When Chris finds himself under attack towards the end of the film, he uses this knowledge to incapacitate his attacker. In 2017’s GET OUT, we establish early on that victims of the ‘Coagula process’ are incapacitated by the flash of a camera, when Chris takes a photo of Dre during a party. It’s one of the simplest and most common structural techniques in screenwriting and yet it’s often either misused or forgotten entirely. These form an important skeleton structure around which the rest of your script can be built.Ī key element of structure in film is the idea of set-up and pay-off. Screenplay Structureįirst comes structure: your script must follow a clear act structure, it should be properly sequenced and there should be a defined plot, meaning events should be causally linked to one another rather than a series of ‘and then’ sequential events. “I don’t think screenplay writing is the same as writing - I mean, I think it’s blueprinting”. Robert Altman, writer of MASH and The Long Goodbye, confirms this: When you build a house you have a blueprint – a methodology to follow. Screenwriting can be viewed in much the same way. Worse still, without the foundations your house is going to crumble and fall. You must start with strong foundations.īuild your house without these foundations and you’ll find that you’ll run into difficulties later on when you’re putting the finishing touches to your house. Screenwriting: The All-Important Foundationsįor the purpose of this guide, it is helpful to consider screenwriting in terms of building a house. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul…”Īgain, it’s a line – utilising the tools and formulas of the trade without showing them too clearly. Revered Swedish writer-director Ingmar Bergman hits the nail square on the head:
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