Screenwriting is Filmmaking E-Book

Brian Dunnigan

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 441

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

To write for the unique medium of the screen, you need to be as engaged with the theory and practice of film as you are with words. Screenwriting is Filmmaking provides a wealth of insights for new and experienced writers alike on the historical, theoretical and practical essentials of screenwriting. With clear analyses drawn from a wide range of classical and contemporary films, alongside case studies and practical exercises, this book encourages the development of craft skills and a personal voice through the writing of short and feature screenplays. You will learn how to develop your screenplay from idea to final draft; apply the techniques of narrative, structure and visual language; build rounded and convincing characters; craft compelling scenes through dialogue and sub-text and maintain a meaningful and lasting creative practice. Brian Dunnigan draws on over thirty years' experience of writing, teaching and making films, to provide a practical guide on how to become an effective screenwriter as well as giving a fascinating insight into visual storytelling and the place of the screenplay in the collaborative process of filmmaking. Of great interest to all screenwriters, especially new/aspiring ones; and all those with an interest in the filmmaking world, it is illustrated with 17 colour and 17 black & white photographs. Brian Dunnigan is an award-winning filmmaker and Head of Screenwriting at the London Film School.

Leseprobe

Screenwritingis Filmmaking

Brian Dunnigan offers a wealth of experience and knowledge in the field of screenwriting.

Robyn Slovo

In the beginning was The Word. Brian Dunnigan has brilliantly encapsulated the profound dependency all filmmaking has on the ideas that arise from a well written screenplay. Screenwriting is Filmmaking is an invaluable resource for anyone facing the task of making a film. I cannot commend it enough.

Iain Smith

Screenwriting is Filmmaking is the book I have been looking for! Uniquely tracing the origins of screenwriting up to present day, it gives an unsurpassed context for contemporary film writing. Whether a skilled professional or aspiring student, you will find this an invaluable tool in developing your script writing skills and turning your ideas into a screenplay.

Sandy Lieberson

Often a screenplay is thought of as an ends to a means. It is neither an image nor is it a piece of literature. Yet it is imperative to the success of a film. In Screenwriting is Filmmaking, Brian Dunnigan helps shed light on the symbiotic relationship between the two. Brian has a profound understanding of the craft, and his emphasis on story and character is essential reading for anyone wanting to uncover the beating heart of their own screenplay.

Gonzalo Maza

Screenwritingis Filmmaking

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF WRITING FOR THE SCREEN

Brian Dunnigan

First published in 2019 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

This e-book first published in 2019

www.crowood.com

© Brian Dunnigan 2019

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 610 4

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSINTRODUCTION1STORY2CREATIVITY3LANGUAGE OF CINEMA4CHARACTER5STRUCTURE6THE FEATURE FILM7CLASSICAL AND ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES8SCENE WRITING AND DIALOGUE9DEVELOPMENT10THE COLLABORATIVE PROCESSENDNOTESGLOSSARYBIBLIOGRAPHYFILMOGRAPHYFURTHER RESOURCESINDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is based on my thirty years of writing, film-making, teaching and running workshops in the UK and internationally on screenwriting and what it means to be a screenwriter.

My first appreciation must go to the staff and students at the London Film School (LFS) for sharing their knowledge and passion for cinema, and in particular to Alan Bernstein, Ben Gibson, Barry Salt, Colin Tucker, Simon Louvish, Archie Tait, Les Blair and Howard Thompson for their specialist insights, and to Moshe Nitzani, Chi Yu, Umpha Koroma, Shirley Streete-Barath and Annette Streete for their unstinting support.

I also want to thank my colleagues on the MA Screenwriting programme at LFS. While I designed and launched the MA, it was the contribution of many, including Ellis Freeman, Philip Palmer, Roger Hyams, Margaret Glover, Jeremy Page, Jane Wittekind, Giles Borg, Katie Rae, John Sibley, Gillian Harrison, Amanda Schiff, Sue Austen, Richard Kwietniowski, Jon Gilbert, Jonathan Hourigan and Sophia Wellington, which made the course such a success and from whom I have learned so much.

Thanks also to the many professional friends and visiting tutors on the MA at LFS, all of whom so generously shared their insights on screenwriting and film-making with the students and myself; these have enriched the book, while all responsibility for any mistakes or faults rests with me.

Richard Raskin encouraged me to write on the short film and published my first work in the Danish Journal of Film Studies.

The Screenwriting Research Network gave me the opportunity to develop my ideas in a series of conference papers.

I am grateful to Jonathan Hourigan, Sophia Wellington and Jon Gilbert who read an early draft of the book and gave me useful comments.

Thank you to Caroline Penn for finding great film stills and illustrations at affordable prices!

My thanks to the staff of La Duchesse, the Yellow Warbler and the Green Room, the coffee houses in Stoke Newington, where much of the book was written. To my children, Madeleine and Pete, and especially to Louisa for several late nights of copy editing and collating. And, finally, to my wife Hetty Einzig, for her insightful comments and critical edits, without whom this book would not have been possible.

Brian Dunnigan

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this book is to illuminate the historical and theoretical context of current screenwriting practice and to emphasize the place of the screenplay in the process of film-making.

The book traces the development of the classical narrative and dramatic tradition from its roots in oral storytelling and early Greek theatre, through nineteenth-century theatrical forms to the emergence of a distinctive cinematic language. It discusses the principles, concepts and vocabulary of the practice of film-making in relation to case studies of specific screenplays and films.

Analyses are drawn from a wide range of classic and contemporary films, while the book also offers a wealth of practical insights, exercises and examples that you can apply to the writing of a short film or feature screenplay. The conceptual analysis is always linked back to the context of screenwriting and the development of the writer’s personal voice.

At all times the book encourages the student to dig deeper into the background of conventional technique and its relationship to audience engagement, while highlighting alternative approaches and encouraging the reading and analysis of screenplays as complementary to the practical work.

Each chapter builds toward a conceptual framework that can be used as a basis for writing a short or feature film screenplay. The topics discussed are:

•Stories and Narrative The narrative impulse is linked to our need for order and meaning, empathy and cooperation, and our interest in risk and adventure, movement, action, information and knowledge. Simple narrative patterns are analysed with reference to fairy tales, detective stories and the short film. Exercises encourage the exploration of personal experience and memory as the basis for film stories.

•Creativity Writing is a creative act, a form of play, a powerful experience of something other within oneself. This chapter emphasizes exploration, discovery and making something new over rules and formulas, while finding originality in the personal. At the same time, it focuses on the importance of dialogue with other people, giving and taking feedback, listening and paying attention. Screenwriting is a collaborative process.

•Language of Cinema The origins of drama in ritual and early Greek theatre and Aristotle’s Poetics as the foundation of the Western dramatic tradition are discussed, as well as the moral dilemma at the heart of dramatic narrative and the difference between narrative and drama. We chart the emergence of a distinctive, elliptical language of cinema through shot selection, editing and the use of close-up: telling the story in the cut.

•Character Character desire and networks, transformation and change are the topics of this chapter: the movement between the internal life of characters and the external actions of the plot. Sources of conflict, the importance of vulnerability and contradiction, reason and emotion, memory and imagination as the essence of the construction of character. Passive and flawed characters, the hero and heroine’s journey and modernist alternatives to the classical model are discussed.

•Structure The classical three-act model of the goal-oriented character, rising action and sudden reversals, as well as alternative models where narrative drive and character arcs are replaced by a more observational or personal approach, is the focus of this chapter. We need to find the balance between screenwriting conventions and discovery, planning and improvisation. The importance of craft skills and techniques, the distinction between story and plot and key structural principles from causality to suspense and surprise are explored and defined.

•The Feature Film Drawing on Aristotelian ideas of drama, including the importance of dramatic unity and plot construction, this chapter outlines a variety of conventional and alternative approaches to writing the feature film screenplay. Theories of characterization and the full range of dramatic principles are analysed and applied to a range of classical and alternative strategies for developing a feature film screenplay.

•Scene Writing and Dialogue The focus here is the dramatic scene as a locus of change and conflict. Topics covered include: setting, action, dialogue and sub-text; scene structure; the importance of what is happening now, as well as what is happening next. Writing the scene – focus, choice, change, overwriting and editing; words on the page, flow and rhythm – are all addressed. Also: the writer as actor; dialogue and action; transitions, sequences and rewriting.

•Development The last chapter focuses on the development of a feature screenplay from script to screen and the importance of making it personal. The stages of development are discussed from ideas and research to the first-draft screenplay, including premise and logline, character networks, plotting and outlines, feedback and script notes, revision and rewriting.

•The Collaborative Process Screenwriting is film-making. The collaborative nature of film-making, working with the director, and the place of the screenplay and screenwriter in the process are addressed. A technical knowledge of film-making and editing is encouraged, as is gaining experience by working on short films. Pitching your ideas and how to approach an agent, as well as a range of options for continued development, are suggested.

•Exercises As well as case studies and analysis of short and feature film scripts there is a wide range of exercises at the end of each chapter, which encourage the practical exploration of theory and analysis through written work. In this way I encourage the development of craft skills that will make you a more skilful and, therefore, better writer.

Writing and film-making are ways of thinking about ourselves and in relation to others and the world we inhabit. It is a very human activity to reflect upon our actions and the consequences, the choices we constantly face, what is important or of value, how we deal with failure or the unexpected. Stories give shape to our hopes and fears, our dreams and nightmares, or they can reframe the trivial details of our lives, encouraging us to look at them afresh.

Screenwriting is a very particular kind of writing informed by the language of cinema, which uses images and sounds, time, sequences, dialogue and music to express thoughts that cannot be expressed any other way. A screenwriter needs to know what is required to write for this unique medium and she must know that what she writes will be taken up by others – the director, actors, Director of Photography (DoP) and editor – who will rework and reshape what she writes.

In this sense, the screenwriter is a film-maker and this book encourages the development of a personal voice allied to an understanding of dramatic principles and film-making technique acquired through careful study and constant practice. The development of any talent involves an element of craft but in the end there is no rule, technique or principle worthwhile unless you have discovered it for yourself and worked out your own way to play with – or against – convention.

All of the feature screenplays referenced in the book can be found on the websites listed under Further Resources. The short films can be viewed online either on YouTube or Vimeo.

1

STORY

Screenwriting is an elusive art form, but central to the development of most screenplays is a concern with story. The screenwriter is a storyteller in a tradition linked to the pre-literate world of oral tradition. As a writer, she may be a dreamer, playing with ideas and images. Thinking, remembering, rewriting, drawing on her sense memory, experience and observation, she develops a deeper relation with herself and the world, uncovering what is hidden in the shadows, and in this process discovering what she has to say. The writing has to be personal. This may be what it means to find your voice: you can only write it your way – including if you are adapting or translating a story from another medium. And the creative process is non-linear, more of a weaving back and forth – a search, a discovery – than anything mechanistic or formulaic.

Yet there are basic patterns and shapes to storytelling that can be studied and practised, or used as prompts or unconscious guides in the writing. For finally you, the writer, have to structure your idea or concept for an audience; you have to draw them in and keep their interest in what might happen next.

Ultimately, this may be the only rule: to be entertaining. For the path of exploration and reflection is leading to this point: having a dramatic story to tell to someone. And at a certain stage of development, this is what you might do. Try telling your story to a friend and learn from their reaction and questions where the gaps or problems are. From an outline of the story, you can then begin to develop a dramatic structure, as a basis for writing the screenplay.

At the heart of this structure will be your story; and at the heart of story will be character because your story will be about what happened to someone. Character desire will drive the story and shape the audience experience.

WHY STORY?

But why are we drawn to story – why do we find stories so compelling and seek them out? Why do we so often organize and communicate our experience in this narrative way?

Our first task, therefore, will be to explore some possible answers to these questions and thereby illuminate some key elements of storytelling itself.

Order and Meaning

It seems that storytelling is a basic human impulse. All societies create and consume stories. We all know how to tell and understand a story. Stories and narratives surround us in reality and fiction: news stories, gossip, conversation, religious stories, fairy tales, bedtime stories and jokes. We use the narrative form to summarize and communicate, to entertain and educate. Stories are a source of pleasure and insight, they locate us in time and space, they give our lives meaning and purpose. They create order from chaos and, through connecting the fragments and moments of our lives, humanize time. Stories create meaningful, purposeful time and, therefore, make life bearable, shareable and enjoyable.

Concentration and Pattern

The ordering and organizing energy of story that attracts our attention depends upon two principles found in many art forms: concentration and pattern.

We are drawn to patterned structures like narrative, because pattern reminds us of the regularities and symmetries in the world; that the world and nature are not random but ordered, connected and full of meaning; that all is not chance and chaos. And, even if it is, pattern concentrates and focuses the chaotic mind.

Storytelling is patterned in a way that attracts our attention. A story concentrates on what is important, while the relationships between the different elements intrigue us and alert us to the hidden patterns and connections in our own lives. We are encouraged to pay attention, to work out what is going on – like detectives.

We need to follow the clues offered by the narrative to work out the connections, to find out what is going on and what it all might mean. Stories make us curious, keep us focused – and, like Scheherazade’s need to tell stories,1 keep death and the dark at bay.

Empathy and Cooperation

Through sharing stories we come together around the fire, we tell others what happened to us and listen to what happened to them, we are given ideas about what to do the next time or what we might do if that happened to us – or perhaps give them reason to help us. Stories give us ideas about how to live, who or what to avoid, what makes people tick, what is of value to us, for example, why have you chosen to tell this story?

When we are involved in a story, we identify with the central character, developing skills of empathy and concern for others. We come to realize our own ignorance about events and, therefore, needful humility, rather than rushing to judgement. We are always surprised by how little we actually know about anyone – or ourselves. From folk and fairy tales to novels or television and what is reported in the news, we soon come to understand that life is a risky business. It requires strategies or friends or both to help us deal with the many problems that can arise, as well as to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

Play

But whether helping us solve problems, think about how to get out of trouble or deal with what happens to us, by giving us a sense of our own agency or empathizing with another point of view, stories or fictions are not distractions from reality but ways of understanding, connecting and playing with that reality. Listening, watching or telling stories can make us more confident, more skilled in understanding other people and interacting with them. Stories offer alternative scenarios and help us think beyond the here and now. As a form of cognitive play, stories, therefore, encourage flexible and experimental thinking and help us to develop habits of imaginative exploration that we can use in our everyday lives.

Writing and storytelling are forms of play and creative exploration – hence the importance of writing exercises and free writing in the search for a story to tell.

WHAT IS A STORY?

There are several patterns, principles and dramatic devices that can help us clarify what a story is.

Time and Causality

Most stories are organized around a basic pattern, involving three linked events and two key principles of any narrative: time and causality:

The oldest story in the world – someone getting in and out of trouble.

1.Stable situation.

2.Disturbance/action.

3.New situation.

This is story at its most basic, like the oldest story in the world: man falls into hole, man gets out of hole; this is the same as ‘tick-tock’ or change through time.

The briefest story tells us of something that happens to someone. The events are connected causally and happen in time: one event causes another. Because a man is not paying attention, he falls into a hole. He clambers out on to the pavement – now dirty, shaken and embarrassed. The everyday world is disturbed. As with a crisis: a character makes a mistake or gets into trouble and the world is changed forever.

Logic, Rising Action and Surprise

A story with more time to tell will build through a series of crises to a final, surprising, crisis or climax. A joke is often constructed in this way, with a protagonist and a series of linked events that take place in time – but with the addition of rising action and a twist in the tale that has been prepared for earlier:

A man seeking solitude and silence joins a monastery where he takes a vow of silence but is allowed to say two words every seven years.

After the first seven years, the man is called before the Abbot and when asked how he is doing, says: ‘Bed hard’.

After the second seven years, he says: ‘Food awful’.

And after the final seven years, he appears before the Abbot who asks him:

‘What do you have to say this time?’

The man says, ‘I quit’, turns around and walks out.

The Abbot turns to his colleague and says: ‘I knew it. He’s not stopped complaining since he got here!’

Many structural principles used by modern storytellers are to be found in Aristotle’s Poetics. In this he stated that a tragedy should imitate a whole action, falling into two parts: the complication and the unraveling. In 1863, the German novelist Gustav Freytag modified Aristotle’s basic triangle, breaking it into the five parts popular in nineteenth-century theatre and anticipating later screenwriting models.

The opening and the events of the escalating action (the man’s growing dissatisfaction) are part of a cause and effect chain. The pleasure and attraction of story lies in this patterned combination of logic and surprise. The through-line of character and action that provides clarity and coherence, the lines of dialogue that are repeated with variation, the information planted and paid-off, the surprise twist at the end, which, on reflection, seems inevitable – all are crucial to the meaning and pleasure of storytelling.

With the joke we are already elaborating a more complex narrative.

Exposition and Ellipsis

The main focus of concentration in a story is, of course, the principal character or protagonist (literally: the one who struggles). Character traits, supporting characters, backstory information, the selection and ordering of events and actions are designed by the screenwriter to keep the audience concentrated on, and involved in, the story.

Key information about character and plot is omitted or only hinted at. The balance between continuity and discontinuity, the gaps in our knowledge, the sub-text of thoughts and feelings, are all designed both to keep us on track and, therefore, understanding and apprehensive of what might follow, but also keep us uncertain of what may follow and in a state of recurring tension. The audience needs to be provided with enough information to understand what is going on but not so much that the story becomes boring and predictable. Finding a balance between exposition of both character and plot, while at the same time deciding on ellipses that intrigue and surprise, is another task of the screenwriter.

Desire and Contradiction

A character’s desire is what the story is really about. As an audience, this is what we are following. In a sense, the story is about our own desire, our wishes and what happens to them, through our identification with the central character’s desire. We want to know; we want what they want. Desire is what drives us, and the story, on – struggling through confusion, frustration, deception, but also moments of clarity, epiphany and delight, propelling us on into new worlds of encounter and experience, towards the unexpected discovery or realization.

The outcome of our desire is often unexpected because of the contradiction between what we want and what we need or deserve, between the world as we would like it to be and how it actually is. Many stories are about not getting what we want or getting it in a surprising way, or discovering that what we want is not what we need.

Reversal and Discovery

This moment of reversal and realization is what the story has been building to. In its vulgar form, this is referred to as the twist in the tale. But for the proper emotional connection with an audience to be made, this moment must emerge from the story material, from something that we saw earlier and whose significance we failed to understand – not be imposed from the outside as a Deus ex machina (L. ‘god in a machine’) – an unbelievable coincidence or contrivance – as this would weaken our belief in the story.

Obstacles and Conflict

Desire itself awakens opposition: the forces of antagonism that threaten the pursuit of the desired object but also make us think again, try harder or develop a new strategy to get what we want. But others put pressure on us by getting in the way of our desire – failing to understand our explanation or our jokes or running off with the one we love – not giving us what we want. The satisfaction we seek is often thwarted and how we deal with the frustration or defeat is what reveals character. It is also opposition to the protagonist’s desire that keeps the story alive by delaying the end and creating uncertainty of outcome. This basic element of story structure – character, objective and obstacle – creates conflict for both protagonist and spectator.

Stakes

The uncertainty of outcome creates tension in the mind of the audience, giving rise to emotions of curiosity, suspense and anticipation. If there is also something at stake for the protagonist, this intensifies our interest.

Combining the simple formula of character desire and the obstacle to that desire with what the protagonist stands to lose, the playwright and screenwriter David Mamet suggests a series of questions that might guide the writing of a screenplay.

STORY QUESTIONS

•Who is my main character? (Protagonist)

•What does s/he want? (Objective)

•Why can’t s/he get it? (Obstacle)

•What happens if s/he doesn’t get it? (What’s at stake?)2

What the protagonist wants has to be important to her: there has to be something at stake (ambition, money, love, self-esteem) for the main character. If what she wants is not important to her, why should we care?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs that is also suggestive of what might be at stake for your protagonist; what motivates them to action.

Journey

It should be remembered that there is internal movement of character, as well as the external action of plot events. How the character is moved, touched or gradually changed in interaction with the external plot is the point of many of the strongest screen stories: not the action itself but the consequences of the action on the soul of the character is often what moves us most.

If most stories can be said to involve a journey, then it is the internal psychological journey of the protagonist that we are following to the moment of change in their world, circumstances or even nature – and the catharsis of the feelings generated by the plot events. This relationship between the external and the internal also points up an important practical and inspiring element in storytelling: stories give us ideas about how we can make sense of the world and find our place in it.

Risk and Adventure

For, in a sense, every story that we tell mirrors our lives in some way – and raises some key questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What does it mean? When Odysseus is trapped on an island with the beautiful enchantress Calypso, she offers him eternal life, a timeless life of bliss. But he chooses a human life, his life, a finite life, but one shaped by his choices and decisions: a life of risk and adventure and marriage to a woman who will age and die – as he will. Death focuses the mind on what is of importance, what makes life worth living.

Movement, Action and Emotion

But we also want Odysseus to set forth into a sea of troubles. As an audience, we want to experience the challenge and excitement of movement and action over stasis in a place where nothing of consequence happens. Stories play upon and nourish our emotions – fear, anticipation, grief, hope – which presuppose an active, resourceful but vulnerable protagonist. The emotions that are stirred by our identification with the hero or heroine’s journey – hoping for success, fearing defeat or death – are part of our sense of human fragility and ignorance – as well as highlighting what is important to us – truth, loyalty, friendship, love, justice.

Our lives are finite but the knowledge that we are going to die intensifies and clarifies our experience and values. We don’t know very much and we are not in control, and anything can happen at any time to damage us, but the possibilities excite us, and the courage and resolve of our protagonist move us and connect us to our own journey and the question central to Greek drama and philosophy: How should I live?

Motivation and Goal

The journey metaphor – human life and the adventure of being human conceived as a journey – assumes that characters are constantly faced with choices that define who they are and what is important to them: about what kind of life they want to live. They are constantly on the move, internally and externally; hence the importance of establishing a character’s motivation and goal. This journey has a destination and a reason for setting out. Not only does this provide clarity and unity of focus but also a way for the audience to judge the significance of the events in relation to the protagonist’s objective.

Rhythm and Pacing

On this journey, the writer must also attend to the organizing story beats – the rhythm of events and incidents that challenge the protagonist and hasten or delay the outcome. Both audience and protagonist need time to reflect upon and feel the consequences of actions and reactions externalized in the plot, conceived as a rite of passage for the main character.

Ritual and Transformation

For the image of story as journey is shadowed by ritual and pilgrimage. The need to leave home and seek out the sacred place of physical or spiritual healing, enlightenment or new knowledge – to go on a journey that you knew was going to be difficult and dangerous, with trials and tests to prove that you are worthy.

In a feature film, this is also a space of transformation and encounter, where you struggle to let go of the old way of life – your previous ideas about yourself and others – in order for your life to be renewed. The archetype here is death and rebirth. In Augustinian theology this was the moment when you escaped time and entered another reality – eternity. Hence the reminder of a basic narrative pattern in the lyrics of the song Amazing Grace – I once was lost but now am found.3

Lost and Found

What is lost or desired, what one lacks, is often the underlying or unconscious reason why the hero or heroine has set out on the journey in the first place – the feeling or realization that something important is missing or unresolved. Or the protagonist – and we – may only become conscious of this lack as the story develops. This is another way of considering a deeper level of story – the internal journey of the protagonist, as opposed to the pursuit of an external objective.

For example, in Silence of the Lambs Clarice is haunted by her failure in the past to save the lambs from slaughter and this gives her the impetus to confront the serial killer and, this time, save the innocent victim. Her successful capture of the killer allows her to realize her ambition to move from being an apprentice to a professional FBI agent. Before she could achieve this desire, she had to confront her failure in the past. This is also a classic plot pattern, where what a character wants is not what they need, or this inner lack needs to be addressed before they get what they want. Sometimes this lack is defined as a character flaw or wound – an element of denial that is blocking the protagonist’s way to a more fully human life, where they are aligned – rather than in conflict – with their essential selves.

This idea of the journey through a narrowing passage of increasing threat or a journey in and out of darkness, offers both pattern and meaning that connects to the narrative meanings embedded in ritual and religion, and in the earliest forms of storytelling.

STORY ARCHETYPES

The Oral Tradition

Sing in me and tell the story.4

The screenwriter is part of an older storytelling tradition that pre-dates literacy and has its roots in the Homeric epic. In old Welsh, ‘story’ came from the stem ‘arwydd’ – a sign, a symbol, a manifestation or miracle from the root meaning ‘to see’. Story implied guidance, wisdom and knowledge. The storyteller of the tribe was a seer who guided the souls of his listeners though a world of mystery. It was a form of improvisation and performance, like the development of a film story.

The screenwriter too is a storyteller and, therefore, also a director, an actor, an editor – as he imagines and improvises his screen story – rewriting and revising in interaction with others: what to show and when, what to reveal, what to conceal, what to emphasize. The story is alive and present in the moment and comes from within the storyteller. He has made the story his own and is alive and responsive to his own and others’ reactions – which help shape the order, the pacing, rhythm and delivery of incidents, events and meaning. These qualities of the storytelling have to be just right to keep the audience involved.

There are many kinds of narrative in the oral tradition – myth, saga, legend, epic, romance, parable, anecdote, history, folktale – but I want to focus on two: the ballad and the fairy tale.

Ballad

A ballad is a folk song that tells a cathartic and dramatic story – of love, murder, revenge, romance, or of encounters with magic and the marvellous. The ballad singer, like the oral storyteller, did not work with a text but with his auditory memory, a simple story line, a ritualized form of repetition and variation and the vivid imagery of the ballad to guide him.

His world was an imagined aristocratic one, where characters set out into a wide world of adventure and possibility, offering an imaginative escape from the demands of rural life. And, crucially relevant to screenwriting, this was a world with an emphasis on action – of people doing things. Ballad language is a language of act and event – descriptive not prescriptive. This is what gives ballads their power and distinguishes them from more literary poetic forms, as we can see in this verse from the old Scottish ballad Burd Ellen:

He’s pitten on his cork-heeled shoone, [shoes]An fast awa rade he;

She’s clade herself in page aray,And after him ran she.

Most ballads have at their base two people in relationship with each other who are threatened by a third person. The central pair’s reaction to this new threat (a parent, another lover, a rival) forms the development core of the simple story.

Thus we have another version of a familiar storytelling pattern that recurs in many film stories: initial situation, threat, complication, development and resolution; where the development relates to the efforts to promote or combat the threat and the resolution deals with the happy or tragic outcome.

To think of screenwriting as a performance or a practice where stories are not memorized but spun out of variant verses and formulaic phrases, reimagined and reformulated in new combinations, leads us to the most pervasive of literary forms with its roots in the oral tradition: the folk or fairy tale. This is the Ur-tale, the original story, at the heart of our globalized film culture. Folk tales contain the origins of the detective story, romance, horror, sci-fi and action-adventure.

Fairy Tale

Folk or fairy tales are stories that have been in circulation for centuries. Oral tales improvised around a series of dramatic situations, they offer pattern and provocation for our own storytelling. Relayed to them by matrons and nurses and written down by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (for different audiences), the tales became more polished, amplified, stylized – literary. Along with the French translation of Tales of a Thousand and One Nights, they created a sea of stories from which writers and screenwriters, poets, composers and dramatists have drawn ever since; a source of inspiration for literature and mass entertainment. Originally retold to an adult audience as entertainment at the end of a working day, fairy tales’ otherworldly settings, the enchantments and the magic objects, made them seem stories more appropriate for children than for rational adults in a post-Enlightenment age.

THEMES

But for the Romantics, they were a powerful reminder of the primitive, imaginative world of the past, a world of powerful emotions. Mysterious and wondrous settings and happenings engendered feelings of wonder and awe in the face of implacable yet redemptive Nature. Stories like Hansel and Gretel, Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood, reconnect us with the fears and anxieties of childhood and the utopian hopes of the human spirit repressed by an over-rational culture. Underlying and troubling themes of sexuality and violence, sibling rivalry and moral obligations, all gave these stories a continuing relevance for adult readers.

ACTION

The tales themselves have a compelling, stark quality, with the teller offering no comment or judgement on the often brutal facts of the story: a woman dancing to death in red hot shoes or a little girl raped and eaten by a wolf. There is an emphasis on action but also a mystery here, a lack of explanation that provokes further thought. Angela Carter is just one of many modern authors who have rewritten and provided an inner life to these tales, exploring and revealing the seduction, the repressed sexuality and extreme violence, the guilt and fantasy that still trap and entrance more adult audiences.5

PROTAGONISTS

The protagonists in fairy tales lack inner lives – they have no self-doubt, they are simple and naive; fairy tale protagonists are single-minded and one-dimensional, struggling under a curse or lost in the forest, finding help and hate in equal measure as they experience trials, tests and horrors; they are us or at least that narcissistic, naive self-searching for a new home in the world.

STORY WORLD

Part of the power of the fairy tale is the world it evokes: a black and white world of simple polarizations and happy endings; good and bad, enemies and helpers, debasement and recognition; restoration of the moral order and justice. The locked rooms, dark caves and impenetrable forests remind us of the dominant dramatic form of melodrama in cinema and television – where some hidden truth is dramatically brought into the light and evil is defeated. It is sometimes said that there is only one story: the struggle of light against dark.

NARRATIVE PATTERN

In Morphology of the Folktale, the Russian formalist Vladimir Propp analysed and summarized this basic narrative pattern.

FAIRY TALE STRUCTURE

1.The story begins with a violation or prohibition – a spell or a curse.

2.Banishment or leaving home – assignment of a task that defines the identity or destiny of the protagonist and gives them a goal.

3.Encounters – with deceitful villain, helpers, a magic gift.

4.The protagonist is tested.

5.Reversal of fortune/set-back.

6.The protagonist makes use of their gift to achieve their goal.

7.Final battle with villain/breaking of the spell.

8.Marriage, wealth, knowledge or simple survival.

You can see in the structuralist analysis of story, the roots of later models and paradigms referred to in screenwriting books and many contemporary films from Star Wars to Wonder Woman. And while it may be useful to consider these patterns as a guide, what this formal approach fails to catch is what continues to draw us to these stories.

WONDER AND CHANGE

The fairy tale world is a world of possibility, of hope, of wonder. But also of fear – fear of darkness, of sexual intimacy, of growing-up; fear of not being loved or not being worthy of love; powerful existential emotions that go to the heart of the human predicament and the enchantment of story for both storyteller and listener.

The tasks, obstacles and gifts marking the change and growth; the struggle to survive against enemies and bullies and those with power over you; the forming of alliances, the discovery of friendship and kindness; the crisis that leads to breakthrough and a movement out of isolation into affection and companionship, to change and breaking of the curse. The possibility of wondrous change is what has kept these tales alive, a change that can happen at any time – a change of status, or perception or of fortune, a breakthrough and movement out of isolation and powerlessness into affection, companionship and independence.

In this sense, fairy tales are wish fulfilments: they nurture our imagination and give hope that, although there is no guarantee, we will find our place in the world – a place where we are recognized and loved. You can see in this kind of interpretation the connection between the fairy tale as a reflection of the psyche with initiation rites and religious ritual: dark interiors full of secrets that seek the light of revelation, community and transformation. Another link is with the detective story.

The Detective Story

KNOWLEDGE

For Sergei Eisenstein, one of the earliest film theorists and practitioners, the detective story provided the ideal model of film structure. The central quest of the detective story is the search for knowledge and the journey, therefore, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth. And this knowledge is not only of the outside world but knowledge of the self.

INITIATION

The detective story is also a story of initiation; a rite of passage where the protagonist moves from one state of being to another. This is the deep structure underlying most stories – how new knowledge transforms the protagonist’s view of himself and the world. He is no longer the same person and the world has also changed for him – happily or tragically. Like Gittes, the private detective in Chinatown who thinks he knows what is going on – but doesn’t – and tragically fails to save the woman he loves. Most detective fiction is organized around this failure to read the world around us.

LOOKING FOR CLUES

As viewers we are trying to get to the bottom of the mystery – like Gittes or Holly Martins in The Third Man who wants to find out how his best friend Harry Lime died – we watch the screen closely for clues, we try to figure out who to trust, what has happened, what that action or line of dialogue means. The word ‘clue’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon meaning ball of yarn. We can lose the thread of the plot, so we try to remember what happened earlier, to understand what is happening now and consider what might happen next.

SPINNING A YARN

Both the writing of a screenplay and the experience of viewing involve a moving back and forth more like weaving than anything more linear. Like the spinners and weavers of Greek myth – the three Moirai, the Fates – the screenwriter is spinning the yarn, teasing out the thread of the story and cutting between the narrative elements – creating a patterned plot that requires memory and intelligence to spin and weave together and to understand – and to begin the unravelling of the plot.

We understand stories in general and we like to play the detective because the skills required are a heightening and focusing of skills we bring to understand everyday life; working out what other people want, what their intentions and objectives are, what they are concealing. We draw on past experience to make judgements and decisions.

The study of classical structure in general and the detective story in particular reveals the ways in which an audience makes sense of story information and how they interpret dramatic patterns. These insights offer screenwriters clues about how to structure their screenplay for an audience, but should not distract from the essential humanity of their story.

THE SHORT FILM

Personal Storytelling

Stories are ways of making sense, forms of cognitive play and explanation that are also attempts to grasp a mystery: the mystery and contradictions of human desire in a contingent universe. Who we are and what we are not, what we want and need, what has happened to us, what is going to happen to us and how to survive and flourish in an unpredictable world are constant human concerns given shape by story and drama.

Stories are more powerful than facts or reason because they stir our emotions through vivid imagery and selected events; we have an emotional response to the dilemmas of the suffering and struggling humans in stories because they raise questions of value, of what we believe is important in human life. An emotional response is also a rational response. Stories encourage us to think and reflect on how we deal with the challenges and problems of our own lives.

As a screenwriter, what is of most value is your personal view of the world. Screenwriting is a process of working out what you have to say, what you feel strongly about – more a process of discovery than working from a fixed plan. Developing a story outline can be part of the process but the point is to work from the inside out, from the idea or situation to a story shape, rather than imposing a structure on your material. For the novice screenwriter, a good place to begin is with the short film.

Writing a short screenplay and making or working on a short film are ways to learn and practise the craft of film-making before developing a feature screenplay. In the writing and collaboration you will learn more not only about your own creative process, but also about structure and the visual language of cinema. Making a short film provides an excellent training ground and place to meet other writers and film-makers, demonstrate your skills and perfect your craft. Short films can range from one to thirty or forty minutes in length but many festivals place a twelve- to fifteen-minute limit for short submissions. These limitations are a good discipline for learning the craft.

Focus

Short films demand economical and focused storytelling, with every shot and line important and every scene having a clear purpose. Short, simple ideas work best: a focus on a single character and no sub-plots create a concentration and intensity but also a space for the viewer to enter into the world of the story. In a good short film, there is as much emotional impact as in a feature film but without the distractions of competing storylines or several other characters.

Drama

One scene flows into the next and everything is in the present tense of performance as the story is dramatized. Drama involves people interacting and in conflict with each other and reacting to the actions of others. It demands audience participation in working out what is going on, what each character knows about the other, what they want, what they are concealing. The dramatic narrative of a good short film allows time and space for reflection.

Image and Sound

You are writing for actors who have to fashion a character from your text but you are also writing for the camera, which can pick up small gestures and actions that reveal the emotional sub-text of the scene: the thoughts and feelings of your characters conveyed through action and reaction, image and sound. This is the distinctive language of cinema that will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.

Internal Journey

In the screenplay, you are discovering the nature of your character and theme, the spine of your story. The screenplay and film are acts of perception and revelation, a selection of moments and scenes showing the internal journey of your protagonists and their relationship to the plot through the choices they make, and the decisions taken that reveal who they are.

Beginnings and Endings

Endings are important: the consequences of the protagonists’ actions, how they feel after the event, the recognition of what has happened or what they have achieved or failed to achieve. Audiences are profoundly affected by how things work out in the end and how this relates to the beginning. The emotional progression in every story springs from the inciting incident that helps define the aim and purpose of the protagonist and leads through rising action to the climax and denouement of the end.

In the denouement, we often witness a symbolic or reflective moment that locates the story in the ongoing flow of life, in a way that clarifies and reframes the meaning of the story events: and how the ending was embedded in the beginning.

Surprise

Any good drama takes us deeper and deeper toward a conclusion that is both surprising and inevitable: the realization that what seemed insignificant at the beginning is the most important thing at the end. This can be achieved by holding back key information about a character or situation until the end. But because we have so little time with them, characters in short films are always unpredictable and surprising.

Character

Character is the focus and driver of the short film. Each character has to decide how to resolve the problem of the plot, and through his or her choice of action reveal the theme, what the story has been about, what the writer has chosen to say about life. Characters are not static but come alive through encounter and interaction, illuminating each other by contrast and conflict. These moments push the story forward.

Plot

The actions and interactions of the protagonist become the incidents and events of the plot, including the moments of reaction and reflection. The writer selects and orders these story beats in a way that engages audience attention and builds through turning points to the final crisis of revelation and recognition.

Setting

Where the story is set, the time, place, weather, are integral to character and theme, and, therefore, to the overall meaning of the story. The interplay of character and setting grounds the action in a physical reality. The narrow alley full of shadows that the boy has to navigate in The Bread and Alley (1970) and the claustrophobic darkness of a dying woman’s bedroom in Alumbramiento (2007) add texture and meaning to the action.

Storytelling Strategies

There is a range of storytelling strategies that can be used in developing a short script from plotdriven to character-driven, image- or dialoguebased, sharp clear narratives of rising action or a more enigmatic, poetic style full of atmosphere and ambiguity.

But whatever strategy you select, you will always have to consider where to begin and how to end, and what links these two moments. Reading and viewing a broad selection of short scripts and films should be part of your study and preparation for deciding your own approach. There is a list of recommended shorts to view in the Filmography at the end of the book and a number of case studies relating to these films below and at the end of Chapter 3

Case Study 1: The Bread and Alley (1970) Abbas Kiarostami

This is an early short film, written by the Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami, drawing on his memories of a childhood experience when a large dog frightened him and he ran away. It is a simple story of a young boy trying to get home from the bakery, but who first has to pass a difficult test.

We meet the boy on a summer’s morning, heading home with a loaf of bread under his arm, happy and carefree, kicking a ball of paper down the road.

The story shifts tone as the boy turns off the wide-open street of sunlight into a narrow, darkened alley. A dog suddenly appears from the shadows, snarling and barking, and the boy runs away back to the top of the alley. Here the boy stops and stares into the shadows where the dog is lurking.

A man astride a donkey appears from behind him and clatters down the alley whipping his team of donkeys along without any problem from the dog. He is shortly followed by a cyclist, his bell ringing all the way down the alley, until he too disappears around the corner.

The boy watches them go. He looks around, desperate. This is the only route he can take to get home but he is frightened to go into the alley. There is no one to help him. He begins to cry. Then he sees an old man approach and turn into the alley. The boy wipes away his tears and quickly steps in behind the old man, keeping close as they go deeper into the alley.

Then the old man abruptly turns off the alley into a side street leaving the boy suddenly exposed as the dog races out of the shadows in an explosion of loud barks. The boy has to face the dog alone.

At first the boy runs, then stops and crouches on the ground clutching the flat bread he has been carrying. In a moment of decision he throws a piece of the bread to the dog, who gobbles it up happily.

In this moment their relationship changes: the dog stops barking and follows the boy as he now heads home. We see them both walking down the alley together like two old friends, the dog wagging his tail, the boy no longer frightened.

Music on the soundtrack signals a return to the carefree mood of the opening sequence. The boy has passed this test of character, overcome his fear and found his way home.

In the denouement, the boy arrives home, leaving the dog outside in the alley. As the dog settles down outside we can see another young boy approaching.

ANALYSIS

This is a simple story about a boy facing his fear, learning how to compromise and replacing antagonism with friendship. It is shaped like a fairy tale, a rite of passage where the boy is forced to find a solution to a difficult problem on his own. He solves the problem with ingenuity and in the process reveals qualities of tenacity and courage. His reward is the fulfilment of his desire, the completion of his task and a new bond of friendship. This is a distillation of the kind of story central to mainstream cinema, in features as well as short films.