Many
beginning writers are afflicted with a chronic condition known as
“scene-itis.” Years of impassively viewing movies have led them
to mistakenly believe that a film is nothing more than a collection
on scenes. This misbelief is often compounded once they get their
first look at a shooting script, with each of its scenes chopped-up
and cut off by INT.'s and EXT.'s and then brought to a close by a CUT
TO: at the end. Writers stricken with scene-itis come to believe that
the scene is the basic unit of the cinematic story, that scenes are
self-contained, and all one has to do to create a great screenplay is
to string a collection of great scenes end to end in a somewhat
related fashion. The scripts created by these writers often do have
great scenes, but the story itself doesn't hold together. This is all
because these writers have failed to see the forest because of all of
the trees. A cinematic story comes not from a collection of scenes,
but rather from a firmly established Story Spine and the actions the
characters are willing to take to achieve the objectives contains
within that Spine. The scenes themselves are just the physical times
and places where these actions are performed.
The idea
of writing a screenplay in scenes comes from far more pragmatic
concerns than creative ones. Scenes originated in their archaic form
in the theater, where the opening and closing of the curtain was
necessary for the stage crew to change the location and lighting or
to indicate the passage of time. Therefore, the limitations of the
stage demanded that the story be separated into clearly defined
chunks of action. Modern editing eliminated the curtain as a story
device, however the notion of writing in sectioned-off scenes
continued for the sake of the complex procedures of film production.
For the
sake of efficiency, movies are shot out of sequence, and the need to
keep track of what part of the script should be shot when and where
created the use of “sluglines.” The writer him or herself has no
real need for the INT/EXT. LOCATION – DAY/NIGHT gobble-de-gook that
junks up the top of every scene. The slugline is only there so
production staff can easily a break down a script to schedule the
production in the most logical and efficient manner. But, if a writer
would ignore these artificial barriers that bookend a script's scenes
and look at the cinematic story as a whole, the writer will see that
the story is not merely a series of self-contained segments laid
end-to-end, but is rather one continuous flowing line of action that
starts in the very beginning, and continues its development unbroken
all the way to the story's end, moving like a river from its source
to the sea with no barriers in between. The “start” and “stop”
of a scene is merely an illusion. People use terms such as story
“line”, or story “thread” to refer to the fact that the scene
itself is just a small section of a constantly developing current
that began long before the scene's start and continues long after the
scene is over.
To create
a story which achieves this constant flow, a writer must always
remember one simple rule: A story must ALWAYS be MOVING FORWARD. By
moving forward, I mean it must always be developing, growing,
evolving. And in order to do this, every scene must cause some sort
of CHANGE in the story situation. The characters’ situation must be
somehow different at the end of the scene from what it was at its
beginning. Circumstances have been altered, whether this change be
big or small, for better or for worse. If a scene does not alter the
situation, it does not advance the story and therefore should not
belong in the script. Nothing happens. The scene keeps the story
stagnant, damming the flow of the narrative river, and accomplishes
nothing but to slow things down.
We may
call the story-altering change that occurs in each scene that scene's
FUNCTION. The function is the reason the scene exists in the story.
It is what the writer needs to accomplish in order to advance the
narrative and move the characters on to the next scene. In essence,
the function creates the next
scene. The change that occurs in one scene sets up the actions that
need to be performed in the following scene, in a cause-and-effect
manner. To put it as simply as possible, a scene’s task is to
create moments of change that progressively push the narrative toward
its eventual completion.
But how does a screenwriter do this? How can he or she make scenes
perform their necessary story-advancing functions without seeming
contrived or artificial? The writer might just have the characters go
straight after what need to get done, or have events conveniently
fall into their laps so the story can move on. But the audience will
neither buy nor enjoy this.
Here lies a paradox of our artform. Storytelling is the art of
creating dramatic contrivances. Everything in a movie's world is fake
and manipulated. Characters do what they do because the storytellers
makes them do it. Things happen because a storyteller is
intentionally pulling the plot’s strings. You, the storyteller-god
have every person's fates mapped out before hand, and create the
events that get them there. Of course, the audience implicitly
understands that the story's world is artificial and contrived, but
they do not want to believe this! And they certainly do not
want to see it. Movies are intended to create the illusion of
reality, and the audience wants to hold on to the illusion. And, like
the Great and Powerful Oz, the audience will not believe in your
spectacular illusion if they can see you pulling levers and pressing
buttons just behind a curtain.
The only way to make scenes achieve their function without seeming
contrived is through character actions based on rational wants and
needs – and the logical outcomes of the means and methods
used to pursue of these wants and needs. Through such character
action, the functional outcomes of each scene become, as Aristotle
would put it, “necessary and probable.” In short, the scene
accomplishes what it needs to accomplish narratively through
an indirect approach – by way of characters in conflict.
If
the writer has created characters with well thought-out spines, every
character will have some sort of overall objective or story goal.
Achieving this overall goal requires many smaller, more discrete
actions. Thus in each scene, the character will have something he or
she wants or needs to accomplish in relation to that overall goal. In
other words, each character will have a particular scene
goal, a smaller objective that
will somehow benefit their personal cause.
However, different characters have different goals. This means
characters may want opposing, if not completely contradictory things.
This creates conflict within the scene. There may also be forces at
play which reside outside of the control of the characters: the
pouring rain, the unexpected explosion of a roadside bomb, the
intrusion of a third character. Through these three conflicting
elements; the scene goal of Character A, the scene goal of Character
B, and any forces outside their control, that the writer creates the
dramatic events which will result in a moment of change and thus
accomplish the scene's function.
Sometimes the change occurs by one character winning the scene's
conflict and getting what he or she wants. Character A defeats
Character B, or B defeats A, and moves the story forward by claiming
their desired objective. However, more often then not, the moment of
change issues from some unforeseen third outcome – an unexpected
result of the character conflict. Let's say we have a scene where
Character A confronts Character B. Character A's scene goal is to
force some vital information out of Character B. Character B's scene
goal is to keep the information a secret. The two come into conflict.
As a result, a scuffle breaks out. A pistol falls from B’s pocket
and shoots Character A by accident. The shooting is the CHANGE that
advances the story (the scene's function). Character A is now dead.
The story situation has been irrevocably altered. Now, neither
character expected this outcome at the top of the scene. Neither
character wanted this outcome. Nevertheless, the moment of change
came a result of their scene conflict, achieving the scene's
function. The characters’ scene goals and the conflict caused by
them were merely the means by which this moment of change became
necessary and probable.
Let’s
look at a few simple scenes from the beginning of Star Wars
to illustrate how characters’
scene goals work to bring about the moments of change necessary to
move the story forward- not through direct achievement, but through
indirect consequence:
C3P0 and R2D2, two droids owned by the Rebel Alliance, have become
stranded on the desert planet Tatooine. R2 is secretly carrying vital
military secrets. The are then captured by Jawas, a band of nomadic
merchant creatures. In our first scene, Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen
meets with the Jawas to purchase some droids for work on his farm.
Owen's scene goal is to get some quality droids at a fair price. He
selects C3P0 as one of his purchases. C3P0 does not wish to be
separated from his companion R2D2. So, C3P0's scene goal is to
convince Luke to get Uncle Owen to buy R2 as well. Although both
characters achieve their individual goals in this scene, the
important story-advancing change comes about as an indirect
consequence of those goals: Both rebel droids are now the property of
the Skywalker family. Owen and Luke do not know that these are rebel
droids, nor are they trying to protect them. However, individual
scene goals create this new circumstance through indirect
consequence.
In
the following scene, Luke is tasked with cleaning the new droids.
Luke has other plans, so his scene goal is to finish the job as quick
as possible. In his haste, Luke inadvertently triggers R2 to play
back part of a message Princess Leia recorded for an Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Luke never intended to do this. It was in indirect consequence.
However, this action achieves the scene's function: to give Luke a
reason (and desire) to seek out Obi-Wan. The scene ends with Luke
being called to dinner.
At
dinner, Luke asks his uncle and aunt for permission to leave home so
he may join the rebellion. Uncle Owen flat out refuses. Though Luke
fails to reach his scene goal, the scene's function is still achieved
through indirect consequence: Luke becomes even more motivated to
leave home. Also, as part of Owen's argument against
Luke’s departure, he aids the
scene's function when he mentions that Obi-Wan knew Luke’s father.
This has the indirect result of giving Luke a second reason to seek
out Obi-Wan Kenobi.
CONCLUSION
In a screenplay, the purpose of an individual scene is to create a
moment of change which develops the story further down its spine
toward the resolution.
How this works:
Characters enter a certain time and place with certain desires. They
go after these desires using necessary and probable action. This
causes the characters to come into conflict with other characters
with contradictory desires. Through the heat of this conflict, and
CHANGE occurs that alters the story's situation. This is the dramatic
structure of a scene.
