Fried A, May 22, 2015

Media Unit - Narrative and Documentary Film

The life of a film has a few different pieces. 

If we know about these pieces, then we can do a better job of analysis. 

Plus, you are WAY cooler and your friends will love you more. 

Writing

Development

Pre-Production

Production

Post-Production

Promotion & Marketing

Distribution

Your Face, Sitting There, Watching It - 

• negotiate a meaning by combining the movie with your own thinking
• the movie acts as a kind of code that you “pick up” and make sense thereof
• some of the language of that code you don’t even know you know
• understanding some of the elements of production can make you enjoy the movie more and make you more aware of your thinking/negotiation of meaning
• you get a burst of chemicals in your brain when you see or hear something that matches with something that you know or think or feel - you get a “good” feeling
• same for things that are cool or surprising or when you learn something

WRITING

• movies come from screenplays 
• sreenplays are rewritten and rewritten by multiple writers multiple times for PRODUCERS who are looking for specific things in the scripts
• some scripts are ASSIGNMENTS - written from properties that the producer or a STUDIO own e.g. the Disney I showed you
• what is the producer looking for? 

Movie Moments - often in trailers - big “set pieces” that are exciting and cool - might be comedy moment - the dress/food poisoning scene in Bridesmaids, etc - 

STAR VEHICLE - can you see a movie star being that main character? or a minor character with a cool moment or two? i.e. Bill Murray in Zombieland

How much will it cost to make? Is this a James Cameron/Marvel/Disney giant monster movie? 

Is it using some well-known IP? - (intellectual property) - notice all the superhero movies? Know why that’s the only kind of movie that’s getting made? BRAND RECOGNITION - YA novels, old 80s things, comic books, TV shows from prior decades, remakes, reboots, sequels, etc

Fresh take that feels new and cool and awesome and the same and old and typical

The producer is scared to develop a script because it’s expensive and it takes a LONG time. And there are no guarantees at the end that you’ll get a movie. 

MOST screenplays, even by big, powerful writers, are not made. 

A typical example of a Hollywood screenplay value is something like 55k and up, until it gets produced, where it can be worth another 350k or so. And it costs to develop the whole time. 

The pattern for a screenplay is pretty well known and is based on the Hero’s Quest. 

Note: 1 page = 1 minute

Page 1 - 10 - Setup - lead, setting, “original world” - normal reality for the lead

Page 10 - 17 (or so) - the problem is developed and it starts to pull the lead out of the normal world

Page 17 - 23 - the shift into the New Situation/ New World (ie just like passing the guardian into the underworld) - The start of Act 2

Act 2 is the most fun - building, changing, adjusting to the new situation and new world

Pages 27 - 75 (or so) 

The lead is learning, making progress on his/her quest. 

Funny thing - the Outer Quest (destroy the ring, rescue the daughter, save the house, catch the killer, whatever) is ALWAYS just a way for the Hero to solve the Inner Problem (doesn’t belong, is a bad dad, is wrestling with self-worth, must learn to love herself, etc) 

Mid Way through the movie - there is some great confrontation that shows the hero what he/she must do and man, it is harder than he/she thought and he/she has a tough time with it. 

The second half of Act 2 gets harder and worse and more problematical 

Pages 75-83 (or so) - The Low - Death enters the story for the hero

The hero is brought to the lowest, worst point, and feels like giving up. This is where the Inner Problem is too much for the hero to take. He/she has lost everything and has a huge realization.

HOWEVER!

This is when the Hero DIGS DEEP and finds something that makes him/her push forward. Sometimes it’s a person, sometimes an item, sometimes it’s just a moment of pulling him/herself up by the bootstraps 

NOW we are in Act III and this is an exciting, rollercoaster ride to the end - fights! confrontations! yelling! chasing! running! pace increasing! you have the hero facing his/her biggest problem AND the biggest enemy and usually winning - everything is building to this and everything has to close at the same time - all the energies at work come to this moment - 

Resolution is the solving of the hero’s problem, that he/she had from the start - the weird thing is, the movie appears to have been just a way to fix the hero - the bad character, the adventure, the turmoil, it was all just a lot of testing to push the hero into changing - this is called CHARACTER ARC

Get a diagram of screenplay structure