The Last Reveal

Screenwriting: Amateurs vs. Professionals

2012-01-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

Forthe unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placementof key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is themost important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

EXT. BESIDE THE POTOMAC RIVER

Bare cherry trees; GLOBED LAMPS LIGHTthe mist... and two figures strolling this esplanade. JOUBERT is checking thecontents of an envelope handed to him by the other man... There are bills inevidence... As they PASS BENEATH A LAMP we recognize the other man--ATWOOD! Hewatches JOUBERT counting the money and:

ATWOOD

(a dig)

That includes Condor, of course.

JOUBERT

Yes--I owe you Condor.

ATWOOD

Otherwise, it was...

JOUBERT

“Otherwise” doesn’t exist.

ATWOOD

Will Condor take long?

JOUBERT

You want an estimate?

ATWOOD

There is a time factor.

JOUBERT

Always

(then)

Condor is an amateur: lost,

upredictable... perhaps sentimental.

He could fool a professional--not

deliberately, but precisely because

he is lost and doesn’t know what to

do. Unlike Wicks. Who was entirely

predictable.

(beat)

The man... Condor killed in the

alley?

Above and end excerpts taken from the revised draft of Three Days Of The Condor, dated February3, 1975, by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel, based on the novel, Six Days Of The Condor, by James Grady.

Un-produced screenwriters who have yet to make a saleoften describe how they started out by looking at films and then say tothemselves, “I could do better than that!” Then they try. All I can tellthem is: “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown!”

Consider: they are comparing a finished film to their owninternal and idealized “movie.” They fail to consider that the initial scriptfor that movie passed through a dozen or (many) more “filters”: thescreenwriter’s own reader(s), the various producer(s) who considered it andinfluenced revisions through notes, the various director(s) and stars doing thesame, and probably a slew of other folks (like the budget people, studiomucky-mucks and their significant others, script consultants (notes only), scriptdoctors (specific fixes), and “page-one” re-writing screenwriters, all whoinfluenced changes, both big and small. It’s certainly true that someproductions have avoided most or even all of the filters listed above. But mostproduced movies do not.

Art by committee is rarely, if ever, a pretty thing. But,because it’s “someone else’s money,” and since it costs obscene amounts of saidmoney, that’s the nature of the film business.

Even if you as the writer can manage to write, produceand direct the film exactly as written, you still have to sell it. You have todistribute it to markets all over the world, on DVD, online streaming, and tothe television markets. If it has merchandise potential, you have to generatethat market, too. And all that is also “other people’s money.”

Is it any wonder, then, that all these filters result intaking what was once a fine and distinctive, “Vermont Cheddar,” andtransforming it into a pre-sliced, individually-packaged for ease, ultra-blandvariety of “American,” kind of a “Velveteen Schwaaa,” (if you catch theallusion)? Everyone might tolerate it, but no one really likes it.

I’ll venture an example of this is Brian DePalma’s film(“Obsession”) of Paul Schrader’s screenplay, “Déjà Vu” (not to be confused withthe more recent film of the same name. I have three drafts of Schrader’s scriptand one can chart the emasculation and hybridization done to it as the “money”had its way. I should note that Schrader’s only mistake was to keep his name onthe finished film, as the original story was conceived by he and DePalmatogether. A more recent example might be “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”

And, so, isn’t it also a wonder when, on extremely rareoccasion, it goes the other way, transforming something only serviceable intogreatness? An argument can and has been made that this is the case with theoriginal Mario Puzo novel, “The Godfather,” then filmed by Francis FordCoppola, and later improved-upon in his “Godfather, Part II,” another extremelyrare case where the sequel was generally thought to be better than the originalfilm. I read the original novel, and it was, there’s no other way to describeit: a “potboiler,” nothing more than a long “beach read” with some interesting “inside-baseball”stuff about the mafia. But what afilm franchise it became! Another example would be sci-fi writer, A.E. vanVogt’s first published story, “Black Destroyer,” (later incorporated by himinto the novel, “Voyage of the Space Beagle”). It became the cheesy (though,okay for its time), 1950s monster movie, “It, the Terror From Beyond Space.” Thenit was turned into “Alien,” and from there, expanded into the later “Alien” films.

Third are the rarer “animals” still, those flat-outamazing cases where a truly great screenplay is then amplified further, into,well... legend. I’d argue “Chinatown” is one of those. And we know it’s sobecause we have the various drafts and the final result to compare. I, myself, havean early, middle, and late draft of the Robert Towne screenplay, and agree withhistory that Roman Polanski improved it. Another example of this might be itsprogenitor, Billy Wilder’s film of his and Raymond Chandler’s script of JamesM. Cain’s novel, “Double Indemnity.”

There’s a fourth case, rarest of all, where what isgenerally considered to be a truly bad piece of material is turned into thestuff of legend. And the prime example of that was when the stage-play“Everybody Goes to Rick’s” was turned into the film, “Casablanca.” I can’tthink of another example. Perhaps someone out there can (?).

I’ve often come across screenwriting discussions (and inthe comments in screenwriting blogs, and on-line forums & message-boards)that make a profound distinction between amateur and professionalscreenwriting. The implication is that there is almost no way for a givenamateur to ascend such professional heights without super-human attention tothe finest points of the craft. And the argument goes on to say it's provably so becauseof its indisputable rarity.

There is certainly a difference between the averageamateur work and something that’s already sold. But that’s akin to expecting agood mechanic and metal-worker to create a design for a Ferrari in hisback-yard from nothing. The truth is that a competent amateur with atruly “movie-worthy” idea, and care in his/her writing, will,given championing by a truly industry-connected insider, become aprofessional in as few as one script. There isn’t some secret writing formula,some extreme and granular attention to stylistics, some conceptual “secretsauce” that is needed by said “amateur” to become said “professional.” One ofthe most recent examples of this is Diablo Cody. An earlier example is ShaneBlack.

In fact, over and over, in reading professionalscreenplays, I’ve encountered amateur-like mistakes that no professionalindustry reader would let go by, had it come from a “nobody.” I’m referring tothings like: spelling errors; 120+ pages (when, for everyone else, “100” is thenew “120” limit); ( WE SEE & WE HEAR;over-use of parentheticals (e.g. (wryly)); 8-page dialogue scenes (i.e. greater than theunwritten limit of 3); “un-filmables” (e.g. “Joe wonders if she is thekiller.”);too many characters introduced too fast and too early; present-progressive actiondescriptions (e.g. “Joe is running toward the car.”Rather than “Joe runs toward the car.”); CUT TO: & SMASH CUTTO: & DISSOLVETO:; CAMERAPANS RIGHT; etc. Let’s not kid ourselves: pros areallowed these indiscretions because of who they are.

And yet, it’s also true that “who they are” usually goeswell beyond being just a pal or relative of the producer, or that the writer isa genuine V.I.P. (screenwriting or writer-director superstar). “Who they are”carries with it the imprimatur of being successful in the past. Nobody can make“the rules” go away faster than Quentin Tarantino. His latest script, DJANGOUNCHAINED has a title page that’s hand-scribbled, a page count of 167, at leastone dialogue scene that runs 14 pages, flashbacks, voice-over narration, use of“WeSee,” mis-spellings, and various otherindulgences that are allowed because… “QT directs his own scripts anyway.” I’llventure they’d be allowed if he wasn’t the director, too. So, it pays to have“earned it.”

But this is the reality. Apparently, nobody said it hadto be fair. It all illustrates what new, un-sold screenwriters are up against.But what really “sticks” in many new writers’ “craws” is that they are often expectedto include stuff the pro doesn’t. So they, in their allotted 100pages, must exceed what the professional is allowed to do in pretty muchanything under 200, and within that, they must show what the pro isallowed to leave out.

Consider this interview by Chris Davison withscreenwriters Hawk Ostby & Mark Fergus (Co-writers of IRON MAN, CHILDREN OFMEN and most recently COWBOYS & ALIENS):

Q: In traditional dramatic writing they say to alwaysleave room for the actor, in a VFX-heavy film do you write to leave room forthe VFX artists?

Fergus: most of the time they just say not to think about how tomake aliens that no one's ever seen before, ones that can outdo Ridley Scott'saliens or the Giger aliens, and we just write a couple of details about whatwould make a great alien and we make sure that the sequences are verymeticulously mapped out. When they get to it, for budgetary or logistics reasonsthey might totally change it around, as long as dramatically it's the sameintent, it's what the sequence was about, we can kind of imagine whatever thehell we want and then Jon and his team have to go and break it down. We can say"the most awesome aliens you've ever seen" and then someone else hasto go figure out what that means.

Ostby: that's one of the cool things about writing, you don't haveto in essence figure out how these cool things are going to come to life, youmake them come alive on the page and then it's the job of the director and thestaff to make it real. It's a bit of a luxury, we can just say "thebuilding blows up" and then ultimately it's a design thing.

Fergus: HP Lovecraft has this story, I remember Stephen King made ajoke about it, he said "what I saw when I opened the door, if I describedit to you would drive you mad with horror". I don't know what that meansbut that's some pretty damn scary thing and we take a cue from that, it'ssomeone else's job to figure out how to bring that to life and those guys areawesome because all they do is try to do things that eyeballs have never seenbefore. It's amazing since everyone's immersed in film history, they all knowwhat's already been done and they always say based on the resources, the moneyand the time, "let's try to come up with something awesome".

Q: When writing a VFXscene, do you describe what you want the viewer to see or is it more how youwant the viewer to feel?

Ostby: I think what we say for that is "there it is, the alienship, massive and magnificent, more frightening than anything you couldimagine". Ultimately, it is a design thing since somebody's going to haveto make a mock-up of 15 ships and then bring it to Jon and he'll look at it andsay "I like that, I don't like that, that's too reminiscent of anotherfilm" and so on.

Fergus: you hit on it, really, it's just the emotional necessity ofwhat you feel when you see the aliens. Perhaps one detail of what they might bebut we're not going to get into a million details because we don't know whatthe design is yet. You just say what you need for the story and what has to bethere and then the emotion of how you feel when those VFX come in, how you wantthem to move the story forward and how you want people to feel.

It's the same as withactors, the less, less, less you can put in the better. Just tell theessentials and let the professionals do their jobs. Actors don't want to betold "move over here three steps, laconically, and say this lineprofoundly". Good actors go through and cross all that crap out anyway,they want to find the character and be in the moment. This kind of writingtakes a while to develop, at first you write everything and then you read themasters and it's like haiku, white space on every page, beautiful simplicityand that's hard, it's much easier to write a lot and just throw everything in.It's really hard to write just what's necessary, it takes a lot of years to getto the place where you trust in that and to get everybody else exactly whatthey need and then they can own it and they can really bring their game to it.Trust your collaborators, they're really great people, no need to over-explaineverything. Actors will cut lines, they'll improv, and Jon leaves lots of roomfor inspiration with the actors and the VFX guys, it's one of his real gifts tohire great people and let them have the freedom to bring their own stuff to it,everybody's got great ideas.

---http://www.acm.org/pubs/cie/fergusostby.html.

If a non-connected, amateur screenwriter put into his“spec” shorthand such as "the mostawesome aliens you've ever seen" but, no corresponding description of saidaliens, that spec would very likely be tossed aside in a heart-beat to thegroan of “where’s the writer’s imagination? If it ain’t on the page, it ain’ton the stage!” But pros are allowed to leave it out, to let “someone else gofigure it out.”

[In writing myscript, FOE (listed in the side matter on this blog), an alien invasion tale, Iset myself the task of, as Fergus says, conceiving “the most awesome aliensyou’ve never seen.” This was a tall order, given the height of the bar set byfilms like ALIEN, THE THING, PREDATOR, and STARSHIP TROOPERS. A validation,however, came in a reader’s unsolicited comment that “You should patent thosealiens!”]

In fact,however, the original 1976 draft of ALIEN by the almost unknown screenwriter,Dan O’Bannon (he’d co-written DARK STAR) refers to the alien only as “thecreature,” limiting the specifics to various stages of growth, and “tentacles.”The final June, 1978 draft of the script by Walter Hill and David Giler doeseven less. The producers knew the alien was the centerpiece of the film and neededa conception so fresh and original, so powerful, that they found a true artistto make it a reality, H. R. Giger. And, boy did he deliver.

So, this isthe hand you’re dealt: amateurs are expected to write screenplays that are betterthan what’s done routinely by the professionals. And... by having to commit to specifics and elements whichmay not reflect the capabilities of the industry at that time, they’re expectedto top these established pros, effectively with one “hand tied behind theirbacks.” While I can understand the reasons for such discrimination, I can alsosay that it’s one of the prime reasons it is so damnably difficult for newwriters to break into the field. Professionals get away with “murder” whileamateurs are “murdered” for cutting a corner and, in effect, “jay-walking.” I’mtellin’ ya (I say, straightening my tie), they “don’t get no respect.”

EXT. ATWOOD'S HOME - DAWN

Looking far out over sloping lawns anda meadow. A pretty VIEW. Joubert FILLS HIS LUNGS, deeply. A car is parked asafe distance from the house:

JOUBERT

Tell me about the girl.

TURNER

What about her?

JOUBERT

She was chosen... how? By age? Her

car? Appearance?

TURNER

At random. Chance.

JOUBERT

Really?

(then)

Can I drop you?

TURNER

(slowly)

I’m going back to New York.

JOUBERT

You have... not much future there.

Turner looks at him.

JOUBERT (CONT'D)

(lighting a cigarette)

It would happen this way: You may be

walking one day maybe the first sunny

day of spring... and a car will slow...

besideyou, and a door will open... and

someone you know--perhaps even trust--

will get out of the car and he will

smile--a becoming smile... But he’ll

leave open the door of the car... and

offer to give you a lift.

Turner sinks slowly to the steps.

TURNER

Terrific.

(not really asking)

You seem to understand it all so well...

what would you suggest?

JOUBERT

The fact is: What I do is not a bad oc-

cupation. There is never a Depression.

Someone is always willing to pay.

TURNER

(sadly)

I would find it tiring.

JOUBERT

No. It is--quite restful. Almost peaceful.

No need to believe in either side, or any

side. There is no cause. There is only

yourself. And the belief is in your

precision.

TURNER

(very tired now)

...I was born here Joubert... in theUnited

States. I miss it when I’m away too long.

JOUBERT

A pity.

TURNER

I don’t think so.

(beat)

Would it be too much trouble to drop me at

Union Station?

JOUBERT

(shrugs)

It would be my pleasure.

As Turner rises to walk down the slopeto the car, Joubert holds out the .45. Turner looks at it, then at Joubert.Joubert shrugs:

JOUBERT (CONT'D)

For that day...

Beat. Turner takes the gun.#

FADE OUT

LeeA. Matthias

Quoteof the Post:

“…whatreally ‘sticks’ in many new writers’ ‘craws’ is that they are often expected toinclude stuff the pro doesn’t. So they, in their allotted 100pages, must exceed what the professional is allowed to do in pretty muchanything under 200, and within that, they must show what the pro isallowed to leave out.”

ScriptShadow Reviews THE SLEEP OF REASON!

2011-04-01T18:04:00.000-07:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

He sleeps fitfully.

In the darkness, the SOUND of SOFT BRUSHING (OS) suggests someone’s presence.

A HAND, feminine, moves snake-like over the bed-clothes and begins to stroke his face and head.

Beside him is the DIM FORM of a woman (Elsbeth), in a diaphanous gown through which soft, pearlescent skin glows in the moonlight: smooth, long, full, round... overwhelming.

ELSBETH

I’ve missed you so...

He stirs, quite drunk, trying to regain himself.

He is kissed, enclosed, stroked, caressed. He responds.

RENFIELD

Elsbeth...

ELSBETH

Say nothing. You’ve come

back to me at last.

He’s assaulted, devoured. He frees himself for air.

RENFIELD

You must return with me...

ELSBETH

Shhh... Love me. Love... us.

Around him are OTHERS: vaporous forms, softness, skin, caressing him, loving him. He’s overpowered.

LATER

He awakens, alone in the darkness. Was it a dream?

His door is slightly ajar, but he doesn’t see it.

INT. CORRIDOR - OUTSIDE HIS ROOM

FOUR WOMEN, three dark-haired, and one blond, walk away through the darkness. One of them, the blond, is Elsbeth.

Their expressions indicate satiety, contentment. As they walk, they begin to “MORPH” into one another, over and over, so that we never really know who is whom.

They begin to smile, all the while transforming from one to the next.

From my screenplay, "The Sleep of Reason"

Today, April Fool's Day, I finally return to The Last Reveal. I've been writing, and unable to attend this blog. My apologies.

My script has received a review today at Carson Reeve's ScriptShadow blog. Please check it out, and don't forget the comments section!

I'll be back with something soon.

FADE OUT

Quote of the Post:

"All publicity is good publicity!"

---Anonymous

Close-Up: Paul Schrader - II

2010-12-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

INT. AIRPORT CORRIDOR – NIGHT

Halfway down the corridor, Courtland sees Sandra in the wheelchair surrounded by hospital attendants. He raises the gun to fire.

Sandra stares blankly down the corridor. She sees a man racing toward her, carrying a briefcase. He’s pointing something at her.

Courtland aims the gun and is about to pull the trigger when a SECURITY GUARD exiting an adjacent men’s room sees him.

GUARD

Hey! What do you think you

Are doing?

The Guard rushes him, attempting to abort Courtland’s tragic mission. Courtland mercilessly clubs him down with the briefcase. The Guard’s bloodied head falls at Courtland’s feet as the battered briefcase breaks open.

Sandra has emotionlessly watched the men struggle. But when the briefcase breaks open and the corridor begins to fill with swirling bills, her face ignites. She jumps to her feet and starts racing toward the rapidly approaching man.

Moving quickly, now Courtland raises the gun again. He’s just about to pull the trigger and finish the tragedy when he hears Sandra cry out.

SANDRA

Daddy! Daddy! You came with

The money!

Courtland stops in his tracks as the horrible truth descends on him. Sandra falls to his feet, scooping up the money and crying joyfully.

SANDRA

Daddy! Daddy! You came! You

Came!

Courtland stares down the gun at his daughter.

Ever so slowly he releases the gun, letting it fall from his hand. Then, suddenly, with the scream of a dying animal, Courtland cries out:

COURTLAND

Amy! Amy!

Their eyes melt into each other. Michael kneels down and sweeps Sandra up into his arms.

Sandra/Amy is overjoyed to have found her father again. Michael is not sure who he is holding in his arms – Elizabeth, Sandra, or Amy – but whoever it is, he loves her. This is all he has ever lived for.

Michael and Sandra spin clockwise in each other’s arms as the CAMERA TURNS COUNTERCLOCKWISE around them. They drift into SLOW MOTION as the SOUND of Patti Page’s soaring VOICE fills the soundtrack:

“So I’ll keep changing partners until

You’re in my arms and then,

Oh, my darling, I’ll never change

Partners again.”

From the ending of Déjà vu (Obsession), by Paul Schrader, from a story by Paul Schrader and Brian DePalma. 1/17/75 Revised Draft. Slightly edited for space.

Having come out of film criticism, writer-director Paul Schrader has thought a great deal about his art. He’s formed very definite ideas about what makes worthwhile films, and he works toward that in his own films.

There are almost as many “Best” lists as there are films. Every established film writer and most film academics has a variant, and many of the same titles appear over and over, from one to the next of these. Consider this one.

Paul Schrader was solicited by a publisher to offer a definitive “canon” of film, a list that would include the highest examples spanning the length and breadth of cinema. It would do for film what Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon does for literature.

Schrader talked about this in an interview from 2005. We excerpt relevant portions, and then link to his list and an article Schrader wrote explaining his rationale.

Interview with Paul Schrader

by George Kouvaros

PS: ...I’ve been doing a fair amount of research because I agreed to write this book for Faber on the film canon, and I found myself thrown into all this work about the history of the notion of the canon and why it went out of fashion. Film itself, in fact, is one of the things that destroyed the notion of the canon. When people talk about a film canon, it’s kind of a contradictory phrase. So, how can you have a film canon? I’ve been thinking about that. While I was writing this morning, I was thinking about an argument put forward by Dudley Andrew concerning the transitional nature of cinema. It comes from a seed idea by Walter Benjamin. Andrew’s contention is that motion pictures are a way-station in the cavalcade of art history, a stopover en route from nineteenth century written narrative to the twenty-first century world of synthetic images and sounds. While this is perhaps a little bit extreme, it’s also very much to the point.

GK: One thing that cinema did, certainly back in the ‘60s, was to make a canon out of things that were considered non-canonical.

PS: Yep, the Andrew Sarris thing.

GK: Then we had a period where the canon lost its value and film came to be treated as just another cultural text to be analyzed. Among film writers, things are changing again. There is now a sense that we need to be able to recognize, discuss and try to teach what constitutes the landmarks of cinema.

PS: That’s the whole point of what I’m working on now in this long introductory essay. There’s a de facto canon in populist literature and there’s a de facto canon in the academy. So, if you have a de facto canon, why not try to find a way to justify it and raise the bar so fucking high that only a few films get over it?

GK: So, the de facto canon lives?

PS: Yeah, I mean, since it exists anyway. We’ve now reached that point in film history where, without a canon, you cannot talk about history. When I was starting out, there were still people who had seen virtually everything. There’s now so much out there that it beggars the imagination. Film students today have to specialize. You can’t be a film authority in a way that you could be thirty years ago. There’s just too much. (Laughs)

GK: To specialize one needs to first get a sense of the films that constitute the general field.

PS: That’s right, the canon. So, you can look at the high points of Japanese cinema and Iranian cinema and screwball comedy and ask ‘What interests me?’

GK: You said that the canon would be quite an exclusive group. What criteria would you use to define the qualities of a canonical film?

PS: That’s what I’ve been working on now. I’ve been working on this for almost a year and taking classes at Columbia. I’m up to that point in the introductory essay where I’ve gone through the history of the notion of the canon and the history of aesthetics in terms of the creation of the canon and why the canon collapsed. And now I’m in the section of the essay where I’m trying to say under what conditions can there still be a canon. The first condition is that you have to understand cinema as a transitional art in that it’s the art form of the twentieth century, and it’s maybe all over already. You have to look at films in the context of where they came from and where they’re going, somewhere between Victorian melodrama and Andy Warhol rethinking the static shot.

GK: Given your own history as a critic, what role do you see for the critic in defining the canon? For the canon to exist, it needs people to invest in it and sustain it through a practice of critical writing that is quite different to the kinds of critical writing that we confront on a day-to-day basis. This comes from reading some of your comments about criticism as a cadaverous activity, in that it deals with something that isn’t alive. When I read that, I thought immediately about the role of the critic in animating a film, a painting or piece of music. It seems to me that if one sets out to revive the notion of the canon – whether it is in film or any other medium – one is also setting out to revive a form of critical writing capable of bringing the work to life for a reader.

PS: The book was presented to me initially as a variant of Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon. Bloom starts off by asking: If you have a canon, what author must be included? If it’s literature, it must be Shakespeare. How can you have a canon without Shakespeare? And if you have Shakespeare, what work? You must have Hamlet otherwise you don’t have Shakespeare. So, let’s look at Hamlet and say: what makes it canonical? And then you start to work from there. That’s a very clever argument. For me, the key film would be Rules of the Game (1939). You can’t have a canon without [Jean] Renoir and you can’t have Renoir without Rules of the Game. So, the question becomes: ‘What makes Rules of the Game canonical?’ (Laughs) But I’m not that far yet. I’m still talking about the history of the notion of the canon. I’m not even into specific works.

GK: It reminds me somewhat of the opening scene in Hardcore (1979) where the elders are gathered in the room on Christmas morning, debating the theological significance of passages from the Bible. This type of endeavor still seems very important to you.

PS: Yeah, well ... Are you a Christian?

GK: Yes.

PS: Which?

GK: Greek Orthodox.

PS: Well, when it comes to Protestants, people get confused between the evangelicals and the fundamentalists and so forth. There are basically two kinds of Protestants: there’s faith-based and doctrine-based. Mostly, when people think of evangelicals they are thinking of faith-based people. And that’s just: ‘I believe ... and there’s nothing to talk about because I believe. God and Jesus told me and I know.’ Doctrine-based people are people who argue their way through. So, a lot of my upbringing in the church was really just argumentation ... a lot of catechism, a lot of intellectual debate. There is such a large part of Christianity that is anti-intellectual. And the moment you start talking about Christianity, people assume that you’re part of the anti-intellectual group, the anti-Darwin, anti-science group. And, God knows, there are plenty of those. But that wasn’t my background at all.

GK: Have you got to the stage where you have an idea of what you would put into that canon apart from Renoir’s Rules of the Game?

PS: I have a rough idea: a lot of Frenchmen. But because of the nature of film, I don’t know if it’s necessarily auteur-driven. It’s important to understand that there are great collaborative films. The Third Man (1949) is a great collaborative film. And maybe it’s as great a film as a film that has a much stronger sense of authorship.

Schrader went on to publish his canon, and his choices can be found here. His rationale for them can be found in the Preface and Introduction to the full article published in the September/October 2006 issue of Film Comment. His key point is, for me, saddening. As I have come to believe, and he concludes, contrary to all those folks who say “movies haven’t scratched the surface” of their potential, movies are pretty much at their end as a relevant art-form. Consider:

Aesthetics, like the canon, is a narrative. It has a beginning, middle, and end. To understand the canon is to understand its narrative. Art is a narrative. Life is a narrative. The universe is a narrative. To understand the universe is to understand its history. Each and every thing is part of a story—beginning, middle, and end.

The much-debated “end of Art” is not the end of painting and sculpture (they abound), but the closing of the plastic arts’ narrative (italics, LR). Life is full of ends; species die or become outmoded. There are still horses, but the horse’s role in transportation has come to an end. Likewise movies. We’re making horseshoes.

This is abundantly clear by the films that have been produced since the 1960s: fewer and fewer great films. But it is also clear by the advent of other things, primary among them, the internet and its interactive potential. Also, film and video entertainment has long-since expanded out from theaters. But the three things which already have, and will continue to alter the art-form are economics, digital production, and digital delivery/distribution. Television has usurped movies in terms of quality story-telling and prestige productions. YouTube has re-defined what a “movie” is. So, while there will still be motion picture entertainment, it will have lost its preeminence and so its importance.

Schrader’s 60 choices for his canon are interesting. A case might be made for the argument that says the most important films for any generation appear during that generation’s third decade, its 20s. In Schrader’s case that is 1966 – 1976. And, in fact, he lists 13 films from that time in his life, occupying over 20% of his canon. Another 4 appear within three years either side of that period. Nothing appears from before 1927, just prior to the advent of sound films. And 43 of the 60 titles come from the period, 1940 – 1980. Only 9 films come from the first thirteen years, and only 8 come from the last three decades.

I disagree with the Cinematical writer’s (Jeffrey Anderson) opinion to remove writer-director, Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, primarily because of its place among musicals, a bona fide sub-category within cinema. It displayed world-class innovation in its construction (five acts), subject matter (an artist killing himself with his art), its universal relevance despite its specialized subject, and its organic dynamism displayed by its music and dance. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. Certainly there were others at this level: for me, The Music Man, Cabaret and West Side Story, to name three. But none quite ascends to the innovative heights reached by the Fosse film (at least for me). And disagreement on lists like these is, of course, the rule, isn’t it? #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quotes of the Post:

The first condition is that you have to understand cinema as a transitional art in that it’s the art form of the twentieth century, and it’s maybe all over already.

There are still horses, but the horse’s role in transportation has come to an end. Likewise movies. We’re making horseshoes.

---Paul Schrader

Close-Up: Paul Schrader - I

2010-12-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

...we see Travis' taxi speeding down the rain-
slicked avenue. The action is periodically
accompanied by Travis' narration. He is reading
from a haphazard personal diary.

TRAVIS (V.O.)

(monotone)

April 10, 1972. Thank God for the

rain which has helped wash the

garbage and trash off the sidewalks.

TRAVIS' POV of a sleazy midtown side street: Bums,
hookers,junkies.

TRAVIS (V.O.)

I'm working a single now, which

means stretch-shifts, six to six,

sometimes six to eight in the a.m.,

six days a week.

A MAN IN BUSINESS SUIT hails Travis to the curb.

TRAVIS (V.O.)

It's a hustle, but it keeps me busy.

I can take in three to three-fifty

a week, more with skims.

---Excerpt, Taxi Driver

For me, when Paul Schrader burst on the scene in the early 1970s, it was eye-opening. He could generate powerful, visceral tales that, nonetheless, had deep intellectual concerns. As he’ll say below in a moment, what interests him is the confrontation of mass culture by the aberrant and crazy, the “sacred” by the “profane.”

From Film Comment magazine, March-April 1976, Paul Schrader interviewed by Richard Thompson, January 26 and 29, 1976:

When I came to movies as an adult critic, I tried to write religious film criticism, in the sense that I saw art in religious terms. As I understand it, religious art is the art of unification, the art that tries to find the common code of symbols and Jungian elements in all experience. It seeks to discover how we are all alike and all unified in a single spiritual purpose. That’s how I was taught to view art, and that’s how I came to film.

I was intrigued by the auteur theory, but I wasn’t taken with it because it seemed to be a pursuit of individuals and idiosyncrasy, and I was interested in just the opposite: common elements of genre, theme, and style that ran through cultures and through individual filmmakers.

When I switched (from film criticism) to screenwriting, I found I no longer saw film as religious art but as secular art. Because in order to be successful, I had to find something that was unique to me by reaching into my own personality and formulate my own problems in a way that solved them. I had to pursue my own idiosyncrasies. As a screenwriter, I found myself doing exactly what I opposed as a critic: writing the kind of things that I would not approve of formerly. I felt I had to do this to be able to create things important to me. So I see myself at this point as a very secular screenwriter pursued by his own demons.

The pursuit of the crazy (aberrant behavior) in his screenwriting …

…provides a very definite problem you have to solve. Will I commit the aberrant form of behavior? Will I vandalize or steal or kill or mutilate myself? You’re dealing with a very definite problem, crazy people; you have to solve it. It’s an easier way to approach cinema, which is (a) kinetic form dealing with action and character, than (film) criticism (his former occupation), which deals with cerebral problems.

His taste in films—as a filmmaker, compared to his earlier critic’s more distanced interest—are his personal, idiosyncratic concerns as an artist, reflected in the sacred to the profane; and his taste:

…splits right in half. On the one hand, directors who are community-oriented, thinking in terms of two-dimensional iconographic relationships to a mass (movies as mass entertainment, mass communication)… I like that…group… That’s one side, regarding the way the architect looks at building a church. Then there’s the other side I’m attracted to: craziness, pure idiosyncrasy, completely antisocial films. Kiss Me Deadly, where it’s just random anger and violence; Rocky Horror Picture Show, (Luis) Buñuel, (Sam) Peckinpah; all those who say, “The whole world is wrong, only I am right, only I exist, my reality is transcendent.” My likes went right to the edges of the bowl. The great American middle didn’t appeal to me—Capra, Cukor, the conventional John Ford. Only the mad John Ford appealed to me; The Searchers, the Ethan Edwards half of him, which I love. Only the Vertigo side of Hitchcock, the crazy side. In Taxi Driver, those two compelling things are clear: half of it’s Pickpocket, the other half is Kiss Me Deadly or Mean Streets, random brutality all around.

We’ll continue these explorations of Schrader in the next few posts. #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quote of the Post:

My likes went right to the edges of the bowl. The great American middle didn’t appeal to me—Capra, Cukor, the conventional John Ford. Only the mad John Ford appealed to me; The Searchers, the Ethan Edwards half of him, which I love. Only the Vertigo side of Hitchcock, the crazy side.

---Paul Schrader

How Screenwriters Can Score

2010-12-29T08:32:00.000-08:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all. 

FADE IN:

INT. BAR - NIGHT

Two guys sit at the bar, drinks in front of them, comparing "notes."

   GUY 1
   ...works in Hollywood,
   writes movies. So I took
   her to my place. I made
   her a drink, and put on
   some music.

   GUY 2
   Yeah?

   GUY 1
   She said, "Let's cut to
   the chase. Wanna score?"

   GUY 2
   YEAH?!?

   GUY 1
   I said, "Duhhh-hhh!" And
   she brought out this.

FIRST FIFTEEN PAGES SCORE:
_____ 1. Does the Script fit comfortably in a known Genre?
_____ 2. Does the Story create a world of its own that is unique and compelling?
_____ 3. Does the introduction of the Lead Character contain a strong moment that defines his or her personality?
_____ 4. Is the "Inciting Incident" strong enough to capture the audience's attention and propel the Lead Character into action?
_____ 5. Is the Dramatic Question strong enough to hold your attention and make you want to stay with the Story until the end?
_____ 6. How strong and well-crafted is the Lead Character?
_____ 7. Is the Goal of importance to the Lead Character?
_____ 8. Is the Heavy the opposite type to the Lead Character?
_____ 9. Is the Dialogue crisp, and does it quickly create the characters and world of the Story?
_____ 10. How much do you care about the Characters?
QUICK READ SCORE:
_____ 11. Is the Story unique and does it have "High Concept" qualities?
_____ 12. Does the Story have a strong, empathetic Lead Character who continually drives the plot forward as he or she strives to achieve a goal?
_____ 13. Do you like or care about the main characters?
_____ 14. How effective is the "Inciting Incident"?
_____ 15. Is the Heavy the Perfect Person to oppose the Lead Character?
_____ 16. Does the end of Act One have a shocking and unpredictable Plot Twist?
_____ 17. Is the Midpoint a big plot twist or a setback for the Lead Character?
_____ 18. Is there a "Perfect Day" scene in Act Two?
_____ 19. Does the Pace match the Story?
_____ 20. Is the Final Confrontation of Act Three effectively set up by Plot Point Two?
_____ 21. During the Climax, is the Lead Character forced to fight the Heavy for the Goal as well as to confront his or her own "Inner Demons"?
_____ 22. Are answers to all the questions raised in the Story provided by the Resolution or Denouement?
_____ 23. How good is the Dialogue?
_____ 24. Do you get a sense of the Theme without having it hit you over the head?
_____ 25. Does the Lead Character learn a major lesson and does it change his or her life?
CHARACTERS SCORE:
_____ 26. Is the Lead Character a dynamic force that moves the Story forward?
_____ 27. Does the Lead Character have something vital at stake?
_____ 28. Is the Lead Character a good Role Model?
_____ 29. Do you like the Lead Character?
_____ 30. Does the Story have one strong, likable Lead Character?
_____ 31. Does the Lead Character have a single, clear and compelling Goal?
_____ 32. Does the Lead Character suffer from a "Moral Weakness"?
_____ 33. How much does the Lead Character change during the course of the Story?
_____ 34. Does the Script contain memorable scenes that can showcase the physical and or acting skills of the Lead Character?
_____ 35. Does the Story have a unique, powerful and ultimate "Heavy"?
_____ 36. Does the Heavy have a clearly defined Goal of his own?
_____ 37. Is the Heavy a Sociopathic personality?
_____ 38. Does the Heavy take advantage of the Lead Character's good nature?
_____ 39. Is each Supporting Character, down to the smallest roles, vital to the Story?
_____ 40. Are the Supporting Characters different from each other on an Emotional Level?
_____ 41. Are the Supporting Characters fully realized; do they have Depth and Appeal?
DIALOGUE SCORE:
_____ 42. Does the Dialogue establish the "Exterior Aspects" of the Characters?
_____ 43. Does the Dialogue create and enhance the world of the Story?
_____ 44. Does each Character speak in a distinct and personal way?
_____ 45. Is the Dialogue spare, lean and free of unnecessary words?
_____ 46. Does the Dialogue contribute to the "Rising Dramatic Tension" within each scene?
_____ 47. Does the Dialogue contain memorable lines that stay with you after the Story is done?
_____ 48. Does the Dialogue exploit the "Power of Silence?”
_____ 49. Does the Dialogue have the "Music" and "Rhythm" of real speech?
_____ 50. Does Exposition come from Drama, or simply to impart information?
_____ 51. Is the "New Information" present in the Dialogue just when the Story needs it?
_____ 52. Is the Dialogue "Peppered" with small conflicts?
_____ 53. Does the Subtext reveal a Character's thoughts?
_____ 54. Does the Subtext transmit the feeling of the Lead Character and the Heavy too?
STORY SCORE:
_____ 55. Does the Story fit within a known Genre?
_____ 56. Does the Story pull you into its "Own World"?
_____ 57. Do the Lead Character and the Heavy inhabit the same space?
_____ 58. Does the "Inciting Incident" pose a single, clear "Dramatic Question" that leads to a strong, unified Storyline?
_____ 59. Is the Lead Character the "Outstanding Person" in the Story?
_____ 60. Does the Lead Character face a great "Moral Dilemma" in pursuit of the Goal?
_____ 61. Does the Story constantly disclose new information?
_____ 62. Are there enough Reversals in the Story to keep it unpredictable and exciting?
_____ 63. Is the Story structured into three recognizable Acts?
_____ 64. Does the Story contain enough suspense and surprise to keep you off-balance and involved?
_____ 65. Does the Story show a rising level of action and crises heading toward the Climax?
_____ 66. Is each major Plot Point strong and clear?
_____ 67. Does the Subtext come through in the Dialogue?
_____ 68. Does the Story maintain credibility?
_____ 69. Will the Audience feel a powerful catharsis or sense of release at the end of the Story and will they feel they have learned a "Deep Lesson" about life?
THEME SCORE:
_____ 70. Does the Story have a single, clear and powerful Theme?
_____ 71. Is the life of the Lead Character affected by the "Working Out" of the Theme?
_____ 72. Does the Story have a "Counter" Theme?
_____ 73. Is the Theme embodied by the Story rather than simply stated?
_____ 74. Does the Story examine deeper aspects of the Theme and Counter Theme?
_____ 75. Is the Theme tested by the "Opposing Values" of the Lead Character and the Heavy?
_____ 76. Is the Theme reinforced by the way the Lead Character finds a solution to the "Dramatic Question"?
_____ 77. Is there a single, awful moment when the Lead Character realizes that he or she has embraced the values of the Heavy?
_____ 78. Is the Theme always working in the Story?
_____ 79. Are the Lead Character, the Supporting Characters, the whole community affected by the values of the Theme?
_____ 80. Can the Theme be stated as a "Simple Sentence"?
TOTAL _____

The scoring list above is something I found online. I couldn't find the scale to be used. Maybe it uses a scale of 4 or 5 per question, or maybe 10 per question. A low score would be 2 or below in the first two, maybe 4 in the latter. Then the totals would be in the range either 0-320 (using the 0 - 4 scale), 0-400 (using the 0 - 5 scale), or 0-800 (using the 0 -10 scale). I'd recommend the 0 - 10 scale.

I would add two additional questions, and low scores on these (half or less of a perfect score) trump all of the above, perhaps as follows:

Deduct the combined totals of the balances remaining from the scores (if it scores 2 out of 10 possible, 8 remains) of the two questions as percentages, multiplied by 2, 2.5, or 5 for scales of 4,5, or 10 respectively, from the total score (ex. if 81 is 4 on the 0-10 scale leaving a balance of 6, and 82 is 3, leaving a balance of 7--so 6+7=13, and 13x5=65--then deduct 65% from the total achieved by the first 80 questions). You can be hitting all the marks and still fall flat on your face if you haven't entertained or satisfied 'em. If these score high (above half-way to maximum), then they count as bonus points, multiplied by 10. That way you could score a maximum of 1000 on the 82 questions using the 0 - 10 scale.

So, I'd add these:

_____ 81. Does the script entertain?

_____ 82. Is the story satisfying?

These kinds of things are controversial. They fall into the same category as those story-generating software programs for writers who are blocked.

Here's what someone said about the list above:

“I think trying to arrive at a quantitative analysis of a subjective art-form just feels wrong. If "GOOD" or "BAD" was as simple as a questionnaire, why wouldn't buyers be using them?”

Truth is, some do. But I see this a little differently. As writers, don't we all ask ourselves questions like these all the time? So what's wrong with making a list? I prefer to look at this as just another internal tool, a reminder list to which writers can refer while developing a project. After you've been writing for a few years, if your script isn't hitting these marks, your internal alarms pick it up most of the time. But stuff can slip past you. The list helps avoid that. I do not see it as a panacea or a method/formula to the exclusion of any and all other tools and techniques writers can bring to the project. In that sense, it is valuable. #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quote of the Post:

Does the script entertain?

Is the story satisfying?

---The Last Reveal

People Will Talk XI – Hitchcock, Settings, & Stage Plays

2010-12-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

INT. THEATER – NIGHT

A PLAY is about to begin. In the ORCHESTRA PIT, the CONDUCTOR stands to begin the Overture. He raises his baton—

--a NOISE sounds from the front of the AUDIENCE.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK moves slowly along the SECOND ROW of seats, attempting to get to his seat, having arrived late.

EVERYONE waits for him to reach the SINGLE EMPTY SEAT in the very middle.

The Conductor simmers as he waits, arms sagging.

HORN PLAYERS re-wet their instruments.

The CYMBALS PLAYER lowers his CYMBALS.

Hitchcock steps on a WOMAN’s foot and she YELPS.

He ignores her.

Finally, he reaches his seat, turns to the front, and sits.

The Conductor turns, raises his baton for a second time, and begins.

In Peter Bogdanovich’s Who The Devil Made It, Ballantine, 1997, p. 520, director Alfred Hitchcock said:

But there is another interesting facet about the photographed stage play: some people make the mistake, I think, of trying to open the play up for the screen. That’s a big mistake. I think the whole conception of a play is confinement within the proscenium—and that’s what the author uses dramatically. Now you are undoing a newly knitted sweater. Pull it apart and you have nothing. In Dial M (For Murder), I made sure that I would go outside as little as possible. I had a real tile floor laid down, the crack under the door, the shadow of the feet—all part of the stage play—and I made sure I didn’t lose that. Otherwise, if you go outside, what do you end up with? A taxi arrives outside, the door opens, and they get out and go in. I think those kind of shots are ridiculous and boring.

This recalls a famous Hitchcock principle (also from Who The Devil Made It, p. 541) :

…I’ll tell you how this scene came about [the killing of Gromek, by Paul Newman and Julie Andrews in the gas stove in Torn Curtain]. It comes under the old heading, ‘If you go into a setting, use it.’ In that farmhouse, all the tools of death or torture were domestic instruments: a carving knife, a shovel, and a gas oven. It’s the same as using the crop duster. Or, again in North By Northwest, if Cary Grant is trapped in an auction gallery, how does he get out? By bidding! You have to use a setting in its depth. It’s not enough to say, “This is a background.” Look at the ballet in Torn Curtain: the ballerina is the one who recognizes him—during a pirouette. And how does he get the idea to shout “Fire”? From the scenery on the stage. That’s using the theater, using the ballet, as part of the drama, not just as a background.”

He wasn't interested in following trends, no matter how popular. He was always a trend-setter. We might note that North By Northwest preceded by only a few years the espionage trend. Torn Curtain was made at the peak of the spy film craze, with James Bond leading the pack. Hitchcock refused to follow the template established by the Bond films, the same template he created. He set himself the task of making a kind of “anti-James Bond” film, and in so doing, took a decidedly more realistic view of espionage:

Bogdanovich – ‘What was your purpose in making Gromek’s murder as gruesome and protracted as it is?’

Hitchcock – ‘Again, the avoidance of the cliché. People are killed so easily in movies. Nobody ever goes back to take a second look to see whether they’re really dead or not. The whole idea was not only to show how difficult it is to kill a man, but to point up to the character what espionage entails: you’re involved in killing!’”

Returning to his point about settings, later, on p. 549, he added,

…if you’re in a fruit and vegetable market, then vegetables have got to play a part in the story, which (in Frenzy) they do. The potatoes become the undoing and the solving of the whole problem in the story.

“You have to use a setting in its depth,” i.e., to its fullest and most idiosyncratic extent. In the case of the theater, that means the stage (and only the stage) in all its dimension and potential. This is what can make the difference between the cliché and riveting entertainment. The action develops organically, out of the means at hand, and can become entirely un-predictable. #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quote of the Post:

You have to use a setting in its depth

---Alfred Hitchcock

People Will Talk X – Whammos, Bumps, Hitchcock, Spielberg, James Bond, and Raiders of the Lost Ark

2010-11-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

EXT. UNIVERSAL STUDIOS MAIN GATE – 1968 – MORNING

STEVEN SPIELBERG, aged 22, approaches the gate wearing a SUIT and carrying, judging by how he swings it, an empty VALISE.

Behind him, on the ground, is a discarded HAND-WRITTEN SIGN:

INSERT SIGN:

“Will direct for food.”

BACK TO SCENE

The FEET of a SUITED, UNCONSCIOUS, UNIVERSAL STUDIO EXECUTIVE (or minion of the Black Tower, depending on how you view it), poke out from the underbrush alongside the sign.

In one of his books on screenwriting Syd Field told a story about his boss, Fouad Said, at the old mobile production studio, Cinemobile Systems. Fouad Said advocated writing script stories using what he called, the “whammo” approach. Whammos were basically just action sequences of scenes that culminated in an exciting, dramatic, or just entertaining payoff. He felt that if you had a good, fresh, and surprising bunch of these in a script with serviceable characters audiences could pull for, you couldn’t go wrong.

Screenwriter Richard Maibaum (numerous James Bond films, Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang), said:

You know, Hitchcock once told me, “If I have thirteen bumps in a picture, I think I’ve got a picture.” A bump is something like someone says, “I’m looking for a man who has a short index finger,” and a totally unexpected guy says, “You mean like this?” That’s in The 39 Steps. After Dr. No (producers) Cubby (Broccoli), Harry (Saltzman), and myself decided that we weren’t going to be satisfied with thirteen bumps in a Bond story, we wanted thirty-nine.

Backstory 1, Edited by Patrick McGilligan, University of California Press, 1986, p. 287.

Sounds like Fouad’s “whammos” derive from Hitchcock’s “bumps.” Another way to look at this is to relate it to the Sequence Approach advocated by Paul Joseph Gulino in his excellent book, Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach.

One of the greatest whammo or bump movies of all time, of course, is Raiders of the Lost Ark. But one can see the approach developing and used to increasingly terrific effect in Duel, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, among others. All of them lead up to Raiders. And for those who would point out that Lawrence Kasdan wrote Raiders, so “how do [I] attribute the narrative approach to Spielberg?”, I suggest they read the transcript of the Raiders story conference between George Lucas, Spielberg, and Kasdan. Films, as always, are collaborations, and Spielberg merely amplified and crystallized ideas that were “in the air.” But his earlier work is clear evidence of this narrative approach brought to spectacular result in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quote of the Post:

If I have thirteen bumps in a picture, I think I’ve got a picture.

---Alfred Hitchcock to screenwriter, Richard Maibaum

Studio Stories XIII: "Basically, I Refuse to be Suppressed"

2010-11-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

EXT. R.V. - FREEWAY

Outside, the rain begins to slacken, and the clouds show signs of breaking.

INT. R.V.

GINNIE

(watching behind

as she talks)

They're merging with traffic.

She moves forward.

GINNIE (cont’d)

Well? how do we lose them?

HAL

Is there a lot of traffic

back there?

GINNIE

It's not heavy, but there

are--hey, what are you

thinking?

He looks at her and grins.

HAL

Open the window back there,

and let me know when they're

behind us in this lane.

He begins to slow the R.V. She moves to the back.

EXT. RUSSIAN CAR

It moves through MEDIUM-LIGHT TRAFFIC. Eventually, it is about 100 yards behind the R.V., and no cars are between it and the R.V.

INT. RUSSIAN CAR

MUSHKIN

Is no point in hangink beck.

Stay with them for now.

Valnya watches Ginnie opening the window of the R.V., and hanging out.

VALNYA

Mushkin, what are they doing?

Mushkin squints ahead.

Ginnie suddenly holds a BOTTLE in her hand. With a twist of her wrist, she flips it on to the roadway. It smashes, littering the lane with glass.

The Russian car sidesteps it, causing another car to toot its horn.

Ginnie lets go with TWO more BOTTLES, one in the center, and one on the right lane. The Russian car dances around the glass again, this time sending a car off the road.

Mushkin yells at Khan, gesturing wildly.

Behind, one or two cars have punctured tires.

EXT. SAME FREEWAY, FARTHER BACK.

Some distance to the rear, the rest of the traffic begins to come upon the broken glass. The drivers panic, whipping crazily from lane to lane.

Among them are the Japanese couple on their Kawasakis. In total confusion, they dart to and fro avoiding accidents one after another, and chattering frantically to themselves in Japanese.

Other drivers shake their fists at them in anger.

Finally, they attempt to slow down and stop on the shoulder. As they do this, another MOTORCYCLIST shoots past them. He is a HELL’S ANGELS-type, complete with DENIM VEST and a CHOPPER.

MOTORCYCLIST

Chickennnnnnnns!!!

The Japanese Man shakes his fist at him, and shouts in Japanese:

JAPANESE MAN

Anata bakagete orokamono-me!

Anata wa kakujitsu ni korosa

reru! (You ridiculous fool!

You'll be killed for sure!)

EXT. RUSSIANS AND R.V.

Ahead of the Russian car, Ginnie now has THREE BOTTLES, which she deftly drops in each lane.

The Russian car begins to swerve, but it is impossible.

Khan realizes this, and too late, jams on the brakes. The car skids loudly toward the glass, slowing rapidly, but halting right on the worst patch.

Traffic is going crazy with horns and screaming drivers.

The front two Russian tires go BOOM-BOOM, and begin to lose air.

In the traffic mess, the motorcyclist is forced to lay his bike into a shoulder to avoid an accident.

Not a single car is smashed, though all come incredibly close. The effect is amazement.

The Russians just sit in their car, dejected.

Alexi looks at the horizontal motorcycle, then speaks quietly to Mushkin who nods, and Alexi races out, and up to the recovering biker, a good head and shoulders taller than he.

Taking him by surprise, Alexi shoves him away from the bike, and then leans down to pick it up.

The biker looks at him and smiles.

MOTORCYCLIST

Git yer hands off that chopper,

shrimp, or I'll drop ya.

Alexi smiles at him evilly, and then with blinding speed spins on one leg and karate-kicks the biker in the face, sending him to the shoulder.

Returning to the motorcycle, Alexi picks it up with effort, gets on, expertly starts it, and takes off after the R.V. The biker MOANS (OS).

INT. R.V.

Hal and Ginnie are jubilant.

They’re alone on the highway now, as all traffic behind was eliminated.

EXT. HIGHWAY

But far behind, and approaching rapidly is Alexi.

Also, a FREIGHT TRAIN is moving along to the right, paralleling the roadway.

Some distance ahead, the tracks pass under the road at a diagonal, and begin to parallel the road on the left side.

They have passed out of St. Louis, now, and are heading southwest on 1-44.

The R.V. gains on the train, and Alexi gains on the R.V.

INT. R.V.

HAL

You saw them get at least

two flats? You're sure?

GINNIE

Uh huh... positive, Hal.

HAL

Then we did it!

Ginnie looks out the back.

GINNIE

Hey, a motorcyclist got

through the mess back there!

Hal looks into the mirror, seeing the rider gaining fast. He stares hard.

HAL

Hasn't got a helmet...

Heyyyyy, that's that little

guy, Alexi!

GINNIE

What?

EXT. HIGHWAY - R.V. & TRAIN & ALEXI - CONTINUOUS

The R.V. steadily passes the train.

Suddenly, the rear window of the R.V. opens and Ginnie appears.

Alexi comes up from behind, closing rapidly.

Alexi holds the handlebar with the same hand in which he holds his stiletto.

Going from his knife, to his eyes, to the rear tires of the R.V., it’s clear he means to take out a tire.

The road begins to rise slightly as the Interstate passes over the railroad tracks via a LONG BRIDGE.

Ginnie tosses out a BOTTLE.

Alexi puts the bike around the glass.

They begin to move up the grade leading to the bridge itself. The train passes under, losing ground to them at the same time.

Ginnie tosses SEVERAL BOTTLES in succession, and Alexi slaloms around.

MORE BOTTLES are tossed, as they ascend higher. Alexi has his hands full.

He moves right behind, too close to lose a tire from a freshly-tossed bottle. Ginnie throws ONE at him, instead. It glances off, and he slows down fast, stunned.

Suddenly, as they near the crest, Ginnie dumps ALL of the BOTTLES remaining in the case across the pavement.

Alexi, having started to gain again, is forced to dodge wildly to his left. In so doing, he shoots off the road, just below the point where the BRIDGE RAIL begins, passes over the shoulder, into mid-air, and comes down--impossibly enough--on top of the moving train.

Equally impossibly, he stays up, and starts riding forward up the train on the tops of the cars, jumping the gaps between.

He is nearly out of his mind with fear, but manages to stay moving.

INT. R.V.

Ginnie sees this through the rear window.

GINNIE

God, Hal, look!

Hal gapes at the sight.

EXT. TRAIN – TOP & BETWEEN CARS - CONTINUOUS

Alexi, petrified to do anything other than stay up, continues forward.

Suddenly, a gaping chasm looms directly ahead--a flat car with two semitrailers head-to-head--and he shoots off the car he is on, sails through the air in an insane leap for the car beyond, and drops into the space between the semi-trailers.

In profile, the motorcycle drops between and pins or jams snugly in place.

Alexi has his eyes shut tight. Slowly, he opens them and sees his plight. Then something shifts, and he drops out of view.

INT. R.V.

Both Ginnie and Hal look away in silence. Hal drives on.

That is a scene from my very first screenplay, The MacGuffin (unproduced), a romantic comedy, sort of a combination spy spoof and road trip picture, with a dash of the buddy movie thrown in. It takes its inspiration--some would say it derives--from films like North by Northwest, Charade, Silver Streak, and Foul Play. But, in various ways, I tried to put a fresh spin on the genre.

But when I wrote that scene back in those pre-CGI days, I wrestled mightily with the ethics of writing something that asked a stunt rider to jump a motorcycle from car to car on top of a moving train. Who was I to compel someone to take such a risk? Ultimately I left the scene in because I was seeing stunts just as risky in films constantly, and I knew numerous professionals would be involved in the decision to go forward. But I’ve always wondered where (or if) I would draw the line with a story. Would I leave that to others, or would I censor my ideas before they even were written?

Scott, over at Screenwriting From Iowa, posted this quote from John Sayles:

If storytelling has a positive function it’s to put us in touch with other people’s lives, to help us connect and draw strength or knowledge from people we’ll never meet, to help us see beyond our own experience. The people I read about in the history books and the people I met in the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia had important stories to tell and I wanted to find a way to pass them on.
---John Sayles, Thinking in Pictures: The Making of the Movie Matewan

“To…touch…other people’s lives…to see beyond our own experience.” But “touch” what? Falsity? “See” what? Lies? Hardly. Such a goal would be meaningless.

It’s been said in many different ways by many different people that stories are supposed to be true. After hearing this many times it has become clear to me that these folks don’t mean that they have to always be about, always tell, real truths. No. But they must be true to the universes in which they are set. In other words, within that world and its physical laws, anything can happen. Without that possibility always looming, the world, in effect, crumbles to nothing.

Many years ago, in Cronenberg on Cronenberg, Edited by Chris Rodley, Faber and Faber, 1992, p. 158-9, writer-director David Cronenberg said:

When I write, I must not censor my own imagery or connections. I must not worry about what critics will say, what leftists will say, what environmentalists will say. I must ignore all that. If I listen to all those voices I will be paralyzed, because none of this can be resolved. I have to go back to the voice that spoke before all these structures were imposed on it, and let it speak these terrible truths. By being irresponsible I will be responsible.

People ask me, “Don’t you feel you have a huge responsibility because of the films you make? How can you bear the weight of that responsibility?” To them I say, “I’m carrying the weight of that responsibility very well. I think these films are good for people. They’re not bad for people.”

Some people say that movies tend to support or encourage a certain philosophy. But the movie doesn’t do anything. It just sits in the can. So, are we talking about the writer, the director or the producer? Who possesses the will behind this hypothetical movie that is saying—for example, in Dead Ringers—that misogyny is good, that I approve of it, partake in it? Where does that come from?

If it’s to be a true art form, it’s conceivable that the author himself, and the people making the film themselves, do not, in the process of making the film know exactly what the film is saying. They don’t know what the film is supporting or expressing. It’s in the process of making that you start to come to some understanding of (the film). Therefore, you cannot have a group of people searching amongst the entrails of a movie at mere script stage for its meaning, social significance, political correctness, etc. Ultimately, that’s bullshit. In perspective you might be able to say something truthful about it. But who has the balance, the magisterial cosmic perspective that he or she can look at a script and say, “This is irresponsible and must be suppressed”? What you get are little committees of scared, timid people who are fumbling around. If there was this Godlike person we agreed could arbitrate, OK. If someone would say to me, “David, I know you don’t think Dead Ringers is going to enhance misogyny in society but I, God, tell you that in the light of the next 2000 years it will,” then maybe I could submit to that arbitration. But basically, I refuse to be suppressed.

“Basically, I refuse to be suppressed.”

But there are other scenes in The MacGuffin involving individuals who are racist . I wrote their words. And some are characters who are on the side of “the good guys.” One could conclude that their dialogue is advocated by the film-makers or the writer. Is that reasonable? Racists exist all around us. Does depicting them mean the writer is racist? Some black people use the “N” word in conversation with other black people. This is true. If a white writer has a black character using the “N” word in dialogue with another black character, is that white writer racist? And is such dialogue un-true because of the complexion of the writer? What if the offending speaker is white and he's talking to a black man?

In another script, I once had a character beat a dog to death. It wasn’t graphic, and it was mostly off-screen, but it outraged some readers to the extent that they refused to read further. Since it was at the beginning, the script had no real chance to win them over yet. Had the killing occurred in the last act, when the story might have had them hooked, would they have dropped it as easily, or at all? That same script had several truly vicious murders done to people by other people. Those scenes never bothered anyone. But the antiseptic killing of an animal crossed these people’s line of acceptability. Why? Because the dog was innocent? Does that mean that people, all of us, are not? Does it mean that human characters are all and always fair game, potential victims? And does it mean that’s okay, indeed, to be expected, even reasonable?

Are a character’s actions in a story evidence of anything by the writer? Is the writer tacitly guilty for simply conceiving such horrible acts? Is it cheap manipulation to so easily undercut and discredit an evil character by the inclusion of such acts even though they can, and do… and have actually… been done?

Some would say, “Why even write stories about such acts?” preferring to read or view stories that involve no violence, and jeopardize no one. But aren’t stories, if they are to be worthwhile, supposed to matter? Aren’t they to inform us? Aren’t they supposed to be about the defining moments in life? And isn’t life filled with such possibilities, filled with such truths? Is it, then, true to confine one’s stories always and only to safe scenarios, harmless individuals, and only reasonable actions in worlds where nothing brutal, ugly, or final can ever, will ever, happen? #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quote of the Post:

Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth.

---Pablo Picasso

What’s the Big Deal About Screenplay Format?

2010-11-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

INT. NYC APARTMENT – SMALL ROOM – APRIL, 1951 - DAY

JACK KEROUAC types away at an old, decrepit typewriter.

INSERT TYPING:

He types “The End.”

Above it the TEXT is typed SINGLE-SPACED, WITH NO MARGINS, AND NO PARAGRAPH BREAKS.

BACK TO SCENE

Jack reaches behind the typewriter and tears the paper feeding into the carriage, then removes it.

He stands, walks around to the other side of the table and begins to roll up the paper he's typed on.

It’s a long sheet, TELETYPE PAPER, in fact, cobbled together from several shorter ones, all taped together.

LATER

He has it all rolled up, one large roll of paper. He ties it up with TWINE and shoves it into a BOX.

INSERT ROLL:

The title shows: “On The Road by Jack Kerouac”

INT. VIKING PRESS - OFFICE – DAY

An EDITORIAL ASSISTANT opens a large package, pulls out the huge roll of paper, looks at it a moment, shakes his head, and tosses it into a BIN marked “Submissions.”

INSERT TITLE:

“The Rest is History.”

INT. GINORMOUS PRODUCTIONS – TODAY

A DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT opens a package and removes a SCREENPLAY and a MULTI-PAGE COVER LETTER.

Behind him is a WALL CALENDAR SHOWING THE YEAR TO BE “2010.”

The script has garish “DAYGLO” GREEN “leatherette” covers and is held together by THREE BRASS SCREW POSTS.

He glances at the letter, then shoves it aside. He shakes the envelope upside down. No SASE (Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope) falls out.

He opens the script and looks at the title page:

INSERT COVER PAGE:

“HUMDINGER”

“An Original Screenplay by”

“John Q. Screenwriter”

“First Draft”

“Reg. WGA #9776512-bb”

BACK TO SCENE

He opens to the last page.

INSERT LAST PAGE:

The page number shows as: “131”

BACK TO SCENE

He shakes his head and tosses the script, the letter, and the packaging into a BIN labeled “RECYCLING.”

INSERT TITLE:

“The Rest isn’t History”

So, what’s the big deal about script format? I mean, so what? As long as it’s in English and runs 90 to 110 pages (i.e., minutes; 2 hour lengths are now toast for spec scripts and newbs).

I admit, years ago I used to complain about it. I typed on a typewriter that had an Elite 12 pt. high typeface with 12 characters per inch, and I was damned if I was gonna go out and pay the going rate for an IBM Selectric with Pica 12 pt. high typeface with 10 characters per inch using the distinctive Courier font. Back then a Selectric cost many hundreds of dollars. Adjusted for inflation, it was well over $2,000 in today’s money.

I still complain about the stupid insistence on scripts being three-hole punched, but having TWO BRASS BRADS (and no more!!!). Or white card stock covers (nothing else!!!). Utterly Lilliputian! (Jonathan) Swift’s egg-openers (Gulliver’s Travels) may well be less anal; at least they believed they had good reasons for their positions: fewer broken yokes. Our screenwriting egg-openers (“two-bradders”) are all about fashion. It’s enough to start a war over. But I digress.

No, there are good and substantial reasons for the rules about format, particularly when it comes to font type and size, page count, and margins. It’s all about matching a standard so that budgets and running times can be consistently estimated. It forces everybody to “get on the same page,” so to speak.

My first script on that old Elite typeface typewriter came in at 118 pages, so I thought it was right on target (i.e., under 121). Much later, I decided to create an electronic copy, so I scanned it as an Adobe PDF document. Then I hit “Select All” and copy/pasted it into a Microsoft Word screenwriting template .doc file using Courier 12 pt. After cleaning up the result, I had a 148 page screenplay!

It was an epic comedy. I thought, at 118 pages, it still might need some trimming, but, being epic, but under 120, it was good enough to show. Now, at 148, it needed a nuclear strike! Comedies, after all are generally in the 90 to 100 minute range. I had something approaching It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but written by Jack Newb (not Jack Kerouac). And they didn’t know Jack. Neither did I, apparently. For all you carpenters out there, it’s sort of like trying to build a house to code without using standard-cut dimensional lumber. It just don’t fit!

Bottom line: producers have almost no way of knowing you or your script. For the busiest, it’s one of perhaps dozens received that day, hundreds received that week, tens of thousands received that year. They need a way to get through that torrential downpour. If you give them one…

…the rest will never be history. #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quote of the Post:

100 pages are the new 120.

---The Last Reveal

Screenwriting on Steroids III

2010-10-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

INT. AUDITORIUM – STAGE – DAY

Apple CEO Steve Jobs addresses an audience of hardware & software professionals, and members of the I.T. press.

JOBS

And so, if there’s one thing

I could tell our competitors

as they try desperately to

meet our challenge with iPhone,

it would be to say: "You're

looking at it wrong. You're

looking at it as a hardware

person in a fragmented world.

You're looking it as a hard-

ware manufacturer that doesn't

really know much about soft-

ware, who doesn't think about

an integrated product, but as-

sumes the software will somehow

take care of itself... And you

assume that the software will

somehow just come alive on this

product that you're dreaming

of, but it won't."

If there’s one thing I could say to people interested in becoming screenwriters, it would be something like that speech. Only I would change “software” to “stories,” and “hardware manufacturer” to “film studio.” It would go something like this:

You're looking at it wrong.

You're looking at it as a film

producer in a fragmented world.

You're looking it as a film

studio that doesn't really know

much about stories, who doesn't

think about an organically-satis-

fying product, but assumes the

story will somehow take care of

itself... And you assume that the

story will somehow just come alive

in this production that you're

dreaming of, but it won't.

But. It. Won’t.

All too often, Hollywood relies on the sort of thinking that results in choosing product that’s “just like” somebody else’s product; the sort of thinking that if one writer is good, more writers are better; that producing a re-make with “bigger bangs” will produce box-office with bigger bucks. This thinking ends up giving us films like that miserable attempt to re-make Robert Wise’s classic film, The Haunting (from Shirley Jackson’s novel, “The Haunting of Hill House”).

Carson over at ScriptShadow said it well when he recalled one of his experiences as a fledgling writer knocking on Hollywood’s door:

I remember first arriving in Los Angeles and lucking out with a meeting for a really terrible script I’d written. I’d bullshitted my way past some dumb people and gotten the script into the hands of a big agent, someone I had no business meeting with. It was the moment I realized you can trick some people, but you can’t trick the true professionals. Indeed, this gentleman told me straight up, “Your script is horrible.” He then proceeded to tell me that in order to separate myself from the glut of screenplays that land in agents and producers hands every day, you have to give the audience something they’ve never seen before. You had to give them a dinosaur theme park before there was Jurassic Park. You had to give them live-action anime before there was The Matrix.

“you have to give the audience something they’ve never seen before”

Lateral thinking is a writer’s best avenue toward giving that audience “something they’ve never seen before.”

In this posting, I continue the discussion on Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking techniques and methods as they relate to story creation and screenwriting. If you haven’t read the earlier two posts, they are here and here. This material is excerpted from my forthcoming book, Lateral Screenwriting: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Write the Great American Movie.

Focus

“Focus” is, for de Bono, a powerful tool. He describes simple focus and specific focus, among others. Simple focus is a deliberate effort to choose a focus point. It requires a willingness to consider things that are not themselves demanding it. For writers this might enable them to generate sequences or settings in their stories that contribute to the story’s overall uniqueness. When Paul Schrader made American Gigolo, it came out of a class he taught in which Schrader was digging for a character’s job in a student’s script. He was reeling off occupations, “...is he this? Is he that?” and he mentioned as an example, a gigolo. Later, Schrader was thinking about a character’s inability to express love, and the gigolo notion came back to him. For Schrader, when a theme meets a metaphor capable of expressing that theme, he has his movie. As we will see, that corresponds to a concept to which we alluded earlier that we will borrow from the great Russian theorists. It’s a concept called, “The Collision of Ideas.”

For writers, using specific focus might enable them to generate elements or detail in their stories that make them unique and real. The writer has a series of scenes at a resort hotel. While unconcerned with the action of the story, the writer wants to make the hotel a real place. The writer chooses to make a list of things that happen or might happen at a resort hotel in a 24 hour period, or during a special event. The idea is to consider it deeply, to find things rarely associated with the location, but possible or likely on occasion. From these, the writer is able to assemble a background for the action of the story that is not composed of the same clichés involving hotels we’ve all seen dozens of times.

Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Lehman applied several examples of a kind of specific focus when Lehman sat down to write what became North by Northwest. Hitchcock said that he had lots of ideas for movies, but they were disconnected. He had always wanted to do a scene in an auction, for example. He had always wanted to do a chase across the faces on Mt. Rushmore. He had envisioned a scene in which a man was attacked by a crop duster. He always wanted to do a scene where someone is murdered at the U.N. in front of the “entire world.” He wanted to do a scene where we watch a car being built on an assembly line, from beginning to end, so that we see it from the assembly of the frame to the end of the line. Right at the end, someone opens the just-installed door and a dead body falls out. They managed to get all of these except the auto assembly scene into the film. Each of them was the result of a kind of specific focus Hitchcock brought to his art. They had become illegitimate orphans of prior writing sessions for earlier films. Because he and Lehman were trying to generate a story without, at this point, even a premise, the scenes finally found a home in this one. It became a matter of finding how to connect them all in a cohesive through-line. The rest is movie history.

A lesser-known type of focus is something de Bono calls, General-Area-Type Focus. He makes the point that this type of focus is not well-known because “most people have been trained to think only in terms of a defined purpose or objective,” in other words, for problem-solving. He points out that this reduces the scope of creative thinking. So there’s a need for general-area-type focus.

We might say:

“I want some new approaches to the spy film.”

“What are some new ideas for westerns?”

Because we are not focused on a specific task, this allows us to think widely, to consider ideas that have no special needs bringing them into our area of focus. There is no problem to solve, no hurdle to overcome. This type of focus also allows us to avoid programming the kind of answers we might generate. If we compare two similar creative needs this becomes clear:

“We need ideas on the ways spies go about their craft.”

“We need new ideas about spying.”

Because, in the first example, we are focused on the ways of spies, our thinking is limited to spying techniques and methods. But in the second example, with the more general focus, our thinking is opened up. Using that example allows us to consider all aspects of spying, including aspects of how reality intrudes on the life and work of a spy. This, in turn, perhaps leads us to consider a spy comedy or spoof in which we show all the aspects of a spy’s day that we are never shown in standard spy films. When spies go to the airport, they always get to park right in front of the terminal entrance. They always depart at mid-day and arrive at their destination at mid-day, too! They never have bags, unless it’s a briefcase with the “MacGuffin” (the thing everybody’s after) inside it. But our thinking allows us to look at the other side of spying, the side never shown. Here we can show the sheer frustrations they must go through as they go about their otherwise extraordinary day. They are forced to fly the “red-eye” flight at midnight. They get the parking spot out at the far edge of the airport parking structure. They lug bags to the terminal by hand. They have an urgent bathroom call before they can check the bags, so they pile them up outside the men’s room stall. They watch helplessly, sitting within, as an enemy agent goes through the bags, looking for the “secret” documents, etc., etc. So, we gain all of these sorts of possibilities simply by thinking more generally, rather than toward a specific goal.

Another type of focus is Purpose Focus. This is focus directed at a target or goal. De Bono breaks up Purpose Focus into categories of Improvement, Problem Solving, Task, and Opportunity. In Improvement focus, we consider ways to improve pre-existing ideas or, in the case of story-telling, scenarios:

“We want some ideas to show how our character improved military tactics and won the campaign against overwhelming odds.”

“We want new ideas on how a young woman might find a good man without seeming too aggressive and turning him off.”

The category of Problem-Solving as applied to story development, might approach a scene or dilemma in a story, and look for alternatives to writing it the same old way, or toward writing it under circumstances that make it difficult. For example, one might ask, “What ways might a man be killed by someone?” Director, Alfred Hitchcock asked himself that during the preparation for Torn Curtain. He had two people in a house, unschooled in the arts of killing, who are forced to defend themselves with the means at hand against an attack by an East German agent. He settled on the man being dispatched in a kitchen by having his head forced into the gas oven.

During the conceptual phase for one of my screenplays, I asked myself the question, “In what ways might someone be chased across the country?” I ended up including a car, a motor-home, a motorcycle, a train, a hot air balloon, and a barrel over Niagara Falls!

With the category of Task, we are applying our thinking toward reaching a specific goal.

“We want an opening to our suspense thriller that introduces our hero, sets up the villain, and is exciting.”

“We want an alternative to the standard scare scene where our character meets the evil entity.”

I confronted the first example by starting a thriller I was writing with a chase scene in San Francisco, where a member of the Russian mob was eluding an entire army of federal agents led by the hero. The chase was full of close calls and narrow escapes. It runs for almost ten minutes, culminating at the Golden Gate Bridge. There the hero and the other federal agents corner the Russian at the middle of the bridge. He is trapped. Then he seems to have seen something. Rather than be taken, almost nonchalantly, he chooses to jump, and it looks like our hero will lose him and his link to the entire Russian organization. But as their eyes follow him down, dropping toward the water, they see that a cruise ship is directly underneath him, and he drops into the swimming pool on the ship’s highest deck. After a tremendous splash, he surfaces, looks up at his pursuers, and waves, having gotten away again.

In the second case, in my screenplay set in and around a small town and the old movie palace (The Jupe), I needed a scene in which the mother in my story’s family is almost killed by the entity inhabiting the theater. I recalled that an old ghost story called The Changeling (the 1980 film) had made some of the audience laugh when the hero, George C. Scott, was chased by an evil wheelchair. The operative question was, “What’s it gonna do when it catches him?” And I recalled the old mummy movies where the able-bodied woman and hero were chased by the mummy, dragging his foot behind him, sidling along, somehow nonetheless, able to gain on them. I didn’t want absurdities or too-clever ideas to cloud my thinking as I tried to devise a scene that was truly eerie, truly frightening. Ultimately, I think I succeeded: my mother character was alone and asleep in her bed, her husband gone. The entity inhabiting the theater has begun to manifest physically in various increasingly odd and fantastic ways. In this instance, as she sleeps in the utterly silent house, several blocks from the theater, her door is open slightly, and a long, dark shape seems to enter the room at floor level. It approaches. A snake? We can’t tell. As it gets to the foot of her bed, it raises up and starts to stream up and onto the comforter, finally allowing us to see it. What is it? Film, streaming from a reel at the door, brought, perhaps by one of the things inhabiting the theater. It moves toward her, just like a snake. Behind, it extends down, across the floor, and out the door to the reel. It reaches her head, and slips under her neck, as she continues to sleep. Coming up, it winds around and back under, encircling her neck in loops of itself. She continues to sleep unaware... So, we see how we are able to create new approaches to familiar set pieces.

In the fourth category, Opportunity, we have some element or factor that we can take advantage of with the right idea. I was once asked by a producer for a story designed to fit a location to which he had access. It was a closed-up mental institution. I wrote a treatment for a story about a group of students from a neighboring college that has just acquired the closed institution. The students have gone in to decorate the place for a dedication ceremony and party, only to be locked in and haunted by the ghosts of the former residents. This is an example of purpose focus utilizing opportunity, the location to which the producer had gained access.

Provocation

Provocation is a tool used to “provoke” ideas. Edward de Bono uses it to influence various lateral thinking techniques. Provocations are statements that when considered and “moved from” lead to useful ideas. Except in special cases such as in stories of the fantastic, they are not the usable ideas themselves. In fact, they are almost always absurd or impossible, in and of themselves. This is because they are by nature, “extra-experiential,” or out of our experience. As a tool, provocation offers the opportunity for “hindsight justification” for an idea which might otherwise make no sense. In the parlance of mathematics, it is a deliberate effort to introduce instability into a self-organizing system. De Bono describes provocation as, “With a provocation there may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said.” Since self-organizing systems such as stories work within the laws of logic and causality, the introduction of an extra-logical, extra-causal provocation can have profound effects upon the system.

It might be said, for example, that all of science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature functions through the deliberate use of provocation. The story proceeds “vertically” following a logical and causal path like any story. But a provocation is introduced, and this then leads to the introduction of an element such as time travel, magic, or lycanthropy. Voila´, the literature of the fantastic!

De Bono illustrates his concept of provocation by depicting a road where, along its length, a side road joins at an angle, forming a sideways “Y.” He describes a standard causal path moving along the main road, past the side road (there’s a “No Left Turn” sign). Then he interrupts the forward movement with a “provocation,” an idea that “does not exist in our experience,” lying, in fact, outside it. Using the presence of the provocation—depicted as occupying a position between the main road and the diagonal side-road branching from it (in the crook of the “Y”), we then are able to leap to the side-road, and, in effect, open up the side road as a new idea, making it now part of the world of the main road.

How might this work? Let’s say we have a story in which a character is killed at some point in the narrative (our “main road”). However, if he is killed earlier, it would benefit our hero far more than if he were killed when the story dictates. Since benefiting our hero is NOT the stuff of escalating tension, nor good drama, it would serve the tale much more if he died as the story intends. But now, we introduce the provocation: “he dies twice” (i.e., outside the patterns of our experience, since one can’t die twice). The hero is benefitted. We, as the audience, are lulled. But if, from the use of this provocation we now add the idea (side road) that the earlier killing was of someone else, someone who only looked like the character, we can, in effect, kill the character twice. And from this, our drama is effectively supercharged when it is eventually revealed that the first killing was someone else, and our hero is threatened, now, by someone whom he believed was already dead.

De Bono shows that this new idea (the person we thought to be the character dying early, later to be shown it was someone else) is perfectly logical, perfectly supportable within the self-organizing story. Yet it was arrived at through non-logical means in the form of the provocation, “dying twice.” So this then becomes his hindsight justification, something he points out is every bit as valid as any other form of justification.

Why would we employ such means to affect our story, in effect, jumping backwards in story time? Aside from the dramatic value gained by the introduction of the idea of dying twice, it is the only way we can open the story up and gain the use of that side road. Provocation can help us to escape the artifice of a story world whose boundaries are limited to that main road. So provocation is a primary tool, and de Bono gives it its due by introducing a new word, Po, for “Provocative Operation,” indicating that something extraordinary (outside our experience) is being introduced to the system.

Ex. – “Po, the character dies twice.”

Provocations must be set up, to have a reason for being. De Bono describes one method for this that he calls the escape method, by explaining how we take for granted many things.

We take for granted that New York cabs have drivers.

Po, New York cabs don’t have drivers.

This, in turn leads to the idea that cabs could be driven by the customer and left at the destination. This could work if a customer could use an access code purchased via subscription and the cab only operated within a certain range—thanks to a wireless connection—from its base. Another subscriber could then take it where it was left, repeating the process. So, in this variation, the lateral thinker escapes from the problem posed by the assumption taken for granted.

And how might this work in storytelling? In the comedy-thriller film Grosse Pointe Blank, a professional assassin, played by writer/director/actor, John Cusack, goes to his high school reunion. One method for arriving at a concept such as this might be through setting up an escape method provocation:

We take for granted that professional killers never went to high school.

Po, hit-men went to high school.

This, then, leads us to the off-the-wall idea of an assassin attending his class reunion.

Another method for setting up provocations is called the stepping-stone method. This is illustrated by the example of crossing a stream by first throwing a stone into the middle and then stepping on it. You then step from it onto the opposite side. So it is a pair of operations to arrive at a solution. My example from Screenwriting on Steroids I of using the test drive of a truck to return a large object to the store could be arrived at via a stepping stone type of provocation:

Po, you return the item in a truck you don’t have.

This leads to finding a truck (the stepping stone) by posing as a prospective buyer so that you can use it during the test drive (getting to the other side of the stream).

Ultimately, when it comes to story creation, provocation is a tool that can very often be used, effectively in its raw state, without the ideas they are meant to provoke. They become the ideas, themselves. Many stories, particularly fantastic stories, can contain impossibilities. Provocations can supply them.

Movement

Edward de Bono considers movement “central to the whole of creativity.” “Without movement,” he says, “there is no sense in using provocation.” Movement is the process of using provocation to get to usable ideas. It requires a sufficiently open mind to allow for ideas to appear once the provocation is considered. Using movement with provocation is the most extreme form of movement. Movement can also be used to move forward from a weak idea to a strong one, from a suggestion to a concrete idea, or from a concept to an idea. But it must be used with a willingness to avoid judgment, as that is how creativity differs from standard thinking. It allows for the lack of judgment in order to get to a solution that could not be reached any other way.

De Bono identifies five techniques that can be used to get movement or go from an impossible provocation to a usable idea. The first involves extracting a principle from the provocation.

Po, a person can see the spirits of the dead.

Principles might include:

---The dead want to come back.

---The person doesn’t want this ability.

--The dead want to talk to the living through the person.

---The dead can finish business left undone in life through the person.

---From these we might extract the third principle and from that develop a television show. We might call it Ghost Whisperer.

Or we might extract the fourth principle and from that and write a movie called The Sixth Sense.

The next technique is called, Focus on the difference. The lateral thinker compares the provocation to the original idea or way of doing things. Each difference is then examined to see whether it leads to an interesting idea.

For example:

Po, samurai and gunfighters are identical.

A difference might be:

Samurai are warriors of one lord; gunfighters are free agents.

This leads to asking, what if a samurai and a gunfighter had to work together? From that comes the premise for the film, Red Sun, starring Toshiro Mifune and Charles Bronson.

Moment to moment is the third technique de Bono describes, suggesting that it may be the most powerful of the techniques of movement. Here we imagine the provocation being put into practice, even if impossible in the real world, and we examine it, then, operating “moment to moment.” Consider the following:

Po, a young boy must survive spending Christmas alone at home, after his family leaves him there by mistake.

We imagine the boy doing it, moment to moment, examining how it might go. From this comes the very successful franchise of Home Alone movies. Notice, also, how similar the provocation is to a potential “logline” for the movie. Loglines can sometimes serve for provocations.

The fourth technique de Bono calls positive aspects. The provocation, itself, is examined for any benefits or “positive aspects.” Working from the provocation, then, we extrapolate aspects implied to see if any ideas suggest themselves. For example:

Po, soldiers convicted of capital crimes prefer a suicide mission during wartime over staying in prison.

The positive aspects of this might include:

---Amnesty should they survive a successful mission.

---A welcome release from prison life.

---Escape from a fate they feel is worse.

---They might be able to escape while on the mission.

---They can kill again, something from which they get pleasure.

And out of these we get the premise for The Dirty Dozen.

Circumstances completes de Bono’s roster of techniques for using movement. He asks, “Under what circumstances would this provocation have a direct value?” We want to make a movie about kids and a student newspaper, but nothing suggests itself. Kid’s newspapers don’t really cover “hard” news. We consider a provocation:

Po, reporters for a high school newspaper break a major hard news story.

From this comes the idea of adapting His Girl Friday to the circumstances of a student newspaper.

Concepts

Lateral thinking as explored and formalized by de Bono is related to the left brain world of business. Indeed, it is discussed throughout his works in terms applicable to all forms of business and even society. It is true, he uses lots of examples to illustrate specific cases, but these examples span the length and breadth of human civilization. Storytelling, and specifically the art, craft, and process of screenwriting is more focused. Some of de Bono’s tools and techniques can be less applicable to such specific uses.

When it comes to his tool, Concepts, this may be the case. Most times, the writer already has an idea of his essential story concept. The writer can start in many ways: from character, situation, milieu, issue, irony, or concept (among others). In my case, it is done almost always from concept. I have observed many other writers claiming that more often than not, they start from character.

De Bono considers concept to be vague, nonspecific, blurry. He also sees concepts as existing on multiple levels from the most general to highly specific, from making a profit, through selling luxury items, to selling gold-plated pencils, and every level between. So he leaves the lateral-thinker-to-be the task of figuring out which level within a range of concepts is the right one at which to work. De Bono’s notion of concept is one at which the practitioner tries to become more effective. And he does this by recommending they break concepts into categories such as Purpose, Mechanism, Value, and Descriptive in order to home in on the specific need.

For writers, other than at the earliest stages of development, they already have their concept in mind. One approach de Bono’s work advocates is taking a concept from its most general and reducing it to the specific level at which it just feels right, and then working from there to address the need at hand. But needs, as applied to story concepts, except at the most rudimentary writer levels, don’t usually enter into it. In such cases, the writer may want the story to be more this or more that, and de Bono’s approach would then tell that writer to pull back and find a more general level of the concept so that they can re-direct it onto a more appropriate story path. In other cases, the writer might do the same thing in order to jump to another genre. For example, The Seven Samurai went from feudal Japan to American western with The Magnificent Seven, then to interplanetary adventure with Battle Beyond The Stars, and then to animated bug movie with A Bug’s Life. So, while de Bono’s notion of concept can be applicable to storytellers in search of their concept, it offers little else for writers.

I’ll return to the subject in a future post taking de Bono’s ideas and describing methods I’ve devised specifically for story creation and screenwriting. And in the months ahead I will return to the subject of Lateral Screenwriting with further excerpts from my book, Lateral Screenwriting: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Write the Great American Movie. #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quotes of the Post:

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

---Sir William Bragg

Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.

---William Plomer

Art and science have their meeting point in method.

---Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Screenwriting on Steroids II

2010-10-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.

FADE IN:

EXT. SEATTLE, WA – DAY

A TOTEM POLE.

SHIFT to REVEAL the SPACE NEEDLE.

SOUNDS (OS) of a CROWD and a MARCHING BAND.

PEOPLE surround a WOMAN TELEVISION REPORTER (LEE CARTER). Everyone but Carter watches the parade. Carter looks directly into CAM.

CARTER

We have Senator Carroll

with us today to celebrate

Independence Day, and he is

an independent politician.

In fact, so independent that

some say they don’t know

which party he does belong

to.

A MAN, AUSTIN TUCKER, comes into VIEW.

CARTER

Austin Tucker. ...Austin’s

with us today as a political

advisor to Senator Carroll.

Austin, we hear our people

say that there are some pos-

sibilities that you want to

get the nomination for Sena-

tor Carroll.

TUCKER

Oh, well, I think we’re jump-

ing the gun, there, Miss Car-

ter--

CARTER

--Austin--

TUCKER

--He’s not running for any

office. He’s concentrating on

the one that he has now.

An ASIAN MARCHING GROUP passes, followed by a WAGON with SENATOR CARROLL and his WIFE.

CARTER (OS)

Here comes Senator Carroll and

Mrs. Carroll. He really looks

terrific.

Senator Carroll, wearing a FIRE HAT, and Mrs. Carroll, roll

forward.

CARROLL

(holding a MIC)

Happy 4^th of July, everybody,

happy Independence Day for us

all. Thank you.

CARTER

He is the ideal father of his

own kids, the ideal husband,

if you’re old enough. And he’s

the ideal leader of our country

if you’re any age, so says Aus-

tin Tucker.

CARROLL

Uhhh, yes, Lee, how are you?

CARTER

Senator Carroll, just fine,

thank you. Welcome to our city.

How do you do?

(to Mrs. Carroll)

How are you? You all look just

as wonderful as in your photo-

graphs. How do you manage that?

Always smiling.

WE SEE JOE FRADY in B.G. In F.G. Austin listens.

CARROLL

Well, I’ll tell you. We’re very

Happy to greet smiling faces,

and I’m happy to be with my con-

stituents on such a wonderful

day. Thank you very much, every-

body.

The Band plays “Oh, When the Saints go marching in,” as Carroll and his wife go into the SPACE NEEDLE.

INT. SPACE NEEDLE – ENTRANCE

Joe Frady is stopped at the door by a GUARD as Carroll goes through. Lee Carter follows.,

FRADY

(to Guard)

I’m with her.

GUARD

Ma’am, is he with you?

CARTER

No.

EXT. SPACE NEEDLE.

The Elevator rises up the shaft of the huge structure.

INT. SPACE NEEDLE – RESTAURANT

It’s noisy (OS). Ushered through by a SECURITY GUARD, Senator Carroll and his wife mix. He sees someone (ED) he knows.

CARROLL

Ed, how are you, sir?

Good to see you.

CARROLL

You’re looking very good, Ed.

Thanks for helping me today.

(turns)

Hello, how are you?

One of the WAITERS (WAITER 1) watches him.

EXT. OBSERVATION DECK.

Tucker talks to Carter.

TUCKER

...and I know a little bit

about your background...

A WAITER (WAITER 2) hands a TRAY to Waiter 1.

TUCKER (CONT’D)

...your lovely family—

(to Waiter 1)

--I’ll have scotch and water.

Senator Carroll knocks on the WINDOW from inside. Tucker and Carter look. Carroll picks up a MIC.

CARROLL (OS)

Ladies and gentlemen, my wife,

Kit and I, we thank you very

much for inviting us here today,

this Independence Day. Indepen-

dence Day is very meaningful to

me because sometimes I’ve been

called too independent for my

own good.

TWO SHOTS are heard, and Carroll is hit. Blood spatters the glass as Tucker and Carter look on.

INT. RESTAURANT

A shooter, Waiter 2, holds a pistol.

Waiter 1 puts what appears to be a GUN in his jacket.

EXT. SPACE NEEDLE – ROOF

Waiter 2 climbs on the roof. He is chased by a SECURITY GUARD, and then TWO OTHERS. They reach him and a struggle begins.

He falls and, with a SCREAM, rolls over the edge.

INT. RESTAURANT

Through the glass, Carter is stunned.

EXT. SEATTLE – DOWNTOWN – TWILIGHT

Waiter 1 looks at the Space Needle on the horizon, then turns and MOVES OUT OF FRAME.

(Transcription by The Last Reveal of the final film of The Parallax View.)

If you haven't read Screenwriting on Steroids I, click here.

In this post I will lay out the general approach that can be taken when using lateral thinking as described by Edward de Bono. In a following post, I’ll relate his ideas to story creation and screenwriting. First, here is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Lateral Screenwriting: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Write the Great American Movie:

For a complete understanding and explanation of Edward de Bono’s tools and techniques, I strongly recommend de Bono’s books, and in particular, Lateral Thinking, The Six Thinking Hats, and Serious Creativity. While de Bono can come off heavy-handed and proprietary at times, dull and pedantic at others, there is no denying his contribution to understanding the thinking process and creativity. As applied to screenwriting and storytelling, the tools and techniques described in his books are more general than those I offer for story creation and screenwriting, as they are designed for all manner of business, corporate, and societal application, all manner of situation and need. Some of de Bono’s methods are best practiced in group settings. But, then, some writing is, too.

The larger question, however, is “why de Bono?” That is a very important question, because de Bono advocates a fundamental change to the western thought process. He lays it out quite well in this article entitled, Away with the Gang of Three published in The Guardian, January 25, 1997, and later on de Bono’s website. In essence, he believes that humanity would be much farther ahead had it gotten past certain formal thinking practices rooted in ideas put forth in ancient Greece, and later embraced during the Renaissance. He urges adoption of notions that he has formalized in his books, and believes such adoption is vital to human progress, especially at this time in its development.

Much of his thinking, if applied here and now to screenwriting and story-creation, would result in a far different book than the one you have in your hands. The problem, however, would be that it would not apply to the existing world marketplace for stories. For that to happen, the market would have had to change first, or in parallel with, story-creation. So, while we might, idealistically, advocate for doing away with certain notions of story construction, we would be writing stories that would have little or no practical market.

Some may disagree and desire to take story in the direction to which de Bono’s thinking points. I applaud them (you?) and urge that it begin now. Story, as is, has hit a threshold: it is struggling to maintain position. That is why we hear such complaints as, “There are no new stories, everything’s been done!”

Now, we have, in this space, heard from writer/director Paul Schrader when he echoed others, saying “All plots have been done.” Indeed, Georges Polti’s book, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, signaled it nearly a century ago! Georges Polti reduced stories to 36 recurring variations. Others reduce the number to as few as (what else?) three:

“Other common narrative themes reveal our basic wants and needs. ‘Narrative involves agents pursuing some goal,’ says Patrick Colm Hogan, professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut. ‘The standard goals are partially a result of how our emotion systems are set up.’

“Hogan does not consider himself a literary Darwinist, but his research on everything from Hindu epic poems such as the Ramayana to modern film adaptations of Shakespeare supports the idea that stories reveal something about human emotions seated in the mind. As many as two thirds of the most respected stories in narrative traditions seem to be variations on three narrative patterns, or prototypes, according to Hogan. The two more common prototypes are romantic and heroic scenarios—the former focuses on the trials and travails of love, whereas the latter deals with power struggles. The third prototype, dubbed ‘sacrificial’ by Hogan, focuses on agrarian plenty versus famine as well as on societal redemption. These themes appear over and over again as humans create narrative records of their most basic needs: food, reproduction and social status.” - Scientific American magazine, September, 2008, published online: The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn, Our love for telling tales reveals the workings of the mind, by Jeremy Hsu.

But we have also, in this space, heard from UCLA Graduate Screenwriting Program Chair, Richard Walter, that he doesn’t “…believe we've scratched the surface of available plots. There are infinite new plots.” This difference is probably an issue of terms, the rhetoric: Schrader, Polti, and Hogan talk about story or plot “types,” considering story plots in general terms, scenarios of human striving. Walter keeps to the particular, scenario minutia. He finds infinite variety in the details within the stories told, and the variety of ways writers tell them.

The Schrader/Polti/Hogan faction look at story commonalities. Walter looks at the differences. Walter’s is a writer’s perspective, the story creator’s position. His opposites consider it from the consumer side.

For purposes of lateral story conception, in the early stages, we must approach it from that consumer side. Later, we can consider it in detail and so, from the story creator side. So let’s consider it from the former viewpoint first, if for no other reason than to understand why Hollywood does what it does. Studios and producers are not story generators. They are stories’ first audience, they are its first consumers. They pre-judge stories’ suitability for audiences. So, there are…

“…no new stories…” That is why Hollywood film studios desperately re-make even bad television shows! From Hollywood’s perspective, viable new ideas are in short supply. Having come into contact with de Bono’s ideas about western thinking, and seeing their worth to story-creation, I am faced with a choice: apply them to what is, or apply them to what could be. In the former, we have a chance to improve story creation going forward. With the latter, we risk speaking to that proverbial “empty room.” As has de Bono with his techniques for business, I have chosen the more pragmatic path, the state of story creation as it is now. I look ahead to their application to what story creation might become, but intend to focus our thinking here to the realities of today. As a result I build my ideas off of notions rooted in the classic Greek thinking of Aristotle. Make no mistake: In doing so, I am not advocating for its primacy over the potential pointed to by de Bono in his “Gang of Three” essay; rather, my intention is to subvert it by infiltrating de Bono’s concepts into, around, and beyond Aristotle. My intention, in effect, is to energize what is already underway with screenwriting theorists worldwide: the laying of a foundation for traditional western narrative’s enlargement.

We can summarize de Bono’s primary Lateral Thinking techniques, applied to screenwriting, as follows:

·         Random Entry – In which one randomly selects an object, or a noun from a dictionary, and associates it with the subject, concept, or story idea.

·         Provocation – A method of provoking alternatives to the obvious story solutions that suggest themselves by escaping the boundaries imposed by logic or causality.

·         Challenge – Where a standard scenario, pattern of dialogue, or behavioral, narrative, or cinematic trope is challenged for alternatives, regardless of whether there is a need.

·         Suspension of Judgment – Allowing for non-causal or non-logical elements or patterns to be introduced to the narrative construction.

·         Generation of Alternatives - The creation of a body of alternative ideas, concepts, or solutions, regardless of need, to enrich the spectrum of possibilities available.

One of the greatest assets of employing lateral thinking techniques such as these is that the introduction of such non-causal, random, or even non-logical elements have the effect of paralleling or mimicking real life. Just as life always has random and unrelated events occurring around us at all times, the introduction of such elements can render the world far more realistically than can a completely writer-designed, vertical plot. The use of lateral techniques in story creation makes for stories having that elusive quality, verisimilitude, the “ring” of “truth.”

In Lateral Screenwriting, I will be adapting these and other tools and techniques for screenwriting.

I should note that various identical results can be arrived at through any (or many/some) of the techniques equally. In other words, one writer could arrive at an idea, concept, or solution via one technique, while another arrives at the same result using another technique. Lateral thinking isn’t mathematics. It isn’t restricted to classic empiricism. It is fuzzy in that way. The techniques are just various ways to get to what could be similar results for any particular goal. Therefore, the practitioner is urged to find the techniques with which he is most comfortable, and not consider them to be specific tools for specific and separate results. The tools, more than any other benefit, are intended to spark the brain’s own systems, to open up the pathways that might have been closed or dormant, and by being re-opened, to offer new results. The brain isn’t concerned with whether tool-A was used over technique-3. The brain takes over once the idea is glimpsed, anyway, so the tool at that point should be forgotten. The result is the important thing. So, the reader should not be troubled with some formal association of tools and techniques to various types of results.

Finally, it should be pointed out (as has de Bono in his books), that lateral thinking techniques do not work every time and in every situation. They do, however, offer a vastly wider range of possibilities for the generation of ideas. And, inevitably, by the end, they can be expected to offer any given work something of use virtually every time. They do, however, require that an effort be put forward. But, with use, they have been proven to pay that effort back again and again.

In the next post, I will relate some of the techniques and methods of de Bono’s lateral thinking to story creation in general, and screenwriting in particular. #

FADE OUT

Lee A. Matthias

Quotes of the post:

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

---Terry Pratchett

One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.

---G. Weilacher

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

---Abraham H. Maslow