The Five Minute Film School
Week One: The Script
All good movies start with a good script. A good script needs a good story. But what constitutes a good story? CONFLICT. Someone wants something/wants to achieve something (OBJECTIVE), but something is preventing them (HINDRANCE).
Objective vs Hindrance = Conflict.
e.g. from 'Billy Elliot' - Young Billy Elliot wants to learn ballet dancing, but is hindered by his father who considers it un-masculine.
Most successful movies follow the 3-act structure, aka the 'paradigm'. In between each act is a 'turning point', an incident which sends the story off in a different direction. In 'courier' font size-12, 1 page of script = 1 minute of screen-time. Structure of script for a 2-hour film is as follows:
ACT 1 THE BEGINNING 30 pages - Establish main character and objective. Turning - Introduce hindrance. ACT 2 THE CONFRONTATION 60 pages - Conflict occurs here/body of dramatic action. Turning - Objective is either achieved or failed. ACT 3 THE RESOLUTION 30 pages - Order is restored.
e.g. from 'Traffic' - Michael Douglas wants to fulfil his new post as US drugs-csar. His daughter is introduced to smoking crack by her friends (Turning point). Douglas finds out about his daughter's addiction. As well as familial conflicts, he also suffers inner conflicts of public duty vs private life. Douglas quits as drugs-csar (Turning point). Daughter is weaned-off her addiction with help of family and religion.
For added spice, use variant of the 3-act structure, aka 'The Hero's Journey'. The basis of all myths and stories involving an heroic journey, from 'The Odyssey' to 'Star Wars' to 'O Brother Where Art Thou', this structure features two confrontations. The 'hero' is defeated in the first confrontation and 'falls'. Entering an 'underworld', a 'mentor' helps the hero recover, and empowers them to see through the second, successful confrontation.
e.g. from 'Gladiator' - Russell Crowe is confronted by Joaquim Phoenix following the death of the Emperor (at the hands of his son, Phoenix). Crowe is defeated and almost killed. In his fallen state, he is unable to save wife and child. Crowe enters the underworld of the slave trade and then gladiatorial conflict. Oliver Reed acts as mentor to Crowe, helping him to realise his full potential (Crowe must 'win the audience as well as the fight'). Crowe and Phoenix meet for a second and final confrontation, this time in combat. Crowe is killed, but not before vengeance is wreaked and order restored.
David Mamet believes in the sanctity of the screenplay over the pollution of an actor's character-development: (advice to the actor) "If you learn the words by rote, as if they were a phone book, and let them come out of your mouth without your interpretation, the audience will be well served...It doesn't matter how you say the lines"
Syd Field believes in the marketability of the script over its artistic merit: "You're not writing a screenplay to paper your walls with it. You're writing it, I hope, to sell it!"
Further reading: Screenplay by Syd Field. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. True and False by David Mamet. Jelph Lupin
26th Apr 2001