Story & Structure

The craft of telling a story starts with structure skills.

Video: Jay O’Callahan

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Sometimes we need to stop for a moment and think about what we're really doing. We're telling stories.

As filmmakers, our stories are not in the first place for ourselves; they are for an audience.

Jay O'Callahan has a great story to illustrate how the listener played a role in coming up with his story. If you have 15mins, this is a video worth watching.

 

Jay O'Callahan: The Power of Storytelling from 99% on Vimeo.

With thanks to Adrian Kok.

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Structure: Raising Arizona

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While True Grit has become the biggest hit ever for the Coen brothers, let’s go back and look at their breakthrough hit. Raising Arizona was released twenty-four years ago and made $29m worldwide, then exceptional for an indie. Quite often I see filmmakers take liberties with conventional structure, quoting the success of independent filmmakers who … Read more

Video: Scorsese on Story vs. Plot

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Jon Favreau interviewing Martin Scorsese for the third season of Dinner for Five. In this excerpt Jon asks him about story versus plot in filmmaking. A comment on YouTube says: “Favreau has no idea what Scorsese is talking about”.

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Technology Making Better Television

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You may think I’m talking about HD channels and the advent of 3D television, but I don’t mean increased picture quality when I say better television, I mean better writing. Think about your favorite show on television today. by Margaret M. MacDonald What happens when you miss an episode? Do you TiVo or DVR it? … Read more

Interview: Sydney Field (3)

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Syd Field was the first true screenwriting guru and his book Screenplay is still a standard, more than thirty years after its initial publication. During his first visit to the city with his name, we interviewed him about his career and craft. Final Part, continued from Part 2 Interview: Karel Segers, David Trendall and Niels … Read more