The "SCENE": What it is, What it actually does

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.