More Writing Tips: Composing Your Short Film

Please use the time in lab today to write your short script (based on your chosen pitch). Advice about writing follows. If you need a break, spend some time to watch these videos, but get right back to writing after viewing.

The best stories involve this structure:

• A who that must do (Action or Cause) something so that (some Effect) something won't happen.

or in other words:

• A character (usually) who must do X in order that N won't happen.

Dialogue
Writing Dialogue - 4 minute film (Video)
Writing Screenplays that Sell (Video)

Writing Better Screenplays
Entering a Scene
How to Write a Script

Script Format
Script Format video (part one)
Script Format video (part two)
How to Format a Movie Script

HOMEWORK: If you haven't written a substantial number of pages today, please catch up by completing some of your work as homework. Otherwise none.

Screenwriting Tips

1. Most of writing a screenplay (about 65%) is done in planning and prewriting.
2. Writing a screenplay is a succession of breakdowns: moving from the general to the specific.
3. Don't write a script for a movie you yourself wouldn't go see.
4. Remember the goal of every writer is to get an "emotional" response from your audience. Scripts that are too bland or boring or cliche, only anger an audience (and don't usually get made in the first place).

Writers think in different ways:

1. Inductively: from specific to the universal
2. Deductively: from the universal to the specific
3. Logically: How one thing causes another thing to happen
4. Non-logically: Absurdity or mere coincidence
5. Creatively: discovering hidden connections or relationships between two unrelated things (i.e. metaphorically)

It's okay to think in any of these ways. No one way is the right way. You, of course, can also combine these ways of thinking too.

Get ideas from:

1. Experience (personal or from those around you)
2. What you overhear (conversation)
3. News/Advertising
4. Photographs, paintings, visual art
5. Mind-mapping on a specific subject
6. Speculative brainstorming: asking: What if...?
7. Dreams and/or visualization
8. Free association
9. Adaptation (novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.)
10. Intertexuality (stealing similar ideas from other sources)

After coming up with an idea, test its strength by asking:
1. Who, what, where, when, how, why?
2. Does it have "legs" - is it dramatic and interesting?
3. What's at stake for your character/protagonist?
4. Is the situation understandable or filmable?
5. Is the story too personal or vague?

Always play the devil's advocate when considering the validity of your writing/story/characters/plot, etc. What weaknesses are in your script? Try to fix them after writing a first draft or during the first draft, if you can.

Maltese Falcon (part III); Selecting a film pitch

We will complete our viewing of The Maltese Falcon. After viewing the film, please post a forum response to one of the questions there.

Turn in a copy of your 3rd pitch draft. During 2nd period, please select one of your pitch projects and begin the following:
Create a structured plot point and plot outline for your film script BASED on your idea. Your film script should be between 8-15 pages (in film format).

Complete the character brainstorming worksheets as well in class for your film idea.

This is a solo project. Please work alone on creating a script.

You may have forgotten the film format. On the link page (see the right of this post) you will find instructions for film format. Please learn and use the proper film format for your screenplay. This is an ongoing project at the moment. Your participation in the lab will determine your deadline.

HOMEWORK: Complete the forum posts for Citizen Kane (Late); and The Maltese Falcon (due today).
If you have not yet read the Emergence of TV and HUAC please do so for Monday. We will be discussing it then.

The Maltese Falcon (part 2); The Emergence of TV

After our viewing of The Maltese Falcon (with any time remaining), we will begin brainstorming a pitch for a film noir film. See posts below for details. Check out the homework for the last few days (and throughout the next two weeks' posts, due to AP testing).

HOMEWORK: Complete your film pitch #3 (Film Noir). Read the article "HUAC & The Emergence of Television"; Post a forum response on The Maltese Falcon.

Citizen Kane: Ending

Today, we will screen the last bit of Citizen Kane. After we discuss your reactions, record your homework and complete the forum post for Tuesday.

Begin working on your third pitch: Film Noir (see below).

HOMEWORK: Please post a forum response to the question on the forum for Tuesday regarding the film Citizen Kane.

Film Noir

Please turn in your second pitch assignments today.

The Elements of Film Noir (documentary)

Pitch #3 will be to write a story in the film noir genre. We've watched Citizen Kane (which used a lot of the film noir style), but after our viewing of The Maltese Falcon writing a film noir style pitch should be relatively easy.

Here are a few things to watch for as we screen The Maltese Falcon:

1. A protagonist that is cynical or detached
2. A femme fatale who leads the protagonist astray
3. A mystery, crime, or use of suspense
4. A naive scapegoat to take the rap of some "crime"
5. Goons (hired criminals who give the protagonist a hard time)
6. Razor sharp dialogue
7. Reference and description of low key lighting

The Maltese Falcon, directed and written for the screen by John Huston
Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett

• Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade
• Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaughnessy
• Gladys George as Iva Archer
• Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo
• Barton MacLane as Lt. of Detectives Dundy
• Lee Patrick as Effie Perrine
• Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman
• Ward Bond as Detective Tom Polhaus
• Jerome Cowan as Miles Archer
• Elisha Cook, Jr. as Wilmer Cook

Other film noir films of the 1940's:
The Third Man 
The Big Sleep
Double Indemnity (full film)
Casablanca

Now a little technique and advice about making films:

• Lighting Techniques (for student film makers)
• How to shoot a Noir film (documentary; how-to)
• Mise en Scene (documentary; how-to)

Citizen Kane: Part Three

Film is a visual medium. As such the power of visual images are, of course, important.

Often objects and locations are used symbolically. Characters can be used allegorically, standing in for a larger idea or concept. We often complain that some films create characters that are stereotypical - that is we know the TYPE. This does make it easier for our filmmakers to communicate IDEA and THEME quickly without having to bother with character development of EVERY character.

One way a filmmaker stresses importance is by using FREQUENCY in a story (how often an object or location appears -- or is mentioned). A filmmaker may use MISE EN SCENE or MISE EN SHOT to show important locations, items, or to suggest the juxtaposition of ideas between two things (a character and an object, for instance).

Today, as you watch Citizen Kane, be aware of frequency, mise en scene, stereotype, and objects that may be symbols or metaphors and watch for them.  Find at least one example (although you may find more than that...) and list it on the front of the index card.

The BIG intellectual question is WHY are certain shots or items or characters portrayed or shown that way? What is the director/photographer/writer trying emphasize or communicate? Also, what METAPHOR may be used and for what purpose?

On the back of your index card, suggest meaning. Why is the subject on the front of the card being shown? What's the deal? What metaphor or larger meaning is the artist(s) attempting to communicate?

Turn in your card at the end of class today.

HOMEWORK: Your second pitch project (see previous posts) are due Friday. Chop, chop. Use the character worksheet to help you flesh out potential protagonists or antagonists.