Storytelling and Scriptwriting are crucial elements of a film. Whether it be a full-length feature film, a short film or even a music video, they all start with a solid story and script. At least the good ones do.
As a class, we'll watch a series of instructional videos:
Creating a Short Film is a 13-part training series that shows the actual struggles and challenges filmmakers have to overcome to get films made. Author Chad Perkins and his team made a short film, The Assurance, and documented the process: from writing and directing to editing and screening the film. In this installment, Chad covers the basics of writing a great script—turning your ideas into cinematic gold. Learn the fundamentals of storytelling: believable characters that develop over the course of the film, engaging conflict, and strong story structure. Find resources to inspire your next idea and the screenwriting software that will help you format your script. Learn the specifics of writing a fantasy film, and watch as Chad and his team write, polish, and rewrite their script over the course of production—making the hard choices to abandon some great moments to make a better movie.
Important Topics from Videos
- Plot vs Character Driven Stories
- What is a story?
- An account of a person encountering obstacles in pursuit of what they want.
- Core components
- person
- goal
- obstacle
- Develop a strong protagonist
- Main character of the story that the audience identifies with
- They get the most screen time and the biggest arc
- Their objectives moves the story from start to finish
- They makes choices and have strong preferences
- They are relatable and show vulnerability and honesty
- They are talented, have skills, make us laugh, and make us like them even if their character is bad
- They are our tour guide through the story
- The best stories have a good arc for the protagonist
- How the characters changes over the course of the story
- Create a logline
- A sentence that sums up your film
- Should be the first step of your writing process
- It describes the protagonist, their goal and the obstacles they will face
- It's like a mission statement for a business - keeps you honest to the film
- Use a Three-Act Structure
- Act 1
- It's the setup We find out who the character is
- Inciting incident is the event that sets the story in motion to go after their goal
- Act 2
- The core of the story
- The midpoint
- An important scene in the middle of the script, often a reversal of fortune or revelation that changes the direction of the story
- Keeps the 2nd act from being dull
- Act 3
- Faces their objective and either passes or fails
- Time for the 3 acts = 25%, 50% and 25%
- Act 1
- Identifying Story Beats, the events that turn the story in a different direction
- Inciting Incident
- Protagonist goes after objective
- Debate - protagonist decides whether to go after objective or not
- Midpoint
- All is lost
- Conflict is very important, without it you don't have a story
- Opposition that the protagonist faces in meeting their objective
- Antagonist
- a person that opposes the protagonist
- they have mutually exclusive objectives
- may or may not be a villain
- should have some degree of humanity
- Comes from many sources
- The Truth
- Motivations behind the character's behavior
- Audience should feel like you're telling the truth
- Show, not tell - it's better to see rather than be told
- Shadow character - it's unclear what side they are on. Makes it more interesting
- Theme - an underlying concept that defines what they are struggling with
- Pickup scene - a scene that gets added in at a later time when you realize you've missed something
- Archetype
- Genre
Writing the Story
You'll use a Word processing program to write the following components of your story. Remember this is kind of like an outline, so don't spend too much time going into detail.
Save this and print when you finish - turn in!
Save as a PDF to upload to your ePortfolio.
- Archetype
- Genre
- Story: person, goal & obstacle
- Strong protagonist – main character, most screen time, their objective moves the story forward, they are relatable
- Arc – how a character changes over the course of the story
- Three acts
- Beginning – the setup, inciting incident
- The Core – the midpoint
- The End – they face their objective and either pass or fail
- Antagonist has different objective
- Shadow Character, someone who you can’t tell where they stand
- Theme – like a moral to the story. An underlying that defines the struggle.
- Must have conflict from many sources, not just antagonist
- Revelation of why protagonist needs to meet goal
- Better to see rather than be told something
Script Writing
Microsoft Word has a "Screenplay" template that is perfect for writing your script. If you choose to write it from scratch, make sure you've followed these rules:
- Scripts have dialogue and descriptions only. All descriptions should be written in 3rd person, present tense Point Of View.
- Left & Right Margins - 1.5"
- Courier, 12pt font
- Transitions are right aligned and ALL CAPS
- Each new scene (change of location to be filmed) has a slugline
- Each slugline should have in ALL CAPS: location, INT/EXT, time of day
- Character names with age are ALL CAPS
- Dialogue gets 2.5" margins
- Dialogue should be specified differently if the person speaking isn't on camera
- O.S. off scene
- V.O. voice over, narration
- ( ) parenthetical comment to clarify some dialogue
Write your script. This is not your storyboard with camera angles, etc. This is simply the script - what characters are saying.
Save it, read over it aloud. Have someone else read over it aloud. Then print it and turn it in.
Save it as a PDF to upload to your ePortfolio.
Storyboard
A storyboard is a visual outline for your video. It’s made up of a series of thumbnail images that convey what happens in your video, from beginning to end. It also includes notes about what’s happening in each frame.
What should it have?
Include too many unnecessary images, and you’ll waste time and energy that could be better spent on other details. Include too few images, though, and your storyboard might be hard for other people to follow.
- Each major occurrence in your video should get at least one thumbnail to itself. Some events may require multiple thumbnails.
- Each image should include characters, important props, relevant details about the setting, and information about how each element in the scene is interacting with the other elements.
- If characters are moving, you should specify that with arrows.
- As you draw each image, keep the camera in mind. For instance, if you want a scene to be filmed from a particular angle or distance, draw your thumbnails accordingly.
- Pay particular attention to transitions. Each transition in your video should be marked by its own image.
- Add some extra notes for each thumbnail to clarify what’s going on and supply any information you’ll need during production. For instance, if you’re planning to use a voice-over or have text appear on the screen at some point in your video, you’ll want to include that information at the appropriate point in your storyboard.
Use pencil! I put some back where you get the storyboards.
Draw neatly, but it doesn't have to be a Picasso!
Each scene (slugline) in your script should be represented in your storyboard!
Write your name on each page!
Number each page!