Your story’s theme represents the lesson your hero needs to learn. To teach that lesson to your hero, you need to demonstrate that lesson (your theme) in a visually interesting manner so the audience learns this lesson (theme) too. In “The Karate Kid,” the hero learns the mentor’s lesson through seemingly trivial and meaningless exercises. […]
Everyone can get a great idea for a movie. The hard part is turning that great idea into a polished screenplay. To go from a great idea to a polished screenplay, the first step is to solidify your story foundation that consists of five items: A Hero pursuing an Impossible Goal, overcoming Obstacles by a […]
It’s a law of physics that every time there’s a cause, there’s an effect. Unfortunately in bad and mediocre movies, this law gets ignored all the time. When you don’t have cause and affect, things seem to pop out of nowhere just to advance the plot. For example, in “The Hunger Games,” Katniss is trying […]
During the 80’s, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Pat Proft wrote a series of movies spoofs including “Airplane!” “The Naked Gun,” and “Hot Shots.” All of these comedies always had a target. In “The Naked Gun,” the comedy centered around skewering police cliches such as the good cop bribing a witness. In “The […]
Your hero has two goals: a physical goal and an emotional goal. What’s important is that your hero achieves the emotional goal, but pursuit of the physical goal allows the hero to achieve that emotional goal. For example in “Rocky,” Rocky thinks he wants a shot at the championship but what he really wants is […]
Maleficent is my latest favorite mediocre movie. Take Angelia Jolie out of the starring role and there would be little reason for people to watch it. Angelina Jolie does an excellent job portraying the lead character, but the rest of the actors could be completely interchangeable and nobody would know the difference. So what makes […]
One of the best animated feature of the last few years is “Wreck-It Ralph.” By studying this screenplay after watching the movie, you can better see how the story works. The most important part is the unity of the story. In the beginning, the hero (Wreck-It Ralph) is a bad guy who doesn’t like being […]
Before you start writing, make sure your story structure is solid first. Your story structure acts like a map that details what happens, when, and why. Until you know most of these crucial details, don’t start writing or else you’ll risk writing a mess that goes in all directions and ultimately wastes your time. Some […]
Watch an older movie and if it seems slow, look to see if there are multiple story lines. Many older movies focus solely on the hero with the other characters existing only to fill out the background. As a result, older movies tend to feel slow and drag. Now watch more current movies and you’ll […]
Pixar has put out some of the best animated movies in history with classics such as “Toy Story,” “The Incredibles,” and “Finding Nemo.” To understand Pixar’s story telling techniques, it’s often easier to study their short films. By browsing through their different short film descriptions, you can get a rough idea how each story works. […]