Yesterday, we were privileged with having Brian Strasmann come into class and lecture us on the process of writing a treatment and screenplay. He's worked in Hollywood for a number of years and worked on films such as Free Willy, so he's been in the filmmaking game for a while.
He explained to us a four-page structure for getting down the story for a winning screenplay. First off, he recommended that we know our beginning, middle and ending. That's important. His four page structure went a little something like this:
1/2 page on the opening scene, condensed and specific.
1/2 page of a general narrative synopsis of the first act.
1/2 page of a dramatic recreation of a plot point, condensed and specific.
1 page narrative synopsis summarizing the second act, fairly general, naming four obstacles for the main character to overcome.
1/2 page of a dramatic recreation of a plot point at the end of the second act, specific and condensed.
1/2 page narrative synopsis of third act.
1/2 page dramatic recreation of the ending scene, specific and condensed.
He said this model works for anything from a short film to a full-blown feature length. Of course, ours is going to have to be modified a little bit because it's a dual feature-documentary thing, but I'm going to meet with Brian and Phil tomorrow along with some other writers to discuss how to exactly implement this for our project.
No comments:
Post a Comment