This week, you are reading:
Story, Chapter 5
Adventures in the Screen Trade, Chapter 20 (The Screenplay)
Your homework is :
- Blog a blurb on the reading.
- Watch a documentary and write a script for a trailer (1-2 minutes).
For EXTRA CREDIT, you may pick one of the PBS/POV trailers and write the script to describe what you see and hear in the trailer. This is a good idea if you did not get off on the right foot with your blog or participation...
DON'T FORGET TO BRING YOUR Adventures in the Screen Trade text to class.
Also, bring in your calendar!
Have a fabulous week!
Mariah
9 comments:
I understand the idea that true characters are portrayed in the choices they make while under pressure. The more extreme the choices, the deeper the understanding of the nature of the character. Pressure being an essential part of the picture. Better yet, the changes the character goes through that creates the arc that will define their innermost workings as a character, good or bad. You just have to remember to coordinate the story to reveal the characterization of the character. You cannot change just the character without changing the story to match who your character really is inside. While all this makes for a good story, according to the reading, you can lose everything if your climax doesn't carry any weight. If the ending (or climax) of the story cannot reveal an interesting depth, then the rest of the story is at risk of being denounced.
I enjoyed reading the Screenplay complete with every detail that was just not described in the original story. It brought life and character to the story. Like Willie running through town to get his haircut after his father interrupted his marble game w/Porky. The description of the buildings he passed and the scenery around him helped build a better picture in my mind of the setting that surrounded the story. Even things like the boarded up movie house disclosed information about the town's hardships that may have existed. It was easy to see how Willie developed as a character through the choices he was forced to make as the son of a barber who was a "butcher" and Mr. Bimbaum. Just as well, the character of Bimbaum had lighter depth to keep the main characters in the forefront.
i think the most important part of this lesson was that story is character and character is story. we are drawn to drama and their is no greater drama than other peoples problems. not matter what tragic event we see on television or in real life its never as compelling as the individual situations that the people themselves went through in order for that event to have taken place. for example in the "story" book they compare the characterizations of the 2 different characters the doctor and the immigrant but, what about the bus drivers story? i think the bus drivers story had the "potential" to be greater than them both. sure it could have been a regular bus driver in a regular accident but so could've those two people driving past or stopping. point is, the bus driver may have been drugged up, drunk, depressed, or been fighting a "condition" and was unfit to drive. point is in a story we go " a bus with children burned up!?" how sad! but when we find out why we go wow!! thats crazy! and i think this book does a great job of conveying that.
I definitly took away from this chapter the many complexities we must write for our characters, the highs, lows and unexpected. Character revelation comes out of extreme situations in which they are forced to make decisions on the fly, no time to figure out the pros and cons, sheer gut instinct will shape a character as a saint or monster. Whatever the situation it will lead the character to a climax and or Arc. This is something I will remember to implement in my scripts. I really kinda always thought if you don't grasp your audiance from the get you'll loose them, but in this chapter Mkcee explains you must save the best for last "Movies are about their last twenty minutes". I can remember walking out kof theatres feeling disappointed because the ending left me with much more to be desired. The choices a character makes should take the story on a rollercoster ride till the end, when it ends you want to get on it again
I really liked the Screen Play. i think that using this could help me with my future screen plays. i could use this as a guide line for me. The fully detailed characters were so enjoyable. There are many levels for characters in a story (screen play) I don't think that i have ever read a story or screen play as well thought out as this one. Its twists and turns and great characters, help with the story. one character helps the role of another character. its like without the one, they cant have the other.
I relay enjoyed this chapter in Story. McKee dose a wonderful job outlining the importances of crisis, climax, and resolution. I liked how he first noted the importances of a characters decision. He makes a great point that a characters decisions should lead them to the crisis of the story. McKee makes a great point that the climax is the major crisis of the story the likes of which will change the character forever. The points McKee makes in the last section "resolution" I also found to very informative. I always understood coming to a logical ending to a story but I have never given much thought to any other way of ending a story. I also enjoyed his point of a "slow curtain", How you don't want to just cut to black you need to give your audience a chance to catch there breath and return to reality. All in all I have found this book very useful and I wish I had read it sooner.
McKee's treatise on Climax/Resolution articulates the obvious profoundly. But much of what he advises goes unnoticed today, especially as it pertains to climax itself. McKee suggests spreading the aftermaths of the climax to the resolution, and thus rounding out the loose ends of the story and leaving the audience satisfied. Today's movies are either one long successive story in the tradition of Star Wars or other Geek Opera, or supply the climax as resolution, for the purpose of creating a surprise ending, ala 6th Sense. Obviously, some of it is artistic intent, but much of it is to mask weak writing and blaring plot holes.
As for Goldman's adaptation of his own work, I found it be an extremely bad example of scriptwriting for beginning writers. Having studied screenwriting for many years now, I know for a fact this is the kind of writing that only Bill Goldman could get away with, because of the mere fact that he's Bill Goldman. His scenes directed themselves, and much of his description ran on for large chunks at a time. Beginning writers are taught to keep the page clean and keep the rivers of white space flowing. Bill Goldman, being an established writer, can do whatever the hell he wants, and does so here, but to the expense of the inexperienced. To me it illustrates the age old cliché in screenwriting: Show, don't tell.
Format and structure go hand in hand for me, and I think Goldman's screenplay undermines McKee's theories when it comes to the reading this week. By displaying a work that only a writer of Goldman's stature would be allowed to produce, he dooms his prospective students to failure because he indoctrinates us with self indulgence and ignorance.
I enjoyed Goldman's screenplay for Da Vinci as much as I enjoyed the short story. It wasn't the best thing Iv'e ever read but it was alright. I'm glad he chose not to cut out any of the characters.
The reading in Story was very helpful and informative as usual. He emphasized true character once again versus characterization. He states that the purpose of structure is to provide building pressure and dilemas in which true character is revealed. I never thought of it like that before.
I like the way McKee broke down how structure and character work together. When it is broken down like he did, it becomes clearer on what makes a good screenplay. He empathizes that structure is carried on by the character’s choices under pressure. He mentions that the climax also reveals characterization through events that happens during the climax, and the scenes before that need to show that the character is capable of making those decisions in that last scene. Goes more into depth about how the character arc changes the character and characterization. I agree with what McKee is trying to get across, if the character doesn’t go through some kind of revelation to make an arc, the audience is going to get bored.
I liked how Goldman gave you the original short story, went over the issues you come across when adapting, than gave you the adapted screenplay. The screenplay, I thought adapted out pretty well, it had all the emotional elements as the short. I like how he choose to follow a marble in the beginning, considering through out the short, playing the game was apart of the boys life. It is always interesting what kind of visual the screenwriter chooses from the short.
STORYI really enjoyed reading this chapter. I now understand a lot more about how characters decisions are portrayed through structure and character. And how they are interlocked and the story is created out of choices under pressure. I also took out from the book is the ending of the story on how the climax or the last act is the most satisfying experience of all.
Post a Comment