Lecture 8:
How do I Fade In?
Inside Man (2006)
Written by Russell Gewirtz
Professor Michael Green
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Previous Lesson
•
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)
In this Lesson
•
The Problem and
Main Exposition
•
Opening the Movie
•
Writing Exercise #7
The Apartment (1960)
Written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L Diamond
The Problem and Main
Exposition
The Insider (1999)
Written by Marie Brenner (article) and Michael Mann & Eric Roth (screenplay)
Lesson 8: Part I
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Writing the Opening
• Finding the best opening for a movie can be
frustrating since it must:
– Be visual
– Convey important information
– Be interesting if not arresting
– Raise questions
– Open up a world at least slightly different than our
own
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Writing the Opening (Continued)
• It’s problematic deciding how much
exposition is necessary and when and how
to convey it.
• Every word, image and scene must
advance the story towards its conclusion.
• Because of the abridged time, this is
particularly challenging in a short film.
• Make sure you understand your story well
enough - what you want to have happen before you try to write your opening. 6
The Problem
• In writing a terrific opening, you need to start
with a problem.
• Every great film revolves around a problem
for the protagonist and other characters.
Consider 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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Problem and Theme
• In great films, short or long, the problem
doesn’t just define the action, but the theme.
• It’s incredibly important to understand this
but young writers often avoid the opening
problem and the story is crippled.
• Remember, to take the time to discover what
your film is really about before you write.
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Problem and Conflict
• To create unified action the audience can
follow, you must know 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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Externalizing Conflict
• A poor opening often results when the
writer uses the protagonist’s inner conflicts
as the driving force without knowing how to
externalize them.
• 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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The Main Exposition
• 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. Dramatizing the main
exposition in a short film takes too long.
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Don’t Tell to Much
•
•
•
A great short opens as close to the
introduction of the main conflict as possible
to grab the audience’s attention.
But don’t lessen the tension by trying to
cram in too much exposition about your
protagonist before starting the story - this
will kill the story before it begins.
It is the purpose of the entire film and
screenplay to show us the character. At
the beginning all we need is a hint.
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Purpose of Main Exposition
• 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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Handling the Main Exposition
• 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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Example
Henry V (1989)
Written by William Shakespeare (play) and Kenneth Branagh (adaptation)
Narration
• 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
• 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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Example
• 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
• 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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Exposition in Dialogue
• 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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Exposition, Climax and Theme
• 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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Exposition, Climax and Theme
(Continued)
• 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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Questions to Consider
• 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. If you reveal too much, there is no
suspense or surprise.
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The Problem and the
Sub-Problem
• Think of your main conflict as a question that
will be answered at the climax.
• However, 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 some films
weave sub-problems into the plot and
develop them along with the main problem.
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The Problem and the SubProblem (Continued)
• 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. In concept they
resemble subplots. Both give dimension to a
story, add tension and increase the level of
audience involvement.
• In short films, subplots can frame the main
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action or be involved with it.
Opening the Movie
The Sea Inside (2002)
Written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil
Lesson 8: Part II
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Point of Decision
• Great shorts open near a point of decision or
crisis, and the more dramatic, the better. Out
of a life-changing 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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Change in the Environment
• 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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The Protagonist
• 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.
The Protagonist (Continued)
• 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 do.
Opening Scene Considerations
• First, does the opening scene raise a
question about what will happen in the
story? If not, when will it come?
• Second, is there action or conflict in the
scene to make it interesting? What does the
character want to achieve in the scene?
• Third, what can we learn in the opening that
we can utilize in the end? The earlier we
see a detail about a character that affects
the outcome, the less contrived it feels.
Assignments
Ordinary People (1980)
Written by Judith Guest (novel) and Alvin Sargent (screenplay)
Lesson 8: Part III
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E-Board Post #1
• 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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E-Board Post #2
• 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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Writing Exercise #7
• 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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End of Lecture 8
Next Lecture: How do I Keep My Story Alive?