Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?
Sure, that's a fair assessment. It's not hard to see the distinction between the two sets of elements. Here are examples:
*Structure: Consider "Fun and Games". As I indicated before, this at its most basic, just means fulfilling the promise of the movie's premise. Thus, the meat of the movie, the set-pieces that you'll see in the movie's trailer. It essentially covers the first half of Act Two. That's 30 pages. There's a lot of variety and originality that can happen within 30 pages. STC then proceeds to provide more granular details with regards to what should happen in terms of plot specifically, but I think that's where the author gets overly prescriptive. Thus, I don't pay attention to it.
*Character Development: STC highlights the key, broad stages of character development I described previously, which I've found useful. But it also gives many specifics on character that I don't think are necessary and don't follow. The most high-profile among them is that we need to see the main character do something sympathetic in order to want to follow him throughout the movie. I don't agree with this; I just think it's important that the main character is relatable in some way.
Hope that makes sense.
Originally posted by JeffLowell
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*Structure: Consider "Fun and Games". As I indicated before, this at its most basic, just means fulfilling the promise of the movie's premise. Thus, the meat of the movie, the set-pieces that you'll see in the movie's trailer. It essentially covers the first half of Act Two. That's 30 pages. There's a lot of variety and originality that can happen within 30 pages. STC then proceeds to provide more granular details with regards to what should happen in terms of plot specifically, but I think that's where the author gets overly prescriptive. Thus, I don't pay attention to it.
*Character Development: STC highlights the key, broad stages of character development I described previously, which I've found useful. But it also gives many specifics on character that I don't think are necessary and don't follow. The most high-profile among them is that we need to see the main character do something sympathetic in order to want to follow him throughout the movie. I don't agree with this; I just think it's important that the main character is relatable in some way.
Hope that makes sense.
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