I have had several conversations with fellow filmmakers in the last six months around the idea that most American independent films are severely underdeveloped and suffer from extensive pacing issues. After making an honest appraisal of my own work, I have turned my focus from issues of discovery and distribution to that of creative development (and financing). It’s my humble opinion that less discussion is needed around methods to (effectively) coerce an audience toward your film and more is needed on crafting good, solid, innovative stories that are irresistible to an audience.
I’m a moderator over at a popular filmmaking community and discussion board called DVXuser.com and help facilitate a free and open online short film festival there three times a year. Each fest is defined by a theme or genre: from loss and love to thrillers and westerns. This time, we’ve decided to renew its focus toward good solid storytelling technique so our members can exercise those muscles a bit. We recently decided on a genreless and themeless turn as FictionFEST.
In writing the rules and guidelines, we included some principles that I wanted to share with you. I looked at some of the principles that serve as a foundation for my story development and find a lot of value in revisiting them from time to time.
THE PRINCIPLES OF FICTIONFEST
FOUR QUESTIONS – Does your story acknowledge the following questions: Who is your Protagonist? What are they after? Who or what is in their way? And what are the consequences if they fail?
IS IT HIGH CONCEPT? – Without famous actors and the luxury of a 90 minute running time, short films benefit greatly from placing the concept first. If it were pitched as a feature, would it attract a star and name director? If someone else made this, would you watch it based on the logline alone? In short, is your story the star?
WHO DRIVES THE PLOT? – The Antagonist typically steers the plot and the Protagonist reacts to increasing levels of threat. When searching for a story, consider defining the person or force working against your main character as a foundation to build the rest of the story upon.
A CLEAR MOTIVATION – Do we know what your Protagonist wants from the beginning? And are we on board with him/her? Do we care?
THEME – What is the central question of your story? A definitive answer to that question with a “yes” or “no” will conclude it. In a short film about a dirty cop, your theme could be: can justice prevail untarnished?
GET IN LATE AND GET OUT EARLY – To avoid pacing issues, in each scene ask yourself what point is the absolute latest I can jump into the scene and the earliest I should leave it. Do we need to see the character walk into or leave the room, or introduce themselves to the other characters in the scene? What happens if they are already underway by the time we join them? Is anything lost? Look at the beginning and ending of your scenes and ask: Is it essential? Is it dramatic?
UNIFY INTERNAL & EXTERNAL CONFLICT – Does your protagonist have to confront an internal issue in order to solve an external problem? For example, must your main character learn the meaning of love before he’s willing to fist fight his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend? Must the cyborg rediscover what it means to be human before he can save all of humanity? Unify the internal and external.
PRIVATE, PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL THREADS – A fully-realized Protagonist can be illustrated by three levels of problems: private, personal and professional.
PRIVATE: Conflict known only to your main character.
PERSONAL: Conflict known only to characters close to your main character.
PROFESSIONAL: Conflict known to all or most characters in the story.In a work of short fiction two of the three may be greatly minimized, but consider the value in a set of obstacles that confront your Protagonist on multiple levels. For example, say that your superhero must defeat the plans of the villain (professional), keep his love interest safe from harm (personal), AND avenge the death of his parents (private).
AVOID CLICHE ACTION & EXPOSITORY DIALOGUE – Have we seen this before? If so, consider doing the reverse. When you find yourself faced with a cliche, re-consider the following questions for each scene: Who wants what? What happens if they don’t get it? And why now? If you find yourself writing dialogue between two characters about an off-screen third, consider dramatizing that information instead. How can we show that rather than tell it? As an exercise, if you deprive your characters of speech, how would the scenes play out dramatically? Now knowing that, how would dialogue elevate it?
Certainly, there is much more that could have been considered and included. But I think this serves as a pretty good foundation to build upon. I suspect many would acknowledge these as fairly obvious points for “a good story, well told”, but frankly, it’s not showing up in a lot of the work I see out there. If you’d like to flex your storytelling muscles, please join us over at FictionFEST, read the rules and start a discussion thread for your film. The deadline isn’t until mid-March 2011 and you’ll find the community there to be engaging and supportive. It’s a filmmaking community unlike any I’ve been able to find online.
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