Etiqueta: screenwriting fundamentals

  • Screenwriting Fundamentals (by Blake Snyder, now with salty notes by me) p3


    MEASURING AND STORY LINES OR ARCHES

    All right. The story line divided into three… And that’s where things don’t add up. Because the climax is the shortest part of any story and the intro or start image should be, thinking we have a 100 pages script, a quarter of the total line (if page 25 is to be the doubt moment). Thus, the traditional image is mathematically… Wrong. And it might not create that much of a problem but it can too, create that much of the misunderstanding when trying to write a story for the first time.

    SHORTER AND SHORTER

    If I understood correctly what Robert McKee  states (Script. The story), the story’s progression goes shortening the scenes previous to the ending, for the climax to have the most impact. Considering that, aprox. the first 30% of the fable should be one. Whereas, 15% of the time should be used for the ending; in order to make everything comprised and fast. Thus, again, the fable line represented in books should be changed.

    Dramatic pause. My crime scene claims for the fingerprints and DNA tests.

    LET’S GET US INTO NUMBER TWO

    We are in two and two means to push our character off the plane in midair… Eh? Sometimes it is literal and sometimes it is a metaphor of what’s to come.

    Our character is enjoying or disenjoying life the way we humans do[1]. And since life is something as riding a plane… It is kinda safe but there’s always the perk of fail and crash thus our job, as writers, is to push our character and get them off their life plane without a parachute. It is time for the character to do or to do. Snyder affrms this has to happen in page 25. And in page 25 only. 

    Robert McKee writes, a scene should last from a minute to three minutes. If we think a 60 minutes movie of 60 scenes lasting each 1 min (it has to be convenient for my Math to do the job). That, plus the fact that the climax should take a lot less time, that is a 15%-25% of the ongoing fable… This is shorter than the numbers I get by using only McKee’s projection. Taking McKee’s projection, that’s 40% of the ongoing fable.

    Naruto and Sasuke have gone their ways and the fox must come to the rescue, the avatar can’t study with his friend Gumi because the circumstances and the detective has been saved by the beautiful woman.

    For Snyder, this brings what I call the convergent parallel (yep, parallels ain’t supposed to touch each other ever but there are mathematical systems that can make it happen) and he calls the B, C or D story. A. K. A. supporting story, secondary plot or filling. In the video, this is the time for the love story to unfold the main plot details in a conventional romance; father and son engaging in a truce and dissimilar spirits (or similar) becoming friends.

    Naruto rescues Gaara[2]. Zuko, the exiled prince, destroys someone else’s home and the detective finds out he isn’t as different from the comics chap.

    We’re having fun interrogating the suspects but we don’t have everything. Proofs are still in the lab and are inconclusive.

    TO BE CONTINUED…


    [1] According to something Mark Mason writes in Everything is F*cked, humans  live life in a permanent 7 out of 10, grade of satisfaction.

    [2] What’s he, the Mizukage? I don’t remember anymore the kages.

  • Screenwriting Fundamentals (by Blake Snyder, peppered with nonsensical notes by me) p1


    Free lady opening door image



    I DON’T UNDERSTAND BEATS

    Long ago I started reading Mr. Robert McKee about beats and … Unlike you for sure, I don’t get them. Beats don’t have a decent name in Spanish and such a thing as naming is fundamental in the process of learning. And no, sometimes English ain’t the best language for a word to just be adopted. Perhaps it is the fact that no one really understands them and just speaks like experts do. The thing is I DON’T GET WHAT BEATS ARE, because I don’t feel able to explain them to my grandmother[1].

    ONLY FOR SCREENWRITING?

    As the title portrays, the advice is for screenwriting and it was introduced to me by the one and only monetary contributor to this thing of a blog —Daniel Vanches is his name (in the case you are too shy to ask but still feel curious and even if you are not, advertising needs a space so this is as good as anywhere). Nonetheless, some of the stuff might apply to comics, novels and plays. If understanding the strengths of other media helps you to better your own game.

    This is kind of a video summary of the BS2 format page or frequency page, created by some guy I still don’t have idea whom he is, but whose name is Blake Snyder and if you might and prefer untainted and unmerriamed stuff; you can watch the video here.

    To begin with I’ll announce the episodes or events in the video:

    MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF PLOT

    Opening image
    Ambience
    Stating the ruling idea or topic
    Catalyst or inciting event
    Conflict
    We go to number two
    B plot
    Fun and games
    Average
    Bad guys on sight
    Everything is lost
    The darkest night if the soul
    We are in three
    Ending
    Closing scene

    OPENING AND AMBIANCE

    Right. What’s the most interesting and worth thing here? The opening image that will set the tone. We need the hue to know: what’s the comic, movie, series or novel like? Is it fun and light or dark enough to cut our veins with animal biscuits? Do we need gray tones or red notes to indicate the depravity of our world together with cigarette butts? It is not a bad idea to learn a bit of graphic design eh novel writers[2]. Psychology maybe. After all, there’s the way brain works and the way people believe brain works. And if you don’t believe me, just watch how the villains of kduramas repent and become «good people» all of a sudden. We westerners have a much more somber idea of evil.


    This is convenient to avoid or to use clichés to OUR ADVANTAGE. The opening image tells the reader what to expect and how to react to what comes next. If you add something like «Dramatis oves» at the  beginning of your novel and add characters the same way Agatha Christie used to, for the reader to have a who is who guide, they will immediately know that what follows is a not really serious crime novel dealing with sheep.



    DURATION AND OPENING IMAGES

    This opening image is the reader’s cue to stay or leave. Both are worthy. I don’t read or watch Christmas stuff. Neither horror. Thus, this is the way to tell: WARNING, what comes next is under your responsibility and risk. Which is why I always tell you this blog is nonsense.

    Comic, short novels and movies need this as soon as possible. A novel, unlike what Mr. Wodehouse states in A damsel in distress, can take a little longer but it still uses the opening image because it is not the same thing setting the ambiance as setting tone. Sometimes a Terry Pratchett Disc world novel will take a while taking off and; novels take a lot longer to digest than the longest 3 hour movie, a comic chapter that can be read in about 5 minutes or a tale that can be devoured in 10.

    Just a whole chapter of My family and other animals can take about an hour or more to be read aloud. Which might be a lot less in silence but still, enjoying it and reading at a normal pace and not showing off a quick reading technique, absorption of the contents will take the time a movie has to be about to be half away of the end.

    A novel can take in between— not counting at all absurd oddities such as real life events like working, eating, cooking, doing the laundry…—three days to two weeks, maybe two months … A hundred years? I do not know if you have but A hundred years of solitude made me feel like the hundred years were actually happening in between all those almost copy pasted Aurelians. War and peace ain’t that thin (plus if you stop to read the parts in French you might take longer). The Bible… That book requires guts[3].

    Yet, a series can easily dethrone any novel in extension without failing the opening image. And that doesn’t mean novels don’t set tone from the beginning. The fall of the Usher immediately enters the use of somber and depressing images to set the tone. Horror.

    ¿Feeling like more?

    TO BE CONTINUED

    [1] Thinking Einstein really said this thing about understanding something and being able to explain it to your grandma

    [2] No, not to mess with the cover of your book but it would be useful setting the tone of your novel

    [3] That book requires more warning contents than many mangas or manhwas nowadays: rape, murder, assault, vengeful godos, gore…

    geful godos, gore…