**** - John Yull on Diigo

20 May 09

Graph of how #topics get played out on Twitter - Boing Boing

Talking about talking about talking about a topic - Twittering

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twitter ****

19 May 09

Screenwriting Tips - Practical Advice For Writing Screenplays & Television Scripts

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screenstructure screen101 ****

To give your story an extra jolt, do the following exercise:

Make a list of the major events in your screenplay. This process requires a basic knowledge of the 3-act structure often used in movies in which the action is separated into three basic movements, each with its own dramatic purpose. Act 1 is the beginning or Setup, Act 2 is the middle or the Conflict, and Act 3 is the end or the Resolution.

The key is to understand that you can use different kinds of deadlines for Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3, and the more deadlines the better.

For example, in Act 1 of Some like It Hot, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) must make the train to Florida or be shot by the Mob. The rest of the film depends on this first act deadline.

Now, look at your list of the events that occur in Act 1 of your screenplay. Is there something you can expand upon and create a "ticking clock?
Aristotle defined a "reversal" as being a plot change by which the action veers round to its opposite. According to Aristotle, the best reversals are caused by the main character's recognition of something that causes the reversal, so it doesn't come out of left field, that is, it must be subject to the boundaries of probability or necessity. The reversal arises out of the recognition of something that could have been seen before, but was not. This is where we reach those edges of boundaries that will help you find that original twist you were looking for.

One of the cornerstones of my method is the use of the main character's personality to drive the plot. An example of recognition and reversal occurs in The Line Of Fire. This is Frank Horgan's (Clint Eastwood) recognition that the field office number is an anagram, and that unraveling a different anagram can reveal the secret of the would-be assassin's identity. We have been directed towards a pessimistic ending - that is, it's been set up in Act I that Frank won't catch Leary (John Malkovich) in time, and Act 2 has furthered this expectation, but this recognition of the anagram is what allows for the reversal to create the opposite outcome in the third act. Frank has gone from being pessimistic to being optimistic.

Another example of recognition and reversal occurs in The Usual Suspects, in this case, the reversal is of the audience's expectations. It is the audience's optimistic belief that "Verbal" (Kevin Spacey) is innocent that allows us to enjoy the reversal when he's revealed by his limp to be the perpetrator, and not the victim. We have gone from being optimistic to being pessimistic.
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- Step 2: Imagine that you are your main character. You are going to write in the first person as that character, and describe from their point of view a different ending than the one you'd planned for Act 3. Remember not to worry about the execution, but have fun imagining another outcome. The first line should read, "I had no idea that..."
  
  If you were writing as Frank In The Line Of Fire, you might write something like this, " I had no idea that I would ever get another chance to catch Leary. I was the same loser I had always been. As I headed for the taxi, the sick taste of failure in my mouth, the young smartass agent rattled off the number for the field office I was being sent to. Then it hit, me - I suddenly knew how to find Leary! It was the old feeling of sureness I hadn't felt since I blew things with Kennedy, and I had no reason to believe in myself, but I had nothing left to lose..."
  
  What you've done here is to allow the character to "tell" you how they made the recognition so that your ending can have a strong reversal! It can almost feel like Magic!
- . If not, go one step further and ask yourself what is the most unlikely ending? Sometimes that will provoke a new insight. Otherwise, consider that the ending you have is just right, and commit to the best execution possible.
  
  Let's assume you found a new ending. You can now go back and reverse engineer how to make it happen. We do that by revisiting the events of the preceding two acts and finding where the assumptions have been made. In the Line Of Fire, Frank is shown to lack confidence in his own judgment, so by giving him a moment of recognition when he has a gut feeling that the anagram is the key, his confidence is restored. In The Usual Suspects, it's "Verbal/Soze's" supreme confidence that both carries him through and then gives him away at then end.
  
  To summarize: By moving from optimism or pessimism and applying Aristotle's simple principles of reversal and recognition, it's possible to come up with a great new ending for your screenplay.
- What is your first memory of childhood?
  What was your first word?
  What was your favorite food as a child?
  What did you want to be when you grew up?
  Did you have a best friend and who was it?
  Did you have a pet and what happened?
  What was your worst fear?
- Part. 3: The last step is to pretend that you are the hero or heroine of your story, and that the story of your screenplay is over. It is now several years later, and you have moved forward in your life and are looking back.
  
  Again using North By Northwest as a model, writing as Roger, your story might read: "After I survived the climb down Mount Rushmore, and got the girl, I thought back to how this all happened: I was in a bar, and these 2 men mistook me for this spy, and I was taken to this fancy house in the suburbs. I was made to drink liquor and put in a speeding car, but managed not to crash.When I found out who the owner of the house was, I went to the UN to confront him, but before I could he was killed and I was framed. I escaped and found myself on a train to Chicago. The cops were about to catch me but I was befriended by Eve, a beautiful woman who hid me in her compartment..."
  
  Set a timer for 15 minutes and write without stopping, completing the phrase: "After I survived..."
  
  You get the idea. They say: "Hindsight is 20/20," so why not make practical use of it and imagine your story beyond the end.This act of imagination frees you to make more interesting plot connections you would otherwise have been unable to make. These connections enable you to create more unusual and effective scenes and will tighten your screenplay as a whole.
- Read it Aloud! A wise man once told me that in life there are always two choices: when you come to a fork in the road, you can take the right way or the long way.
  
  The technique of reading aloud won't help you skip steps, but it will give you control over your work by helping you find a new perspective fast. Changing your point of view will give you instant objectivity, thus you will be able to see the overall structure of your script with ease. Once you get the structure right, then you can work in improving the dialog and action. Reading aloud will help you here as well, but begin with correcting the structure first.
- Read the script aloud all the way through and tape it. You may already find places that need work. Make notes but don't change the written text yet.
  Once you have completed the reading, watch a movie that inspires you and is similar in structure to the one you are writing.
  Now listen to the recording in 10-minute page chunks, while rereading the corresponding pages in your screenplay. In this listening, you will focus on how the story is structured. Later, you re-listen focusing on the dialogue and action, but first get your structure right. Warning: hearing your own voice may be torture at first, but you will get used to it.
  Write out a list of the action as it unfolds.
  Compare the action list with basic 3-act structure and see if it fits. In my writing system, we use The Mythic Journey Map at this point to check that our scenes answer the question that needs to be answered at any point in the story, and that the action that needs to happen at that point, happens. The Map organizes screenplay structure into 12 smaller sequences within an overall 3-act structure. I like to work in bite-size chunks, but any method of structuring that works for you will do.
  Now ask yourself: How can I tell the story more simply? Have I complicated the story? Are there enough complications? How does the structure compare with the movie I watched in Step #2? Find the script for this movie and read it aloud, tape it and then listen to your recording reading along with the script. Since you know this film was a success, you can measure your own against it will easily see where your script matches, falls short, or is better!
- The key here is to allow yourself to mentally "see" the whole picture before you decide which "snapshot" to
  present to your audience. But how can we do this and not end with a fifty page first act?
  
  The answer is to write a first person narration of the events of the first act as if you were the hero, heroine or villain. Understanding
  the way a character thinks and feels about the situation you have placed them in can cut your writing time in half. By
  allowing your characters to think and feel in their own voice is the fast track to successfully compressing exposition
  so that you can get into your story more quickly
- To Dramatize or Summarize? That is the question
  
  We often need a single organizing principle to act as a compass as we navigate through our own work and pinpoint what needs rewriting. Finding the right question to ask, one that allows you to evaluate each part of your screenplay, is the key.
- An effective way to begin is to imagine that every scene has a moment before it began and a moment after and each one of these is a separate scene, and so each of your scenes becomes part of a larger whole, called a sequence. If you look at each scene as a sequence, it will give you the overview you need for correct assessment. Now ask yourself if you have dramatized the moments where there is the most conflict? Did you stay in the scene with the characters until they resolved it, or cut away to a new scene just as the previous one got juicy?
  
  I often read drafts which include a two-page scene of the characters dining at a restaurant. When the waitperson finally leaves, the writer summarizes the conflict of the scene in a line or two. What the writer should have done was start the scene after the waitperson left, and stayed with the characters until the conflict was resolved.
  
  Question: But how do I make the right decision as to what to rewrite or cut?
  
  Answer: By identifying the conflict in the scene, and determining what each character wants. For example, in The Godfather, Michael wants to murder the Turk, who wants to make a drug deal. As they eat dinner in a restaurant, each seemingly mundane event (sitting down, ordering, being served) is loaded, because it all leads up to the climax.
  
  Why do we so often dilute the tension or suspense that writing real conflict generates? Simple - we're trained to avoid conflict in real life, so we naturally try to minimize the conflicts in our scripts. However, we must overcome this, because our job as writers is to look for conflict and to amplify it. Audiences don't want to see films that are like everyday life; but rather, larger than life. Using the questions will help you do that.
- "It doesn't matter. Socrates said there were two reasons things don't get written: one, because they're never started-your problem-and second, because they don't get finished. Not your problem, since you have nothing to finish."
  
  "Okay, so where do I start?"
  
  She laughed. "That is the big question, isn't it? Where did you begin the book?"
  
  "Oh, I just wrote, 'Once upon a time,'" I said sarcastically, and then stopped in mid-lip curl. She had put her finger squarely on the problem.
  
  When telling the story as a fiction writer, I hadn't been worried. I'd begun each character's story at a moment of crisis, a natural choice that I had somehow forgotten to make when I turned to the screenplay form.
  
  I went home and began my zero draft with vigor because I had reconnected to my natural storytelling self that was confident and knew where to start. The zero draft I wrote was a mixture of different things: there were third-person past-tense sections and scenes I felt sure about written in screenplay form. Other parts I summarized with sentences like "fight scene goes here-the hero wins, but the partner dies." My zero draft came in at 139 pages, and had a beginning, middle, and an end.
  
  By the time I was done with the script, I'd kept about 60 percent-a lot considering I had expected to throw out the whole stinking mess, lock, stock, and barrel. It wasn't terrific, but I had achieved the most important thing-I had written a first draft.
  
  Since then I have used this technique combined with The Horowitz SystemT often. It was how I came up with a personal mantra that I use myself and which I also teach my students: "Don't get it right, get it written."
  
  So, if you get stuck, using the Zero Draft technique will get you back on track fast. Just pick a place, anyplace, to start and keep writing until the end.
- Later I asked myself, why does such a simple idea have such a helpful effect?
  
  The connection to a deeper self brings us to the present moment and helps us find relief. This is the state of mind
  called the "flow" state.
  
  "People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action
  awareness merging."
- Look at your current script and ask yourself if your character has an awareness of something larger than him or her.
  Here are some easy ways to figure this out: Does your main character pray or go to church when stressed?
  Meditate or do yoga? Curse God? Mention a fear of going to hell in their dialogue?
  
  If the answer is yes, how are you dramatizing this? And if not, how could add an arc that
  begins at one end of the spectrum and ends with the other?
- Ask yourself: is there a plot event that forces the character to reexamine or confront his or her belief system?
  
  The "miracle" in Pulp Fiction is an example of how a plot event creates subplot and breadth of story. In the
  film, both Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel Jackson) witness the "miracle", by the end of the film, one changes
  as a result and the other doesn't. One reforms his life and the other doesn't. Vincent refuses to see that the event is
  a sign, a call to adventure to change their lives. Jules realizes it and stops killing people, because he realizes he's
  a part of something larger than himself.
  
  Finding a deeper level of awareness, understanding that everyone and every character has a "god speck,"
  within themselves, a phrase that, Adrienne Weiss, director of Love Ludlow, used in a wonderful short film
  called Mother's Day, can improve both our writing and make life itself more bearable.
- Finding the answer to this question of what could drive your main character to murder
  can be the one question you need to answer to make your screenplay "pop."
  
  The best part is that identifying the homicidal moment for your characters can work well
  whether you're writing a drama or a comedy. In the drama, The Godfather II,
  Vito Corleone, as a young man becomes capable of murder in order to save his family when the
  local Mafiosi takes away his job. Before that event he is shown as a gentle man. In the
  comedy, Little Miss Sunshine, Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) becomes so angry with his
  agent, Larry Sugarman (Gordon Thompson), that he wants to kill him, but instead does
  some crazy things to get his daughter to the Beauty Pageant. If he hadn't become so
  enraged, we would not have been able to believe that he would really steal his father's
  body from the hospital.
  
  Imagining a situation where your main character would commit murder can lead you to a
  better, more original story.
- An effective way to improve or create a scene is to add secrets that each character hides from the other. Secrets are both things that our characters don't want other people to know, and things that they hide from themselves. You may already know what those secrets are but aren't using them, or perhaps you will have to create them at some point. Remember, everyone has something they think they need to hide.
  
  Let's use When Harry Met Sally as an example. In the beginning of the film, Harry and Sally are driving from Chicago to New York, and they stop at a diner. In the diner, Sally's secret is that she has slept with Sheldon and broke up with him over the days-of-the-week underwear. Harry's secret is that he's attracted to Sally. When Harry claims that Sally has never had great sex, it gets her to reveal her own secret and creates the conflict in the scene. It is, of course, Harry's secret attraction to Sally that drove him to raise the subject of sex in the first place.
  
  Sometimes characters even keep secrets from themselves. When Sally breaks up with Joe, she pretends that she's fine about it. The secret that she keeps from herself is that she's actually very upset about it. She pretends everything is okay until Joe gets engaged to someone else. Then she breaks down and innocently calls Harry to come and comfort her. Her sudden vulnerability is what gets her into trouble with Harry. Meanwhile, Harry's secret from himself is that he's in love with her. When she rejects him, he has to face the fact that he wants to marry her.
  
  You can see how tapping into the secrets your characters keep from themselves and others can improve both your scene work and plot. Secrets raise the stakes and instantly add subtext.

18 May 09

"PULP FICTION" -- by Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary

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screenplays ****

15 May 09

johnaugust.com » Various locations

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screenformatting ****

INT. HOUSE - VARIOUS ROOMS - DAY

Or, if you do want to show each location, try varying your descriptions of
Mabel’s search so that they don’t repeat.

Finally, you could consider using a montage format:

MONTAGE as Mabel searches for the cat:

— She pulls open the dryer in the laundry room.
— Checks the kitchen cupboards.
— Searches under the porch with a flashlight.
— Pokes the broom under the sofa.
— Rechecks the kitchen cupboards again.

What format you choose really depends on the situation, and how much information
you need the reader to know.

johnaugust.com » Formatting a montage sequence

montage formatting

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**** screenformatting

A montage is a collection of very short scenes, sometimes only a single shot each, designed to show a series of actions over time. Depending on the needs of the sequence, there are a few different options for how to write a montage in screenplay form.

The easiest example is when all the action is taking place in one location. For instance, say you have a character trying on clothes — the infamous Changing Room Montage. It might read something like this:

INT. CHANGING ROOM - DAY

Holly enters with a massive armload of clothes. Kyle’s eyes bulge. Holly pulls the curtain shut.

MONTAGE

Holly emerges, dressed in different outfits, each more elaborate than the last. Kyle watches in horror and dismay, checking his watch as the madness continues.

And when it’s time to finish, a single line of “END MONTAGE” lets the reader know you’re going back to normal time.

When a montage moves between multiple locations, the situation gets a little more difficult. Often the best choice is to not even say “MONTAGE” and just let it be a series of short scenes — just a slugline and a sentence or two of description. The reader will correctly intuit that there’s a montage occurring.

If all the locations in the sequence fall within one larger location, the most economical choice may be to just change the slugline:

INT. MARY’S HOUSE - VARIOUS ROOMS

MONTAGE as Mary chases after the dog, trying to put in the eyedrops. Every time she has him cornered, he manages to escape, ducking under the coffee table or vaulting over the bed.