![]() The hero's journey was famously used by George Lucas in writing Luke Skywalker's journey from Tatooine farm kid to Jedi knight. These range from resisting the call to adventure and meeting their mentor to facing their biggest fear and surviving the final ordeal, armed with everything they've learned along the way. By looking at myths from cultures all over the world, Campbell identified twelve common steps taken by main characters as they transform over the course of a story. This is a template for character development that was popularized by American mythologist Joseph Campbell. One way to do that is by following what's known as the hero's journey. But the most important thing for the screenwriter is finding ways to make all of this come across visually. The master criminal might learn humility as she attempts to steal the diamond, or maybe the introvert overcomes his social anxiety to befriend his love interest. Usually a movie's protagonist will grow or change in some way in pursuit of their goal. Films are full of antiheroes, like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, or accidental villains, like William H. ![]() Now, the protagonist doesn't necessarily have to be the story's hero. And it's from these that everything else emerges, like setting, character, theme, and tone. These are the building blocks of a screen story. Or a romantic comedy, where the awkward but lovable introvert wants to date their outgoing neighbor, but is afraid to leave the comfort of his own routine. Maybe a master criminal wants to steal the world's biggest diamond, but finds herself facing off against a rival thief. Movies tend to focus on three main things: A protagonist, which is the film's main character a goal or objective, which is something the protagonist wants and obstacles, which is whatever's standing between the protagonist and their goal. A film creates an immersive visual world, that illusion of reality we keep talking about, and within that world, it can tell a story packed with complex emotions and ideas. Different media have different strengths, so what makes a good poem or graphic novel won't necessarily make a good movie. ![]() Now, some stories are better suited to the screen than others. Some dialogue-heavy pages will likely be shorter than a minute, while some pages with lots of action may end up longer once the film is shot and edited. This is more of an average than a hard rule, by the way. Feature-length screenplays are usually between 90 and 120 pages, and each page typically becomes about a minute of the final film. These are the words spoken by the characters. And the final piece of the screenplay is the dialogue. Remember that this is where the thoughts, feelings, and themes of the screenplay are turned into actions you can see. In a novel, you can describe what a character's thinking and feeling, something like "Luke Skywalker feels miserable." In a screenplay, you'd have to write an action to show us how he feels, like "Luke Skywalker hangs his head and wipes away a tear." There are a lot of guidelines and tricks to writing action lines, but the most important rule is show, don't tell. So instead of writing, "Iron Man flew across the sky," you write, "Iron Man flies across the sky." The action is also limited to what the audience can see and hear. Since you watch a movie unfold over time, the action is written in present tense. These are short, assertive sentences that describe who's in the scene and what they're doing. Besides giving information to the crew, this can affect the cost of the movie, partially because shooting at night is more expensive. The same goes for the last word in the slug line, which describes when the scene takes place, usually either day or night. But before any of that happens, the line producer uses the location to help figure out how much the film is gonna cost. The location scout needs to find somewhere to film the scene, the production designer alters the location to make it fit the world of the film, and the cinematographer decides how to light it. If the scene takes place outside, the slug line would start with "EXT." for "exterior." The second word tells us where the scene takes place, which is important information for a lot of the crew. Here, the "INT." stands for "interior," meaning the scene takes place inside. It's written in all capital letters and acts as a code to convey information to the crew. Each new scene begins with a new slug line. Every screenplay is formatted with three basic elements: slug lines, action, and dialogue. ![]() It's not the final product it's a set of plans to guide the team of artists, craftspeople, and engineers as they produce a film. A screenplay is a written version of a movie. In most of these videos, we'll be learning about how the vast majority of narrative fiction films get made, and to do that, we need to start with a screenplay. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |