But, the lesson you so eloquently and passionately put is that ‘analysis is always after the event; it can never ensure a good result or prevent a bad one’. That’s true I think. The only caveat is that you can still ‘learn’ from what others do, which may require working out ‘just what it is they actually DID’. Rock an’ a hard place my friend. haha. Good luck.

As to ‘convention’, I think it’s not so much a matter of conforming TO it, as working OFF it, and that requires at least a sensitivity to how far you are pushing. Make any sense? Once again, nice site. Mike : >

I would say: it’s exactly the other way around.

More comments, please!

I think all an audience ‘expects’ is to be entertained or moved in some way. A critic on the other hand might ‘expect’ a certain structure to be adhered to but not an audience. Anybody can follow the ‘hero’s’ journey and still fail to make a great film. Anybody can get in touch with their ‘tribe’ and fail to touch anyone but their mother. Anyone can write a story, imagine character’s actions and situations and still fail to tell a good story or get the script read.

Film making can be an organic experience for all involved, I am tired of the creative process being crammed into the ‘correct structure’ to be deemed great.

I am trying to learn film making and writing. This argument only confuses me and makes it more difficult to achieve success. It intellectualizes a craft which inherently and simply requires hard work, imagination, heart and soul and experience yet at the same time turns our creative attempts into film making dogma. I will endeavor to continue my learning but it is frustrating to feel as though, as a student, I am caught in a war of the roses about what the correct way to write a screenplay or tell a story is. And, I, as an audience member feel insulted by the opinion that I just want to see more of the same because that is all I am capable of understanding as a creature of someone else’s habit!

Arguments, opinions, and beliefs about what is right is great guys but I think I am going to develop my own ideas from here on out and leave the ‘correct’ way of doing things to the religious right and the police.

I have been studying both plot-driven and character-driven theories. Both ways have their positives and negatives, and from where I am sitting right now they have one thing in common: driven by egos and traditions that smother creativity. Not interested.