Yada Yada Yada...

Recently a friend recommended I should teach a course on screen dialogue. I found this surprising as I am not an expert on dialogue. I am not a native English speaker and I most certainly lack a deep knowledge of vocabulary.

My main reason for not jumping into dialogue workshops: I often read great dialogue, but I have never received one spec script where the structure couldn't be improved.

Structure is my shtick.

There is still so much to learn in this area, and you can't find it all in the books. I told my friend I have only scratched the surface and I'll turn my attention to a new area once story and structure have revealed all their secrets.

I mentioned this conversation to one of my most respected clients. He thought his use of dialogue had improved significantly through our development sessions. His script is certainly going the right direction: The coverage from a mini-major was thorough and contained genuine praise. Anyhow, it started me thinking about how I approach dialogue.

Because many writers love dialogue so much, I will stray from my path and share five principles. I am sure there are other, more important rules, but these are the ones that spring to mind. If you go against any of them, you need to have a very good reason.

About dialogue:
1. It should contribute to subtext more than plot.
2. Its semantics should be perfect, not organic or defective.
3. Its grammar SHOULD be organic and defective.
4. Its rhythm should support the scene's rhythm.
5. It can be reflective, not reflexive.

There is one more secret rule I love, which I only give away to my students and clients. It's about that one specific scene where you can - and must - break almost every rules.

Each of these techniques is a challenge in itself and you must develop a process to be aware of it during your own editing. Great dialogue doesn't usually flow naturally from your pen. It is laboured, crafted and endlessly polished.

That is why often at the very end of your development, when you are tantalisingly close to the final draft, you will need to do a thorough 'dialogue pass' and make sure every line and every word hits the mark.

Inexperienced screenwriters have great trouble judging whether their dialogue really works. This is because of their own tastes, education, movie influences etc. Another reason why they will always need a pro to do a final polish of your work before you send it out, even if the story works.

It can be tremendously helpful to workshop your lines with actors before committing to a shooting script. Beware: inexperienced actors will almost always favour dialogue over subtext.

Oh, and I fully agree with Robert McKee that often the line of dialogue the writer is most proud of, should be cut. Because Tarantino and Woody Allen get away with it, doesn't mean you should push your luck.

BREAK IT DOWN

Right after learning the principles of structure, it will be hard to apply them to your own work immediately.

Better is to consolidate your understanding by applying it to films you know, by watching them and identifying the key turning points.

A breakdown in scenes or plot points is an excellent start. To help you with this, I will regularly publish examples from different genres.

My structural overviews are hardly definitive. They are often different from the views of people I regard very highly. That doesn't make either of them 'wrong'. I don't believe in 'formula' and the main concern is to find a process that helps you creating and critiquing a structure so it has the best chance in the market place.

On the other hand, they can often be improved and I welcome your input.

Now, a lot of work goes into these structure articles and I want to reward my clients and Premium Subscribers, who pay for my time. Therefore, these overviews will only be accessible to non-paying readers for a limited period of time. During this time, you can copy it for your own use, not distribute it in any way or for any purpose without my written consent.

So far I have published five analyses:

Assault on Precinct 13 (Original Version)
Michael Clayton
Ghost World
Terminator 2
The Shawshank Redemption

The first two have gone Premium already, the remaining three will too, at the time of publication of my next post. But more will follow, so keep watching this space.


WILL READ FOR MONEY

I filled my shopping trolley with $489 worth of groceries and at checkout I said:

"I want all for free: soon I'll have a big family to feed and you'll make so much money, it is worth getting my business now!"

Guess what: it didn't work.

--- (deeeeeep breath - preparing for loooong whinge) ---

Every f***ing week people email me asking to read their work - FOR FREE. They all believe they have written the latest blockbuster, indie comedy, crime caper, romcom, etc. You name it.

And they all really - really - want me to spend half a day or a day of my precious time reading their shit rather than earning a living or spending time with my three-year old son Baxter.

Guys: this is my job.

Do you ever go into work in the morning and tell your boss:

"Hey listen, today I'm just doing you a favour, don't pay me. I love my job SO much!!"

With the persistence of leeches on steroids these people try to make me believe I am ruining my chances of becoming a billionnaire producer if I don't read their stuff.

Some keep coming back. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.

Ever heard of the expression "pushing s*** uphill"?

Mostly I just try to make them see the light and sell my services, because without professional help they don't stand a chance of ever getting read.

But sometimes it just drives me plain mad.

If these writers had done their research on who I am, they would have known my views on screenwriting are pasted all over my three web sites. These sites have decent rankings and show up whenever you google my name.

Interestingly, the pattern is quite common:
1. First they send a sloppy synopsis, which;
2. I reject.
3. Then they tell me the script is better than the synopsis.
4. I kindly explain I don't work like that.
5. They insist I should read the 120p. script.
6. I reiterate what I have explained before, but offer to read on a consultancy basis.
7. They insist by repeating exactly what they have said before, only LOUDER.
8. Etc. etc. etc.

Sometimes I give in.

And guess what: in the rare cases I can free up time to read ten pages or so and give them free feedback, people get offended.

Only yesterday I received a highly insulting email in response to what was a polite, professional - free of cost - assessment of (part of) a screenplay. You're not prepared to lose? Well, don't play.

Which brings me to the following, more positive consideration:

I am very proud to say I am one of the very few consultants around the world who is completely transparent about their approach, their knowledge and their fees. You can read two years worth of articles on story and screenwriting in this blog, in which I am 100% open about my views on the craft.

But, you know what? Some of these people are just not interested in screenwriting. They just want some money to get their film made.

Apologies if I start to sound like a cranky old bastard. True, I am one. But I don't want to sound like one.

So:


THE GOOD NEWS

Currently I am working with six smart, dedicated writers with promising but unfinished stories. They have committed to regular consultancy sessions over a period of four months or longer. Yesterday an existing client signed up for the Intensive Pack.

More than a dozen return clients book regular Step Outline sessions and over the past two years, more than a hundred satisfied clients have paid for one or more services to improve their skills.

The Story Department - Premium Ed. has subscribers from both Australia's East and West Coast and from overseas.

The Story Workshops have been endorsed by Screen Development Australia, The ACT and NSW Writers Centres, The International Film College, and recently also the Australian Writers Guild, with whom I'm working on a workshop in South Australia.

If you have been considering joining a workshop or hiring my services, perhaps now is the time to get your project finally on the rails!

And more good news:


HAPPY BLOGDAY

The Story Department is now officially toilet-trained.

I have been crapping on about structure for a full two years now. No fad. Can you believe that even with 24 months, we haven't even made it into the average life span of Technorati's TOP 100 blogs?

Slowly the world is getting to know The Story Department:
- We are listed on Scribomatic (two places up from UNK).
- We are being interviewed by The Digital Production Buzz.
- We'll soon be interviewed on IF Magazine.

Also coinciding with the second birthday, there is a lot of news to be shared about the Premium Ed. too. Here we go:

- Australian readers can now enjoy much faster browsing and download speeds, thanks to the mirror site, hosted in Melbourne.

- Telephone consultations can now be recorded and made available to clients as mp3 downloads. No more frantic note-taking during our creative discussions.

- Top-level clients now receive a personal, password-protected web page with documents related to their projects.


PREMIUM GIVEAWAY

I am giving away a free one-year subscription(*) to the Story Department - Premium Ed. for the first three people who subscribe to this free blog.

Just enter your email address at the top right of this page. You'll receive an email each time a new post is added to this blog, which shouldn't be more often than once every week or two on average.

The three winners will get:

- Premium Articles direct to your email inbox
- The Story Dept. - Basic Edition (this newsletter)
- 15% off Options One and/or Two
- Discounted rates to selected workshops

(* The prize does NOT include the free Story Diagnosis)

Good luck!

Karel

It's Academic

"What need is there to think of these events as having three acts? None."
-James Bonnet

Why the 'three-act' structure? Why not the 'three-part' structure? The 'five-act plan' or the 'ten-sequence' tale?

It's purely academic.

First there were stories. People studied them and found similarities in those that worked, elements that seemed to lack in those stories that didn't. To be able to talk about it, they gave those elements names.

It's that simple.

Aristotle talked about 'beginning, middle, end', or rather: beginning, complications and denouement. Theater has continued using this rough three-act structure.

In the late seventies, Syd Field built further on this and he designed 'the paradigm', a 'three-act structure' specific for movies.

Since then, many have studied the structure of films and refined that crude framework into something far more practical and sophisticated. Beyond Aristotle, but firmly grounded in the foundations he built.

The motivation to study the components of story - for me and many others - has always been partially a scientific curiosity into 'how stuff works'. The three-act structure has proven to be a handy tool.

But the other motivation has always been: money. A better understanding of how audience perception works, may result in a more successful approach to screenwriting. Good business for screenwriters and producers.

Plus: with hundreds of thousands of aspiring screenwriters around the world, there is business potential in selling your ideas to this group. Syd Field soon found out after the release of his book SCREENPLAY.

Those that came after him learned that merely re-hashing old models won't work; you will need to come up with an improvement of the existing theories. That's one reason why authors keep putting their own spin on the material.

On the other hand, we have to constantly update our understanding of story structure for the screen as audience expectation changes. Cinema goers and television viewers become more and more demanding.

Still, the whole damn thing is entirely conventional.

The only purpose is for you to find a way to improve your story. And by 'improve', we mean: increase the chances of reaching a wider audience, according to principles that can be learned.

McKee says something like: these principles don't say "You MUST do this." They say "IF you do this, then...". In other words, these principles have been empirically deducted from studying stories that work.

Scientific? Oh yes.

No-one cares whether you have three acts, eight sequences, twelve or one hundred and eighty-eight journey stages, as long as it works.

Why to speak of three acts? Because if you don't, and you still want to talk story, you'll have to come up with an entirely new system. And convince the rest of the world to use it.

If, like James Bonnet, you don't want to use the three-act structure, go for your life. You may well achieve the same - or even better - results. But when it comes to discussing your work with others, you may find yourself in a foreign country. And no-one speaks your language.

You may find it's a pretty lonely world out there.

Is Arthouse Dead?

Yes. It is.

Look it up on Wikipedia or Answers.Com. "Arthouse" isn't even there. You'll find 'art film'. From that page it seems very much this is the type of film nobody wants to make any longer, let alone see.

One of the attributes of the term 'art film' is "noncommercial". Explain to me: if a film costs millions to make, how can you be 'noncommercial' about it?

Does it mean you are intending to make a loss? Or are you trying to only just make your money back? I would like someone to explain to me how you can make a business plan that aims to exactly return the film's cost. This is an illusion.

The term arthouse film dates back from the days when a relatively healthy number of people would flock to a type of movies (or rather: 'films') that would not necessarily be entertaining, but challenging and puzzling. Antonioni, Bunuel, Bresson, Tarkowski, Oshima etc. Every main street had its cinema and every cinema had its dedicated crowd of buffs.

ARTHOUSE vs. INDEPENDENT

Today, I feel some would-be filmmakers call their projects 'arthouse' if they ignore common-sense principles, they are making anti-cinema, they don't have a strong statement, they fear most people wouldn't want to see them. The term 'arthouse' today screams 'small audience', or worse: 'no audience'.

Arthouse at today's box office means 'foreign language film' or 'quirky subject matter'. Here are a few films I saw in independent theaters over the past year:
- BELLA, a colourful, life-affirming American indie film.
- THE LIVES OF OTHERS, Oscar(R)-winning drama.
- MICHAEL CLAYTON, drama starring George Clooney.
- JUNO, winner of the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
I haven't seen AS IT IS IN HEAVEN yet, but does a movie that grosses $1m (in one theatre only) qualify for arthouse?

What these films have in common, and what arthouse didn't necessarily have twenty, thirty years ago: a traditional three-act story. Despite their independent flavour, they are definitely not arthouse as we used to know it.

The darkest film I have recently seen is PRINCESS, a revenge tale mixing anime and live action. Subject matter: pornography and child abuse. Darker? Anybody?? Still, the film was told in a traditional three act structure.


Even if you believe your film will appeal to intellectuals only, the discerning audience, you will need that conventional story structure. Because today, without it you have no audience.

JE SUIS UN ARTISTE!

Is there no more experimenting with form? Yes there is. But people don't want to see it any longer. The audience for experimental, avant-garde or non-narrative cinema has shrunk to such small numbers that if/when these experimental films still accidentally get out into the theaters, those theaters remain empty. Mostly they remain limited to film or art festivals.

If you consider yourself an artist, you should not be a filmmaker, dixit Christine Vachon, one of the most successful producers of independent American cinema. Films that have pushed the boundaries: Kids, Happiness, Boys Don't Cry, I'm Not There. She was recently quoted saying:

"Even a cheap movie costs a couple of milion bucks and if you are spending that just to be an artist, that seems rather indulgent."

When I set out to write this article, I googled the phrase "Is Arthouse Dead" and stumbled upon:

"Art house film distributor Andi Engel, dead"

I wasn't aware Andi had passed away. I had met him in London on a few occasions, less than ten years ago. His company Artificial Eye was the icon of British arthouse film distribution. Even then, the company was having a hard time. Despite the fact that they had the rights to virtually every classic arthouse film, for the entire UK, it was a struggle.

Andi died on Boxing Day last year and I believe true arthouse cinema had gone before him.

The bottom line for the independent filmmaker:

Your choice to make a movie for a discerning audience does not absolve you from the obligation to tell your story following a traditional three-act story.

Voila.

GET THE PICTURE

My friend San Fu Maltha, producer of Paul Verhoeven's BLACK BOOK, once asked me if I knew the total gross box office figures for Australia over the past year.

To my embarrassment, I didn't. Although San Fu works out of Amsterdam, he knew the numbers for Australia.

My attitude was symptomatic of many independent filmmakers, too focused on their own little films, not really working towards take a share of the money people spend every year. And that figure is - despite all the alleged doom and gloom - significant.

The AFC have just released the figures for 2007 and here are some highlights:

RELEASE OF AUSTRALIAN TITLES

Box office: In 2007 Australian-produced features accounted for a 4 per cent share ($36 million) of the Australian box office, a decrease from 4.6 per cent ($40 million) in 2006.

Top five titles in 2007: Happy Feet was again the top grossing Australian film in 2007, adding a further $20.7m to its $11.1m earned in 2006. Romulus, My Father followed ($2.6m) with Rogue ($1.8m), Bra Boys ($1.7m) and Razzle Dazzle: A Journey into Dance ($1.6m) rounding out the top five.

CINEMA INDUSTRY

Screens and theatres:The number of cinema screens in Australia has risen by 134 per cent between 1980 and 2007, from 829 to 1,941. Following several years of gradual growth, 2007 recorded the first fall in screen numbers since 1987, down 1 per cent on 2006.

Films screened: The vast majority (63 per cent) of films screened in Australian cinemas over the past 24 years have come from the US. However, in 2007 the US proportion was under 56 per cent for the third year in a row (172 out of a total of 317 films). Local titles comprised 8 per cent of films screened in 2007, just under the 24-year average of 9 per cent.

Box office: The gross box office rose to $895.4 million in 2007, a 3 per cent increase from $866.6 million in 2006. Admission numbers also rose in 2007 to 84.7 million. Films released through Roadshow/Warner Bros earned the largest share of the Australian box office in 2007 – 24 per cent, up from 20 per cent the previous year – with gross takings of $212 million.

Top films: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was the highest grossing film at the Australian box office in 2007 with earnings of $35,527,464, followed by Shrek The Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, The Simpsons Movie and Transformers. Happy Feet ranked eighth.

Australians spent nearly $900m at the box office. Nine hundred million dollars. That's a nice chunk of change. Can we please have a small share of that?

Easy.

Stop making arthouse films.


PUT YOUR SCRIPT DOWN

At the end of my workshops, I send my students home with the message: "Don't try this at home. Yet."


It is hard to apply the material of a course or seminar to your own work. At least immediately after the course. How do I know? Four of my clients took a course (NOT any of mine) that was dealing very specifically with the issues they were facing in their scripts. Right after the course, not one was able to address those issues successfully.

I am a bit wary of courses, seminars and workshops that deal directly with a writer's work. Too often, even if you point at the specific scenes, the students may not see it. Let's face it, the work of inexperienced writers is hardly ever a good benchmark to learn the craft. And it is impossible to see weaknesses if you don't have a frame of reference.

When it comes to story structure, you need to become completely familiar with the major story points before you can even look at your own work. Identifying an Inciting Incident or Crisis scene immediately after learning about it, is virtually impossible. This may sound bizarre and almost unbelievable, but it is a fact.

The only way to quickly sharpen your mind and critically look at stories, is to systematically view and analyse films. This is how I have learned much of what I now know. Watch a movie, preferably one you know well, summarise and note down the DVD timing for each plot point.

Only then, after acquiring a natural feel for a story's core beats, can you return to your own work and analyse it. Only then will you have the competence and authority to not only identify the main plot points but also critically assess them.

As promised, I have started to publish some structural overviews of films on The Story Dept. - Premium Ed.. Recently I analysed the first act of BLADE RUNNER. Meanwhile I have added the full three-act structure of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 and MICHAEL CLAYTON (all links are for Premium Readers only, make sure you log in first.

This is not an exact science and we may disagree. Hell, I know I make mistakes. But the main thing is: the exercise of breaking down a story in its primary plot points helps you to understand how to shape and propel the drama.