Category: Screenwriting

by Donald L. Vasicek

Do you make the same mistake so many other screenwriters make when writing screenplays? Do you overlook the fact that in order to get produced in Hollywood, you need to write screenplays that Hollywood produces?

I’m not sure where I read this, but I read where the best movie of 2001 was “Shrek.” The article went on to describe the reasons why. “Shrek” made more money at the box office and was the longest running movie of any movie released in 2001. Also, “Shrek” covers the largest demographic, as people of all ages go to it (kids, teens, adults and seniors). Perhaps the key thing that has made “Shrek” so popular is word-of-mouth.

“Shrek” and “The Prince of Egypt” are Hollywood-produced movies. What do they contain that your screenplays do not contain? Remember, I am writing about how to write screenplays that get produced; not how to write screenplays.

The first element “Shrek” and “The Prince of Egypt” have that your screenplays should also have is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. “Shrek” and “The Prince of Egypt” take us from dire beginnings, to riveting middles, to powerful endings that touch our hearts. “Shrek” and “The Prince of Egypt” also track a main character.

“Shrek” and “The Prince of Egypt” introduce us to and immerse us in the main character’s world. They present a dramatic premise. They show us the main character’s fatal flaw which they must overcome if they are to win what they want to win. What they want to win is more dear to them than anything else in their lives at the time. It is a universal “dear”. And as well, what is dear to these main characters is also dear to us. This is one way we are hooked into each movie.

At the end of Act I, in “Shrek” and “The Prince of Egypt” situations occur that devastate the main characters and us. The situations spin the main characters and us around and shoot us and them off into Act II. In Act II, they take the main characters and us through a labyrinth of experiences that pull the main characters to the edge of breaking and us to the edge of our seats. And it is all because we have been transformed from viewers to main characters ourselves.

We think and feel as the main characters think and feel. We’re pulling for them regardless of how reckless they might be. Just about the time, we think all is lost, and we’re going to have to limp off home to mend our wounds, something occurs that brings the main characters new hope. With this new found hope, we sweat with the main characters as they overcome superhuman odds to win. In the end, we see the main characters transform, and somehow, inside of us, a transformation also takes place. And we go home with a happy heart and a good-feeling mind about ourselves and our lives.

There are a number of less-than-spectacular movies that are churned out of Hollywood each year. The fine point of writing screenplays is contained in the elements and structure that have been described previously. If you are skeptical of this, or if you still feel you write screenplays that Hollywood should produce, then you might want to take time out to study movies that Hollywood has produced. Be certain your screenplay writing contains aspects of the kinds of movies Hollywood produces to give you confidence in your convictions.

You should also read the screenplays of these movies. Once you have accomplished this, outline the movies/screenplays scene-by-scene. By doing this physical and mental activity, you will discover elements of these movies that you otherwise may overlook. In your findings, you will learn about critical turning points that are so crucial for good storytelling. You will also ascertain transformation arcs the main characters go through as they move forward to accomplishing the goals that are set up for them during the execution of the dramatic premises. You will clearly recognize those universal elements which hook.

Good writing to you!

by
Donald L. Vasicek

You have your movie idea. You’ve played around with
ways to begin writing it in screenplay form. About the
time you come up with something that feels good, you hit an
obstacle, or more, in the next few pages. You bog down by
page ten, hit quit on your toolbar, or break your #2
pencil, or throw your Bic pen across the room. You wonder
if you will ever be able to write this screenplay,
something your heart continually digs at you to do. What
to do? What to do?

Well, I have a simple solution. If you follow what I
am about to write, I can’t guarantee that you won’t bog
down again. What I can guarantee you is that every time
you begin writing a new screenplay, you’re going to get off
to a fresh and creative start that will keep you writing.

What is this, your muse asks? What this is, is how to
write page one of your screenplay. The first step is to
organize your thoughts. What is the main theme for your
story? Who is the main character? Where is your story
taking place? When is your story occurring? Why are you
writing this story? How did you come up with this story
idea? Most screenplays that get sold and produced address
these questions on page one, or in minute one of the movie.

The second step is to answer these questions.
Start with how you came up with this story idea. Look
inside of yourself for the answer. Search your heart.
Somewhere inside of it, you experienced something that
triggered your desire to write the story you are about to
write. Find what that is, and write it down in a short,
simple sentence. Then, think about why you are writing
this story. The answer to this question should emerge out
of your answer to how you came up with your story idea.
Figure it out, write it down. From these two answers, you
should be able to determine the main theme for your story,
what caused you to want to write your story.

Study your answers to learn how and why you came up
with this story idea. What you find will relate to a
single emotion. This emotion is universal. It will define
your main theme. It will be universal since all human
beings experience the same emotions, and you must be
universal if you want to attract people to your screenplay.

Write down the answer in a simple sentence. By defining
your main theme, you will be able to define who your main
character is going to be. Don’t deny yourself this fact,
your main character is going to be you. At the least,
he/she is going to be some part of you, that part that
strongly relates to your main theme. The last two answers
should come more easily.

Where is your story taking place? Relate how, why,
who, what to where? Here, you can play around a little
bit. This is easy because you know quite a bit about your
story now. You’ll probably come up with a setting that
relates closely to you. By coming up with the setting for
your story, you can also easily determine when the story
will take place. By now being aware of how, why, who,
what, and where, your muse will beckon you to establish the
appropriate time of your story, when. When should your
story take place is easy if you think about how you feel
now as compared to how, why, who, what and where. Once you
have your answers, step three is that you need to come up
with a visual metaphor that begins your screenplay.

This visual metaphor must reflect the how, why, who,
what, where, and when of your story. In my produced
screenplay, “The Crown” (changed by the producer to “Born
to Win”), the how was a vacant place in my heart that was
created in my childhood. The why was how I was raised.
The who was me. The what was trusts were broken. The
where was in a small town in Nebraska. When was the
present, but I made my main character a 14 year-old
boy, when I was fourteen. The visual metaphor surfaced out
of the what, trusts were broken. The single emotion,
trust, became the main theme of my story. The visual
metaphor on page one of “The Crown” is a butterfly
fluttering away from a gravestone symbolizing that to let
go is to trust. The boy’s transformation arc (all well-
done movies have at least one character going through a
transformation arc during the movie, and the key character
for this to occur is with your main character) in the story
was based on this theme. Once he let go of his deceased
mother who died when he was a little boy, in his mind, she
broke the trust he had with her. She left him. He had to
learn how to let go of her in order to learn how to trust.

There you go, you know how to write page one of your
screenplay, and you can get up in the morning and still
like yourself. How about that?

Exercises

1. Write down the movement that begins your screenplay.

2. Write down the metaphor for your theme.

3. Write down the setting for your story.

Now, go for it! Write!

Donald L. Vasicek
The Zen of Writing
http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress
dvasicek@earthlink.net

by
Donald L. Vasicek

If you want to write screenplays that you can sell and
get produced, you might want to consider writing your
ending first. What? Yeah, well, check movies out that get
produced. You know, those you pay $8 to $10 to see in the
theater depending upon where you live and what time of the
day and week you go to see them, and then read about the
millions of dollars they made at the box office each weekend.

In almost every one of these movies, inevitably, the
end is the defining moment in top box office movies. It is
where the main character experiences an epiphany. The main
character is challenged to confront and conquer his fatal
flaw or go down to defeat. If you want to write
screenplays that you can sell and get produced, you must
build your screenplay to this moment in the movie. The
tension must be wound so tightly that it feels as though
everything is going to pop, like the drawn string racing
from the fingers of an archer. SNAP!

How can you create this kind of tension that is so
necessary in great drama unless you know where you are
going in your screenplay? The villain (in fiction, the
villain represents evil) or the antagonist (in fiction, the
antagonist can represent someone or something that is not
evil, but who or what is competing with your main character
or protagonist for the golden ring) must represent your
main character’s fatal flaw. In other words, what your
villain or antagonist seeks or has is what your main
character has been seeking to overcome (your main
character’s goal)throughout your screenplay. So, you must
have your main character defeat the villain or antagonist
in order to overcome his fatal flaw and win.

The movie, “Ransom”, starring Mel Gibson, is one of
many examples. Mel Gibson plays a good person. His son is
kidnapped by an evil man. Through a series of events,
Mel’s character has to become less and less nice with
others if he is to save his son until he is confronted with
defeating the kidnapper or losing his son forever. He is
forced to kill the kidnapper, and in true Hollywood
fashion, not only kill him, but obliterate him. Not that I
condone this kind of violence in movies, because I don’t,
but the example is there. When Mel’s character finally
overcomes his “niceness”, it is only then that he saves his
son.

Another example, in “Warriors of Virtue”, a $56
million MGM movie for which I was a writer/consultant,
Ryan, the main character seeks to conquer his disability,
he wears a brace on one leg. In order to accomplish this,
he has to overcome his fear of being too weak to succeed in
physically achieving. It all happens in the climax when he
is confronted by evil itself, Komodo. Will Ryan win, or
will Komodo win? It all circulates around Ryan’s
disability which is really in his mind even though he has a
disabled leg. Komodo wants to destroy Ryan. How will Ryan
escape? Or can Ryan stand his ground and defeat Komodo?

How did nine writers and four producers arrive at this
ending/climax? By determining beforehand how we wanted the
movie to end. We spent days and weeks obsessing over this.
The question was, what was Ryan’s goal and how does he
achieve it? How could we attract an audience and
incorporate this story idea? A teen boy. Did he smoke?
Shoplift? Beat up other kids? Or run away from fights?
Was he physically strong or physically weak? What kind of
boy was Ryan?

With his disability, we knew we had to come
up with something that gave him no possible way to achieve
his goal because that’s what high concept movies are all
about, to have the main character overcome all odds and
win. One of the producers came up with the suggestion that
Ryan is afraid of life because of his physical disability.

How could we write a story where he could learn how to
overcome his fear of life because he is physically
disabled, and thus, inept with respect to physical
activities of most all teen boys? Well, I suggested, let’s
first look at how he will be after he wins at the end of
the movie. I suggested we create a character
transformation arc. In order to this, I suggested that we
take Ryan from a fearful boy to a confident young man.
Between that kind of beginning and that kind of ending, I
suggested we build the arc. So, I asked, how will Ryan
defeat his fatal flaw and Komodo?

The producers told us to each write the ending/climax.
A combination of endings appeared. It wasn’t easy.
Actually, writing the ending first felt like trying to
empty the Pacific Ocean with a coffee cup. After several
hours of musing over the endings which the writers wrote,
the producers sent off two writers to write the screenplay
with a couple of endings they selected. Eight months
later, they called me to rewrite their draft. The first
thing I looked at was the ending. The first thing I did
was rewrite was the ending.

Three years later, “Warriors of Virtue”, was released
in over 2,000 theaters in the United States. On a Sunday
afternoon I slipped into the theater with my wife to see
the movie, the theater was packed with kids and parents. I
watched the audience more than I watched the movie that
Sunday afternoon, particularly when the ending/climax
appeared. Guess what, I felt a special thrill when I
noticed the audience sliding closer and closer to the edge
of their seats as Ryan’s transformation evolved. At the
end/climax, many of them crouched from their seats to cheer
Ryan on as he defeated his fear and Komodo in a most
unusual way. It was at that point I was convinced that
writing endings first in my screenplays is one way to write
screenplays that sell and get produced.

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
“Commitment to Professionalism”
http://michaelc.nextmp.net/wordpress
dvasicek@earthlink.net