Inside Man (2006)
Written by Russell Gewirtz
Professor Christopher Bradley
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• Plotting – The Twists and Turns
• The Role of Conflict
• The Principles of
Action
• Writing Exercise #6
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Written by Phillip Barry (play) and
Donald Ogden Stewart (screenplay)

• Your Protagonist’s
Primary Challenge and the Main
Exposition
• The “Opening Hook”
• Writing Exercise #7
The Apartment (1960)
Written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L Diamond

The Insider (1999)
Written by Marie Brenner (article) and Michael Mann & Eric Roth (screenplay)
Lesson 8: Part I
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• A strong opening for a movie will:
– Be arrestingly visual
– Convey important information
– Grab your audience’s attention
– Raise questions
– Present a world at least slightly different than our own
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• Keep your exposition to only what’s necessary for the primary challenge to your protagonist.
• Every word, image and scene must advance the story towards its conclusion.
• Remember, you only have about 10 pages!
• Make sure you know where you’re going before you write your opening.
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• Every great film revolves around a challenge for the protagonist and other characters.
• Let’s examine the challenge facing the protagonist in a few of the short stories we’ve watched so far:
– George Lucas in Love
– Ten Minutes
– Black Button
– The Powder Keg
– Copy
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• In great films, short or long, the problem doesn’t just define the action, but the theme as well.
• If you avoid the opening problem, your story will be crippled. Start strong!
• Remember, to take the time to discover what your film is really about before you write.
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• To create unified action the audience can follow, be clear what the main conflict is.
• Other problems can exist in the film, but if you have several problems of equal importance, your audience won’t know where to focus.
• The main conflict needs to be apparent, and if there are other conflicts, they should play a subsidiary role.
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• Using the protagonist’s inner conflicts as the driving force without knowing how to externalize them will give you a weak opening.
• You need to find the true underlying internal problem facing your character, and find a way to illustrate and foreshadow this problem in the action so that the audience can understand the meaning of the conflict.
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• We’ve defined the main exposition as whatever is primary and vital for the audience to know about the protagonist and her problem.
• Despite our emphasis on action and showing in film, exposition in a short film often needs to be revealed in other ways because of time.
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• A great short opens as close to the introduction of the main conflict as possible to grab the audience’s attention.
• Don’t lessen the tension by trying to cram in too much exposition about your protagonist before starting the story.
• It is the purpose of the entire film and screenplay to show us the character. At the beginning, all we need are hints.
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• The main exposition:
– Defines setting and tone - humor, fear, etc.
– Introduces the main characters and their central relationships
– Presents or initiates the conflict
– Makes clear whatever is not self-explanatory, but necessary to understand
• The main exposition needs to come early and fast to orient the audience. Other details can be spread throughout the film.
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• Main exposition can be various.
• A Greek Chorus is a classical method directly communicating the background of the plot to the audience.
• Shakespeare used prologues, soliloquies.
• These techniques and others like them are outdated, but filmmakers, especially those making short films, need the same kind of immediate exposition.
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• Voice-over narration and even onscreen narrators are more common in short films than features - and more accepted. With voice-over, a narrator can express the necessary information quickly and directly.
• Read the example in chapter six from Ray’s
Male Heterosexual Dance Hall .
• Pause the lecture, go back to Learning Tasks and watch the clip from Apocalypse Now .
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• Written presentation is also acceptable in a short film - particularly a comedy.
• Written presentation immediately makes your viewer an active participant in your work.
• The audience must sit up and read what is being show on screen. It makes them pay immediate attention to what is going on, rather than allowing them to sit back and wait for the film to engage them.
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• Pause the lecture, go back to Learning Tasks, and watch the clip from Blade Runner .
Blade Runner (1982)
Written by Phillip K. Dick (novel) and Hampton Fancher and David Peoples (screenplay)

• Visual dramatization is the main exposition presented in the form of visuals and action.
• Read the section in chapter six in which
Cowgill discusses how visual dramatization is used in the short films Occurrence at Owl
Creek and The Lunch Date .
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• Many films use scenes with dialogue to convey part of the main exposition. As in life, sometimes words are the best way to express what needs to be told.
• Pause the lecture, go back to Learning
Tasks, and watch the opening scene from
Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything .
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• The main exposition has a direct relationship to the film’s climax as well as one with the film’s theme, because the problem posed a the beginning of the story is one that needs to be solved or answered at the end.
• Theme also needs to be foreshadowed or revealed at the start. The audience is going to grasp the film’s intent only if the theme is introduced early.
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• You don’t have to directly tell viewers what a film is about, but they need hints, clues. If every viewer has a different interpretation, the theme hasn’t been well-developed.
• Exposition, particularly in dialogue, continues without interruption until the climax of the movie, since we are always revealing characters, plot and backstory.
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• When working on the main exposition, ask yourself these questions.
– What is essential to be revealed?
– What can be held back?
– What can be implied?
• Holding back or implying certain information can help you to maintain tension and make the audience anticipate what will happen next, it can keep them in suspense or provide a satisfying surprise near the end.
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• Think of your main conflict as a question that will be answered at the climax.
• Beyond the main conflict, most films develop other conflicts or problems for the protagonist to face.
• Sometimes these are just additional obstacles or complications, but the best films weave sub-problems into the plot and develop them along with the main problem.
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• The sub-problem may concern the protagonist, antagonist or another character who indirectly affects the protagonist.
• These are conflicts of secondary importance that impact the plot. They give dimension to a story, add tension and increase the level of audience involvement.
• In short films, subplots can frame the main action or be involved with it.
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Gone with the Wind (1939)
Written by Sidney Howard
Based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell
Lesson 8: Part II
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• Great shorts open near a point of decision or crisis, and the more dramatic, the better. Out of a lifechanging situation, the protagonist’s goal emerges. Life-changing events include:
– Starting school
– Graduating school
– Birth
– Wedding
– Losing or quitting a job
– Divorce
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• Another strategy for starting a film may begin with a change in the environment that affects the protagonist directly or indirectly, such as war, natural disaster, or a death in the family.
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• Many films open by introducing the protagonist - showing us up front what is important, interesting or unique about her.
• Ask what is essential for the audience to initially know about this character.
• You might illustrate the outer façade first, so that her inner essence might later be illustrated through conflict.

• Consider how you want to present your protagonist to the audience.
– Should we laugh at her or pity her?
– Should we take him seriously or not?
– Should we identify with the protagonist?
• These questions relate to the tone of the film - whether it is satiric, broadly humorous, serious or ironic.
• How the audience feels about the character depends on how you set this up.

• First, be sure that your opening scene raises a major question about what will happen in the story.
• Second, provide action or conflict. Make it clear what the character wants to achieve in the scene.
• Third, reveal something in the beginning that will resonate in the climax or resolution.

Ordinary People (1980)
Written by Alvin Sargent
Based on the novel by Judith Guest
Lesson 8: Part III
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• Watch the short film from the lesson,
Spin , and analyze the film’s opening.
How does it utilize concepts from the lesson in creating the problem , main exposition , protagonist , and so on?
You may need to return to the lecture or the book to brush up on the concepts.
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• Choose any feature film you have seen and discuss how the opening is related to the climax of the film. What bits of story and character information return from the beginning to have an impact at the end?
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• Now that you have your treatment completed and have written a scene in screenplay format, write the opening scene of your script. Make sure that the scene is in proper screenplay format and that it follows the basic plan for creating an opening that we studied in this lesson.
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Halloween (1980)
Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Next Lecture: How Do I Keep My Story Alive?