May 30, 2024

  • Aaron Sorkin
    • Second draft, write the story over retype the whole thing
    • Withhold information
      • Build suspense
        ◦ from fam but not audience (in on it)
      • don’t just surprise
        ◦ from both audience & often family
    • Problem solving
      • Arcs and sequences
      • Plot twist – works like inevitable when they didnt see it coming
        • Emotional misdirection
        • Revelation
        • Plot twist happy they happened
        • Inevitable
        • The twist not the point – more about its relationship with the characters arc
      • Emotional revelation versus simple plot twist
      • Watch movie with stopwatch, note when plot points happen
  • Alfred Hitchcock
    • explosion vs audience sees the time bomb
    • Plotting =
      • What information to withhold in the beginning
      • What information to reveal
      • In what order to reveal
      • Intention and obstacle
    • What the character does is what makes the character
  • Stephen King
    • Come with me and I’m going to show you something you’ve never seen before
    • Lure of the forbidden
    • Create an emotion in the audience
    • mystery whodunit
    • suspense – give the audience information
    • wasted footage – no emotion to it
    • The most precious commodity in the industry is a unique talented voice. if you can say it well people will notice
  • Rian Johnson
    • shotgun marketing, get it to everyone, who knows who your neighbor knows
    • Character
      • What does the character want?
      • Consciously and unconsciously
      • Put formidable obstacles in their way
      • Give them moral choices
      • Put character under pressure
      • Back stories for readers/actors
      • contradictions, e.g. antagonist loving with kids, brutal with others
      • Character defining moments
  • M Night Shyamalan
    • Five drafts, down to where you say this line is bothering me
    • Plot comes out of character organically
    • Idea and angle
      • Idea _ guy is the only one to survive a train crash and someone says you’re a real superhero
      • Angle – not a good husband dad not doing what he’s supposed to do until he discovers himself
      • Alternate – angle was this kid’s dad actually is a superhero
    • Surprise, feature length twilight zone where something amazing happens in the end
      • this is not the movie you thought you were seeing
      • When you watch it the second time you should have that feeling that everything was inevitable
    • Do you want to do revelation at the end of the movie
      • Hearing gasps in the last five minutes of the movie
      • Is that the tree angle to the pot gold? (whuhuh?)