Source: John Truby, Raindance Contributing writer
Here are 10 things you must know to be a great producer:
1. When listening to a pitch, focus on the probable structural problems embedded in the story idea. Every idea comes with them. You want to figure out now if they are solvable or not.
2. No matter how good an idea sounds at first, it will inevitably have elements that are predictable and generic. Ask yourself: What are some of the possibilities of this idea? Where can we take this that is more ambitious and hasn’t been done before?
3. Most story ideas, especially “high concept” ones, produce only two or three great scenes. You have to know how to help the writer extend the idea to a feature length script. That requires focusing on the opposition and the central moral problem embedded in the story idea.
4. Most of the time, the second draft is worse than the first. That’s because writers and producers don’t know that rewriting and development are a unique set of skills that must be learned, just like character, plot and dialogue. And the most important of this set of skills is knowing the proper order for development.
5. Good script development is all about fixing the structure and not the surface of the script. Dialogue is the surface. Deal with that only at the very end. Often it will fix itself as you work with the writer on getting the structure right. There are many elements involved in fixing story structure. But the most important is to make sure the main character drives the plot.
5 More attributes of a great producer
Showing posts with label John Truby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Truby. Show all posts
Truby Breakdown: Paranormal Activity
Source: John Truby, Raindance Web Article
Paranormal Activity isn't a great film. But it is a brilliant indie filmmaking strategy. In my article "10 Story Techniques You Must Use to Sell Your Script" (see below) I state that "if you're writing a screenplay for an indie film, write horror, thriller, or love." Horror is the most consistently popular genre around the world after myth. But unlike the epic-scale myth, horror can be made for very little money.
Continue Reading
Paranormal Activity isn't a great film. But it is a brilliant indie filmmaking strategy. In my article "10 Story Techniques You Must Use to Sell Your Script" (see below) I state that "if you're writing a screenplay for an indie film, write horror, thriller, or love." Horror is the most consistently popular genre around the world after myth. But unlike the epic-scale myth, horror can be made for very little money.
Continue Reading
The 9 Elements of Great Films
by John Truby
These same elements are present time and time again in the great movies, like King Kong, The Outlaw Josey Wales, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Meet Me in St. Louis, It's A Wonderful Life, Sunset Boulevard and Touch of Evil and they are worth highlighting:
1. These movies tend to have strong single line - with one overriding problem or goal for the hero - to give the story drive, momentum, and a sense of priorities, or in the extreme, a sense of the first cause.
2. These films occasionally digress from that strong line to allow the film to "breathe." That is, they play with the structure to comment on what is happening, to cause the viewers to rethink their expectations, and to present actions or words that make an abstract, or thematic, point.
3. These films usually have heroes with a moral problem. The hero commits or fails to commit actions that hurt other people. These are characters with moral flaws, and the stories drive toward the moment when the hero uncovers his or her moral blindness.
4. Perhaps the most crucial element of great films is that the audience believes, what each is fighting about. Even more important, these movies attach entire clusters of values and beliefs to the two antagonists. The great movies set up, around a single central opposition, an array of other oppositions that grow until they have national or even international implications, and present the essential predicaments of human life.
5. The great movies have powerful, condensed openings that present the crucial patterns of the story and then slowly bring these patterns to the surface and explore them in an explicit way. By the end the audience has a sense of the patterns of thought and values that cause problems, not just for these particular characters but for anyone anywhere.
For Elements 6-9
These same elements are present time and time again in the great movies, like King Kong, The Outlaw Josey Wales, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Meet Me in St. Louis, It's A Wonderful Life, Sunset Boulevard and Touch of Evil and they are worth highlighting:
1. These movies tend to have strong single line - with one overriding problem or goal for the hero - to give the story drive, momentum, and a sense of priorities, or in the extreme, a sense of the first cause.
2. These films occasionally digress from that strong line to allow the film to "breathe." That is, they play with the structure to comment on what is happening, to cause the viewers to rethink their expectations, and to present actions or words that make an abstract, or thematic, point.
3. These films usually have heroes with a moral problem. The hero commits or fails to commit actions that hurt other people. These are characters with moral flaws, and the stories drive toward the moment when the hero uncovers his or her moral blindness.
4. Perhaps the most crucial element of great films is that the audience believes, what each is fighting about. Even more important, these movies attach entire clusters of values and beliefs to the two antagonists. The great movies set up, around a single central opposition, an array of other oppositions that grow until they have national or even international implications, and present the essential predicaments of human life.
5. The great movies have powerful, condensed openings that present the crucial patterns of the story and then slowly bring these patterns to the surface and explore them in an explicit way. By the end the audience has a sense of the patterns of thought and values that cause problems, not just for these particular characters but for anyone anywhere.
For Elements 6-9
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