Masterclass with Syd Field Part 2
Taking off from where we left last time…
Craft of Screenwriting:
• It’s like building furniture. It’s a craft where pieces must fit in place.
• Mastering the 3 act structure, making it natural and invisible is the trick to screenplay (S.P.).
• “You have to learn it and then unlearn it. Or you have to learn it and disguise it so the audience never sees the machinery of screenwriting (S.W.) itself.” – Jose Rivera (Screenwriter of ‘Motorcycle Diaries)
Structure:
• Strong action and character make a good S.P.
• Structure follows automatically. It is a living, organic element.
• It is a foundation of the storyline which forwards the story.
Definition of Structure:
• To build something or put something together like a building or a stadium.
• The relationship between the parts and the whole.
• E.g.: A chess game (whole) is made up of four parts; The pieces, the board, the player/s and the rules.
Story is the whole made up of these parts:
1. Action
2. Characters
3. Scenes
4. Music
5. Locations
6. Act 1, 2 and 3
7. Special Effects
8. Etc, etc, etc.
Structure is the entity like gravity which holds the things together.
The Paradigm:
• What do all stories have in common? Beginning (Act 1), Middle (Act 2) and End (Act 3), not necessarily in that order.
• Structure is totally flexible. It is a tree in the wind which can bend but will not break.
• “There are three entities of a story – Time, place and action.” – Aristotle.
• 1 page of S.P. = 1 minute of screen-time.
• Act 1 is approximately supposed to be the 1 – 30 pages of the script.
• Act 2 is approximately supposed to be the 30 – 90 pages of the script.
• Act 3 is approximately supposed to be the 90 – 120 pages of the script.
• The normal length of a film is supposed to be 2 hours. Thus the S.P. is to be of 120 pages. Sometimes one has to cut a lot of pages to make it concise and crisp.
• The studios in Hollywood won’t even read a 140 page S.P. unless you are an established writer.
• Keep your script neat, clean and tight. Shorter, sharper and compact.
Three acts of the paradigm:
• Act 1 is the Setup. You setup the situation, elements of the story and the relationships in the first act.
• Act 2 is the Confrontation. Where the character encounters obstacles after obstacles to achieve his dramatic need.
• Dramatic need – What does your characters wants at the end of your story? Then you can create obstacles in the way of the character. That’s how you create a confrontation.
• Act 3 is the Resolution. Resolution does not mean end. It means the solution. Does your character live or die, win or lose, get married or not? Resolution doesn’t mean a happy ending.
How to progress from Act 1 to Act 2?
• Creating a plot point 1 at the end of act 1.
• That is the true beginning of your story.
• It does not have to be a big dramatic sequence. It can be a small moment, a decision or a big action sequence.
• Definition of plot Point : Any incident , episode or event that ‘hooks’ into the action and ‘spins’ it around into another direction ( in this case, Act 1 and 2).• Example: Plot point 1 in ‘Rang de basanti’ is when they start shooting the film. Plot point 2 is when they decide to take action against the government.
• Example 2: Key incident in ‘American Beauty’ is the basketball match. When Lester sees his daughter’s friend for the first time, the story goes from objective reality of Lester’s to subjective reality.
• Example for Plot point 2: In ‘collateral’ the plot point 2 is where Jamie Fox realizes through Tom Cruise that he is leading a ‘someday’ life of a dreamer who cannot realize his dreams.
The four things you need to know before you sit to write your script:
• The end.
• The beginning which will determine
• Plot point 1, which will determine
• Plot point 2.All these are very flexible.
• Structure and character reflect each other if you have organized your storyline correctly.
Midpoint:
• When I used to write, I used to jump from act 1 to act 2 after just 15 pages and used to get completely lost. So I decided to make act 2 simpler.
• Creating a Midpoint for act 2.
• Approximately the midpoint would appear on page 60.
• There is a first half of act 2 (30 – 60) and a second half of act 2 (60- 90).
• Definition of midpoint: A link in the chain of dramatic action. It breaks act 2 in two halves. A story progression.• Example: Harrison Ford’s ‘Witness’. The midpoint is the hero falling in love with the boy’s mother. Here, the story gets a new dimension and it is directed in a different direction. In ‘Titanic’, which is a love story between Jack and Rose, the midpoint is the ship hitting the iceberg.
• It doesn’t matter if you are doing a linear or a non-linear film if you have anchored parts of your storyline.
Revision of structure of a film:
(Beginning) (Middle) (End)
Act 1 Act 2 Act 3
(Setup) (Confrontation) (Resolution)
(Plot point 1 at page 30) (Midpoint at page 60)
(Plot point 2 at page 90)
Over and out for today. There was a Q&A round before the lunch break which I will post in the next part. But the main focus of the next part is going to be the first ten pages of a script. Hoping once again that this proves useful to at least some people reading this. And apologies if you think these posts are too short. Short on time.
Tags: Teaching Film-making
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
you know what i find difficult.. pav ke undar kya dalu: vada yah cheese :-? when i have an idea in my mind i always know how i wanna start it and how i wanna end it, but don’t know the middle part. then i just give up…
120 pages?! ~X(
Lol! But I guess that’s the problem with many new writers. I guess that’s where setup, plot point 1, mid point and plot point 2 can help. Ramu sir says even I am in a hurry to reach the end whenever I write… All part and parcel of the learning process.
honhaar …
know the rules and then break them … don’t break just out of sheer laziness … but know why you are breaking them ..
120 pages ???
Anurag says – ” The only way to write is to write”
Prodigy (Chaitanya was nicknamed on the sets of no smoking. The knowledge of our film industry and world cinema does not justify his 19 years of age!He does not have friends of his age. The ones he has are older than him:) We missed him yesterday on the shoot)
Waiting for the next part!
Bhau!! tu scriptwriting ka Ramdev baba hai….Filmy Gyaan ka GK Iyengar hai…
Vasan Madras regiment’s strugler can’t take Maratha regiment’s Prodigy’s talent…Madras regiment trying to eliminate Prodigy for their fame n glory:)
manjeet :
persistence and self belief are more important than talent.
Imagination is more important than knowledge :-)
vasan cheers to the madras regiment
idhu cinema mele manidar kadhal alla…..ada vida punidamanathu…….
are manjeet bhai….mai to maratha regiment ko salam karta hun…..in fact….bhau you should have a feature….like Must watch Every Sunday List.
Like a
French Week
English Week
Mexican Week….
Latin
Iranian…etc…etc….
Seriously….it will be of great help….to know and be more aware of whats happening in world cinema.
>>Anurag says –
Lol! Vasan,Manjit and karthik having fun at my expense once again! Just like on the sets! The night schedule was a lot of fun!!
“The night schedule was a lot of fun!! ”
ooh eerr care to share the intimate details Chatanya ..
thanks prodigy and kartik. if i keep writing writing writing writing i am likely to end up with less.. compare to what i started in beginning.
besides if you keep writing then is not it likely that your original thought/idea would turn out to be something else :-?
you know what i should do.. i should forge a team… Goonda-Tapori a la Salim-Javed ;-)