QUOTES FROM OTHERS

PRINCIPLES OF SCREENWRITING
Quotes from the Experts


STRUCTURE IS SCREENWRITING

“Structure is the most important element in the screenplay. It is the force that holds every holds everything together; it is the skeleton, the spine, the foundation. Without structure, you have no story; without story you have no screenplay.” (Syd Field, Screenwriter’s Work Book, 17)

“The three most important facets of story craft are: (1) structure; (2) structure; (3) structure.” (Richard Walter, Screenwriting, 37)

“A screenplay is structure,” says William Goldman. “It is the spine you hang your story on.” When you sit down to write a screenplay, you must approach your story as a whole. A story is composed of parts – characters, plot, action, dialogue, scenes, sequences, incidents, events – and you as writer, must fashion these “parts” into a “whole,” a definite shape and form, complete with beginning, middle, and end.” (Field, Workbook 20)

CONFLICT: THE FOUNDATION OF SCREENWRITING

The idea must promise CONFLICT. That’s the heart and soul of screenwriting. (Lew Hunter, Screenwriting 434: The Essentials of Screenwriting, 19)

All drama is conflict. Without conflict there is no action; without action there is no character; without character there is no story. And without story there is in no screenplay. (Field Four Screenplay xvii)

My fellow UCLA screenwriting professor Richard Walter, on the same subject, proclaims, “Nobody wants to see the a story about the Village of the Happy People. (Hunter 19)

UNIFIED ACTION: IT’S ALL CONNECTED

Your rule at work here is Aristotle’s unity of action. The play should be about only one thing and that thing should be what the hero is trying to get. (Hunter 125-6)

And Dramatic Structure is defined as “ a linear arrangement of related incidents, episodes, and events leading to a dramatic resolution. (Field Workbook 23)

It is important that you orchestrate these obstacles so that they grow as the movie proceeds, and so that each one in some way derives from the one before it. (Wolf 26)

At all steps along the story way, make sure the scene you’re in was caused by the scene that went before. And the following scene is there because of the one you’re in. Keep that rhythm going and you’ll have a dammed good story. (Hunter 89)

Thus each scene should be tied to what comes before it; were the scene to be dropped, the film would lose coherence. This narrative inevitably comprised the skeletal vertebrae of film structure, the through line, the frame upon which the story hangs. (Pope xix)

A screenplay always moves forward with direction toward the resolution. You’ve got to be on track every step of the way, every scene, every fragment, must be taking you somewhere, moving you forward in terms of story development. (Field WB 12)

Every scene, event, and character must contribute to the hero’s motivation. (Hauge 108)


THREE ACT STUCTURE: IT’S SIMPLE

The old saying goes that in the first act you get your hero up a tree (that is, you create and initial problem), in the second act you throw rocks at him (you complicate the initial problem), and in the third act you get him out the tree (You resolve the initial problem) (Thomas Pope Good Scripts, Bad Scripts)

ACT ONE: THE BEGINNING, THE SET UP, (CREATE INTEREST)

The goal of Act 1 is to establish the setting, the characters, situation and outer motivation for the hero. (Hauge 86)

Act I: Who is my central character and does he want? (Wolf 21)

Act I is a unit of dramatic action that sets up your story. In the first 30 pages of screenplay you must set up your story: introduce your main characters, establish your dramatic pretense, create the situation, and lay out scenes and sequences that build and expand the information of your story. (Field Workbook 28)

In the first 10 pages we see there is a problem, the second 10 pages define the problem and in third 10 pages we understand the problem. (Field WB 117)

The first few scenes are the frame of your movie. Like an oil painting frame. These scenes give the audience your story’s perimeters and tone. (Hunter 132)

In terms of the action that you want to show in the first act, you must include an event that makes the character take the first step toward the goal that becomes his major preoccupation for the rest of the picture. (Wolf 24)





END OF THE BEGINNING

Invariably, beginnings end this way. All seems right and well fit. Then, in a flash, all is wrong and nothing fits. And it is in the middle that the complications are played out. (Walter 52)


It [The First Act] often ends at point of moral conflict for the protagonist, or hero. In High Noon it ends when the sheriff decides to return to town to fight the bad guys. If he had decided to run – that is, if he’d decided to morally abdicate the challenge placed before him – there’d be no further story. The bad guys would have no good guy to fight and the hero would have ethically dammed himself. End of the first act and end of story. (Pope Good Scripts Bad Scripts xvii-xviii)

Remember the first act end at “the situation.” This when E.T. meets Eliot. When Rick gets the transit letters that can get two people out of Casablanca. When the Reporter’s “Rosebud” obsession flashes us back to Charles Foster Kane’s separation from his Colorado parents. (Hunter 94)


ACT TWO: THE MIDDLE, THE COMPLICATIONS,
(HOLD INTEREST)

Act II is the unit of action in which your character confronts and overcomes (or does not overcome) all obstacles to achieve his or her dramatic need. (Field WB 31)

Your job is in the second act is to unfold the complexity of reasons. Characters getting into trouble because of their own actions or the actions of others and the conflict exacerbated by the character’s reactions ands subsequent actions. (Hunter 162)

The second act must complicate the initial problem and serve as the playing field on which the characters reach for a dramatic arc of change or catharsis and in which action is initiated by, and in turn serves to catalyze the characters. It is typically the longest act, usually running for at least half the length of the film. (Pope xvii)

The goal of Act 2 is to build hurdles, obstacles, conflicts, suspense, pace, humor, character development and character revelations. (Hauge 86)

Act II: What does my central do to bring about his goal and who or what opposes him? What are the three or four key obstacles my central character overcomes along the way? What is the “moment of truth” in my character’s quest from which there can be no retreat? (Wolf 21)

THE MIDPOINT

The midpoint is the link in the chain of dramatic action; it connects the first half of the Act II with the second half. In E.T. it is a simple scene between Elliot and E.T.

During the first half of Act II, E.T. and Elliot become friends. Elliot introduces his visitor “the goblin,” to his brother and sister. Soon Elliot and E.T. are connected by feelings; Elliot feels what E.T. feels. And E.T. is homesick; he wants to go home. He wants to phone home. “E.T. phone home,” he says to Elliot, and points out the window.

“And they’ll come?’ the boy asks. E.T. nods.

That’s the midpoint. It happens on page 61. The boys go into the garage and gather up whatever’s around and take it to E.T.: a saw blade, a few toys, a soldering iron, a coffee can. And we’re already being prepared for what’s to come. Elliot’s older brother says, “E.T. might be getting kinda sick.” It sets up the entire second half of Act II. (Field Workbook 137, 138)

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

In the second act you are leading up to what has been called the “moment of truth.” It is the point at which the character is about to embark upon his final and biggest battle to reach his goal. (Wolf 27)

The Big Gloom is that moment, occurring almost inevitably just before the beginning of the end, approximately eighty minutes into the film, where the protagonists is furthest from achieving his goal. (Walter 57)

And so the decision is made. Butch and Sundance actually go to Bolivia. Elliot chooses to rescue E.T. Rick will use his visas to get Ilsa to safety. Kane beings his move to Florida. (Hunter 262)

ACT THREE: THE END, THE CLIMAX, (SATISFY INTEREST)

The last thirty minutes of the film will play out the final conflict that is set up at the end of Act Two, and will answer the question of whether or not the central character will reach his goal. (Wolf 28)

The second act ends. The protagonist is going to take physical action. Here’s where the most famous film chase scenes are cued: the world seemingly racing after E.T. and the children, the car chase scene and the end of The French Connection, the gun battles that conclude Butch and Sundance and the various Rambos. (Hunter 105)

What happens to your main character? Does he live or die? Succeed or fail? Marry or divorce? Blow up the Death Star or not? What is the resolution of the story?

The goal of Act 3 is to resolve everything, particularly the outer motivation and conflict for the hero. (Hauge 86)

The end sees Character win or lose his battle. Remember in the regard, the story doesn’t truly end until the struggle between desire and danger is resolved, with some kind of clear-cut triumph of desire over danger, or visa versa. (Swain 89)


THE SCENE: A CONFLICT WITH A BEGINNING, MIDDLE AND END

Does the scene possess its own beginning, middle and end? Each scene in your screenplay is like a mini-movie: it must establish, build and resolve a situation. (Hauge 150)

Thus a scene has its own dramatic curve, which follows the rules of drama as does its big brother, the movie itself. But while a movie should be dramatically self-contained the resolution of a scene should create a new problem and thus a new scene. (the sheriff’s decision to leave the town forces his moral anguish, which causes him to turn around)
And the resolution of the second problem should, in turn, create yet a third problem and thus a third scene. (Pope xix)

SCENES CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER

Thus each scene should be tied to what comes before it; were the scene to be dropped, the film would lose coherence. This narrative inevitably comprised the skeletal vertebrae of film structure, the through line, the frame upon which the story hangs. (Pope xix)


Does the scene thrust the reader into the following scenes? At the end of each scene you must compel the reader to turn the page: any time a reader doesn’t care about what happens next, your screenplay has failed. So each scene must have the reader wanting more. (Hauge 150)

SCENES ONLY CONTAIN ACTION AND DIALOGUE

ONLY WRITE IN MASTER SCENES. Some new and even old writers feel it’s important to drop CLOSEUP, or ANGLE ON, or P.O.V. into their scripts. Let me put it to your logic. You’re going to tell Coppola, Spielberg, Pollak, et al, where to put a close up? (Hunter 121-2)