Hauge claims the Inner and Outer Journey run in parallel. I think he’s right, with one small caveat.

A gorgeous Sunday morning in a Manly cafe with a view on the ocean. Perfect circumstances to switch off.

Not if you’re me. I was pondering story structure. And suddenly I had this thought.

Think of a character’s journey as a journey of change. Nothing new so far.

If you look at both the Inner and Outer Journey of a film story as defined in terms of  ‘change’, you’ll see they are structured identically.

I remembered this review of HANCOCK, where the critic pointed out that early in the movie we realise Hancock is a character who needs redemption. He needs to change. Like Bill Murray’s character in GROUNDHOG DAY, Robert Downey Junior’s character in IRON MAN, Bob in THE INCREDIBLES or THELMA AND LOUISE. Or pretty much any hero in any successful movie. They’re all transformational.

In every movie with a character arc, first there is a more or less visible ‘need for change’.

In this first sequence of many successful films, we see the hero’s flawed behaviour. We understand: this character needs to change in order to find happiness, an emotional or psychological balance, to realise a full life.

Then the Inciting Incident happens. Almost always AFTER we understand the character’s inner problem, that ‘need for change’.

Pondering over this, I started mapping it out over the 3-Act time line and I came to an interesting conclusion: the character journey, whether it is Inner or Outer, has three stages:

1. the need for change (a situation of conflict)
2. the journey of change (obstacles and increased conflict)
3. the result of change (conflict resolved, new situation)

Let’s look how these three stages play out over the inner and outer journey:

INNER JOURNEY (that which brings change to the character’s behaviour)

1. the need for change: opening until inciting incident (halfway Act One)
2. the journey of change: from inciting incident until crisis (end Act Two)
3. the result of change: conflict resolved, new situation (halfway to end of Act Three)

OUTER JOURNEY (that which brings change to the world)

1. the need for change: inciting incident until end of Act One
2. the journey of change: from beginning of Act Two until Resolution
3. the result of change: from Resolution to end of movie

Stages 1. and 3. are much clearer in terms of their visible clues about the change. The second stage (mostly Act Two) is murkier. It is a gradual change, which is a matter of ups and downs, victories and defeats.

The 2nd act Inner Journey is largely defined by the mid point.

Because the Inner Journey is weaker in this act, the mid point (the “S” in the middle on the pic.) keeps the story in balance.

Let’s have a look what this would look like on the 3-Act time line:

The vertical lines are the act breaks, the crosses are Inciting Incident and Climax/Resolution.

So we can conclude the following:

Inner & Outer Journey are identical, only shifted in time.

The meaning of this timeshift is simply the following:

In order to get what s/he wants, the Hero must first transform.

It may not be a new view at story structure, but I haven’t seen this approach anywhere else.
Try it, it may work for you.

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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It’s not the ones with the greatest script either, nor those with the most writing experience.

The ones who get their movies made are those who can make people believe they have the best movie idea, the greatest script and the right experience.

This means that much like your resume, you’ll have to change your story depending on who you’re talking to.

The investor with spare cash wants to hear a different story from the arty-farty airy-fairy government film development agent.

It doesn’t stop with telling a great story in your screenplay.

Once you have told that story, you need to start telling/selling another one.

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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Aspiring screenwriter Terrence ponders over a question that has bugged all of us at some point: “Is screenwriting for me?”

Post: Terrence
Editor: Cleo Mees

The bustling streets of lower Manhattan. Ubiquitous blue planks of wood, held up by rusty bars of steel. A pedestrian crowd waves in and out of the shade falling from the skyscrapers.

CU of LUANNE, emerging from the crowd.

PULL BACK to reveal her blue sunflower-print dress. With a big smile, she waves from across the street.

Luanne walks against the crowd and crosses the street to meet ME. We hug for a long time. She gives me a warm grab of the arms. I relax into her and hold on tight. But she breaks off contact and I slouch, rejected.

She walks off and disappears back into the crowd.

LONG SHOT of me, standing still as the crowd floods around me. I become indiscernible. CUT TO BLACK.

Fade in.

This is me waking up from a dream. For the longest time, I have dreamed in a cinematic format. From framing to camera angles to cuts and fades, even sound mixing, my dreams were the stuff of film.

I only started becoming cognizant of these little quirks when I stumbled across the special features on some DVD that I can no longer recall.  It talked about framing shots, creating movement, and a lot more.  I had no idea what a lot of these cinematic principals were at the time, but it certainly opened up my eyes to the true art of motion picture.  After watching those special features I understood that every frame of that movie was by design.  Every shot, every cut, every dolly in and every close up, they were put there for a reason.

When Netflix blessed me with a service center that was not 5 miles away from me, I became obsessed with movies.  I loved rating the movies that I watched.  After all, Netflix did provide viewing suggestions based on your ratings.  By the end of a couple of months, I had rated over 800 movies, and within a year I had watched and rated more than a thousand movies.  At first, they merely served as entertainment, sometimes a distraction from the hustle and bustle and pain of daily life.  But then I started to become more of a discerning consumer.  I started to take an active interest in films.  I started noticing how there would often be shots of actors only from the chest up.  Sometimes one actor’s face would fill nearly the entire frame.  And then sometimes their presence on the screen was a small one, a small dot in the center of an aerial shot.

IS SCREENWRITING FOR ME?

Not having a formal education in film as an art form, I was a self-proclaimed student of film by way of self-study.  My education consisted of my own observations and notes about the hundreds of movies I had watched…Until the day came when I had to register for classes at my college.  It wasn’t a liberal arts college, so I was rather excited to see that there was a new class being offered.  It was Drama 106: Introduction to Film Appreciation.  Boy was I ecstatic!

Throughout the semester, we watched and studied films like The Cabinet of Dr. Galligari, Citizen Kane, Nosferatu, and surprisingly even The Graduate.  As we progressed through the syllabus, I gained a new appreciation for film.  I came to learn the lingo used in film and why we see two-shots, close-ups, how high angles and low angles are used.  I learned about mise en scene, lighting, the use of sound.  I absorbed all of this new knowledge with a great enthusiasm and appreciation.

Shortly after the semester’s end, I began penning a screenplay.  I noticed that the format felt incredibly natural to me.  Scenes started with a time and a place, new characters were introduced, dialogue was written.  The flow of it came easily – everything just seemed to make sense in a movie.  In fact, I saw my life as fitting into little scenes.  Before entering a classroom, I thought to myself, INT. CLASSROOM – DAY.  People became characters to me, and I studied them as such. I remembered bits and pieces of people I saw, be they bums on the street corner or a pretty lady in the New York City subway.

The question this leads us to is, how do you know if screenwriting is for you?  It may not come as naturally to you as it did for me.  I feel that the only way to see if the format is a good fit for you is to go and try to write one.  Just write out a story that you’d like to tell and put it into a screenplay format.  Also, find something that interests you, something that you’re passionate about.  Authenticity comes from real experience and expertise.

-Terry Ip
Self-styled perennial student of film working towards a career with a pension.

Cleo Mees

Cleo Mees is a Sydney-based writer, filmmaker and dancer. With a background across several disciplines, her interest is in finding out how these different disciplines can intersect and inform each other.

I wanted to figure out who they were, not why they were there. Everyone was there to network.

These guys were Michael and Gabriel, winners of TropFest Junior, the kids section of the largest short film festival in the world.

The big thing is not their first prize. Here’s why I believe they’ve already won:

1. They have plenty of time to fail, learn and win (and no mortgage to pay).
2. They are co-writing (to write faster and better)
3. They are networking (to know more people to sell to)

These teenage filmmakers have what many don’t have: time AND a strategy.

If you don’t have the years to fail and learn, are you really doing everything to counteract this?

Oh and you no longer have an excuse for not being able to work the crowd.

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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Zen may be the key to your well-being; it is the enemy of cinema.

Get your audience into the ‘now’ and your movie is dead. Storytelling for the screen is not about what is NOW but about what comes NEXT.

It is mind-boggling how many people still don’t get this. A couple of weeks ago I overheard a conversation between a major decision maker on government film financing and an eager filmmaker.

She was explaining to him what a wonderful movie she had seen. She also explained how the movie had bombed at the box office.

Wonderful style, fabulous photography. But she maintained that it was a “really good movie”.

It was “such a shame the stupid audience didn’t get it”. She didn’t literally say the last thing, but it was in the subtext.

Many writer/directors – and people outside the commercial reality of the film business – struggle with this essential aspect of storytelling for the screen. They want the audience to admire what is on the screen NOW rather than worry about what is coming NEXT.

This is exactly what sets film apart from other media. And this is exactly where disasters happen when visual art lovers meddle with movies.

Screen emotions are about ANTICIPATION.

Antipation means: hope for a good/better outcome, fear over what might happen to the hero, curiosity over how things will turn out. Nothing of this has to do with the NOW.

Once an audience starts enjoying the beautiful picture, the great music, even an amazing performance (“the actor was really in the moment”), your audience has stopped worrying about what is happening next – and you’ve lost them.

Zen is about being happy and content with what you have, NOW.

Screen story is not.

It’s rather about being UNhappy. About wanting to know, see, experience what will come next. If your audience is content about what’s on the screen NOW, there is no reason to continue watching. On the contrary, they will happily leave the theater and go home.

Once you’re finished with THE POWER OF NOW, check out THE TOOLS OF SCREENWRITING and Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach
to save your screenwriting life.

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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In an average life, most people have a very constricted time. Rarely is a person satisfied with as much sex, food, money and fun as he/she desires. Mostly, society (and health issues) enforce humans to lead somewhat disgruntled lives. Because the alternative, if everyone did exactly what their hearts desired and damn the consequences, would be anarchy and chaos. Plus obesity and death.

The thing inside us all, in our unconscious, that wants to be free, regardless of outcome, is what Freud named the id.

And it wants to play.

Seemingly, scriptwriters have discovered a method to let their id run free. In a script, they can allow their characters to indulge in any taboo behaviour. And with impunity to boot!

Freud said that every person in your dreams is you. And so logically, every character in a script is thus a facet of the scriptwriter. And when characters have sex, kill, and generally do whatever they want, it’s the scriptwriter’s id at work.

Often you’ll meet a scriptwriter and he/she will be bespeckled and timid. And then you’ll read their script and be astonished at what the scriptwriter has written.

You’ve probably heard these comments said about certain scripts…

“I couldn’t continue reading it after he ate his cat.”

“The fact your protagonist does that with his mother makes him unlikeable.”

“I had to look up coprophilia in the dictionary”

Unchecked by the Super Ego ( the disciplinarian part of the unconscious) the id can truly run free. And occasionally some scriptwriters fall prey to their unencumbered id ruining their script. A good example of this is Joe Eszterhas, the writer of BASIC INSTINCT. By the time Eszterhas wrote SHOWGIRLS, a famously bad film, his id had truly and uncontrollably run amok.

Jack Feldstein.

Previously:
PART 1 – THE AUTISTIC FANTASY THEORY
PART 2 – THE NARCISSISTIC THEORY
Next: PART 4 – THE EMPOWERMENT THEORY

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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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SCRIPTWRITING

Or: why a seemingly sane person sits in a room staring at a blank page.
By Jack Feldstein

Since almost the invention of writing in Sumeria, certain people have been compelled to sit, often alone, in a room (or a hut) and fabricate and record their stories.

Why?

I’m going to examine a few psychological explanations for why an apparently rational person might be compelled to undertake the arduous, and mostly thankless, task of writing a script.

PART 1: THE AUTISTIC FANTASY THEORY

An autistic fantasy is defined as a withdrawal into excessive daydreaming rather than taking proactive action in the world. Here the daydream is another term for the unconscious. Scriptwriting would be the act of recording the daydream (unconscious) in words.

A person, often feeling distressed and anxious in the real world, may retreat into their autistic fantasy inner terrain. This is their escape hatch. Here the person is king of the castle and master of all they survey. Which would certainly not be the case in the outside world if they are at the bottom of the pecking order.

Disappearing into an autistic fantasy is known to provide relief from external stress factors. And rather than face true challenges, the scriptwriter chooses to dream about a happy outcome.

Often we hear scriptwriters describing their autistic fantasy like this.

“ I have to get into the zone.”
“My characters have taken over the script.”
“I can only write after a scotch. Or a magic mushroom.”
( alcohol and drugs are well documented in their ability to alter inner psychic states)

A well-known case of extreme autistic fantasy writing is writer and scriptwriter, Virginia Woolf ( she wrote the play ORLANDO which was used almost unchanged to make the film ORLANDO by Sally Potter). Her stream-of-consciousness writing style can be explained by an autistic fantasy state.
Whether, however, that can be blamed for her eventual suicide remains a point of conjecture.

If we say there are two types of people in this world, the hunters (proactive) and the gatherers (passive). Then the scriptwriter lives the life of the safe passive gatherer but possesses the dangerous inner terrain of an active hunter.

And this is enacted in his/her autistic fantasy…

Which is then translated into a script.

Jack Feldstein.

Next week: The Psychology of Scriptwriting (2) – THE NARCISSISTIC THEORY

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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