WRITING DRAMATIC SCENES

If we make the analogy that drama is a language for presenting emotional energy and that, as a language, it possesses its own, unique grammar for the construction and presentation of meaningful dramatic actions, then it is not a very big leap to say that every dramatic film scene is analogous to a sentence, for like a sentence, the dramatic scene is the expression of a complete idea - a complete DRAMATIC idea. And like a sentence it is composed of a SUBJECT (the character driving the scene), a VERB (the central action of the scene) and an OBJECT or OBJECTIVE (what the character is striving for).

Every successful dramatic screenplay presents meaningful (emotionally compelling) and identifiable characters and character actions through an inter-connected succession of inter-related scenes, which creates sequences ("paragraphs"), and acts ("chapters") and ultimately a complete story.

The actions presented are instances of a character's desire to either achieve or attain some objective or goal, or overcome some problem or obstacle that threatens their well-being or plans, and the well-being of whatever it is they care about, usually another character or characters. In the Australian film, Sampson and Delilah, for example, the evolving relationship between the two prinicipal characters is tested by a series of crises that results in one of them committing to the well-being of the other.

Dramatic films - fictional and factional - are driven forward, narratively, by the actions of their characters. Every scene in a dramatic narrative has a beginning, a middle and an end, that evidences a change in the emotional and/or physical circumstances of at least one of the characters. A dramatic scene usually "belongs" to the character that is driving the action of the scene, and whose actions most decisively effect the movement or change that occurs within it; however, the main character of the story is not necessarily the character that will drive every scene, even though that character may be present in every scene.

Echoing the main conflict of the story, the conflict inside each scene is most successful (emotionally meaningful) if it is grounded in a character's over-arching goal or desire, and the frustration of, or threat posed to, that desire by the other characters, or by nature, or both.

A dramatic character is, by definition, a character that is striving for something, or as Michael Shurtleff observed, "a character that is fighting for something".

Striving is only meaningful when it is clear that the goal is worthwhile or when failure to achieve the goal carries dire consequences. There must be risk and the chance of failure for drama to occur. Risk and the possibility of failure occurs most commonly when someone or something opposes the character's best attempts to achieve his or her objective or goal. The ensuing conflict that emerges from this opposition MOVES the character to act, and their actions move them either closer to or further away from their goal. A verbal clash between characters that results in no change whatsoever is not (dramatic) conflict.

Inexperienced screenwriters usually associate verbal altercations with conflict, whereas real conflict is an obstruction to the desire or goal inside the scene. A dramatic goal, by definition, is what is to be won or lost; it stimulates the plans of action enacted by the character to achieve that goal. If what the character wants is given to him/her too easily, the opportunity to build emotional energy through opposition is lost. And if the character merely avoids the confrontation, as is the case in far too many Australian screenplays, the character is rendered passive and emotionally uninteresting.

In successive dramatic scenes, what the main character does and what happens to him or her as a result of what s/he does, is the driving force behind the emotional energies that are being built or released.

In each dramatic scene, a character will do something that brings him/her closer to his/her goal, or propels him/her further away from the attainment of that goal.

Each instance of change effects each subsequent instance of change insofar as it provides the circumstances and conditions what happens next. In this way, dramatic screen storytellling might be characterised as a cause-and-effect process guided by a series of shots (cuts) that continuously direct the audience's attention to that region of the story (action) that most elegantly and powerfully elaborates the nexus of forces at work in the emotional lives of the characters.

For more about the grammar of dramatic screenwriting and the creation of effective dramatic scenes, visit http://www.wheresthedrama.com/grammar.htm

DEVELOPMENT MONEY or HOW TO STOP STABBING YOURSELF IN THE BACK WHILE CLIMBING UP THE LADDER

"Right now it's only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea." - Woody Allen


I think it was Frank Pierson that first told me about the writer whose first feature won an Academy Award for "Best Screenplay" and how he worked for20 years afterwards, writing screenplay after screenplay (and making quite a good living at it), before getting the next one up, which, by the way, also won an Academy Award. On first hearing this I thought: "...hmmm, long time between drinks."

Pierson's point was that the writer had made a career for himself on the strength of a lot of talent, one Oscar, and an endless supply of development money. The writer, Horton Foote, certainly had talent, but let's try to contain our enthusiasm when it comes to development grants. Sure, they temporarily validate your existence - "look, they gave me money! - I exist!" - but that doesn't necessarily mean the screenplay upon which the lolly has been bestowed is worth the paper it's written on.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that worthy screenplays are never funded; it's just that in nearly ten years of reading everything that's been thrown at me, there are only a handful that generated enough excitement to make me forget I was turning the pages, and only a few of those were ever actually made.

Everyone knows the old adage, "It's not WHAT you know but WHO you know". I wish I had a dollar for everyone who had ever complained about how someone else got the grant or the prize because they had a friend in high places. I don't begrudge friends in high places; I only wish they knew more about Drama... A LOT more about Drama, which is the life-blood of that most peculiar and seemingly uncontollable form of artistic expression known to humanity, namely filmmaking. Unfortunately, thei ignorance of friends - not to mention our own - leaves an after-taste in the mouths of audiences, who, apart from the filmmaker's family and friends, invariably wind up becoming vocal advocates for why you shouldn't see the movie.

Dramatic screen storytelling isn't quantum physics, though it some times looks like it. When it doesn't, it more closely resembles a backroom in some over-stuffed Thrift Shop of the Soul, where the deaf and bind paw over a morass of secondhand ideas in search of the next resurrection. If only it were that good!

The industry seems to require judges - watchpeople on the gates of the City of Light, guarding the public taste, making decisions about what is worth seeing. So be it. But, ah! how much more exciting and worthy of conversation it would be if the gaggle of readers, assessors, project officers and producers were more intimately acquainted with the BEAST. And what a beast it is! That "heart of darkness" that requires nothing short of a subconscious in which to shelter itself. Drama is NOT pretty,nor is it safe or respectacle. It presents us with everything we would ran away from if we encountered it in our lounge room or on the street. Too bad, those who sit in judge of scripts also run away from it when they all too infrequently encounter it on the page.

But do not despair. Your fate and that of your story/screenplay/film is not really in their hands. It resides in a much more dangerous place that - in YOUR hands! One might lament, even unto death, how one missed out, how someone else got the money, how a lesser talent was recognised and plucked from oblivion... but be careful. The hands pluck you from oblivion, are also capable of returning you there. Where the the writing we have lost in development? Teach us to type and not to type; teach us to sit still! Never ask for the money out of fear; never seek the gold out of a need to prove you exist. If you only ever went to "them" when you didn't need them, they would never refuse you. If you NEED them, they will disrespect you! This is the truth:

Your script is in YOUR hands; you the master/mistress of your own destiny, so long as you work obsessively (mediumistically) with the relationhips that are your story's life - namely, with your characters, with your audience and with your tribe/s. Of course, like Chaplin, you may start out with no idea at all as to who these characters are, but as Charlie himself realised: "...the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up... I began to know (the tramp), and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born."

In the midst of working obsessively one enters the Drama that IS the screenplay, and by this movement - into the heart of ALL of the characters - one is able to transform every boundary, expectation and prejudice. In the act of becoming a MEDIUM for character, one crosses the border from script development to self-development, escaping the mediocrity and quiet desperation that comes from believing one doesn't already have what one needs.

SOME WORDS ABOUT MY WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS

“As to the question, which came first – the chicken or the egg –
you must consider the possibility that the egg is that part of
the chicken that is trying to remember itself.”
- Anon.

I love the poet, Muriel Rukeyser, because she understood that “the world is made of stories, not atoms”. You don’t have to be a poet to understand this, but it helps. Have a look around. Stories are a force of nature. We didn’t evolve from apes; we sprang into life, full-blooded, urgent, desirous, embodied by story.

Story is our essence, the source and outcome of every dream, vision, birth, death, discovery or miracle. Our humanity and inhumanity is rooted in it, tangled in the mystery of “how come?” and the suspense of “what now?”

When James Joyce was asked where he came up with the stories that inhabited his books, he gestured round the pub: “from that couple over there, and those men by the door, and the woman washing up behind the bar…”

Story is Nature’s way of becoming conscious of itself. As storytellers, we work with it in order to become conscious of ourselves. One writes the script to find out why one is writing it, and in the process discovers that the story is writing us as much as we are writing it.

The drama of screenwriting can be a decidedly terrifying experience, especially when the characters want to take us places we never thought of going. Left to our own devices, we prefer not to give ourselves a fright, which is why we seek out ready-made recipes, in the hope that somebody else’s pre-digested formula will stay the pain of us actually having to go on a journey of discovery.

If it’s a template you’re after, don’t bother with my workshops; like drama, they present more questions than answers. If they challenge your most enduring prejudices - which so many participants tell me they do - then they will pay for themselves several times over, and succeed in ways that you could never imagine. More than anything, they offer a unique vision that will assist you in exploring your personal hinterland and the as-yet unseen, unheard, stories that are hiding there, a unique point of view for the inner journey and outer odyssey. Proof that others have passed this way before. Take them as part of a map to that vast wilderness of the soul, the secret/sacred world of dramatic storytelling against which one’s ego is merely the semblance of a bed and breakfast.

Though their bias is cinematic storytelling for the big and small screen – both fictional and factional – the scope and ultimate application of what they offer transcends any particular form.


"Although my time was brief with you, you're still the most influential mentor on my writing."
- Jared Beekhuyzen