Screenwriting

1. Love conquers all.
2. Evil lurks where we least expect it.
3. No one is beyond redemption.
4. Power corrupts even a Saint.
5. Stolen money can only bring misery.
6. The end never justifies the means.
7. Gender stereotypes in Fairy tales.
8. Fairy tales never come true.
9. It is impossible for men and women to be friends.
10. Dreams always come true.
11. Opportunity seldom knocks twice
12. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction
13. Every law has a loophole
14. All good things must come to an end
15. You cannot please everyone
16. Nothing is so certain as death/
17. Two’s a company, three’s a crowd
18. It’s a small world
19. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way.
20. The Mystery of Death
21. The decline of the American Dream
22. The blessings of having a family.
23. The evils of racism and slavery
24. The hypocrisy of a ‘civilised’ nation
25. Pride comes before a fall
26. Honesty is the best policy
27. Wealth spoils the character
28. Spare the rod and spoil the child
29. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder
30. One man’s food is another man’s poison


That crappy list is from www.howtotellagreatstory.com I don't know about you, but the recurring theme of my stories just isn’t there.

So, what themes appeal to you? Are they on the list above?

Are you content with Hollywood’s mindless three-act arcs culminating in redemption?

Your thoughts please, or I send Rave round. Your wife/bf/gf/Wii wouldn’t like that.

Ask me how I know.

I tend to prefer stories with a good deal of weirdness, ambiguity, and some kind of grand narrative.But really, the direction/director is the deal breaker for me. I guess I'm an advocate of auteur theory.

That list, couldn't that be condensed down two thirds? One Death-whatever theme. One Love-whatever theme. One higher/lower/rough/redneck Justice theme? One AMERICA theme, for all those living on that planet?

Apart from that I think it depends on the story and the calibre it's told with. The best stories can run into a wall if they aren't told with the panache or passion or wit or anger they deserve. I can stand even a dumb stupid theme if it's told with a certain passion.

Quote :

2. Evil lurks where we least expect it.

That's one of my favorites.

Yeah, the only one I enjoy from that list is #2, as well.

I also prefer:

"Dreams never come true and then you die."
"Love never lasts and your spouse will eventually fuck someone else."
"Optimism gets you no where."
"Wealth gets you anywhere."

TV Tropes is great for this kinda thing.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Type in any film, TV show, or comic book you want, and it identifies common "tropes."

Nice, Shark. I'm bookmarking it.

I've gotta say though, it's still under construction. i.e. De Palma's OBSESSION isn't even listed, for whatever reason.

Mr. Brown wrote:

"Love never lasts and your spouse will eventually fuck someone else."

Yep. Betrayal is the greatest tale of all.

Quote :

"I don't believe films have a beginning or an end. The only real end I know of is death. You can pretend something has a happy ending: the boy kisses the girl and they walk into their little cottage and that's the end of the story. Only, the next morning he wakes up and sees her kissing the milkman. He gets his shotgun and blows the milkman's head off, cuts up his wife into little pieces, and puts her in the milk bottles. That's not a happy ending at all! When something looks like a happy ending, it's really just a happy stopping point."

-Robert Altman

Nice one.

Given all the huffing and puffing about Tinker, Tailor, I'd add Godard's famous quip:

'A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order.'

Aristotle had the right idea. In order of importance:

1. Plot
2. Character
3. Theme/Idea
4. Speech (screenplay and performances)
5. Chorus (Music/song or narration)
6. Décor (production design/costumes/lighting)
7. Spectacle.(special effects)

Sharky wrote:

TV Tropes is great for this kinda thing.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Type in any film, TV show, or comic book you want, and it identifies common "tropes."

Best procrastination tool.

Avarice wrote:

So, what themes appeal to you?

A few, for starters:

-The inevitability of entropy.
-The disorderliness of the psyche and the impossibility of achieving comprehensive self-knowledge.
-The illusion of control.
-The aimless, displaced nature of contemporary Western society.

Fae wrote:

Sharky wrote:

TV Tropes is great for this kinda thing.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Type in any film, TV show, or comic book you want, and it identifies common "tropes."

Best procrastination tool.

I love the site, though it can be a little disheartening to read too much of it. Much like embracing reality.

Are you writing something currently, Ambler?

More things I like.

Well, betrayal. Especially by a family member. No, it's nothing to do with my life. But I always liked the idea of THE SHINING. I like the idea of realizing that someone you are very close to, and whom you trust completely, you means harm.

Innocence crushed. Learning of evil. I want to make a film called MR. FISH starring someone very charming like a Clooney. It'd be set in the mid 1920's in a small town. Mr. Fish comes to town, and it's sorta like SHADOW OF A DOUBT I guess but a bit darker. It's not a family relation, but a small boy (about 12) who sees more in Mr. Fish than anyone else seems to. It'd be a bit like ROSEMARY'S BABY where she isn't quite sure if any of her suspicions are valid, but to her eventual horror they are. Mr. Fish, named of course for Albert Fish (though I don't think I'd go the old man route) likes to rape and murder little boys. And the boy in this film comes face to face with true evil as Mr. Fish indeed tries to kill him on a trip to a cabin or something. I'd stretch out that trip, as Mr. Fish waits for his moment and the boy goes through extreme paranoia.

The studios would jump at this. Hell, all you need beyond a period town is a cabin in the woods, a good child actor (the real challenge) who has parents morally bankrupt enough to allow their kid to be in this kind of film (not a challenge), and some seriously damn good directing skills. And a good script. And maybe Polanski. To direct, of course. Not to play Mr. Fish.

Anyway, the kid survives. It's about betrayal, and about meeting the dark side in other people. And growing up in a fucked up world that you didn't know about as an innocent kid. It would end on a hopeful note. He's been through a traumatic experience, and the the town is shaken. Mr. Fish will be dealt with, or maybe he's killed by police. The last shot would be the boy comforting his little sister, maybe about 5 or 6 years old. Shades of THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER I guess.

I also like themes of hypocrisy. How people whom society deems repectable do bad or horrible things every day and get away scott free.

Mr. Brown wrote:

Are you writing something currently, Ambler?

I'm still trying to find a reliable screenwriting partner, which is harder than it sounds. You may think you have that vital connection with someone - a bond, shared understanding, similar tastes, chemistry, whatever you want to call it - but then you sit down and try and write something together and it all disappears just like that. I've been through five tryouts this year, just beginning a sixth with an ex-Granada guy in sunny Manchester.

I want a writing partner too. I've never had one. I certainly can't be trusted to write on my own. I'd want someone who can cover my weaknesses for one thing. I'd be the idea guy, jumping around the room thinking at 800mph and not able to get a damn thing down on paper. I need someone more hardnosed than me. I need a Spock to my Kirk.

Whenever I've done joint-scrips with others we've always bashed out the main plot, broken up the scenes and what happens and then we all go away seperately and write. We come back and then piece the mangled script together, clarify things etc. Its worked rather well for me when I had to do that for a school production, both for stage productions.

Twenty minutes long, over-the-top characters, clearly paying homage and parodying either Superheroes (the first joint script) or Medieval Quests (and Disney), cliches etc - hardly intelligent but eitherway with one of the scripts my team and I won Best Script overall which was very pleasing for all our efforts over the summer break.

I find that I can't work directly with someone when it comes to writing. I need to go off, get down how I see the scene will play out and then bring it back to cut. I think the best thing is to just let the ideas roll, then jot down a rough idea, work out what you can already cut from that list and then go away write a scene each and then combine, sort out characters etc.

However I'm not the biggest fan when it comes to writing scripts. I get the basics down but it is a weakness of mine. I just feel I can't get the same flow I do with writing prose ... which is a different ball game in itself.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Fae wrote:

Sharky wrote:

TV Tropes is great for this kinda thing.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

Type in any film, TV show, or comic book you want, and it identifies common "tropes."

Best procrastination tool.

I love the site, though it can be a little disheartening to read too much of it. Much like embracing reality.

Oh yeah.

I remember when I first ever went on it and I sat there and was like 'fuck ... everything I do has been done, will be done'. I also find I sometimes get to caught up in looking for potential tropes in the stuff I'm doing, trying to be smart to subvert them or something or spin them differently than simply writing.

But I'm semi-over that now thank god and can now just appreciate it for the procrasitination it gives me. :)

/EDITED to add: from Ambler's original list here are the themes that stuck out to me the most:

Evil lurks where we least expect it.
Power corrupts even a Saint.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction
Every law has a loophole
All good things must come to an end
You cannot please everyone
Nothing is so certain as death/
Where there’s a will, there’s always a way.

Yeah there is a few there ...

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Well, betrayal. Especially by a family member. No, it's nothing to do with my life. But I always liked the idea of THE SHINING. I like the idea of realizing that someone you are very close to, and whom you trust completely, you means harm.

Have you seen BIGGER THAN LIFE, Tux?

The White Tuxedo wrote:

I'd want someone who can cover my weaknesses for one thing.

That can work well. I had a tryout last year with a woman who wasn't very bright but a fabulous typist with a liking for Mills and Boon. In two days we ended up with a stream of consciousness that was essentially Bridget Jones: Serial Killer. Most commercial piece I've ever been involved with. :)

Harmsway wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Well, betrayal. Especially by a family member. No, it's nothing to do with my life. But I always liked the idea of THE SHINING. I like the idea of realizing that someone you are very close to, and whom you trust completely, you means harm.

Have you seen BIGGER THAN LIFE, Tux?

Nope. Heard about it. Probably should.

Avarice wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

I'd want someone who can cover my weaknesses for one thing.

That can work well. I had a tryout last year with a woman who wasn't very bright but a fabulous typist with a liking for Mills and Boon. In two days we ended up with a stream of consciousness that was essentially Bridget Jones: Serial Killer. Most commercial piece I've ever been involved with. :)

Her face is enough to kill men.

Nice arse though.

Armond White wrote:

You can’t find a clearer example of Western decadence than Bridget Jones’s Diary. This middle-class sitcom follows a young, single 32-year-old white British woman looking for love in the media world (publishing, then tv). Comfy in her own environment, Bridget’s not alienated like the women in Jafar Panahi’s feminist noir The Circle. She’s obsessed with class trivialities–and her audience is expected to be similarly vapid.

Not since Agnieszka Holland disgraced Jennifer Jason Leigh (and Henry James) in Washington Square has there been a movie and heroine so brazenly witless. Whose terrible idea was it to cast Texan Renee Zellweger as a Tory layabout? She has Shirley Booth’s dowdy charm, yet she works to disguise it with the same con-artist/vocal coach responsible for Gwyneth Paltrow’s lousy British accent in Shakespeare in Love. As Bridget, Zellweger goes through one supposedly endearing humiliation after another. She always looks flushed whether bumping uglies with Colin Firth as the prig-next-door or Hugh Grant as her loutish book-publishing boss. The sign of how ridiculously coddling this comedy of middle-class manners gets is its blase treatment of Bridget shagging her boss, as if such behavior were sensible. Directed by Sharon Maguire (Jerry’s film-school alter ego?), Bridget Jones’s Diary pretends to depict a young woman’s sex crisis when it actually celebrates the smugness of an incredibly daft girl through daft plot developments.

A few jokes work, but between the stupid insults of Germaine Greer and Bosnia, there’s no mistaking the insensitivity at hand. (At least the 70s version of this story–Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York–had humane values. This is just snotty.) Bridget’s a dolt who can’t tell a good man from bad. "I’m still looking for something more extraordinary than that," she says to one supplicating beau. So should moviegoers.

I agree though, nice arse.