The Pinch

This was new to me.

A weird little point in the script that refocused it.

Now I thought that screenplays were supposed to be tight and focused but then I started to read about this new point in the structure which refocuses it. I either missed it when I did my first screenwriting course or it was never mentioned.

I think I just figured out what it means.

The problem I had had was I thought the FP was the introduction of a ticking bomb or something else that raised the stakes. I was thinking, tightening my plot meant reminding the audience of just what was going on and then squeezing something else into it. Terrorists have taken over a building and our hero has to save them. But now let's focus it by reminding everyone adding a countdown. In fact let's make the ticking bomb the second FP, something to to "speed up" the 2nd half of Act II, let's make the first FP the terrorists killing the first hostage. These guys mean business!

I've always said that when it comes to learning about screenwriting (or anything), it's best to read as many books as you can. Something about seeing the same thing written in a few different ways makes it sink in and click a bit better.

I recently realised that my turning points aren't about things happening but about decisions my character makes - and not just makes, actually does something about. Action not dialogue, show not tell. The turning point isn't the cave in, it's the character deciding that the best course of action is to go further into the cave to try and find another way out rather than sitting and waiting to be rescued.

Now just tonight I was reading up on focus points, trying to figure them out good and proper when I read this line from John Costello's Writing a Screenplay:

"A Focus points loops around the protagonists problem and the plot and draws both lines taught."

Every protagonist needs a problem, something he or she will learn to overcome by the end of the script. But also there is a plot. Whatever else is going on in the script. Your protagonist can be scared of heights or be unable to say "I love you"- both are character flaws or problems. The plot however might be the character pulling a bank job or joining a support group where one of the members is a serial killer.

So lets say our vertigo sufferer is planning a bank job. The only way in is through the roof. Here is where our hero's problem comes into direct conflict with the plot. That is a focus point.

Feel free to let me know if I'm wrong!

So I started back uni this week.

One of the other students had a few ideas for a film, but didn't really have much beyond that. You know like a romantic comedy about a guy who likes dogs. I mean there's nothing there. So we all pitched in with some ideas. You know like well if the guy likes dogs how about he meets a girl who likes cats and their pets don't get on or maybe she's allergic. I felt like we ended up with a neat little idea by the end of it.

It's something I wish we'd do more of. You know even if I ended up doing the complete opposite of what is suggested if it hadn't been suggested in the first place I never would've thought to do the opposite.

I should get my marks for my treatment back this week. The one that I struggled and struggled to start. I hope I got a decent mark, obviously, but you know I really worked hard and thought I had made a good job of it.

I thought this year we had 1 screenplay to write but from what I can tell we have 3. I think we write a screenplay off of the treatment we just did. Then next year we either write a vastly improved (based on the feedback we are about to get) version of that screenplay or a completely new one. Then in the summer we start a 3rd which won't count towards our degree but we will be given feedback on it to take away and use in a redraft. I think this is just to give us fledgling writers a boost up as we embark on our careers as writers with MA's.

So for my next I'm going to do my heist war movie. The worst soldiers in the army pulling a bank job in a war zone. I've been thinking about it a lot this week and come up with some new ideas and I actually have a protagonist now. I need to think more about the political situation in this country and exactly who the antagonist is. Is it the ruthless dictator of this war torn country or is it the General who set them up to be killed? Perhaps they're in cahoots! Things Like that are what I need to finalize. Also I was thinking about setting it in an African country. It'd be a kind of BLACK HAWK DOWN meets POLICE ACADEMY. More of a light hearted action movie than an out and out comedy. Similar in tone to SMOKIN' ACES, BAD BOYS or one of the older, less gritty BOND movies.

So I'm going to have to do a lot of reading/watching of similar movies so I can make it as different as possible. THREE KINGS and KELLY'S HEROES I'm talking to you!

30 Pages?

Who said anything about 30 pages?

I ask this because I looked through my course notes and course handbook and saw my treatment is due in on the 15th but that is pretty much all it said.

I don't know where I got the notion that it had to be 30 pages (or thereabouts).
This is always a problem with me. I just never seem to get the details totally right. I'm never where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there. I never manage to have the work ready when it's supposed to be ready for. Well hopefully this time I will!

As it stands my treatment runs in at just over 20 pages which seems to be its ideal length. having looked at other treatments they seem to be about that and it's not as if I have a lot of padding in mine. I've just written what happens in the order it is seen on the screen.

I still have some bits to add, I'm still figuring out the through line of those pesky scenes with the customers playing the game. Trying to integrate it and make it all relevant and pay off. I'm almost there though. Not much is needed for me to reach the stage where I could safely say I have a first draft.

Of course, even then I'm going to want to go in and redraft it. I don't think any writer's first draft is ever really a first draft, it's just been the first draft they feel comfortable with showing anybody and even then it has that "First draft" label meaning "This still very early and very rough and I want to make some improvements but have a look at it and see what you think, let's see if your ideas for what needs improving mesh with mine". They don't really mean that. A first draft is the very best work a writer thinks they can produce. All it's waiting for are a pair of unbiased eyes to take a fresh look and see what a writer is too close to it to see.

So I'm almost there. I've solved a few problems I didn't realise where there along the way and I'm hoping the work I've put in shows on the page.

I've also just pulled out my career development loan forms from my folder and have them half filled in. All the easy stuff is done. My name and address. I reckon I got 100% in that part of the test! Now just to fill in the rest, the hard bit. I just hope I manage to stay on topic with the essay question.

Actually it's not that bad. I had expected to see pages and pages and pages but it looks pretty much like they just want to know who I am and how much I want. After that it's down to the computer. And I really hope the computer says YES!

Remember how I said I hadn't had any other ideas for movies distracting me from what I was doing? Well I did. I've always wanted to do an ordinary man in extraordinary situation action script. Not some ninja or ex special forces soldier who just happened to be in the White House when the terrorists took over. Just some guy, muddling through as best he can. He jumps through a window out of the 2nd storey and he gets hurt! Really hurt. So by the end of the movie he should look a complete mess.

Hmm on an aside I wonder if putting White House and terrorist in this blog flags it to the NSA or something? Now there's the start of a script. A guy at home writing a story about how a secret society actually runs the government and how they are brought down by a group of young freedom fighters. His story is actually closer to the truth than he would ever believe and too close for the comfort of the bad guys who seek him out to silence him. He manages to escape them and realises the only way to survive the ordeal is to fight back which leads him to destroying the secret society - mirroring the plot of his story. Is there already a film like that? I'm thinking of THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR but I know that's not quite it.

I shouldn't think about it too much. I have other scripts that need writing first. However if you are a Hollywood (or even Bollywood) producer and would like to buy the idea off me I can be reached here. Sinister government agents need not apply!

How goes my treatment?

Quite well thank you very much!

I am now up to 17 pages. Still only half way to the 30 required but I'm quite pleased with what I've got. I have gone about this in what I think is the correct way. I had a 7 page full treatment. Start to finish. I went through expanding it to 10 pages. Then to about 13 and now 17. It feels much more organic to expand on what is written in this way. It's not like I have 10 pages, and that's my 10 pages, the first 1/3 of my treatment. 10 pages was the whole thing.

It was less daunting this way. I had everything figured out already, I knew where I was going with it, I just had to fill in the gaps. It was bit like zooming in on a map. Every time you x10 more details pop up out at you.

I stopped once to rewrite a second improved step outline. After having gone through and re-wrote one from the first treatment I then wrote an improved version taking into account all of the changes I had made during my first extension draft. Then I used this step outline as the guide to write my next extension draft". I think I'll have to repeat this step every time I expand out my treatment to take into account the "global changes" I'm making as I go. By global changes I mean things that need to be foreshadowed earlier and paid off later. Adding a scene in the middle might mean earlier and later scenes need to be altered and when this happens I need a new step outline.

It feels good doing it this way. It feels right. I don't know if this is what other writers do but it works for me and that's what counts.

So 17 pages and I'm up to my second turning point of this latest longer draft. It takes place about halfway down page 14. Extrapolate that out and I should end up with 20 pages by them time I have finished this latest extension draft. Pretty much where I expected I would be. Once I have that done I need to turn the treatment into a treatment. It pretty much reads like an outline rather than a treatment. Treatments seem to be a bit more entertaining than outlines do. Bill Martell has a couple of his own to download which is what I'm going off of. Add a few snatches of dialogue and really go into the scene and I should be well on my way to 30 pages.

It's really all about the page count so far. I just get the feeling that an insufficient page count will make it look like I haven't put the work in. I really have! I've come up with some really good stuff during these rewrites. A great sequence of scenes, almost a montage, of what happens to the characters after their big falling out. I've managed to end each scene or vignette with an image or sound to tie it into the next. I've got some great visual cues to indicate my protagonists changing mental state. A memento from his ex which he holds to be of less and less importance as the movie progresses.

Of course there must be something I've skimped over, right?

Yeah of course. I haven't really gone into detail with the customers of the place my characters work at. I know I want them to feature heavily and have an arc all of their own. You know like some mean kids who come along and are complete dicks to everyone who get their comeuppance at the end. I definitely want some people who come along, and enjoy themselves so much that later on when their help is needed they can really come through for me. It's just figuring out how to show that and keep it integrated with the main action.

I also haven't gone into any detail as to what happens when characters "play the game". That's all I've put. "they play the game". I mean these are kind of like action scenes so they should show character and character development. It's like a whole extra headache but at least I know it means the material is there, in my story. I just have to bring it out.

I've had a few of these headaches. How do I show this character's progression or how do I integrate this subplot with the main action. They cause many a furrowed brow but I always feel really good when I have figured them out. Solving these problems almost makes having them to solve in the first place seem worthwhile.

I haven't been bursting with any other ideas of late. No giant robots or mutant monster mayhem tales to distract me from the task at hand. Which is definitely a good thing. Although I have been having a few movie dreams lately. Dreams that seem more like a movie I'm watching rather than something I'm living through. Last nights was another zombie apocalypse.

I think when I've finished this treatment I'm going to go back to TOMB OF THE VIKINGS and extend that to feature length. It's a pretty good story and I could definitely see someone wanting to make it. It's an action adventure with supernatural elements featuring a strong "real world" female protagonist. I don't describe it as a horror because it's not one. The same way Underworld isn't a horror. In fact quite a few of the so called horror movies that have come out in the last few years are really just action movies with a few horror tropes thrown in.

In fact TOMB... is quite family friendly. It would stand shoulder to shoulder with a Lara Croft or Indian Jones movie, in fact I seem to remember when I wrote it I was very much thinking about THE MUMMY.

Anyhow, that's not for a few weeks yet, best to finish what's on my plate before ordering a second course.