Morning Guruvians! If you have a heart, I’d highly recommend The Wild Robot. As heartwarming as Pixar coupled with funny of Dreamworks.
TODAY’S ACTS:
Substance: Read the Script
Camping: Setting up your Tent Poles
AI Remake: Steve Buscemi needs to get laid
Script
The Substance - The Script
Read it before you watch…
Script Mechanics
Michael Arndt says…
“If you can tell me the 6 tentpoles of your movie, I’ll tell you if you’ve got a good story.” - Michael Arndt (writer of Toy Story 3/Little Miss Sunshine)
WTF are you talking about? 6 tentpoles?
A story is just a Beg/Mid/End, right?
Nah, man. if you’ve tried to write a movie, the middle is a HUGE CHUNK. It feels more like: Beg/Miiiiiiiiiiiiid/End
There are many ways to structure a story; 5 Acts, 12 Sequences, Story Circle, etc. If you find one that works for you, latch on for dear life.
For me, BY FAR, it’s the 6 Tentpoles.
Opening
Inciting Incident/Global Goal
First Act Break/Short-term Goal
Midpoint
Second Act Break/End Short-term goal
Climax
I made two visual aids!
Horizontalization
Increased verticality
I’ve found that this is a flexible enough beg/mid/end to write, while also providing enough rigidity to churn through an idea.
NOTES
The #2 Inciting Incident is directly connected and wrapped up at the #6 Climax.
The #3 First Act Break (is a short term goal) thats wrapped up at #5 Second Act Break.
Michael Arndt gave a 1.5 hr lecture on this. WATCH HERE.
Personally, I bow at the altar of the 6 tent poles. They‘ve helped me speed up my writing. Obviously, this isn’t the only way to think/write about a story, but it’s the one I choose.
Does something work better for you?
AI Remake
Buscemi teams up with Aptow
He crushed it.
