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Category: Screenwriting
A wealth of articles that cover the art and craft of screenwriting, from Cyber Film School’s exclusive contributors. A must for anyone undertaking the their own screenplay.
Act Three is so important that many screenwriting teachers advise their students not to writing until the final act is clear – know your ending before you begin.
By Charles Deemer, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides
I do not tell my students this for a variety of reasons. The creative process does not comfortably follow rules, and many professional screenwriters are on record (and other writers as well, including Stephen King) as admitting that often they do not know their endings when they begin writing.
To be sure, as a script nears completion, the “ending” must be part of the fabric of a story’s beginning, but for some writers a long process is necessary to discover all the parts of the story plan. For example, I use my first drafts as the process by which I discover what it is I really want to write about — in other words, my first drafts serve discovery, not fine craftsmanship, which comes in subsequent drafts.
The point I am belaboring is that it’s quite all right, at this early stage (writing the first draft), if you don’t know as much about your story as you eventually must. That’s why writing is called A PROCESS.
The Hero’s Recovery
What is certain, however, is that the third act must begin with the hero’s recovery after the low point that ends Act Two. In the tradition of Hollywood movies, heroes win. The guy gets the girl, the good guy defeats the bad guy. Even in darker independent films that buck this tradition, the hero must recover in order to participate in the final movement of the story, Act Three.
So your first job is to get the main character out of the fix you created. This should be done by the hero being active, not passive (being rescued by someone else), and of course it should be believable within the suspension of disbelief that your audience will give you if they are wrapped up in your story.
The Ticking Clock
Armed with a second wind, the hero now moves towards the showdown of the movie. In The Graduate, for example, Act Two ends when Benjamin learns that Elaine has been pulled out of school by her father and, worse, is about to get married. Benjamin’s task is to find her and stop her from doing so.
Thus he races against “a ticking clock” — a deadline for the action he must perform — in order to rescue Elaine from her family. If you can get a ticking clock into your third act, so much the better.
In Shakespeare in Love, the ticking clock happens as the play progresses with a sick actor playing Juliet, who won’t be able to make his entrance. At the last minute, Viola plays the role, playing opposite Will’s Romeo, and they can play out the tragedy of their “real life” love on stage.
The Big Showdown
The showdown is the final confrontation between protagonist and antagonist, between Benjamin and his love’s family, between Will and his writing block. Benjamin steals Elaine away from the altar, and Will uses his loss of Viola to immortalize her in a new play, Twelfth Night. Will loses the girl but he does not lose his Muse.
The Growth of the Hero
The hero usually comes out of this final showdown a victor and a changed person. He or she experiences personal growth in some way. In The Graduate, there’s an irony attached to growth: seeing the lovers on the bus, riding into the sunset with everyone staring at them, we don’t really know what the future holds.
In Shakespeare in Love, Will’s growth as an artist is clear in his ability to move from personal loss to artistic triumph — Viola as Muse has given him new strength to write, and we don’t expect him to drift from muse-lover to muse-lover with this new artistic strength.
Fade Out
There’s nothing quite as satisfying as ending act three and writing FADE OUT. When you do this, take time off to be good to yourself. Writing a complete draft of a screenplay is no small achievement.
A valuable exercise in the development of your story is getting to know your characters. The definition and development of character is one of the central concerns of the writer. Their motivations are what drive the story forward. If you don’t know who your characters are, you don’t know why anything in your story is happening, and you are lost.
Contributed By Glen Berry, Edited By Stavros C. Stavrides
Important Concepts
Create “Real” Characters
Find your character’s motivation
Character Arc is the heart of the story
The Back Story
In a feature-length project, we have some time to develop character. In a short film, it is much more challenging. We must be very utilitarian with the words on the page to draw out an interesting character.
Often, the details about your characters may not even be exposed onscreen, but are the most important factor in making them rich and full and believable. Ask yourself:
What do they look like?
Into what social standing were they born?
What is their philosophical position?
Are they religious?
What phase of life are they in?
What events have shaped their lives up to this point?
Have they led an extraordinary life? Have they travelled the world?
Do they take risks?
Can they maintain a long-term relationship?
What are their personal quirks and traits?
Answering these kinds of questions is the background work necessary to create a complete character. You need to know many things about your character outside the framework of the story (the back story) to understand what happens inside the story. A clear idea of the character will translate to the page. It will be easily understood by a competent director or actor. If your idea of the character is unclear, it will also be unclear to the actors when they try to work through the lines and understand who it is that they are portraying.
The Environment
Research is the key to finding the details to wrap around your characters to make them three-dimensional people. Know your setting, the environment in which this person lives, even if it is imaginary.
The environment will shape the person and allow you to dig into the development of their psyche. Think about the actor that will have to portray this character, to be believable in these imaginary circumstances you set up. It must be clear who the characters are and what drives them forward.
The Protagonist
Every story has a protagonist, the main character, and usually a hero.
If a person stands in the way of the protagonist, they are called the antagonist. In the classic sense, the antagonist is the ‘bad guy’. It is the differences between the antagonist and the protagonist that provide telling information about the protagonist’s character.
The antagonist and the protagonist maneuver in a push-and-pull dynamic that results in conflict, which drives our plot forward. We have many types of conflicts that drive our story forward, it could be human vs. human, human vs. society, human vs. nature, human vs. the supernatural or human vs. him/herself.
No matter what the approach, you must still identify the protagonist and what motivates them to discover the heart of your story.
This post is a reformatted section from the chapter “Screenwriting” in Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook.
The protagonist has an objective to obtain and an internal drive to obtain it. The way we learn about the protagonist is what they are seeking, how they go about the search and how they handle obstacles put in their path.
This is commonly described as a character arc. Like the dramatic curve, characters go through a transformation over the course of our three acts.
The protagonist, in particular, is going to have highs and lows as they move through their struggles to overcome obstacles and resolve the conflict that they face. By the end of the story, the protagonist will be changed in some way by the events that transpire.
We ourselves are shaped by the events of our lives, and so are our characters.
Such changes can be positive or negative but it is the effect that events have on the behavior of our character that demonstrates to the audience what it is that we are trying to say.
If the protagonist meets with failure, why do they meet with failure:
How does it affect them?
Does it destroy them or make them stronger?
Does success yield happiness?
If it does not, why not?
And if the main character does not change at all, what does that say about them and their life? In these questions, we will find the heart of our story.
The Hero’s Not Always Good!
A common mistake in character development is to assign the protagonist all good traits and the antagonist all bad traits. This is a device of comic books and Kung Fu movies and although entertaining, it does not make for a believable character.
We all have weaknesses (as we dare to admit). Our frailty, or dark side, makes us more human, and more believable. If you do not have a believable character, there is little authenticity for the actor to grab onto.
Real life is not so simple – there is no such thing as all-good guys and all-bad guys. Although difficult, introduce some vices to your knight in shining armour and some virtues to your wicked stepmother.
It is the natural tendency of the audience to identify with the protagonist. Giving him or her some flaws will make that character more sympathetic, particularly if the antagonist exploits those weaknesses. Have no fear; your protagonist can absorb a great deal of trashing before he or she is sullied in the eyes of your audience.
The Anti-Hero
This interesting effect gave rise to the anti-hero popularized in several of the Spaghetti Western Clint Eastwood films where the protagonist is nearly indistinguishable from the antagonist in character.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is an excellent example of the anti-hero. In one scene, the protagonist dissolves his partnership by leaving his companion in the middle of the desert without water to die or be captured and executed.
What makes a protagonist that would behave in such a way the ‘good guy’? That’s the kind of question that draws in the viewer instead of boring them with clichés.
The distinction between good and evil can be so subtle as to be nearly indistinguishable. It is in those small differences we find the difference between a good person drawn into the evils of the world and a person who has given themselves over to evil acts.
It is a fine line to ride. Strive to create an imperfect and real character that challenges the viewer’s notions of right and wrong, yet allows them sufficient justification to believe in their good traits and intentions.
The audience will identify with the main character if you give them half a chance and they will excuse his or her flaws and sympathize with their struggle.
The Foil
A story-telling device that often proves useful is that of the foil. The foil is the friend or companion of the protagonist that is great, but not that great.
The purpose of the foil is to make the protagonist look good. The foil is often a likeable and charismatic sidekick.
The foil is never far from the protagonist’s side but lives constantly in his shadow. The death of the foil at the hands of the antagonist is commonly used as the spark that sets the protagonist in motion to the final confrontation, which we will discuss in more detail later.
Less is More
When establishing your cast of characters, remember that less is more. You only have enough time to develop so many characters who have a meaningful role in your story.
The audience will only care about a few, so make your choices well. Combine characters where possible to focus your attention and the attention of the audience on as few people as possible. It’s no mistake that films with large casts tend to be sweeping epics. Character development takes time.
When you are creating a short film, you have very limited time to introduce characters and develop them. Focus on your protagonist. They will be the star of your film and the agent of your concept. Be very mindful of any character development that does not revolve around your protagonist.
Summary
The concept of your screenplay should be reducible to a few sentences. Without this clarity, you cannot build a story.
Invest time in determining how your concept is different from others and how it might be the same. This will save you from unwittingly remaking another film.
Many independent films suffer from a lack of clarity, which can almost always be traced to poor structure. Breaking from convention is encouraged but if the result is confusion, look at your story structure.
Films that suffer from a lack of clarity and confuse an audience can usually trace their problem to poor story structure.
If you have trouble shaping your film’s concept into a narrative, think of how your screenplay should be structured and what you’re trying to say. If we still can’t get to the end of the story – that’s likely a structural problem.
Contributed By Glen Berry, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides
Important Concepts
Start with a premise
Do your Research
Structure Clarifies the Concept
Although there are different schools of thought on the sections in a story, we will be discussing Aristotle’s Three Act Structure. This structure dictates that every story has three acts: a beginning, middle and end. I know this sounds elementary but each act has particular properties.
This structure can be described with a diagram called The Dramatic Curve.
Dramatic Curve in Three Acts
The Three Acts
In the First Act, the main character, or protagonist, is introduced and the location is set. This description of the character and the setting is called Exposition.
Bridging the First and Second Act, the protagonist is confronted with some kind of obstacle. The presentation of this obstacle, or conflict, is the inciting moment or incident.
This second act is mainly comprised of the protagonist’s attempts to overcome this obstacle. The protagonist cannot accomplish their objective easily, for if they did, there would be no story. Complications arise, and tension increases as the protagonist attempts to overcome this obstacle. This rising action is what drives our story forward.
The Third Act contains the climax of the story, where this conflict is resolved and final obstacles overcome. If the story works out in favor of the protagonist, it is comedy. If it works out against the protagonist, it is a tragedy. Denouement is a French term that literally translates to the unravelling of a knot. In the denouement, we see the aftermath of the resolution and how it affects the characters in the story.
It is in the resolution of this conflict that we find whatever it is that we are trying to say. Most times, writers have difficulty with how their story ends. They may have an interesting setting or conflict but it is in the resolution that we find the content of the story. If you do not know how the story ends, you do not know your story.
This post is a support article from Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Learning System, 2022 Edition
What do we want the audience to leave the theater with?
We do not have to create works that will change the world but we should know what idea we want to put forward. It doesn’t really matter what the content is of the story you decide to make but you do have an obligation to tell a story.
You cannot ask the audience to sit and spend time with you if you do not deliver something that will engage them. You have a contract with the audience. They spend time with you, you will entertain them. The subject matter can be serious, it can be odd, it can be comic, or it can be sad. It doesn’t matter what it is but you must deliver.
You must say something or you are wasting your time and energy.
Find an idea that intrigues you and then find what about it is important to you. Then you can build a story around communicating that idea to others.
Summary
• The concept of your screenplay should be reducible to a few sentences. Without this clarity, you cannot build a story.
• Invest time in determining how your concept is different from others and how it might be the same. This will save you from unwittingly remaking another film.
• Many independent films suffer from a lack of clarity, which can almost always be traced to poor structure. Breaking from the convention is encouraged but if the result is confusion, look at your story structure.
