How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

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  • #76
    Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

    Originally posted by Yaso View Post
    A beat sheet is not a formula.

    It tells you the essentials of what happens in the story.

    I'm sorry, but if you can't give me your story beats on one page, you can't tell a story.
    Thanks. I'm trying to figure out the point that structure became such a dirty word in screenwriting. There's nothing wrong with internalizing it, but first you have to know it exists. We aren't writing novels.
    "I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.-- Peter De Vries

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    • #77
      Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

      Originally posted by Yaso View Post
      A beat sheet is not a formula.

      It tells you the essentials of what happens in the story.

      I'm sorry, but if you can't give me your story beats on one page, you can't tell a story.
      Who said no beat sheet?

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      • #78
        Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

        Originally posted by UpandComing View Post
        I think the collective overreaction to my post from the soapbox crew can easily be described as "mass hysteria"
        No big deal. I don't think there has been an overreaction but ok.

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        • #79
          Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

          Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post
          Well, I largely agree with what you say. Structure is emphasized because of how teachable it is - not because it's the most important thing. .
          Exactly. It is the easiest thing to talk about. Not the most important. It's harder to talk about the things that make a screenplay great. The things that make a film memorable ... iconic.

          Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post

          And I don't know what the solution is. Even if schools like USC try to have tough standards (although the production program, when I attended, largely didn't look at portfolios when it came to admission. They did care a lot about GRE scores; the writing program may have been better) there are schools like NYFA which literally take anyone who can pay.
          Yes, that's happening a lot these days: student as customer.

          Of course, I graduated many years before this trend and in my creative writing program you were first required to submit writing samples to be approved for the program (by a panel of profs who were published writers) then you were assessed each semester for improvement. If they didn't think you were growing as a writer, you were bounced out. We were encouraged to have a Plan B if the writing thing didn't work out so I took a second major in English Lit with a minor in Education.

          Each semester, people were shown the door. Some close friends. And when I asked one prof in a private meeting about the guidelines they used he explained that the Creative Writing department's goal was to determine if each student in the program could make a living as a writer. Employment should be the criteria but too often it's not.

          Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post

          Screenwriting books sell enough that companies keep pumping them out (although it doesn't seem like their writers make much money).

          It's also tough position. If you read something in the script pages forum, it feels really inappropriate to say "You might not want to think about this professionally" to any but the weakest possible pages. Even saying stuff that might be euphemistically read that way ("you really need to work a lot harder at this," or "maybe put these pages down for a while and work on something else") are pretty awkward. And who really wants to take on the mantle of telling somebody they shouldn't do this for a living - anybody who did so would invariably be wrong on occasion, and would come off like a huge a-hole.

          I don't know any sort of real solution, unfortunately, as to how to fix that problem.
          Of course, on a board like this one it's not our job to review script pages and decide if someone can go the distance. I agree with you there.

          However, in discussions like these we are free to share out point of view. Mine is that the popularity of STC -- even with some reps -- has created a situation where structure is given more weight that it should get.

          Story, plot, theme, character development, dialogue -- these are the mountains we need to climb on our journey to writing a great script. But these components of a script are rarely discussed because they don't easily lend themselves to rules of thumb.
          Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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          • #80
            Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

            Originally posted by hscope View Post
            Unfortunately, until they develop a blood test to identify screenwriting talent, we have to go through the traditional grind to find out if we have it or not
            I don't think anyone needs a blood test. As many managers and pro readers have said, you can tell by the first couple of pages after Fade In if someone has that spark of talent required. It's really not that hard to see the difference between good and bad writing. The challenge is for the writer to be objective about the quality of his/her own writing.

            My opinion -- if someone had no interest in writing fictional stories, in any medium, in high school or college, or if they had no interest in reading fictional stories (novels, classics, etc) in Lit classes, I would say they're starting at a disadvantage when they try their hand at screenwriting. Their learning curve will be far more arduous than the person who had an interest in writing early on.

            Originally posted by MrZero View Post

            Screenwriting is only about a hundred years old, so it's hard to argue that it's in the genes or whatever.
            Screenwriting doesn't exist in a vacuum. Screenwriting is storytelling. Storytelling dates back to cave drawings ... to the oral tradition of sitting around the campfire and telling the tales and fables of their ancestors ... to the epic tale of Beowulf first circulated in written form around 1000 AD.

            When someone reads your script they're sitting at your campfire waiting to hear your tale.
            Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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            • #81
              Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

              Your first day of culinary school they hand you a recipe for a standard chocolate cake. Everyone learns that recipe by heart, knows how to execute it and perfects that. The instructor then tells them to rip up the recipe and create something original.

              You should know structure. You should know all the microcosmic pieces of screenwriting. You should know them, study them, memorize them, attempt to write a story modeled in that way. Become a real expert with the standard. Once you do that, ripping up the rules and generating original quality material is easy.

              Most people would like to jump right to that original quality stuff without ever putting in the time on the principles of the standard.

              It's like the difference between a 16 year old driver and a lifelong NYC cab driver. The 16 year old is gonna be all over the road and not even know how to get you where you need to go. The Cab driver can make hair pin turns and knows all the short cuts.

              The average writer has instincts to wander off in stories, the people who know what they are doing stay tight to the through line.

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              • #82
                Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                Originally posted by Cyfress View Post
                Your first day of culinary school they hand you a recipe for a standard chocolate cake. Everyone learns that recipe by heart, knows how to execute it and perfects that. The instructor then tells them to rip up the recipe and create something original.

                You should know structure. You should know all the microcosmic pieces of screenwriting. You should know them, study them, memorize them, attempt to write a story modeled in that way. Become a real expert with the standard. Once you do that, ripping up the rules and generating original quality material is easy.

                Most people would like to jump right to that original quality stuff without ever putting in the time on the principles of the standard.

                It's like the difference between a 16 year old driver and a lifelong NYC cab driver. The 16 year old is gonna be all over the road and not even know how to get you where you need to go. The Cab driver can make hair pin turns and knows all the short cuts.

                The average writer has instincts to wander off in stories, the people who know what they are doing stay tight to the through line.
                Cyfress I like you and like your posts. Please don't let my point of view come across as anything other than that, but here are my thoughts.

                The culinary analogy and writing are different. When you make the instructor's chocolate cake, they are requiring that cake to taste like theirs because you are being asked to *reproduce* that in a restaurant setting.

                When you write, gatekeepers don't want the same reproduction. Even when you go to film school, your instructors don't want the same reproduction.

                Should you know about structure? Yes, know about it. But give yourself the latitude to subvert the expectations of your readers. It will help you.

                As Jeff said, this is what happens when the training wheels come off. Guess what? That can happen with your first script. That scene in your very first script could have been amazing but you were thinking about page numbers?

                And truthfully, staying tight to the through line just often times doesn't amount to anything. You need the best connection. Your character has to emotionally land with a reader.

                There are many times where a scene may not have been the shortest route, but it has that connectivity and is the most interesting. Give me an interesting bite. I can get the same old chocolate cake at Boston Market.

                -
                Last edited by madworld; 11-09-2015, 09:31 AM. Reason: typos

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                • #83
                  Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                  Originally posted by Cyfress View Post
                  Your first day of culinary school they hand you a recipe for a standard chocolate cake. Everyone learns that recipe by heart, knows how to execute it and perfects that. The instructor then tells them to rip up the recipe and create something original.
                  I'm not sure this analogy fits, either. But just to belabor my point (I apologize) -- would someone enter culinary school without having cooked or baked anything prior? I don't think so.
                  Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

                  Comment


                  • #84
                    Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                    there's a guy on youtube, I subscribe to his channel, who has been posting updates on his adventures in writing a screenplay for the last month or two. From fade in to fade out he posts how he's doing, where he's at in the process what page number he's on....so on so forth -- it's actually pretty effin' cool. But I geek on things like that (anyhoo). But it's torture seeing him bend over backwards trying to get beats to land on certain pages. To me, it seems like it is hindering him. I am all for using beats you pick up from books but trying to force them to land on certain page numbers is a fool's errand. It complicates the process in a way that doesn't need complicating. If the script hasn't moved into the 2nd act by page 40, and it's a 100 page script, that's a huge problem. But other than that, maybe the midpoint lands on page 55 or 60 (out of 100 pages) that doesn't kill a well told story for me. Beats are good to help develop the story line, but anyone who tells you they must land on page whatever prolly hasn't sold a script.

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                    • #85
                      Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                      Originally posted by bjamin View Post
                      Beats are good to help develop the story line, but anyone who tells you they must land on page whatever prolly hasn't sold a script.

                      It makes sense, doesn't it? To listen to someone who has sold a script? Or a few scripts? This is from Tony Gilroy's BAFTA lecture:


                      Question: "Do you think it's helpful to use formulas like the hero's journey by Joseph Campbell to help you move your plot along or to build a first script."


                      Tony Gilroy: "Again, like I said before, I think it's more forensic. I think it has to be instinctive, I think you go back and look and go 'oh, what did I do? That's what I did, that's how this worked'. You know that. Everybody here has been going to movies, you've been sucking up narrative since you were born. You grow up in a culture [where] you don't have to till fields, you don't have to bang stones together to clean your clothes, you have all this leisure time and you've filled it with narrative, and food.

                      What is the cumulative number of stories that this audience has watched and looked at? You know more about storytelling than you know about almost anything. Probably your families. It's really astonishing, you know instinctively what a movie looks like. It's always astonishing, people give you a script 'I wrote my script' and it's like 'did you ever see a ****ing movie?' You know what it looks like, you know what it feels like, you don't need Joseph Campbell to tell you what a hero's journey is, you know what it is. It's already way down deep inside you, he's writing about something he says is deep inside you before you even knew about it.

                      So, you have all that, you don't need that help. It's great confirmation when you're lost and you're trying to procrastinate and the book's in your office and it's like 'oh well let's open Joseph Campbell'. I've done that, so I don't want to sound too cool for the room, I have a copy of it and I've looked through it, but it doesn't help you."

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv3DcXIUaRw


                      Notice none of that negates outlining. Gilroy outlines extensively, as in 50-60 page outlines. Watch the lecture if you get a chance. Very informative.

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                      • #86
                        Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                        You mind putting up a link, bjamin?

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                        • #87
                          Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                          Forgive me, but what Tony Gilroy says there is bullshit.

                          Of course we grow up with stories, but that doesn't help us writing them. If that were the case, we would have no problems writing them, but we do. It's a craft and an art. You have to learn the techniques and practice them, if you want any chance of reaching some kind of artistic quality.

                          And by the way, Campbell's hero's journey doesn't tell you how stories work, only how one particular genre works ... the warrior hero myth.

                          I see this all the time: people finding qualities of one genre and claiming that this is how all stories should be told. MAJOR MISTAKE.

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                          • #88
                            Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                            Madworld

                            Yeah, i listened to it awhile ago. Great stuff. The whole BAFTA website has some great interviews on there.


                            Jeff

                            https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9A...SRpsZdAkrAYaew

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                            • #89
                              Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                              Originally posted by Yaso View Post
                              Forgive me, but what Tony Gilroy says there is bullshit.

                              Of course we grow up with stories, but that doesn't help us writing them.
                              Um, okay? Not sure how to respond to that.

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                              • #90
                                Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

                                I grew up watching sports. That doesn't mean I can score a touch down.

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