Robert McKee, the author of Story, asserts that, “Our appetite for story is a reflection of the profound human need to grasp patterns of living, not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience.”

and that

“[stories are the] vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.”

Stories, and films in particular, are one of the chief ways that humans make sense of their experience of the world. But how do stories work? What makes them compelling? 

Our first task is one of semantics - defining some terms that will helps us communicate more clearly about what we mean. A common problem when first approaching story is confusing or conflating the Premise and the Theme. Here are some basic definitions for these two terms:

Once we establish the difference between these two ideas, we can speak more clearly about how to craft a story. The Premise exists to communicate a Theme. The two are inextricably linked. Theme should drive our decisions about how we craft the Plot but ultimately, the Plot will add up to a particular Theme that the audience will take away from the film wether we intended it or not. The better we are at shaping our Plot, the more likely we are to be successful in communicating our intended Theme. And that is where the power of film lies. Now, let's dive deeper into each of these ideas. What makes up a Premise?

As you can see, the Premise example above describes the Plot of the film - we can expect what we are about to see on screen after reading it. Now let's look at an example of Theme.

As you can see, these two concepts are tied together - the Plot (as summed up in your Premise statement) should provide proof that your Theme is true. By the end of watching your film, the audience should recognize that your Theme is a plausible way to make sense of the world.

But if our Premise to support this is simply, "When Sally finds herself dealing with anxiety, she decides to pray and her anxiety is replaced with Joy" then we have papered over the very difficult journey that many people go on when dealing with anxiety. It isn't usually that simple and sometimes our prayers go unanswered for reasons we can't understand. Sometimes we may need to make other changes in our life like getting better sleep or learning time management skills. In other cases, therapy or medication may be a part of the equation. By over simplifying a plot simply to prove a theme, we risk creating an untruthful view of the world that may leave some people with even less hope than they started with.

So, what if we start with Premise? This can often be a good approach, especially if our Premise is based on a lived-experience that we know to be true either through our own experience or someone else's. Once we've gotten our core  idea from this, we can then consider what Theme arises from this set of circumstances. This "inside-out" approach is more likely to produce truthful narratives that are relevant to a viewer's real experience.

One danger to watch out for when taking this approach, though, is in creating Plots that don't build up to a meaningful Theme (something like a fight scene for the sake of a fight scene) or end up proving a Theme you don't agree with. As such, the best option is to approach narrative development as an iterative process where you let your Premise and Theme speak to each other, driving changes in each other, as you work towards a meaningful Theme, supported by a plausible Premise. This is a process that you should return to even as you begin writing the script and on through to the end of post-production.

Once we feel comfortable with a general sense of where we are headed with our story through a clear statement of Theme and Premise, we can turn our attention towards a more structured Plot Outline and the basics of Story Structure.

Basic Story Structure

As we've mentioned previously, basic story structure can be boiled down to having a Beginning, Middle, and End. 

A more descriptive way to state this is HOOK, HOLD, and PAYOFF. 

or OBJECTIVE, OBSTACLE, and OUTCOME. 

We could also use CRISIS, COMPLICATION, and CONSEQUENCE.

Each of these alternative terms get at what should be happening in our beginning, middle, and end and may help us as we craft the various parts of our story.

Regardless of which set of terms you're drawn to, they're all getting at the same basic ideas. Let's tackle them one at a time.

Beginning/Hook/Crisis

Should establish Character, Objective, and initial Obstacle.

Should grab the audience's attention and get them interested in how things will play out.

Use visuals and audio to get your audience up to speed with what's happening (rather than having characters explain it in dialogue).

Setup the stakes: What would happen if the character fails?

• High stakes motivates the character to act and motivates the audience to watch.
  
  

THE DRAMATIC QUESTION

• The audience should always want to know "what will happen next?" - ensuring this happens early will help you Hook the audience.

Middle/Hold/Complication

The character takes action to overcome the initial obstacle in order to achieve their objective but encounters increasingly complicated obstacles.

Each successive action should escalate the intensity of the story as the character takes more extreme action to overcome the more difficult obstacles.

This is what will Hold the audience’s attention.

As this unfolds, the Dramatic Question should continue to develop.

End/Payoff/Consequence

After the character makes their final and most extreme action attempt (the climax):

• The Dramatic Question is answered

• The character either succeeds or fails to achieve their objective

• We see the consequence of that success or failure

This is where we “land the plane” on the Theme.

• Which actions are rewarded? Which are punished?

• What does this reveal about what we believe about how the world works?

Try to define each section

As you develop your story, consider what plot needs to happen to carry out your Premise. How do each of these plot points fit within this basic structure? Create an outline that identifies each major plot  point that happens in your film and try to categorize them in the following "bins":

• What hooks your audience’s attention?

• What holds their attention?

• What payoff do they get at the end for sticking around?

Short Film Structure

When working with short films in particular, we don’t have much time to tell our story and this leads us to some additional tips as we approach story structure:

• Keep it concise - don't spend too much time explaining what's going on and don't try to do too much.

• Focus in on a single moment or idea and then explore it more deeply.

• Consider leaving things open ended - Films don't need to answer every question and, in fact, some of the most meaningful films intentionally leave certain questions open for the audience to consider. This can be especially helpful in short films. However, be wary of cheating the audience out of a satisfying ending (Payoff) by leaving too much unanswered.

• Come in late and leave early. This is a concept known as "in media res". Watch the short video below to learn more:

Scriptwriting

Once you have a clear Premise and Theme and you have outlined the plot of your film, it is time to translate it into a standard script format. Scripts provide the filmmaker with a number of things:

• The full plot, including all dialogue and action that will take place

• A production-oriented blueprint for shooting the film that includes vital information such as locations, times of day, key props, characters, etc.

• Correct, single-column formatting maps out to ~1 page per minute of finished runtime which helps with planning (so a 90 minute feature-length film would have a script of about 90 pages).

There are two primary formats used in film and video production. Each has their own pros and cons and are best fit for particular purposes.

• Standard Single-Column Screenplay - traditional script format used for most fictional or narrative driven content.

• Two Column Audio/Video Script - used for non-fiction and commercial content.

Watch the following videos for more information about these two formats:

Luckily for us, there are templates and software available that helps us extensively with writing in these formats correctly. Here are links to some examples:

Scenarist: https://kitscenarist.ru/en/download.html - This is downloadable software for Mac and Windows that is entirely free.

Writer Duet: https://www.writerduet.com/ - This is a browser based software with some limitations for the free account.

Two Column Template: Click Here To Access on Google Drive - This is a .docx template with pre-filled example text.

You will be expected to utilize one or both of these script writing formats on future projects, so be sure you familiarize yourself with these and ask questions if you have them. We'll spend some time in class looking at example scripts.

Wrapping Up

In our next class session, we will be practicing our story structure skills by watching some films and answering the following questions:

• Who is the protagonist?

• What is their objective?

• What obstacles are in their way?

• What actions do they take to overcome these obstacles?

• What Dramatic Question(s) exist throughout?

• What hooks our attention? What holds our attention? What is the payoff?

• What is the film really about and what does it tell us about how the world works?

• How would you define the Premise and Theme?

Come to class prepared to answer these questions about your own pre-test film and the films we will watch in class. If you have questions about any of these concepts, please reach out to me via email (cameron.lewis@cornerstone.edu) or an office hours meeting and I would be happy to discuss them further.

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