by Karel Segers

The principals of drama must dictate how the story is (re-)structured. UNITED 93 is exemplary in this respect.

Have you noticed the almost unnerving consensus that this is a great movie? The SMH gave it nine out of ten, Roger Ebert gave it four stars, and on IMDb it scores 7.7/10.

Whoever believed that the sheer magnitude of the events would guarantee the movie would work should’ve checked out the TV dud “FLIGHT 93” first. I believe here’s a hell of a great script at work.

I watched Paul Greengrass’ movie last weekend and was truly impressed. When I had recovered from the emotional rollercoaster ride, something quite unexpected dawned upon me: this story boasts an amazingly conventional structure.

– ACT ONE: Boarding until cruise altitude; hijackers take control.
– ACT TWO/A: Passengers try to notify the ground.
– REVERSAL: News of the WTC attacks – this is a suicide flight.
– ACT TWO/B: Passengers prepare to fight back.
– ACT THREE: Attack on the cockpit and crash.

An important subplot dominates the first half of the movie and intertwines with the First Act: Ben Sliney’s struggle at the FAA to stay in control of the US air space. Here I’d like to refer to my very first post and my structural note on SCHINDLER’S LIST and THE INSIDER. Both movies start with a major subplot, in the case of THE INSIDER possibly even a second protagonist. Once we’re in the Second Act of the subplot, the main story kicks in. Same here: we’re well into Ben Sliney’s Second Act before the action on board United 93 starts.

For all above reasons – and I know this one is hard to prove – I believe it still would’ve been a great movie for anybody completely unfamiliar with the 9/11 events. While we sit through the relatively uneventful First Act (if you don’t know what’s coming up), we empathise with Ben Sliney whose air traffic controllers are becoming increasingly helpless.

You may argue that this structure is a mere reflection of the facts. Don’t forget filmmakers have always made their own choices about how and which events are presented over the course of the available screentime.

With this matter, I initially didn’t believe Greengrass really HAD to be this rigorous in his structuring for the movie to have an adequate effect. Still he did. Why? To create maximum empathy with the protagonists. And it pays off!

– Karel Segers
First published August 21 2006

For years, I blindly followed this dogma, as it seemed to make a lot of sense. Learn from good and bad examples. Don’t we all do that in other fields? With hundreds of screenplays readily available for download from www.script-o-rama.com, www.imsdb.com and other sources, it appeared to be a quick and easy way to study the craft of scriptwriting.

But does it?

On average, I try to watch a movie a day, either in the cinema or on DVD. With the birth of my son late 2004, that became a bit more of a challenge. I found myself falling asleep in the second act. To remedy the ‘early fatherhood syndrome’, I would make notes, forcing myself to stay awake. As long as I had the discipline, I would even type them up into structural diagrams.

Suddenly, I had a revelation: the more I liked the film, the easier it was to find the Aristotelian three act structure and the principles of dramatic tension.

Revelation? Hardly.

What was truly phenomenal was that to crack the key to the film’s story structure, it had taken me only the duration of the film plus a few minutes. If I had read the screenplay instead, I’d have spent hours reading and taking notes – and only then would I be able to start work on piecing together the structure. A finished film underscores the drama in ways that help you identify the importance of the beat, scene or sequence: through music, fades or the use of light and colour (Soderbergh’s TRAFFIC is an extreme example).

At the time of writing I was developing a story with Wojciech – “Aerosol” – Wawrzyniak, whose structure is vaguely similar to Kenneth Brannagh’s MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN (thank you, Chris) so we decided to read the screenplay and watch the movie.

That’s when the true value in reading screenplays became apparent: it allows you to compare script and finished film. It shows the areas where filmmakers struggled, where what was on the page didn’t translate into what was onscreen.

Comparing script and film also reveals where directors made last minute decisions because they didn’t believe the script worked (or more often, the money ran out). A great example is the Chicago Train Station climax in THE UNTOUCHABLES. Mamet’s original Third Act had Capone’s accountant going on the train, with a chase and shootout following. However, De Palma had blown the budget and was forced to improvise.

For years, De Palma had been dreaming of shooting a homage to Eisenstein ‘Odessa Steps’ sequence from THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. A budget issue in THE UNTOUCHABLES finally threw the opportunity into his lap. In my view, reading lots of screenplays is the hard way to learning how to write good stories. However, analyzing a few classic scripts in terms of language, style and formatting may help you find the right balance to turn your final draft into a better read.

– Karel

The Dept Revisited – A rerun of the best of the Story Dept.

This is one of the fundamental rules in writing a scene, one which David Mamet has also been credited for. ‘Late’ usually means later than you imagine, so its wise to try and cut out as much as possible at the beginning and ask yourself if it still works. The later the better.

In the following example from Fight Club, the scene starts off with a gun shoved into the mouth of Edward Norton’s character. We are immediately connect with the scene and wonder how it happened and what will happen next.

As Hitchcock once said, drama is life with the boring bits cut out. So give the reader the essential, exciting bits of information in the least amount of words. As soon as the goal is achieved in the scene, get out.

I have this really beautiful shot that really must stay

Exceptions that deliberately break or bookend the flow of the action sometimes work at the beginning of an act or sequence.  You’ll hold a shot or scene longer when you want to give the audience a breather and you want to intentionally start re-building tension again.

In case you need this transition moment at the beginning or end of a scene, consider making it interesting by dramatising it or introducing something unusual, unique.

Here’s another prime example of leaving early and thus creating wonderful suspense.

In this scene from The Dark Knight Jonathan and Christopher Nolan carefully finish the scene with unfinished business. A question unanswered. A massive conflict. Three men. Two halves of a broken cue. One survivor. Who will win? It also adds character to the Joker, showing how ruthless he is without ever mentioning a drop of blood.

However, unless it’s the final scene in the film, be sure to leave a question unanswered. This will engage the audience and urge them to ask what happens next. This creates movement, and it is important to have everything in your screenplay serve the movement in order to propel the story forward.

– Karel Segers

Karel Segers is a producer and script consultant who started in movies as a rights buyer for Europe’s largest pay TV group Canal+. Back then it was handy to speak 5 languages. Less so today in Australia.
Karel teaches, consults and lectures on screenwriting and the principles of storytelling to his 6-year old son Baxter and anyone who listens.
He is also the boss of this blog.

[this post was originally published on July 28 2010 and selected for rerun by Adrian]

‘Being in the moment’ may be a way to keep your mental sanity; it is not where you want your audience to be during the film. If they start enjoying the music or image, fair chance they’re out of the story. In cinema there’s no place for zen.

The Dept Revisited – A rerun of the best of the Story Dept.

[this post was originally published on July 7 2009 and selected for rerun by Adrian]

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Your primary focus is on story and less on writing scenes, sharp dialogue or gripping action.

Inevitably, though, once figured out your characters and their journeys, you are down to the daunting task of writing that next draft.

The Dept Revisited – A rerun of the best of the Story Dept.

You will be writing at the scene level, and a slightly different set of rules comes into play.

Suddenly the very particular way in which you organize and formulate your thoughts becomes crucially important, as your mastery of language, i.e. grammar and vocabulary.

From the most common mistakes I have found in my clients’ scene writing, I have deducted three particular qualities.These three qualities your screenplay MUST have if you want the discerning reader to continue reading all the way to THE END, if you want your script to stand up to the competition and have a chance of being produced.

In each and every scene of your screenplay, your writing must be:

1. Clear

2. Concise

3. Colorful

Let’s look at these primary qualities one by one, in order of decreasing priority:

CLARITY

It is of the utmost importance that what you want to show, is on the paper. Don’t leave anything essential to the interpretation of the reader, the actor, the director. If it has to be on the screen, even if you want it to be felt by the audience rather than seen, it still must be on the page and it must be undeniably clear in the mind of the reader.

If it is not going on the screen, it shouldn’t be in the script anyway.

Aesthetics are less important than clarity. If you can’t find an unobtrusive alternative to a long-winded description or dialogue phrase without causing confusion about the intention of the scene, leave it in.

CONCISENESS

An elegant screenplay moves fast. Clutter, both in action and dialogue slows down the reading experience and gives the impression of a slow moving film. Be brief, catchy, summarize as much as possible, but always without causing any confusion (see the first primary quality).

Using ‘lots of white’ is a crucial style tip, but this is only possible if you are able to condense the meaning of your scenes in only a few well-written sentences.

COLOR

What Robert McKee calls ‘Vivid Action in the Now’, I believe is a successful combination of conciseness and color. It is concise enough to move fast, yet colorful so it speaks directly to our imagination.

Film is a visual medium and therefore you can argue that it doesn’t necessarily matter how you express something, as long as we can imagine what the scene looks like. Although this sounds right in theory, the reality is slightly different.

People making decisions on film funding read many, many screenplays. If you make the reading a burden by using a defective, unimaginative style, this will have a negative impact on the reading experience and potentially on the assessment of your script.

– Karel Segers

Karel Segers is a producer and script consultant who started in movies as a rights buyer for Europe’s largest pay TV group Canal+. Back then it was handy to speak 5 languages. Less so today in Australia.
Karel teaches, consults and lectures on screenwriting and the principles of storytelling to his 6-year old son Baxter and anyone who listens.
He is also the boss of this blog.

[this post was originally published on 8 February 2008 and selected for rerun by Adrian]

I have said before that the model you use to improve your screenwriting is your own choice.

At the end of the day it is all academic. Whatever works for you.

The Dept Revisited – A rerun of the best of the Story Dept.

A few things to consider before you take your pick:

First of all, whichever you choose, you will need to deliver the exact same turning points. In broad terms, these are the Inciting Incident, Turning Point One, Mid Point, Turning Point Two and Climax + Resolution.

In other words, the outcome of your story shouldn’t depend on the model you choose, but on your premise. The same premise should result in the same structure, irrespective of whether you think in three or four acts.

Otherwise the theory interferes with the result and this can’t be the idea.

Now, what IS the difference?

The four-act model equates to three acts with the middle act cut in two.

In many great stories, the objective as stated in Turning Point One changes at the mid point. In other words:

The mid point is not just a PLOT POINT, but a TURNING POINT.

Therefore you may argue we are moving into a new act.

A crystal-clear example is JAWS:

Act One: Amity has a shark problem.
Act Two: Brody tries to solve the problem by closing the beaches.

Mid Point: Brody realises his failure and decides to change tactics.

Act Three: Brody tries to solve the problem by hunting the shark.
Act Four: Brody kills the shark.

This results in four acts of roughly equal duration, which is kind of elegant.
The acts are also shorter and therefore more manageable, which helps.

I still prefer the three-act structure. Here’s why:

Great films have a strong cohesion in the main character’s journeys between Turning Point 1 and Turning Point 2. Cutting Act Two in the middle could cause a writer to ignore this cohesion.

In the example of JAWS, Brody has one over-arching desire: “to protect the people of Amity”. The Inner Journey, too, has a strong cohesion across Act Two: “to learn to act responsibly” (see the structural analysis of JAWS).

Although most great movies have this inner logic, it is often buried deep inside the essence of the character’s journey and not always clear through a simple analysis.

THE UNTOUCHABLES, however, is another great example. In structure and meaning it is not too dissimilar from JAWS:

Act One: Ness learns of the vicious methods of Capone.
Act Two: Ness tries to capture Capone.
Act Three: Ness tries to capture the bookkeeper.
Act Four: Ness captures the bookkeeper.

The over-arching desire, uniting Act Two and Three: “to protect the people of Chicago”. The Inner Journey: “to accept the Chicago way”.

Finally, another good reason to stick with the three-act structure is the fact that not all successful movies have such a strong reversal at the mid point.

Please let me know your views in the comments.

– Karel Segers

Karel Segers is a producer and script consultant who started in movies as a rights buyer for Europe’s largest pay TV group Canal+. Back then it was handy to speak 5 languages. Less so today in Australia.
Karel teaches, consults and lectures on screenwriting and the principles of storytelling to his 6-year old son Baxter and anyone who listens.
He is also the boss of this blog.

[this post was originally published on 9 September 2009 and selected for rerun by Adrian]

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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