Why is STORY so hard for me ... how do you deal with it?

[Elsie N]

You are of course free to do whatever you want, but making a movie is a team effort, it's not only doing it. You may have a lot of ideas, everyone has ideas, but creating a film from them with a team and getting people wanting to see your movie is hard and story/storytelling-craft means to try out and print those ideas into a workable blueprint while at the same time use techniques for keeping an audience hooked on the story told.

Why I keep coming back to this is that I've seen so many with your line of thought and they are either successful art film creators or highly unsuccessful filmmakers who give up after wasting a good portion of their life to half-baked films. I would recommend listening to these guys (http://johnaugust.com/podcast) to get into the mindset of what it truly takes to create a story/movie that connects with people. Otherwise you only do something for yourself and good luck getting a team to make that for you.

But you haven't seen ME with this line of thought. '-)

Like I said, I'm not saying follow-the-formula movie makers are bad people. But just because you believe in that doesn't mean that's the only way.

As far as you seeing others experiencing failure, I would suggest there are many more failures following your examples... based on the simple fact that there are more formula trained people making movies.

 

[Tony M]

Patrick,
You asked for help, i believe you have to be ready to accept it.

Patient: I am sick
Doctor: You need to take these tablets
***really huge "coconut-sized" tabs**
Patient: WTF??
Doctor: Yep, thats right!.. And they are bitter as f**k!!

You have read books, You have tried everything. I would say, You are both the doctor and the patient. And you need to take those tablets.

Would i be bold to suggest (again)... You have to give up something. VFX and Camera? Can you do that? For a month? Just take the tablets...and do nothing but live and breathe writing.

This is a problem we all suffer from. Especially most people on reduser. I suffer from it. You suffer from it. You are brave enough to admit it, and share it. I applaud you.
We on this forum, have become so camera and lens sick (insert some tech sickness here). We forget what is most important.

Cinematography is the white on rice (story).
Too many threads here about lenses, and camera, and tech things. Very few threads about story with respect with cinematography. And the few ones that come up, Still birth, they suffer.

And when the oscar seasons comes along, and there are few red cameras productions, we start to complain and say there is some conspiracy.
This is where it should start from.
We are filmmakers and we should worship story. And not camera. We should offer sacrifices and homage of lenses and camera to story, and not the other way round.

You are not alone.

 

[Tony M]

Sticky thread, anyone?

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I read somewhere that one half of the brain has dominance, making a person either artistic or technical in nature.

You have read a gross oversimplification.
Both are in nature. Some lie dormant until awaken.

 

[D Fuller]

I find the hardest thing i do is work on the story. I know Houdini/nukex/studio/motionbuilder/protools/RED ... all sorts of things that people "think" are hard, but getting a few lines together to create a compelling story is by far the hardest thing I do.

I'm pretty sure a lot of other people think the same way, I've read about 400 books on story/scripts/etc. Even guys I really look upto I find struggle with story, one film the story is awesome followed by another film were the story just doesn't come together: Isao Takahata, Akira Kurosawa, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron,Steven Soderbergh. These guys are my heroes, so if they have problems with story, it's totally intimidating for me to work on story.

I have some great collaborators, but I don't think I work with them very effectively. For a indie film like what I'm doing, I need to NAIL the story for it to go into distribution, which I think adds even a bit more stress (which i'm not sure is good or bad). Any hints on how you guys approach story | work on story development | emotionally just deal with "story" | will be very appreciated.

Story is everything. Not just a component. It is the film. And it is unknowable whether a story will work for anybody else until you tell it to them. And with a film, that's expensive, because just a script is not a film, and all those crafts bring things to a film that affect the telling of the story. But they are not the story.

A story tells itself; you, the writer, are only its conduit. That might sound like a lot of hooey, but any writer I know will tell you something like that. It's because the good stories come from a mix of conscious and unconscious thought; they work on an emotional level that is not completely accessible to rational analysis. Writing is like a trip to a foreign place, where you are not really "in control" and things take courses you don't expect. You prepare for writing. You do the research. You do plot outlines. All good. But we humans judge truth emotionally, not rationally. So writing that is truthful must come from that same emotional place, so all thae preparation is only fodder for a process that is less rational than many of us would like.

That said, I do have some suggestions:

Go away. Take only what you need to write. No software for editing or imaging or compositing. Those are distractions that can become sinkholes of time and need to come later. After the writing. Take a laptop with your favorite word processor on it and nothing else. And write. Just write until you have a story you believe. There will be factual inconsistencies and details to correct, but that's what editing is for. You can work all that out after you have the story. And you can work out all of the technical peices of filmmaking later as well. When you are writing, they are only limitations. If you have to figure out the fx in order to write, you'll never be focussed on the story, and you'll limit yourself to what you've already figured out how to do.

Get a good editor. Someone you trust to tell you the truth. Not someone who tells you what you want to hear. You need someone to read the story and tell you where it doesn't work, where it asks too much of the audience's suspension of disbelief, where you simply haven't given the audience enough information to make a leap you ask of them, where your words just suck, and where they ring true. This needs to be someone you respect enough to hear these things from, not someone you feel you can dismiss.

You say you have good collaborators. You don't say what you collaborate on. Do you collaborate on story? If you do, you need to go away with them and hammer it out. But it's rare for a good story to come from a committee. That's because one of the essential for a good story is a point of view. It's hard for a committee to have one, so the story gets mushy. There are exceptions to this, of course--very good writing teams. But they are not the rule, they are the exception, so choose carefully.

OK. That's all I've got to say. I hope it helps.

 

[Billy Barber]

I think you've answered your own question. If it's HARD for you then something's wrong. Not that it shouldn't be work. Not that the best writers don't treat it as an everyday job. Not that writing isn't rewriting. All that is true. It's more...if it isn't all consuming, if you aren't obsessed with your story, having it follow you to the grocery store or an otherwise good night's sleep or the Met's game....maybe you're trying to build a mansion on a poor foundation. Maybe you need to start later, once you've dismissed a thousand other ideas and this one just sits on your shoulder and yells "WRITE ME" as Steven King once suggested in an interview.

You know how to do it though, we all do. Every person gabbing at a bar or breakfast counter or park bench. We all do it all the time. It's just that some stories are better than others and the better ones are easier to write.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Hmmm ... what I was doing this mourning as I was helping my mom out, was pondering a scene in "City Lights". I am truly obsessed with this specific scene, have studied about everything on it, multiple books and hours of interviews. I'm very appreciative of this thread, I think it helped me break through why i'm so interested in the "flower hand" scene in city Lights. Though I don't want to me long winded, but there was a early scene in the film where Chaplin buys a flower from a blind flower lady. That scene to me is the start of the spine of the entire film. If the story spine is a inverse kinematic rig, that scene is the start of the rig - where all the pivots and turns of the film come from. The interview's of Virginia Cherrill (the blind flower lady) crack me up, since I don't think she understood the pivotal role of that scene. Also I totally get why Chaplin delayed production, and we are talking months, to get that scene to work. If that scene didn't have legs, the entire film wouldn't work.

Anyway I have a scene that has a similar role in my film (is the 7th scene in the first act), where I decided to completely reshoot it. My realization today was understanding how that scene, which btw has almost no words(foley has a critical part in that scene in city lights), poses the critical question that the entire spine is based on.

I concur with your scripts vs. story statement. I think this is why your project has an improved chance to succeed. Granted, there are many top Directors that can take someone else's words and get that on screen. They, along with a DP who can speak visually, have a rare talent.

The Indie movie-maker also has a rare talent that allows that person to change the words to fit the story, if necessary. The really rare ones are the ones who can recognize when that is needed.

The thing that has become apparent, and impresses me BTW, is that you seek to make a very good movie rather than just trying to get a movie under your belt. Obviously you have and are willing to further expend time and energy to get it right.

I see this as impossible if you have investors/producers who are concentrating on ROI rather than ROC (Return on Creativity.)

I think this is the critical advantage of a indie film maker has the option to make all scenes fully work. David Lynch's first films come to mind. I realize not every film needs to work this way, but my favorite films even by big studio's did (i.e. chaplin, disney, etc ... as well as David Lynch's early films). I agree 100% with what your saying.

The thing is that while I respect your creative process, if you're going to write something that will involve a lot of people using the screenplay as a blueprint for their work, you need to first write according to how a screenplay should look and inform the crew and actors. Otherwise it will be like a handwritten blueprint of a house, "kinda almost accurate for doing that wall over there"...

I agree your approach works for some people, but not for me. As an example, there is a scene in "Steam Boat Bill, Jr" that is another one of those IK starting spine scenes which my gut tells me the entire film was done around without any script. In that scene Buster's dad, a macho captain, is looking for his son, who is trying to be as macho as possible. But buster see's this crying kid, and does this funny little dance to have the kid not cry(showing busters other key motivator). Buster's dad doesn't see buster entertain this kid (is a double shot around a corner), and thinks buster is a total nothing, and finally asks buster if he his son after being pestered by the 1st mate. This is a totally silent scene, is my favorite scene in all of film making. I realize most people probably don't like that movie, might not ever of heard of it, but that scene is part of my core motivation for doing film.

Patrick, to further my distinction between mainstream movie-making and a holistic approach, maybe you follow what I'm about to say and if not, think about if it works for you.

That is, by holistic I mean writing the story both from a story perspective but also from a director's and even a producer's perspective. My own project was written as an easily produced Play with as few locations and props as possible while still being able to tell the story. This gave me a leg up when thinking of it as a feature in that I could make this movie very inexpensively. Small cast of characters, limited wardrobe requirements, many of which I already had and many others I easily and inexpensively attained. ... This approach is only possible because I wrote the story from a Producer, Director, Writer POV. And because I have contingency plans, I can make a different movie based on financing.

This is one reason why I made massive changes to my script, as i looked at was and wasn't doable financially(I do producer's cost spreadsheets per scene way before green lighting). So I massively rewrote my script and made it animated.

Patrick,
You asked for help, i believe you have to be ready to accept it.

Patient: I am sick
Doctor: You need to take these tablets
***really huge "coconut-sized" tabs**
Patient: WTF??
Doctor: Yep, thats right!.. And they are bitter as f**k!!
...
Too many threads here about lenses, and camera, and tech things. Very few threads about story with respect with cinematography. And the few ones that come up, Still birth, they suffer.

And when the oscar seasons comes along, and there are few red cameras productions, we start to complain and say there is some conspiracy.
This is where it should start from.
We are filmmakers and we should worship story. And not camera. We should offer sacrifices and homage of lenses and camera to story, and not the other way round.

You are not alone.

LMAO ... your totally right. I asked my Dad one time when wood crafting masters know they are finished sanding, he said when then take the furniture away. This is going to sound horrible, but I was pondering this mourning doing some of the female actor scenes because I didn't think they could get the hand movements down exactly (I can redo my body/hip/arm dimmensions in motion builder based on my motion capture system). Anyway after reading this, I decided I will not MOCAP the female actresses parts myself, that is unless I HAVE TO

...
Both are in nature. Some lie dormant until awaken.

My fundamental viewpoint is that all movies are created in the audience minds, not the production, and a great movie is great because of what the audience created. I think a lot of creativity is crushed into dormancy.

Story is everything. Not just a component. It is the film. And it is unknowable whether a story will work for anybody else until you tell it to them. And with a film, that's expensive, because just a script is not a film, and all those crafts bring things to a film that affect the telling of the story. But they are not the story.

A story tells itself; you, the writer, are only its conduit. That might sound like a lot of hooey, but any writer I know will tell you something like that. It's because the good stories come from a mix of conscious and unconscious thought; they work on an emotional level that is not completely accessible to rational analysis. Writing is like a trip to a foreign place, where you are not really "in control" and things take courses you don't expect. You prepare for writing. You do the research. You do plot outlines. All good. But we humans judge truth emotionally, not rationally. So writing that is truthful must come from that same emotional place, so all thae preparation is only fodder for a process that is less rational than many of us would like.

That said, I do have some suggestions:

Go away. Take only what you need to write. ...

Get a good editor...
It's hard for a committee to have one, so the story gets mushy. There are exceptions to this, of course--very good writing teams. But they are not the rule, they are the exception, so choose carefully.

OK. That's all I've got to say. I hope it helps.

Thanks, that helps. One thing i'm trying to get going is using frame.io for story board and animation review. I think the committee story approach works for some, but not for me either. I think the nice thing on a committee is it brings stability to a series.

I think you've answered your own question. If it's HARD for you then something's wrong. Not that it shouldn't be work. Not that the best writers don't treat it as an everyday job. Not that writing isn't rewriting. All that is true. It's more...if it isn't all consuming, if you aren't obsessed with your story, having it follow you to the grocery store or an otherwise good night's sleep or the Met's game....maybe you're trying to build a mansion on a poor foundation...

If I could tweek your comment, I think if it's hard to do a story, something is right, but needs to be worked out. I don't know anything for sure, but I think some of the best stories are very difficult to get hammered out. My favorite film is "Mary Poppins", I literally completely chokeup overtime i see the scene "feed the birds". I think "saving mr banks" did a good job in describing the frustration of making that film, if anything I think they toned it down a bit so it would have a pg-13 rating. I also think that film did a great job in explaining how often the core crux/spine element can be completely missed, and it was only by Disney's and the writers last minute tenacity that the film didn't fail.

 

[D Fuller]

Thanks, that helps. One thing i'm trying to get going is using frame.io for story board and animation review. I think the committee story approach works for some, but not for me either. I think the nice thing on a committee is it brings stability to a series.

I think the nice thing about committees is theat they bring speed to a series. An episode has to be written in a week. Or three, but you get the point. And with a strong lead writer and good EP, all that can be coordinated and work, but even in a good series, there are episodes that disappoint because the writers just haven't nailed it. For and indie filmmaker, though, it can be very hard to maintain a clear point of view when too many voices get into your head.

In my view, the most important thing is to find a way to clear your head of everything, so that the story and its characters can inhabit it. (Or if you write as parto of a team, clear your heads of everything.) Then you can write the story. Editing comes later.

It's very important for most of us to have a good, trusted editor to force us to make things work when they don't, but that's not the same thing as showing the script to everybody you know and asking them what they think. Not at all. Be very careful about over-workshopping your script, it can destroy the script, and sometinmes it can destroy the writer. I've seen that happen. Everybody you ask will have something to say, and most of it will be meaningless drivel, because most of them won't know what they're talking about, but still feel they have to say something. (Here's a clue: if a comment starts with "I don't like..." stop listening. The editor's job is not to tell you wnat s/he doesn't like, it's to tell you what doesn't work. And to keep telling you until you, the writer, make it work.)

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I agree your approach works for some people, but not for me.

Some people? You mean the entire industry of professional writers, studios, production companies, casts and crews? The screenplay is still the blueprint and the craft of screenwriting is still as important as the craft of everything else.

As an example, there is a scene in "Steam Boat Bill, Jr" that is another one of those IK starting spine scenes which my gut tells me the entire film was done around without any script. In that scene Buster's dad, a macho captain, is looking for his son, who is trying to be as macho as possible. But buster see's this crying kid, and does this funny little dance to have the kid not cry(showing busters other key motivator). Buster's dad doesn't see buster entertain this kid (is a double shot around a corner), and thinks buster is a total nothing, and finally asks buster if he his son after being pestered by the 1st mate. This is a totally silent scene, is my favorite scene in all of film making. I realize most people probably don't like that movie, might not ever of heard of it, but that scene is part of my core motivation for doing film.

But this is not story, this is a scene or a sequence. It might be something that inspires you and a sequence that you love, but story is the whole arc of a movie, book, game etc.
You may continue to create movies without any screenplay, but you say that story is hard? Maybe it's because you try to make it without caring about the craft of screenwriting or the craft of crafting a story as people have done since forever. I bump into this kind of thinking all the time and it's frustrating to see people waste so much potential because they don't care about learning the craft.

I wrote and directed a lot of short films a few years back and I was unhappy all the time because nothing worked. I had the idea in mind, I hade the atmosphere and characters and everything. I even had the overall arc of change that the protagonist has, but I hadn't really studied story as a craft, I couldn't apply what I knew into a working screenplay. Since then I've been occupied with other work but I've also chosen to really study these things hard by studying directing and screenwriting from people who actually work with it, not "gurus" who promise gold and fortune if you follow their 12-step program. I'm just now, like ten years later, beginning to be confident in the craft and I've helped numerous people who wrote really bad screenplays to stop, pull the plug on their production and do a rewrite before continuing. They've all been confident that their idea is great, but they wasted that idea with a bad crafted screenplay. Knowing the craft of screenwriting is not to apply some "formula" that makes your story a copy of everything else, but instead a way of improving the idea you already have and be able to tell it in the best possible way.

In your example you tell the happening of a certain event, but if you actually craft out a screenplay based on these characters, then this scene might be even more powerful in how it relates to the movie as a whole or how it relates to other scenes for which this is connected. This scene could be untouched in how it plays out, but the scenes around this event is just as important. If the other scenes of the movie builds up to or are powerful consequences of this scene then this scene will be even more powerful.

My point is, if you struggle with story and find it hard, it might just be because you approach story in the wrong way. Learning the craft is still hard, it's one of the hardest things you can learn, but when you start feeling confident in crafting a story you will find that the only thing blocking you is the lack of ideas. If you have strong ideas and knows the craft you will not be able to stop creating good stories. But why waste potential ideas by using a process and approach that very easily could mess up your movie?

 

[Ian Laurie]

This was a very cool read. I too suffer from the "story blockade" of the brain. I also like you have taught myself many many other aspects of film making. I find it difficult to collaborate with most people, but have a small few that i work well with. This results in me wanting to write, but ultimately stalling out and instead trying a new filming/compositing/ ridiculously over complicated shot. I edit to the music, not the music to the edit. Like Elsie, i build things as a whole, not as individual processes. I direct and shoot for editing. Its a very strange place to be when you work on large collaborative pieces, yet you are bored, or worse, irritated by the way things are being done because you know its going to be unnecessarily complicated. Even more frustrating though is being a silo who can do most of everything themselves, but just dont have the ability to let go with a great story to attach them too. I know what my blockage is, its self editing. I don't like my own voice. I am not confident in it. I cant see past it in a story i create, and that kills the process for me. Hand me a mere concept of someone else's and my brain lights up like the Griswold house on christmas. But my own are beaten into a pulp by my self judgement. I would say your best bet is to just write with no self thought. who cares if its absolute crap. Just do it, and then let someone else read it, uncensored. I have done this only a couple times and it always turns out far better than i expected. So my guess is, your too critical of your own ideas.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

couple of thoughts

get a book you like, one which touches you deeply.
if the author is dead for 70 years, you are free to use the story for a film.

listen to yourself, which topics do touch you deep inside. (injustice, politics, loyality, friendship, escaping into a fantasy world etc) - write them down. Look for articles etc.
what is your opinion on that topic? When was the last time your opinion was controversal in a conversation? make a debate out of your story leading to your opinion at the end.

are you attracted to plotdriven or character driven movies? decide and stick to that.

a couple simple rules.
1. show, dont tell.
2. dont let two people talk about something both know
3. causality is the secret sauce of every story.
4. entertain yourself in every scene, play with your own expectations...you know pretty fast when a scene starts how it will end, so try to write the scene different.
5. write each character so, that you get great actors even for the small parts.
6. write only down what you can actually film....you cant film "Bob is angry." You can film "Bob destroys the table".
7. read every day a screenplay of a movie you like and then watch the film afterwards.
8. become a great storyteller by really telling storys infront of people (family, friends, get comfortable and try it with strangers at partys)...you know there are guys at partys who can make a cool story out of almost everything? Be like that guy, he can entertain.
9. dont try to learn to dance, just dance to the rhythm.
10. fuck all theory, if you can entertain for 2 hours, you did succeed.
11. dont create a passive hero!!! he needs a goal, let him fight for it, while struggeling.
12. read, read, read screenplays
14. if you wanna direct, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awce_j2myQw coppolas notebook on the godfather
15. read interviews form directors, watch audio commentaries
16. analys movies you like, why is there a scene, what is the purpose, why does it work the way it works?
17. do the same with movies you hate. why doesnt it work, what did the filmmaker try and why did it fail, what would be your solution?


Edit: funny thing is that a screenplay exists to convince people, thats it. shooting a scene with real people is a whole different thing. sometimes a scene which was superb on paper, doenst work at all on set. Then you get creative and work your way to the core of the scene with your actors. Always listen to actors.

sorry for my english.

 

[Brian Pascale]

Most movies have simple stories. Can be as simple as, character wakes up and something happens to him, because that happened, then this naturally happens. Because the character has a short temper, the second thing that happens to him sends him into a rage. That rage creates a third thing, that has been simmering for a while, to boil over.

Make your story as simple as possible. This is your core. Then you can add to that as appropriate. What is the most interesting way to tell your story? I normally outline my story before I start my script, that way I have a road map and never get stuck. When I write the script more details and ideas getting added in.

I have read my fair share of "how to write" books and then realized I was just avoiding writing. Don't over think it. Your first pass doesn't need to be good, that is what re-writing is for. When writing finally gets fun is when you have done it long enough to actually enjoy the re-writing the most. When that happens, you have a good chance of creating something great.

One thing that really helped me tell stories was doing documentaries. In documentaries you are looking for compelling stories from real life. So you develop a sense of what is a good story. Once you find that story, you have to tell it in a compelling manner. The sooner you find the core, the easier the whole process is. So how would you tell your story if these were real people and you had to film what was going on in there lives?

Lastly, my stories are driven by the characters. That means you need to listen to their voices. Just like real people, they will be more than happy to tell you what drives them if you ask them and are good at listening. I know I have hit it when I start thinking of my characters as real people.

 

[Fabricio Morato]

So I read almost all the post here and will give my 2 cents.
There are some really good tips on writing here, others not so much.

I would say that if you think you have an idea that you believe it's really really good, unique, and that only you can write, you should just do an outline of this story and then start writing other things.
Writing, like many other things, is a "muscle". You will only make it better by exercising it. And I know people that are junior writers for telenovelas and they write a lot (some telenovelas here in Brazil stay almost 10 months and it's one hour every day - obvious the quality is not that great compared to a series or feature film... but still) and their writing gets better over time.
That's because they are exercising this "muscle" and learning some tricks to writing a story that they can use and reuse and make it seem like a fresh idea. As mentioned here, there are some great books with different methodologies, you have to find the one that fits your style better.

And then after you exercise a few times, go back to that one idea that is sitting there. You will see that it will move more fluidly (hopefully).

And just remember that movies get tons of treatment, and from different writers, so the first draft shouldn't be the perfect one. IMO the first draft needs to be good enough for someone else understand the main concept of it, but doesn't need to be close to being final.

Hope something here helps.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Thanks so much for the contiuning on these idea's. Might be working, since the hardest thing I did today was get in my lycra motion capture suite.

... In my view, the most important thing is to find a way to clear your head of everything, so that the story and its characters can inhabit it. (Or if you write as parto of a team, clear your heads of everything.) Then you can write the story. Editing comes later.

... Here's a clue: if a comment starts with "I don't like..." stop listening. The editor's job is not to tell you wnat s/he doesn't like, it's to tell you what doesn't work. And to keep telling you until you, the writer, make it work.)

I was taught this old school Japanese way of drawing, and part of that was I taught how to hold my pen like a sword (maybe they just explain things this way to interest boys). Anyway they also go over repetition, and one of the stories they tell is about master sword makers, pounding out the sword then folding it over, over and over. I was able to read what you said in the mourning, and this old story crossed my mind, and I have been thinking of it a bit as a analogy on how to hammer out and fold a story into shape. When this was explained to me as a kid, was kind of zen thing that is hard to restate.

Some people? You mean the entire industry of professional writers, studios, production companies, casts and crews? The screenplay is still the blueprint and the craft of screenwriting is still as important as the craft of everything else...

hmm ... safe for me to say there's a 5000+ year old tradition of story telling, which to me was a oral tradition moved to writing(I've read most stories & plays in latin, greek and middle egyptian ... been focusing on stories that have moved anciently from india to china recently.). When I studied the early greek plays I really was fascinated by audience participation especially in the chorus, I feel the tide is significantly turning back to that tradition(i think this is fairly obvious just looking at financials).

So in a modern context, I would never tell an actor what to say, just explain the problem the character has in the scene and let the actors solve it. So if I was going to talk about screenwriting, which wasn't my point of this thread, it would be more of a IK framework following the disney process, but where every participant can play a evolving part.

This was a very cool read. I too suffer from the "story blockade" of the brain. I also like you have taught myself many many other aspects of film making. I find it difficult to collaborate with most people, but have a small few that i work well with. This results in me wanting to write, but ultimately stalling out and instead trying a new filming/compositing/ ridiculously over complicated shot. I edit to the music, not the music to the edit. Like Elsie, i build things as a whole, not as individual processes. I direct and shoot for editing. Its a very strange place to be when you work on large collaborative pieces, yet you are bored, or worse, irritated by the way things are being done because you know its going to be unnecessarily complicated. Even more frustrating though is being a silo who can do most of everything themselves, but just dont have the ability to let go with a great story to attach them too. I know what my blockage is, its self editing. I don't like my own voice. I am not confident in it. I cant see past it in a story i create, and that kills the process for me. Hand me a mere concept of someone else's and my brain lights up like the Griswold house on christmas. But my own are beaten into a pulp by my self judgement. I would say your best bet is to just write with no self thought. who cares if its absolute crap. Just do it, and then let someone else read it, uncensored. I have done this only a couple times and it always turns out far better than i expected. So my guess is, your too critical of your own ideas.

I've been pondering the the folding concept of story building, where you hammer things out for a bit, then just fold it to see what touches, then hammer together the new connection. Kind of takes some focus, but is something i'm gonna try.

couple of thoughts

get a book you like, one which touches you deeply.
if the author is dead for 70 years, you are free to use the story for a film.

listen to yourself, which topics do touch you deep inside. (injustice, politics, loyality, friendship, escaping into a fantasy world etc) - write them down. Look for articles etc.
what is your opinion on that topic? When was the last time your opinion was controversal in a conversation? make a debate out of your story leading to your opinion at the end.

are you attracted to plotdriven or character driven movies? decide and stick to that.

a couple simple rules.
1. show, dont tell.
2. dont let two people talk about something both know
3. causality is the secret sauce of every story.
4. entertain yourself in every scene, play with your own expectations...you know pretty fast when a scene starts how it will end, so try to write the scene different.
5. write each character so, that you get great actors even for the small parts.
6. write only down what you can actually film....you cant film "Bob is angry." You can film "Bob destroys the table".
7. read every day a screenplay of a movie you like and then watch the film afterwards.
8. become a great storyteller by really telling storys infront of people (family, friends, get comfortable and try it with strangers at partys)...you know there are guys at partys who can make a cool story out of almost everything? Be like that guy, he can entertain.
9. dont try to learn to dance, just dance to the rhythm.
10. fuck all theory, if you can entertain for 2 hours, you did succeed.
11. dont create a passive hero!!! he needs a goal, let him fight for it, while struggeling.
12. read, read, read screenplays
14. if you wanna direct, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awce_j2myQw coppolas notebook on the godfather
15. read interviews form directors, watch audio commentaries
16. analys movies you like, why is there a scene, what is the purpose, why does it work the way it works?
17. do the same with movies you hate. why doesnt it work, what did the filmmaker try and why did it fail, what would be your solution?


Edit: funny thing is that a screenplay exists to convince people, thats it. shooting a scene with real people is a whole different thing. sometimes a scene which was superb on paper, doenst work at all on set. Then you get creative and work your way to the core of the scene with your actors. Always listen to actors.

sorry for my english.

I like this sequence you wrote out. Often what I do is just replace all the words with keys, then look at the frequency relationships. Then with the frequency relationships i do tensional analysis over time. Kind of creates story structure wavelets which i can play with.

...

Lastly, my stories are driven by the characters. That means you need to listen to their voices. Just like real people, they will be more than happy to tell you what drives them if you ask them and are good at listening. I know I have hit it when I start thinking of my characters as real people.

Agree 100%, also what is detailed character studies, to the point where I paint the character and sometimes post the creation of the painting on the internet. On my antagonists, what often i find is people that are of the same general type, actually start hating on the post ... that's when I new i nailed the character.

... And then after you exercise a few times, go back to that one idea that is sitting there. You will see that it will move more fluidly (hopefully).

And just remember that movies get tons of treatment, and from different writers, so the first draft shouldn't be the perfect one. IMO the first draft needs to be good enough for someone else understand the main concept of it, but doesn't need to be close to being final.

Hope something here helps.

What I find hard is getting over story problems in a film during production, given the script is basically solid. To your comment on fluidity, I TOTALLY LIKE THAT, I like to bring in the actors viewpoint during the film to solve problems in the story. A great example of that is in 2001, where Stanley Kubrick asked Kier Dullea something in that closing sequence where he is at the sink, and Kier totally reblocked everthing creating the time/self view ... which to me totally solved the story problem that was in that scene.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I was taught this old school Japanese way of drawing, and part of that was I taught how to hold my pen like a sword (maybe they just explain things this way to interest boys). Anyway they also go over repetition, and one of the stories they tell is about master sword makers, pounding out the sword then folding it over, over and over. I was able to read what you said in the mourning, and this old story crossed my mind, and I have been thinking of it a bit as a analogy on how to hammer out and fold a story into shape. When this was explained to me as a kid, was kind of zen thing that is hard to restate.

Let me say a few things about that! I've been studying martial arts for the past several years, and recently visited Japan to see a sword being born:

When I returned, we hosted a world-class pianist in our studio to play Chopin on an antique Pleyel piano that Chopin himself had played in Paris. The pianist was also once a nationally competitive weight-lifter in Germany. She explained that her piano technique is not limited to the fingers, but in finding the whole body movement that, with correct fingering, allows her to play exactly what she imagines. Moreover, she claims that she has far more accurate motor control in how she moves her arms than how she moves what's at the ends of her wrists. Therefore, her accuracy comes from proper arm movement that is translated into proper finger positioning (forward kinematics, for those who pay attention to such things).

Our practice of sword technique is very similar. The sword focuses our whole body movements into a tip (boshi) that's about 2" long. It is a very FK thing, and it is very much driven by the intention that comes from the hara (body center) to the boshi. I imagine that by holding your pen like a sword, you open the channel to express yourself through the pen and creating the subject you wish to express, rather than having the pen being pushed around to conform to the will of the subject it's drawing.

 

[Elsie N]

Often when I come up with an idea of a story I know the ending and the beginning before ever starting the fulfillment. After that it just remains to manage the Deficit of my self-diagnosed Attention Disorder and stay engaged.

But reading some of these last posts has left me feeling like Grasshopper Caine as I am being exposed to ways that teach how to selectively allow whole body control, allowing a task to seek its level to a satisfactory conclusion.

Not sure I will realize immediate benefit from this teaching... after all, I am still a Grasshopper. '-)

 

[PatrickFaith]

Let me say a few things about that! I've been studying martial arts for the past several years, and recently visited Japan to see a sword being born:

When I returned, we hosted a world-class pianist in our studio to play Chopin on an antique Pleyel piano that Chopin himself had played in Paris. The pianist was also once a nationally competitive weight-lifter in Germany. She explained that her piano technique is not limited to the fingers, but in finding the whole body movement that, with correct fingering, allows her to play exactly what she imagines. Moreover, she claims that she has far more accurate motor control in how she moves her arms than how she moves what's at the ends of her wrists. Therefore, her accuracy comes from proper arm movement that is translated into proper finger positioning (forward kinematics, for those who pay attention to such things).

Our practice of sword technique is very similar. The sword focuses our whole body movements into a tip (boshi) that's about 2" long. It is a very FK thing, and it is very much driven by the intention that comes from the hara (body center) to the boshi. I imagine that by holding your pen like a sword, you open the channel to express yourself through the pen and creating the subject you wish to express, rather than having the pen being pushed around to conform to the will of the subject it's drawing.

I am fanatical on the Bach cello pieces, also it drives me crazy how cello is taught with finger position rather then understanding ones full body. I will definitely be getting some of these albums, I also play the piano in much the same way. I btw have been researching some early german films on story development, and been reading about Paul Wegener, primarily since he kind of reminded me of my grandfather (an Austrian smithing family that was somehow connected to Genghis Khan).

If you have any good books or films on this hara/boshi, I will read & watch them. What your saying fits with my mindset that a feature film is a "whole" inverse kinematic body that changes through the movement, yet that body is focused on a scene that divides, then finally cuts through a problem. When hammering and folding away on any part of the story, I try to keep a relaxed focus is on that dividing curve in my minds eye.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Often when I come up with an idea of a story I know the ending and the beginning before ever starting the fulfillment. After that it just remains to manage the Deficit of my self-diagnosed Attention Disorder and stay engaged.

But reading some of these last posts has left me feeling like Grasshopper Caine as I am being exposed to ways that teach how to selectively allow whole body control, allowing a task to seek its level to a satisfactory conclusion.

Not sure I will realize immediate benefit from this teaching... after all, I am still a Grasshopper. '-)

I don't see anything wrong with that, I actually think what your saying is how to do it ... but keeping that zen like focus on the cutting problem is really a ton of work. If anything I think I'm coming to the point to not worry when I'm having problems, just keep pounding away with a visionary focus.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

What your saying fits with my mindset that a feature film is a "whole" inverse kinematic body that changes through the movement

Note that what I'm trying to say is that a feature film is a forward kinematic system that acts upon the senses of the audience. In my view, where feature films go wrong is when they slip into inverse kinematic mode, i.e., the plot or the character artificially adjusts to fit some producer-defined or budget-defined or time-defined milestone. To heck with matching the calculations--just make the action happen and let the consequences fall where they may! Or, to put another way, create a new reality from the unknown using bold strokes, rather than painting by numbers!

 

[PatrickFaith]

Note that what I'm trying to say is that a feature film is a forward kinematic system that acts upon the senses of the audience. In my view, where feature films go wrong is when they slip into inverse kinematic mode, i.e., the plot or the character artificially adjusts to fit some producer-defined or budget-defined or time-defined milestone. To heck with matching the calculations--just make the action happen and let the consequences fall where they may! Or, to put another way, create a new reality from the unknown using bold strokes, rather than painting by numbers!

I didn't get that the first time, I totally get what your saying now. There is a animation story/script writing book that explains development in this FK approach called "Directing the Story" by Francis Glebas (from Disney). Interesting that in live action I don't think it's used much, Casablanca is a stand out (I liked it that Ingrid Bergman as an actress was confused in the film since the script was done just the day before on each day, and they integrated her confused state in not knowing what was going on - into the story). I'm speaking out of my butt a bit here (since I've never completed a feature film) but what I think i'm doing is mixed FK/IK spine, and using the tension in time where the two models conflict as my turn points. There's a french photography historian, "Michel Frizot", that said something like the story/history of photography "could be described as a race against time", which I think could be reversed to "the story inside film is a race against time". I wonder if RED would agree with that from a purely technical viewpoint (i.e. i bet a lot of the complexity of the digital camera is trying to do things within a specific time and a bunch of race conditions). I btw don't know of any of Michel's books being in english, but I think the story of french photography is very interesting since it's so closely related to the art movement in Paris. There's btw a kind of newish english book out on by Frizot about "Andre Kertesz", but is $200 so was a bit too steep for a random purchase.