never going to blow anyone's socks off, but it was overall in the region of "ok", with a good balance of dialogue and action and a move towards a good structure, thought it was still lacking. Not bad for the first go, and I definitely feel that after our intensive lessons on structure I could do it better, since I understand more about how to build the story up. I was never especially fond of the premise so I'm glad to be done with it and move onto applying myself to different ideas.

Inbetween class and tutorial, a bunch of us went to see Up In The Air and as we left we exchanged glances, and then compared notes on the structure. Our brains are truly diseased.


Thursday

Our special lecture from John Yorke was incredibly intense. In just over 90 minutes we covered the history and theory of story-telling, touching on Ancient Greek theatre, then Tudor/Jacobean theatre, then forward to the Naturalists and finally landing on Eastenders. It was mainly about the idea of a five act structure, which was a very useful addition to what we've been doing with Richard.

What we'd found earlier in the week was that the middle was the most difficult part; we could all come up with characters, situations and climactic endings, but an interesting middle was far more challenging. The helpful trick of the five-act structure we learn with John was to split the middle into a further three acts, with distinctive moments within that. It's like taking more references from your datum line to make a curve - it makes it easier.

It helped me that part of the lesson was done with reference to Shakespeare. If you think I'm a geek for Doctor Who you should see me with Billy Shakes, it's far worse, and anyone speaking to me in those terms has my attention.  

In the afternoon we zipped through more early history of cinema, with more about Eisenstein and Kuleshov and the German Expressionists. It's quite fun for me to be looking at them directly, since before I've only referenced them in relation to their theatrical counterparts, and it's interesting to note that while Eisenstein was struggling with inventing cinema his contemporary Stanislavski was bringing the theatre to new heights of sophistication. Anyway.

There was also the comics joke of the week: a segue from Metropolis to Gotham.

Friday

More Chaplin! I do love the little tramp, and the sentimentality of these films. I don't think there's anything really interesting for me to comment on aside from the fact that it was great to get back to Chaplin's score, which was perfect.

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