While trying to get back to sleep I began thinking of a blog post, and decided to write down my thoughts because I couldn't sleep.
When I took advanced motion picture script analysis in USC's School of Cinematic Arts, I knew I needed the class. While I'd completed the USC master of professional writing program with an emphasis in screenwriting, I knew there was more I needed to learn before I could successfully complete a screenplay.
USC allows alumni to return to campus to continue to take courses with departmental approval. Before taking a course in the School of Cinematic Arts, I was required to take beginning screenwriting. I treated it as if I were taking a master class. The teacher was amazing.
I learned many of the lessons in the class, including the importance of understanding and using time in video; better understanding the full palette of tools writers use while creating a screenplay; how to write, in a few words, a description which will cause everyone in the audience to focus on a specific area of the screen.
Screenwriting, done well, is incredibly intricate. A few weeks into the class, I told the teacher, "When I'm screenwriting, I feel like I"m struggling with an octopus." He reassured me the octopus could be tamed and at the end of the class he told me, "You're ready to go for it. You really don't need to take any more classes." But I did.
When I took advanced motion picture script analysis, I attended every session, arriving before class. I even listened to the professor's answers to students' questions during breaks.
The final test was open note/open source, and I took about 10 hours to complete it. I received the nicest note from the professor. He said I'd received a perfect score and that he was using my answers as a key to grade the other students' finals. It has been fun sharing many of the things covered in the final here. At the end of the class finally felt as if I could write a story coded with the elements needed to make those watching the movie lose track of time; suspending reality to feel as if no time has passed while experiencing the story.
I remembered the octopus analogy a few weeks ago as my cowriter and I prepared to go from index card stage to screenplay writing stage.
Every movie I've watched, including the dozens of films I studied while attending USC includes several stories within the main story.
The sub-stories are interesting and are integral to the main story, however their treatment can be uneven -- some end at strange places in the movie and are never mentioned again. Others unfold unevenly. To be satisfying, none of the substories or elements in the film should draw attention to themselves.
The day before we began to write our first screenplay page, I drew an octopus. Then, on each arm I wrote a specific element of the story. Without giving away the plot, these included:
- The protagonist's want
- The protagonist's need
- The conductor's substory
- The love triangle substory
- The protagonist's flaw
- Planting and payoff
Then, my cowriter and I briefly discussed each of the octopus arms. Is the protagonist's flaw shown realistically and strongly enough? Does it appear thoughtfully or have we forgotten it while too much time passes? The protagonist's need, if realized, will transform him. This is the most challenging of all. Transformation is miraculous, and occurs through realization, followed by dozens of small changes in the tiniest increments. Progress is made, interspersed with setbacks which are fought with ferocious determination.
Using the sketch of the octopus to sort through the many details of the story was a breakthrough. In the past trying to write a screenplay felt as if the creature was attacking me as I tried to pry each arm away the others would grab me. However as we talked through how each element and substory unfold throughout the story, the complicated parts became simple.
Before writing "fade in," I will do this with each project. The octopus exists, but it is now tame.
