setup

Structure: Thelma & Louise

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I am a fan of Ridley Scott’s flamboyant visual style of filmmaking. Although he has had numerous box office successes, in my view he has never equalled the overall excellence of THELMA & LOUISE (1991). It is a fabulous movie and an outstanding debut script by first-timer Callie Khouri. Here is an attempt to analyse … Read more

That Mid-Point Thing

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Following UNK’s publication of his post on The Mid Point and to the benefit of the students in a recent HERO’S JOURNEY workshop, I have updated the article of 20 April last year about this important turning point. Since writing the below post, I have come to realise that the mid point may well be … Read more

Inciting Incident: Planting the Bomb

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Keeping the audience interested throughout the ‘setup’ is a major challenge as professional readers won’t last until the Inciting Incident if the first ten or twelve pages don’t deliver. The ‘setup’ is often a complete sequence in which we see the ‘Ordinary World’, the protagonist’s ‘normal life’, an area of the story that by its … Read more

The Inciting Incident

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The first guy to write down that a story needs a beginning, middle and end, was Aristotle. About twenty-four centuries ago. But his beginning is not the same as our Act One; it is the point in this act where the story kicks off. What Aristotle was talking about, in screen story terms we call … Read more

Act One: No Inciting Incident

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BRUBAKER strays from the traditional structure because of its offbeat First Act. It lacks an Inciting Incident, nor does it have any significant protagonist characterisation. We witness from Robert Redford’s character’s POV how the most appalling injustice and brutality is inflicted relentlessly upon his fellow inmates. Over thirty minutes into the movie, Redford’s character identifies … Read more