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

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

    Originally posted by UpandComing View Post
    Okay -- then I'll put it in the most basic terms possible. Anyone learning a craft of any kind requires instruction in some form (however informal or formal, passive or direct) in order to learn the best way to approach that craft.

    The fact that your professors a) taught you certain standards (albeit in the form of questions) and b) evaluated you on these standards through a panel they formed (meaning they had to agree on whether you met them) only serves to proves this statement applies to your writing program.
    Here's the definition of instruction:

    in·struc·tion
    inˈstrəkSH(ə)n/
    noun
    1. A direction or order. Synonyms: order, command, directive, direction, decree, edict, injunction, mandate, dictate, commandment, bidding;
    2. Detailed information telling how something should be done, operated, or assembled.

    Nothing resembling this definition was ever offered in my writing program. However, it does describe what Save the Cat offers.

    Let's agree we will not ever agree on this.
    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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    • Re: How can screenwriters control pace? Any thoughts on unintentional slowness?

      i remember when i was a kid i'd go on service calls with my dad to fix tvs. rural county. dirt roads. about once a day he'd have to get gas for his panel truck at a filling station, and i'd get a pack of nabs and a bottle of pop, etc. anyway, the man who ran the filling station always had a story to tell. about something. really important story. every time. grab you on the forearm and look you right in the eyes while telling it.

      was interesting to me was when he would get half in his story, and things would get too busy, people honking their horns so he would gas them up, etc, he'd sometimes have to say, "stop back by and i'll tell you the rest." he wouldn't hurry up the story, see, no, he was not gonna do that. would mess up the pacing. he'd put it on pause. you'd just have to come back to hear the rest at the proper eyeball to eyeball speed.

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

        Originally posted by sc111 View Post
        Here's the definition of instruction:

        2. Detailed information telling how something should be done, operated, or assembled.

        Nothing resembling this definition was ever offered in my writing program. However, it does describe what Save the Cat offers.

        Let's agree we will not ever agree on this.
        Four years of a paid program in which you were given frequent feedback and notes, as well as informed of standards in question format, then graded based on whether you met those standards. I would consider that "detailed information telling how something should be done", and I think most people would consider that (or any college program, regardless of the method used) instruction as well. But fine -- let's agree to disagree
        "I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.-- Peter De Vries

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

          Originally posted by UpandComing View Post
          Okay -- then I'll put it in the most basic terms possible. Anyone learning a craft of any kind requires instruction in some form (however informal or formal, passive or direct) in order to learn the best way to approach that craft.
          I think this might be one of those things that only becomes true once you define down "instruction" in the vaguest possible terms.

          I think the kind of instruction SC111 talks about is awesome, and when I give notes I try (not always successfully) to ask more questions and talk more about my reactions than to give suggestions.

          But it's really not hard to find successful novelists who have no formal instruction of any kind. At some point, you can say, yeah, their results - success or failure of their stories to get published or find an audience - is a form of instruction, but I think that stretches the word to the breaking point.

          Wasn't it Shane Black who dropped out of film school in the first semester and went off and wrote a screenplay. Quentin Tarantino didn't have any formal instruction. He tried and failed to make a film, and then wrote a script that people loved that he didn't direct, wrote a script that people loved that he did, and so on, and so on. Where's the formal instruction?

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

            Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post
            But it's really not hard to find successful novelists who have no formal instruction of any kind. At some point, you can say, yeah, their results - success or failure of their stories to get published or find an audience - is a form of instruction, but I think that stretches the word to the breaking point.
            It's not hard to find examples of successful people in any field who didn't follow a traditional path. But I'd wager that most people who've found success in any given craft have had instruction of some kind. And my statement you referenced didn't say it has to be formal -- besides classes, you can learn from reading books, scouring websites, talking with experts in the field, etc.

            Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post
            Wasn't it Shane Black who dropped out of film school in the first semester and went off and wrote a screenplay. Quentin Tarantino didn't have any formal instruction. He tried and failed to make a film, and then wrote a script that people loved that he didn't direct, wrote a script that people loved that he did, and so on, and so on. Where's the formal instruction?
            Again, my statement above says "however informal or formal, passive or direct". They may have not enrolled in school, but you don't know how many screenplays or screenwriting books they read as part of their learning, which counts as instruction on some level.

            I honestly don't understand what's so controversial about saying a) mastering a craft typically requires learning known principles of that craft and b) selling a screenplay to Hollywood typically necessitates demonstration of certain principles. You'd think I was saying the Earth is square.
            "I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.-- Peter De Vries

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

              They really aren't techniques. They are story ingredients. Some one can read about inciting incidents all they want, but it doesn't mean they can pull it off. At the end of your first act the reader should be asking themselves a question they will wait to see answered for the next 80 pages. That doesn't mean you know how to formulate a dramatic question crystal clear to the reader.

              You should learn all the ingredients that go into a great screenplay. The techniques that go into a winning recipe will have to be learned by you through constant trial and error which hopefully triggers an artistic maturation to your ability, which allows you to produce much better quality work.

              Really, only 10% of the people actively querying the industry have the realized material that actually may get considered. That means 90% of the people querying are racking their brain to come up with a logline to a script that will never get read beginning to end.

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

                Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
                Again, there's just no way you wouldn't fuck up Forrest Gump if you tried to apply any template to it before you wrote it.
                Blake Snyder devoted a chapter in one of his books to analyzing Forrest Gump and demonstrating how it aligns with his beat sheet. He referred to it as an example of what he called the Fool Triumphant story.

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

                  Originally posted by UpandComing View Post
                  It's not hard to find examples of successful people in any field who didn't follow a traditional path. But I'd wager that most people who've found success in any given craft have had instruction of some kind. And my statement you referenced didn't say it has to be formal -- besides classes, you can learn from reading books, scouring websites, talking with experts in the field, etc.
                  More than one expert in the field -- sold writers who joined in this thread plus Tony Gilroy in a quotation -- have disagreed with the forensically-derived template/beat sheet approach. Add to this, Jeff has said no pro writer in his circle uses these templates. But you ignore these experts. People who actually have careers in screenwriting. The question is why do you ignore them?
                  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


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

                    Originally posted by sc111 View Post
                    More than one expert in the field -- sold writers who joined in this thread plus Tony Gilroy in a quotation -- have disagreed with the forensically-derived template/beat sheet approach. Add to this, Jeff has said no pro writer in his circle uses these templates. But you ignore these experts. People who actually have careers in screenwriting. The question is why do you ignore them?
                    These writers have said that the beat sheets have been of no use to them or their circles. They don't speak for the whole industry. For each of the ones that chime in on DDP (who represent a rather small sample size), there are many, many more whom I"m sure have found various tools out there (including STC) very helpful. And the fact that you continue to see the beats in most major Hollywood movies is a sign in itself.
                    "I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.-- Peter De Vries

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

                      Clearly, there's only one way to settle this... an old fashioned duel.

                      Comment


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

                        Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post
                        In any event, I would suggest that in nearly any field, studying the messy, unconventional examples is more interesting and educational than regurgitating basic plot points. The magic is in the messiness, not the formula. As I've said many times: I think the models are useful learning tools so long as you test them against the movies you love.
                        You used the word formula again. It's not a formula.


                        I'm not imposing a model on my idea from the outside. These elements are INSIDE of any story idea you can think of. That's a huge difference.


                        Are you really saying that ...
                        • your characters don't have weaknesses?
                        • they don't have goals?
                        • they don't do something to reach their goals?
                        • they don't have someone standing in their way?
                        • there's no scene in which they succeed or fail?
                        • they have no realizations about what they've been doing wrong?
                        • and there's no scene where we see what becomes of them in the end?
                        If that's the case, I sincerely apologize and we can spare ourselves a duel.

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

                          Yaso, what they are saying is this:

                          You can have a character with a weakness, actively pursuing a goal, fighting obstacles in their way, endure moderate successes and failures during the pursuit, realize where they've gone wrong, and shed light on what the future holds for them now.

                          You can do all that and it guarantees you nothing. You script can still be a bore, a snoozer, an episodic mess.

                          All super heroes wear capes, not all people who wear capes are super heroes.

                          The things you listed are ingredients in most screenplays. But how much attention do you bring to the weakness? How many obstacles in the way and what are they? What type of set-backs does the hero face? What event triggers that realization? You have the ingredients but not the recipe.

                          Its like saying in every cake there is flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, salt, sugar. But how much of each? And which ingredients get mixed together first? Which ingredients need to be melted, which ones cold?

                          Knowing the ingredient list of a screenplay is a minute step in the process. There's a craftsmanship that goes into setting up the fatal flaw or weakness, setting up obstacles, etc.

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

                            Originally posted by sc111 View Post
                            More than one expert in the field -- sold writers who joined in this thread plus Tony Gilroy in a quotation -- have disagreed with the forensically-derived template/beat sheet approach. Add to this, Jeff has said no pro writer in his circle uses these templates. But you ignore these experts. People who actually have careers in screenwriting. The question is why do you ignore them?
                            Scroll down to Kristen Wiig's blurb in this article. Here is a woman who has been around comedy, which is telling stories, her entire career, and on a very successful comedy show SNL... and yet...

                            http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...y-oscar-272008

                            It says she and her co-writer went and bought Syd Field's book when they were writing Bridesmaids, because they didn't know about acts.

                            Why does everyone on this board assume you have to know everything by magical osmosis or you aren't a "real" or "talented" writer? Is Kristen Wiig's movie less successful because she needed some general awareness tips about act breaks, and found it in a book?

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

                              Also, here is a post from The Bitter Script Reader. This quote stuck out for me.

                              "... The problem I have with blaming Save the Cat for all of this is that there really isn't anything new in that book. It might be presented differently, but Synder's overall philosophy isn't too dissimilar from storytelling tenants that have been around long before film itself..."

                              I get why people get antzy about Blake's specific page numbers, and I think we're all in agreement that that notion is ludicrous. But somehow in this forum, if people dare to read a book to understand structure better -- even though the same tenants of structure have been used and studied throughout time -- they are labeled as wrong, untalented, and will never be a pro.

                              http://thebitterscriptreader.blogspo...t-destroy.html

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

                                And yet another vote that perhaps you aren't the devil if you read a screenwriting book. This is from 2011 Scriptnotes with John August and Craig Mazin:


                                (Craig) Look: There are some basic instructional guides that aren’t harmful to you. Syd Field isn’t harmful, I don’t think, unless you somehow view it as a religious choice. I don’t think that Chris Vogler’s book is harmful.

                                John: You think it’s not harmful.

                                Craig: I don’t think it’s harmful. I just think it’s only harmful if people actually think that that’s the book that’s going to teach them how to be a screenwriter. It’s not. There is no such thing.

                                .....

                                John: — It’s really a small subset of them are the ones that I think we often hear or talk about here. Certainly Syd Field is the one we have to talk about first. Syd Field, his famous book is called Screenplay. I didn’t, I had to look it up, because we don’t, we just call it the Syd Field.

                                Syd Field is — if you’re going to read one book, you should probably read Syd Field, just because everyone else in this town has read Syd Field. People will talk in, sort of, Syd Field terms whether they’ve read the book or not. When people talk about Act I, Act II, Act III, mid-act, climax, worst of the worst, those are all kind of Syd Field’y terms.

                                Everyone’s going to talk those ways, whether you actually believe in them or not, development people will talk in those ways. By reading Syd Field, you’ll understand that everyone thinks that there’s a first act that ends at about page 30, that there’s a reversal that happens at about page 60, that there’s a second act break that happens at page 90, which is the worst of the worst, and then the movie resolves itself in the third act, which is the last 30 pages or so.

                                Everyone sort of uses that as a template for thinking about stuff, even though that’s not the way most movies actually happen. The danger is people use that as a template to try to shoehorn any given movie in to fit those beats and fit those page breaks and that idea that this is exactly how a movie has to work, as if there’s one magic formula, or that the architecture of screenwriting is quite literally architecture or engineering — that if you don’t do these things exactly perfect, the entire movie will fall down and collapse on itself.

                                Craig: .... You can’t approach screenwriting that way. People who use these books to sort of try and reduce the process to something easy and controllable are failing. The only value, really, is what you’re saying, maybe plug into some common vocabulary and get a basic sense of the fundamental, most common shape of a screenplay.


                                http://johnaugust.com/2011/scriptnot...rus-transcript

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