Paparazzi At Sean Penn’s Wedding
“Welcome! Today, we’re going to create a sitcom.”
Terrifying way to introduce a lecture on television scripting. By the end of the seminar, we had a grand set up involving the main character, Sophia, successfully achieving paparazzi pictures of Sean Penn’s ruined wedding ceremony ^.^
My pursuit of screen-writing has only been active just under a year, but I’ve learnt a few things along the way. This seminar allowed me to understand why television is structured with seven acts and taught me the five crucial elements needed to create effective, marketable teleplays.
So what’s the “big secret” to television? The five crucial elements (drum-roll, please):
I. protagonist
II. protagonist’s need
III. stakes in protagonist’s way
IV. antagonist
V. opposite need of protagonist
Okay–not too shocking, if you know anything about writing. Every good story requires these elements.
Alan Zatkow, the guest-speaker, noted repeatedly that with all the scripts out there, agencies look for reasons to disqualify you without a single read. If script-readers find your story lacking an element, or parts of it, for whatever reason, you’re gone (eek! watch out for typos!)
With each day in my screen-writing studies, I find it easier and entertaining to dissect the shows I watch. For this reason, even though a lot of what the seminar taught seems like one big DUH, the discussion on the “Seven-Act” structure fascinates me the most.
Television shows, as a rule, have three story-lines per episode (A, B, C). Each story must have the typical beginning/middle/end structure. Yes, math geeks (and I use that term with endearment, of course), that adds up to nine, not seven. Here’s where Zatkow’s explanation fuels my dissection hobby:
The final acts for A and B are meant to collide, creating controlled chaos. In other words, chaos planned by the author–a concept I love to employ!
The more an author combines stories in an episode (this includes A, B, and C), the more brilliant her talents appear to script readers.
Very cool. 
Aside from networking and doubling my motivation for graduate school, Saturday’s seminar has added a new layer to my telly-watching radar.
Zatkow’s emphasis on structure creates a strong parallel between television writing and music composition: Structure MUST exist, but when an author combines the right amounts of complexity and originality to that structure, it disappears in the action. The story drives emotions, reels in the audience, and passes time. Makes studying shows somewhat of a treasure hunt with distractions, but I’m up for the challenge!
Besides, rules are “more like guidelines,” anyway 
30 Days of Chaos and Insanity
Script Frenzy has arrived! Well, come Thursday it has. I’m enthralled, as this is my very first attempt at writing an actual screenplay. To make it more chaotic, I have no idea how to format a screenplay! I feel lost and confused, wondering why I thought it’d be a good idea to participate in such a crazy event (setting aside my own crazy status, that is).
Then I remember that the past few months have reeled (no pun intended) me in to the idea of screenwriting as a possible motivator for graduate school.
I’ve always been fascinated by film and television. Visual storytelling, as many of those Quizilla-style personality tests reveal, is apparently my strongest area in writing. I tend to be a visual thinker and often can’t comprehend things until I observe them somehow.
2010′s proven a year of superiority for my skills in observation. Through obsessive engulfment in audio commentaries and behind-the-scenes features, television trivia has widened my awareness of what goes into the production of programmes. The analytical thinking best developed in my last literature class has carried into the visual world.
I don’t watch shows solely for entertainment anymore. I notice details that add to these visual stories. Details that passed overhead before. Camera angles/styles, cuts between scenes and within action. Choice in dialogue, positions of actors. Methods of exposition. They’re all more meaningful to me now that I’m educating myself in the world of screenwriting.
Careful thought and collaboration amongst many artistic fields are put into the craft of screen storytelling. The cast and crew incorporate trivial details that enrich a show through subtlety. Much of it probably only gets noticed by people like me, who relish analysing anything and everything. Including those subtleties, however, layers screen stories with realism, which in turn enables audiences to further connect with the characters.
The question is, does a sharpened awareness of behind-the-scenes crafting ruin the effects of a show? In the past, I’d probably answer “yes.” In a way, knowing the creative process makes it less believable. Answering today, I change my vote to “no.” Awareness of the process allows me to understand the genius behind such stories and appreciate the work on another level.
It goes back to the process of writing, really. On one hand, I read novels and cavil elements scattered throughout. Yet at the same time, awareness of those nuances helps me grasp what it is that truly makes me rate a book as “yay” or “nay.” Identifying what works and what doesn’t is a key factor in self-improvement. It’s really just learning from other people’s mistakes (or triumphs). ^.^
