F16 Moments - Writing Exciting Scene-to-Scene Movies

Things of Value Come in Threes

1. Years ago, I was in a meeting with Will Smith and a few others breaking a story, yet to be made. We were at somewhat of an impasse about a scene when Will gets up and in his animated way pitches the scene something like this:

Naw! That's not how it needs to go down. Imagine instead that the doors to a big warehouse slowly open, and we hear a might roar of a jet engine, and smoke pours out of the doors, and out of the smoke rolls this monstrous F16 Jet fighter, and it comes down this alley, it's wings almost scrapping the brick walls either side, and it turns onto this boulevard,  and then it sits there at the end of this wide road, revving it's engines. It's vibrating something awesome, wanting to take off, and suddenly it gets the okay, and it begins it's roll. And the camera pulls back, and his F16 jet is on Broadway of all places. And it roars down Broadway, fire flying out it's ass, and suddenly the pilot pops the afterburner and that baby jacks up on it's hinny, and catapults into the sky and disappears. Now, that would be cool!

I spoke up.

Ah, Will. A jet couldn't take off down Broadway because of all the lights, and wires crossing the road. You would be a helicopter, a big one of course, but a jet could never do it.

Will looked at me.

No, Stan,  you don't get it. A helicopter is boring. A jet is cool and exciting and L O U D! Forget the wires, it would be a very cool scene to see that jet screaming along in front of those theaters, flashing lights on the marquees, and buildings, and then zoom up into the sky.

It took a minute, but then I realized he was right. I shut up.

2. Yesterday an acquaintance wrote me:

Have you ever read about how Walt Disney used to work with his story crew? They started with a pre-existing story and Walt asked them to come up with entertaining moments. Then they strung them together.

3. Another successful producer was David O. Selznick (GONE WITH THE WIND). Shortly after he released GWTW, he bought the rights to Scarlet Lily, a book by Edward Murphy that I wrote about yesterday on this blog. I'm reading the book with the intent of discovering what Selznick saw in it. I'm halfway through and just read this morning the Moment of Grace scene that totally changes the story's direction for our harlot protagonist, Mary of Magdala. But what has captured my attention is how each chapter is a single scene with a dramatic profile—they are moments, each worthy of remembrance. It goes back to what Will and Disney were saying: Put the story together with a tight sequence of memorable scenes and moments.

But What About Structure?

But a sequence of memorable scenes alone don't a story make, but Will Smith, Disney and Selznick are probably on to something.

The acquaintance that wrote me about Disney also said that there was a tendency of the Disney storywriters (when Walt was out of the room) to string moments together without a clear story or plot. Movie Moment

I'm meeting this week with a screenwriter on a couple of his scripts, and we're going to do this...well, I'm going to suggest he do this....D. are you reading this?

1. Take the Story Diamond and divide the story into 8 short movies or sequences. See my blog post on The Sequence Approach.

2. Conceive of each sequence has building to an exciting movie moment that coincides with the 8 Pinch Points or Turning Points that climaxes each sequence. Make each moment exciting, full of tension, and conflict. If you can't think of such a sequence that ends in such a memorable moment, for the sake of your audience CHANGE YOUR STORY!

3. Ensure that the first 7 pinch points or turning points end with the protagonist's failure to achieve the goal he or she had pursued in that sequence, but opens a door for an escalating challenge in the next sequence. If the movie is redemptive, the 8th "point" is the charm and success is achieved. If the movie is tragic, the 8th "point" is the protagonist's final defeat. (Remember that even in a redemptive movie there is likely an antagonist that has a tragic arc, so you can write a story that has your protagonist succeed and your antagonist defeated (ala DIE HARD).

4. In every other aspect follow the Moral Premise.

In summary:
 Every sequence ends with an "F16 popping the afterburners down Broadway." 

An Example of Great Ironic and Metaphoric Writing

EDWARD F. MURPHY

I have been reading Edward F. Murphy books of late. First, there was an out of print novel from 1947, "Pére Antoine: The 1770-1822 story of the most hated priest in New Orleans who became the best-loved bishop of all Louisiana." I picked this out of the shadows because I was developing a screenplay that begins in New Orleans just before the famous 1778 fire. The irony in Murphy's writing captivated me.

I next found what I thought was another novel of his, "Yankee Priest" which turned out to be his fascinating autobiography. Murphy was a poor missionary Catholic priest to New Orleans in the 1940s. He went there as one of the first professors at Xavier University. Ironically, Murphy, had very close connections to the famous Broadway actor, composer and producer Eddie Dowling, and through Eddie's friendship, had considerable affect on Broadway at the time.

Then, I came across Murphy's best selling novel, "Scarlet Lily," a fictional novel of Mary of Magdala, conceived as the harlot who became a follower of Christ.

Most Bible scholars do not believe Mary was the adulterous woman Jesus forgive, nor was she another harlot, but rather just a rich woman from Magdala whom Jesus cast out seven demons. That she was a harlot was a legend started perhaps in the Middle Ages and evident in some gnostic writings, but not supported by the canonical Scriptures or church tradition. Nonetheless, Murphy makes a good story out of it.

"Scarlet Lily" won a famous novel writing contest sponsored by The Bruce Publishing Company. Before "Scarlet Lily" was released as a novel, famed Hollywood producer David O. Selznick picked up the movie rights as his next big production after Gone with the Wind and attached Ingrid Bergman to play Magdala.  Alas, the movie was never made for a variety of political reasons, one of which that with the end of WWII, biblical epics were suddenly out of vogue. [Yes, I'm wondering, was a screenplay written? I've been looking.]

IRONY and METAPHOR

I've just started reading the "Scarlet Lily" and, as expected, I've been rewarded with great prose, and Murphy's talent for IRONY and METAPHOR.

I've written and lectured before about the importance of irony and metaphors in writing (novels and screenplays), and indeed the first of ten lessons of my on-line Moral Premise workshop is all about the importance of irony. (http://Storycrafttraining.blogspot.com). So, below is a great example from Scarlet Lily.

While Murphy finds it hard to write a paragraph, in anything he writes, without layering on irony, metaphor or similes, this paragraph is the most dense I've read...among many, many writers. So, it is worthy of posting for study and analysis. This is how you should write every line of a screenplay, every scene - - and of course this is what The Moral Premise does—it pits virtue and vice, good consequence against bad, in a single sentence. Just as you've always read that ever scene must have conflict, so every action description should likewise be written, and every doublet of dialogue drip.

SETTING

Setting: Mary of Magdala is a young, beautiful woman, who out of the tyranny of King Herold's murderous temperament, found herself in the ugly situation of being a highly prized harlot wandering the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. It's about 12 A.D. A week or so before this moment in the novel, she has inadvertently witnessed Jesus in the temple at age 12, dialoging with Jewish teachers (Luke 2:39-52). In that scene young Jesus defines for the much older teachers the virtue that hides between fear of God and love of God—reverence of God. Magdala doesn't know who the young boy is, but she's impressed—there's a glow about him.  But her pimp shows up, putting a possessive arm around her and dragging her away from the discussion, and calls on her to employ her charms to entertain a visiting Babylonia prince. After spending days in the prince's employ, the prince beckons her to leave Jerusalem and travel with him to his kingdom. She ponders the offer, telling her servant: "There is nothing in Jerusalem for me. And, for a moment, I had though there might be everything—." (even there, notice the "nothing" and "everything" in the one sentence. That's Murphy's talent.

Here is the longer pondering...every sentence on a pedestal of irony and metaphor.

THE PASSAGE

That Jehovah was great, and that his visitations were as awful as himself, Mary thought she could plainly see. But that he was lovable, notwithstanding that he had permitted a child to be born in Bethlehem over a decade ago, whose coming meant the murder of many little ones, did not appear at all clear. Every gift of his, however fine in one phase, was fearful in another. Life itself, his greatest [gift], was shadowed by death. Youth and beauty were so brief that they amounted to little more than a withering and a decay. Light sombered into darkness. Stars fell. The earth yielded thistles and thorns as well as wheat and roses. The heart, so suited to hold joy, regularly brimmed with sorrow. The jubilee of today was the sackcloth and ashes of tomorrow. What did it profit to have a warm stream of health in one's veins when the chill of certain dissolution blew steadily over it? What was spring's awakening in comparison with winter's terrible sleep? As for the towers of reason, they enthroned the rulership of fools, for kings and high priests had alike committed Israel to suffering and shame. And the bosom of Abraham — hope of the faithful! — had it not been barbaric, even as Herod's own, with a willingness to slay the innocent Isaac? Love, as an inspiration to good, was better than fear, as a prevention of evil; but how could love grow and bloom in a winter-world? Reverence was ideal; but how could it be the soul-expression of a people whose lambs were led to the slaughter and whose God, to whom sacrifices were continually made, had left the land be stripped of dignity and left it to languish under the Roman heel?  [Murphy, Edward (1947). The Scarlet Lily. Milwaukee: Bruce, p. 62.]