I started out wanting to read and synopsize (do coverage) on three screenplays a day. I found I could read two scripts without a problem, but when I got to the third one, the words, characters and actions all seemed to congeal into some kind of amorphous goo of plot lines concerning the FBI and CIA, punctuated with bank heists, murders, car chases, along with a lot of wet kisses and naked flesh thrown in for local color. At two or three in the afternoon, after a heavy lunch and maybe a little too much wine, it was difficult keeping my attention focused on the action and nuances of character and story. So, after a few months on the job, I usually closed my office door, propped my feet up on the desk, turned off the phones, leaned back in the chair with a script on my chest, and took a cat nap.
These elements are expressed dramatically within a structure that has a definite beginning, middle, and end, though not necessarily in that order. I realized they all contained these basic concepts, regardless of how they were cinematically executed. They are in every screenplay.
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In the book, Field outlines the paradigm to which he says most successful screenplays adhere. In Field's view, successful screenplays are made up of three distinct divisions. He calls these setup, confrontation, and resolution, and each of them appears in its own act within a screenplay.
The result is a numeric sequence that uses these prefaces/suffixes to either add or subtract from the base scene number in a similar fashion to how they relate to each other based on your description (I hope!). Sorting by that formula field will put things in the proper order. Using your example, it appears to be working:
What is a screenplay: The nature of the screenplay is the same as it has always been: A
screenplay is a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of dramatic structure. It is the art of visual storytelling.
A linear structure: Screenplays have a basic linear structure that creates the form of the
screenplay because it holds all the individual elements, or pieces, of the story line in place.
The dramatic structure of the screenplay may be denned as a linear arrangement
of related incidents, episodes, or events leading to a dramatic resolution. How you utilize these
structural components determines the form of your screenplay.
You need a subject: You need more than just an idea to start writing a screenplay. You
need a subject to embody and dramatize the idea. A subject is defined as an action and a character. An action is what the story is about, and a character is who the story is about.
Dramatic need
Dramatic need is defined as what your main characters want to win, gain, get, or achieve during the course of your screenplay. The dramatic need is what drives your characters through the story line. It is their purpose, their mission, their motivation, driving them through the narrative action of the storyline.
Transformation
The fourth element that makes up good character is change, or transformation. Does your character change during the course of your screenplay? If so, what is the change? Can you define it? Articulate it? Can you trace the emotional arc of the character from the beginning to the end?
What is the solution of your story? At the moment of the initial conception of your screenplay, when you were still working out the idea and shaping it into a dramatic story line, you made a creative choice, a decision, and determined what the resolution was going to be.
The opening of your script will determine whether the reader continues reading your
screenplay or not. He or she must know three things within these first few pages of the script:
Act I is a unit of dramatic action that is approximately twenty or thirty pages long;
it begins at the beginning of the screenplay and goes to the Plot Point at the end of Act I. It is held together with the dramatic context known as the setup. If you recall, context is the empty space that holds the content in place.
When the screenplay is completed, it may contain as many as ten to fifteen Plot Points, most of which will be in Act II. How many you have, again, depends upon your story. The purpose of the Plot Point is to move the story forward, toward the resolution. That is its purpose.
The sequence is perhaps the most important element of the screenplay. A sequence is a series
of scenes connected by one single idea with a definite beginning, middle, and end. It is a unit, or block, of dramatic action unified by one single idea. It is the skeleton, or backbone, of your script.
The content of the sequence: Once we establish the context of the sequence, we
build it with content, the specific details, or ingredients, needed to create the sequence. The sequence is a key part of the screenplay because it holds essential parts of the narrative action in place, much like a strand holds a diamond necklace in place. You can literally string or hang a series of scenes together to create chunks of dramatic action.
Action and character, joined together, sharpens the focus of your screenplay and makes
it both a better reading and a better viewing experience. The sequence is a major building block in laying out the story. The next step is building your screenplay.
14 cards: I suggest using fourteen cards per approximately thirty pages of screenplay. That means fourteen cards for Act I, fourteen cards for the First Half of Act II, fourteen cards for the Second Half of Act II, and fourteen cards for Act III. Why fourteen? Because it works.
2. The second essay, also in free association, answers this question: What kind of a screenplay
did you actually end up writing? You may have started to write a mystery-thriller with a strong
love interest and ended up writing a love story with a strong mystery-thriller aspect.
We want a clean, coherent narrative through line in the screenplay. Write this second essay in
two or three pages.
Although Field's primary focus was the full-length screenplay, the principles of story structure are the same for all forms of fiction. And writers face similar challenges regardless of their medium.
Whether you want to write screenplays, novels, plays, graphic novels, or any other full-length fiction form, Field's book provides you with a high accessible model of story structure and easy to follow techniques for developing stories.
Since our focus here is on story structure models, let's take a look at the one developed by Syd Field:
In using a 3-act structure, Syd Field follows Aristotle, who first advised us that all well structured stories have "a beginning, a middle, and an end." However, Field is quick to point out that the middle act of a story is generally twice as long as the other two.
Screenplays, unlike novels, tend to have fixed lengths, due to the needs of theatres to fit two screenings into an evening. A standard feature length screenplay is roughly 120 pages long (with one page translating to roughly a minute of screen time). In a 3-act model, Acts 1 and 3 are roughly 30 pages each, and the middle act is roughly 60 pages.
Alyssa Miller is a writer, editor, and educator with a passion for storytelling. She graduated from the University of San Francisco with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Communications. Before graduating, Alyssa worked as a freelance entertainment and film education writer, contributing to a variety of publications, including Britain's First Frame Magazine. She also continued to write short stories and screenplays in her free time.
If you're shooting a doc project, or really anything where you are moving fast, the extra depth of field you get out of the smaller sensor will pay off in spades. And, frankly, the low light and fine detail stand up well versus its full frame competition. Watching the little eye tracker pop up and keep your subjects sharp as they bounce around feels "magical" (to borrow a marketing blurb from Apple).
Were you the kid always picked last for sports teams? The one who groans when the suggestion of playing a friendly game of basketball or baseball arises? If that's you, don't let the baseball theme deter you from watching number 88 on WGA's List of 101 Greatest Screenplays: FIELD OF DREAMS.FIELD OF DREAMS, screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson, is an adaptation of the book SHOELESS JOE by W.P. Kinsella that delves into the historical 1920 Black Sox Scandal wherein the Cincinnati Red Sox were accused of intentionally losing the World Series in exchange for money.
He wrote nine screenplays, but none turned him into a writing star, so he went to work as a screenplay reader instead, first for David L. Wolper Productions and later for Cinemobile Systems. In the mid-1970s he began teaching screenwriting at Sherwood Oaks Experimental College on Hollywood Boulevard, where the instructors included actor Richard Dreyfuss and producer-director Tony Bill.
The chapter on Story Line gives the writer a whole new way of using the card system, and the chapter on Adaptation examines successful translations of books to screen, such as Seabiscuit and Mystic River. Lord of the Rings writers Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens serve as an excellent illustration for the chapter on Collaboration. I also use all new examples to illustrate the basic screenwriting principles, including American Beauty, The Bourne Supremacy and As Good as it Gets. The only film that hasn't changed from the first book and the one I will not give up is Chinatown - it's the perfect screenplay!
The Two Incidents and in particular, the Key Incident is a relatively new idea in my teaching. The Inciting Incident, the first incident, opens up the screenplay and sets the story in motion. In The Lord of the Rings, the inciting incident is when Bilbo Baggins finds the ring at the bottom of the river. It is the first visual representation of The Key Incident which is what the story is about, and what draws the main character into the story. In The Lord of the Rings, the Key Incident is when Frodo, by fate, destiny or karma becomes the ring bearer. 006ab0faaa