In this tutorial on Create Sci-Fi, I share my no frills, basic approach to writing a script. This is the first video of the How to make a Sci-Fi short film series. Make sure to subscribe to follow along.
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You can have an amazing idea for a character and have a firm grasp on the world that character lives in, but without plot and structure, you will not have an audience. A few might find it intriguing but the majority will be lost and bored. With a basic framework that focuses your characters and situations, your story will appeal to a much wider audience. This is a cheat sheet based on some solid fundamentals.
In 1927 English novelist E. M. Forster was invited to give a series of lectures which were later published as “Aspects of the Novel”. He is speaking about writing a novel but the principles of creating plot and structure are universal. The following are a few quotes for our cheat sheet.
Plot: A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality according to Forster, “The king died and then the queen died,’ is a story. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief,’ is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it. Consider the death of the queen. If it is in a story we say ‘and then?’ If it is in a plot we ask ‘why?’”
Structure: Pattern and Rhythm says Forster, “A novel has a pattern when it has a geometric shape, such as the hour-glass shape of one character’s social fall crossing over with another’s social climb, or the circular shape of a character moving from one new acquaintance to the next until they finally return to their starting point. The pattern is an aesthetic aspect of the novel, and though it may be nourished by anything in the novel — any character, scene, word — it draws most of its nourishment from the plot. Whereas the story appeals to our curiosity and the plot to our intelligence, the pattern appeals to our aesthetic sense, it causes us to see the book as a whole.”
Three Act Structure: In visual storytelling, the most useful structure for the plot is the Three Act Structure. This structure is a model used in screenwriting that divides a fictional narrative into three parts (acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution. Aristotle said that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
In 1863, Gustav Freytag, a German writer, advocated a model based on Aristotle’s theory of tragedy. This is now called “Freytag’s pyramid,” which divides a drama into five parts, and provides function to each part. These parts are exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. From our frinds at Wikipedia,
Exposition: The first phase in Freytag’s pyramid is the exposition, which introduces the characters, especially the main character, also known as the protagonist. It shows how the characters relate to one another, their goals and motivations, as well as their moral character. During the exposition, the protagonist learns their main goal and what is at stake.
Conflict: Freytag’s definition of conflict refers to the second act in a five-act play, a point of time in which all of the major characters have been introduced, their motives and allegiances have been made clear, and they have begun to struggle against one another.
Rising Action: Rising action is the second phase in Freytag’s five-phase structure. It starts with a conflict, for example, the death of a character. The inciting incident is the point of the plot that begins the conflict. It is the event that catalyzes the protagonist to go into motion and to take action. Rising action involves the buildup of events until the climax.
In this phase, the protagonist understands his or her goal and begins to work toward it. Smaller problems thwart their initial success and their progress is directed primarily against these secondary obstacles. This phase demonstrates how the protagonist overcomes these obstacles.
Climax: The climax is the turning point or highest point of the story. The protagonist makes the single big decision that defines not only the outcome of the story, but also who they are as a person. Freytag defines the climax as the third of the five dramatic phases which occupies the middle of the story.
At the beginning of this phase, the protagonist finally clears away the preliminary barriers and engages with the adversary. Usually, both the protagonist and the antagonist have a plan to win against the other as they enter this phase. For the first time, the audience sees the pair going against one another in direct or nearly direct conflict.
This struggle usually results in neither character completely winning or losing. In most cases, each character’s plan is both partially successful and partially foiled by their adversary. The central struggle between the two characters is unique in that the protagonist makes a decision which shows their moral quality, and ultimately decides their fate. In a tragedy, the protagonist here makes a poor decision or a miscalculation that demonstrates their tragic flaw.
Falling action: According to Freytag, the falling action phase consists of events that lead to the ending. Character’s actions resolve the problem. In the beginning of this phase, the antagonist often has the upper hand. The protagonist has never been further from accomplishing their goal. The outcome depends on which side the protagonist has put themselves on.
Resolution: In this phase the protagonist and antagonist have solved their problems and either the protagonist or antagonist wins the conflict. The conflict officially ends. Some stories show what happens to the characters after the conflict ends and/or they show what happens to the characters in the future.
Wikipedia contributors. “Plot (narrative).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Aug. 2017. Web. 26 Sep. 2017
The reason I use these examples as a reference is my tendency early on was to get lost in creating characters and imagining their worlds. The characters and places I created became so real to me that as I filmed my stories they were just a series of scenarios with no framework. In my mind these scenarios were very entertaining and poignant but because an audience did not have the benefit of being in my mind the potential of the stories was lost. Because the audience was lost. Do yourself and your audience a favor and create a basic structure for your story and your audience to follow. Do not lose your audience.
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Most likely you’re here because you’ve never made a film but are thinking about it, circling the idea, waiting for your moment. Or maybe you had a false start and the first time didn’t go so well. Don’t worry I am going to help you. The following is just a very basic exercise to get you started down your path of making an original video. The great news is all that time spent on your phone staring at the screen exercising you thumb eye coordination is about to pay off. And there is no bad news.
I imagine as a first-time filmmaker you will be way more comfortable shooting video on your phone rather than a DSLR camera. When it comes time to edit I think moving things around on your phone will be far less intimidating than sitting in front of your computers newly installed editing software with no idea what button to push to even launch it. For this exercise, it’s best to just stick with the phone.
Of course, there is the need for a script. Gasp. Just whip up something compelling, humorous, thought provoking and entertaining. I’m sure some of you can do that but most of us can’t. Not for a lack of desire and drive. Most of us need to be taught how to write and through hard work and dedication get good at it. But in the meantime, we need to just get started. Action begets action! Let’s not worry about writing an award winner, let’s concentrate on getting something on paper or more realistically in your phones note program, might as well. It’s like texting to imaginary friends about made up stuff. Almost like real life. I will say again the goal is to just make something, get the ball rolling. Let’s do this right now.
No use in avoiding it, get to work on the script. Keep it simple our goal is 2-3 mins of content. Think one location and two actors. First, we create a title and a log line. If you were sitting down to write a series or a movie you would not start like this, maybe you would but this will work well for what we are going to accomplish in this exercise. Having said that, here’s a quick example. This is the log line for Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jaws’: A land lubber sheriff tries to kill a giant shark to protect his family and seaside resort town.
Let’s do ours quickly, first thing that comes to mind. There are no wrong answers.
Film Title
Once you got that let’s answer these questions and write a logline.
NAME
We’ll call him/her the Hero
GENDER
FUNCTION
What’s the Hero’s FUNCTION? eg. long distance runner, artist, father etc.
FLAW
Does the Hero have a FLAW? What is it? eg. an arrogant, a lazy, a macho, an insecure etc.
INCITING INCIDENT
What is the story’s first major event, the INCITING INCIDENT eg. falls in love, is fired etc.
GOAL
What is the Hero’s visible GOAL? eg. to win the race, to catch the killer, etc.
NEED
What is the Hero’s NEED? eg. to connect, to stand up for herself etc.
Don’t overthink it, the goal is to make a film to get your dream career rolling. Action begets action, right? Keep in mind you have no budget so a pilot crash landing in the Himalayas is not going to work for this. Here is an example from this worksheet. Title: “ Poison The Tap Dancer Upstairs” Marge Mayhem an emo horror writer plots to poison her upstairs neighbor, an aspiring tap dancer Teddy so she can write in silence and finish her book. You get the idea. If you’re totally stuck remember the exercise is to just get out there and make something. If you want to be adventurous just use a random title generator & a logline generator . Using that method I just randomly generated “Helping McGee” A funny athlete and a gay robot builder travel through time. I’d watch that.
We are just gearing up to make a short with just the title and logline alone you should come up with 2 mins of dialogue. And if that too has you paralyzed with fear just make it with minimal dialogue, not a silent film where nobody talks have natural sounds and a few one liners. With both those examples , can imagine that. And I’d recommend that. For example in “ Poison The Tap Dancer” We see Marge typing, chunks of ceiling fall on her computer she looks up, she says,”humph” we cut to Ted tap dancing around the apartment in pure bliss. You get the idea. May seem silly but just enjoy the act creating something, don’t judge. Its an exercise in getting you started – today.
This next step is important, make sure your phone is charging while you are working on the script. You’ll need it for the next two crucial steps. Step one call a few friends and tell them they are coming over to be in your movie. Or maybe you are going to their house, apartment, roof, yard or basement because it is a better location. Explain to them it is just an exercise and that they will have fun and you are buying pizza. Also I’m sure you have funny, smart friends but just in case they can’t act all the more reason to keep the dialogue minimal. Next and most important is your phone’s camera that you will upgrade the recorder and the editing app you will add. Most camera phones actually shoot pretty decent video, terrible audio but the picture is great. All the more reason to consider a minimal dialogue approach. I think that’s three reasons if you’re counting.
When shooting your first short we can take a very simple but effective approach to make sure you capture all the video you need to tell your story. For each one of your scenes shoot the entire scene in a wide shot, repeat the scene again in a medium shot and finish with a close up or close ups on your main characters. Shoot all the way through to the end, if something minor goes wrong keep going. Some moments may be useful. Even if they are just listening and not speaking record the entire scene with the listening subject in close up. Last pick up inserts, fingers typing, feet walking or running a confused dog perhaps. From our friends at wikipedia. A Wide Shot, typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings. A Medium Shot, mid shot (MS), or waist shot is a camera angle shot from a medium distance. I’m sure a close up needs no explanation. The reason for that type of coverage is that it is safe. For the actors it allows them to redo lines and you can cut between their best moments from other takes. For the director it gives you many options to tell your story. A film is written three times. First when you write it, second when you shoot it and third when you edit it.
Once you have your footage you need to edit it and yes we will do that on your phone to. One great thing is you don’t have to worry about transferring your video to a computer just do it all on your phone. There are quite a few options, Magisto (iOS and Android) , Adobe Premiere Clip (iOS and Android) , Apple iMovie (iOS) & GoPro Splice (iOS) I’m sure there are others but these are the ones that appear most in searches on the topic. Read up and see which ones suit you and your phone. As I mentioned earlier you should beef up your camera app whether it’s Android or iPhone . I’m sure you will struggle a bit to get up and running but that’s part of the process.
Just keep Going. Upload your video to your social media get input from your friends and start planning your next project, I promise you with each one you will get better. Maybe you nailed it this time in which case with your next video you will get, more better. Finally as we both well know by now, action begets action.
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