How To End It All - in the most satisfactory way for your audience

As Battlestar Galactica, once the best science-fiction show on television, painfully limps towards its three-part finale, the question which poses itself is: where did it all go wrong?



In the original miniseries and the first two seasons, Galactica managed to combine science fictional concepts, space adventure and realistic, multi-faceted characters to an unprecedented degree. Season three started off equally strong, but lost its way in the second half of the season. And the fourth season is drowning in autoparody, weighed down by an ever-increasingly complex and nonsensical mythology, which deliberately raises five questions for each one it answers.

Where have we seen this before?





Oh yes. In the X-files. Instead of providing answers, Chris Carter and co piled on the questions. By the end of the show's ninth season, nobody cared anymore, a painful end for a series which had been a real pop-cultural phenomenon.



Ending a long-running series (with continuing storylines) in a satisfactory way seems to be very difficult. Alias, which started off so well, was nigh unwatchable near the end. Prison Break, which had probably the best gimmicky concept ever on television, managed to lose everything which made it special from season two onwards, and had to wrap everything up in a truncated fourth season.



However, not all series end on such a low note. The Shield had an effective series finale, for the most part. So did The Wire. So did Deep Space Nine and, to an extent, Babylon 5 (which only ran into trouble because it had already used up all its material by the end of season 4 in order to finish the story when cancellation seemed likely).



So what's the difference? What's the reason for one show to bow out on a high note, while others seem to lose the magic they once had, even though the same showrunners stay in command?

In most cases, not knowing where you're going is to blame.

During the X-files' run, it was so obvious that the backstory of the various conspiracies/invasions had not been fully thought out. When I aired this observation (during season 5, I think) in class, one student, an avid fan of the shown, reacted with shock. She couldn't believe that the makers of the show would let her down like that. Well, they did.

And on the commentaries, Ronald D. Moore, Galactica's showrunner, has admitted several times that the show gets made up as it goes along. Which is really a dangerous track to follow once you start messing with prophecies, characters with special destinies, a hidden Final Five group of Cylons which turn out to be regular cast members... The feeling of humanity on the run from an implacable enemy, which may or may not have a valid case for its vengefulness, has been lost completely in all the sub- and counterplots.

Similarly, on Alias, the Rambaldi legacy which drove all the machinations by the various secret factions on the show, was never really determined until the very last episode. And then it turned out to be the least inventive solution to the mystery - it was a simple recipe for immortality.

Knowing where you're going, how you want the show to end, what the true nature of the mysteries behind everything is, is essential if your show is to keep its vibe and vigour. So what if fandom guesses some of your ideas? You can always adjust as you go along, if necessary. But working blind, as it where, just trusting to fate that the brilliant idea to tie everything together will show up at exactly the right moment... that way lies disaster.

It's like the Boy Scouts say: be prepared. And the better you're prepared, the better the end result is likely to be.

More book reviews

ROMANCING THE A-LIST: WRITING THE SCRIPT THE BIG STARS WANT TO MAKE by Christoper Keane (Michael Wiese Press, 2008)

Chris Keane’s second book on screenwriting may seem to be all about creating the big blockbuster on the surface, but it really isn’t. Writing a script to woo an A-list actor doesn’t involve dreaming up a simple high-concept that requires lots of CGI-work – instead, it’s all about creating truly memorable characters and intriguing stories.

The book is largely based on Keane’s workshops. As such, the chapters follow a logic which might seem a little strange at first, but which actually provide a set of (somewhat surprising) building blocks for the entire scriptwriting approach advocated in the book. At first, the focus is on the writer – Keane asks his readers to do a number of exercises which range from choosing your favourite films and to admitting your darkest childhood secret. Careful though, some of these exercises can be very confronting if you're dealing with unresolved traumas.

The meat of the book consists of chapters about situation, concept, story, plot and structure. A lot of good advice here, with some original insights. The final chapters tackle scene outlines and treatments (with examples from Keane’s students), the obligatory breaking-into-Hollywood advice and a short look at adaptation.




THE ART OF PLOTTING: ADD EMOTION, SUSPENSE, AND DEPTH TO YOUR SCREENPLAY by Linda J. Cowgill (Lone Eagle, 2008)

Plotting is a matter of choosing the right story incidents to achieve your goals and making sure they are presented in the best possible order. Having all the necessary elements to construct the central conflict, and making sure the cause-and-effect chains which give meaning to the narrative work, are central concerns, and Ms. Cowgill examines them in depth.

She provides a complete breakdown of Jaws and American Beauty, to illustrate just how these scripts are plotted. And she also looks at sequences, plotting tools for characters and action, and common problems in plotting. One of the more surprising revelations is that the number of major events which can occur in a well-plotted film is actually quite low.

The book is full of very good advice, and although the focus is plainly on ‘traditional’ screenwriting, the focus is on (very) good and well-crafted storytelling. I suppose a few more extensive examples along the lines of the previously-mentioned breakdowns would not have gone amiss, but as a primer for screenplay plotting this book definitely hits the target.




EMOTIONAL STRUCTURE: Creating The Story Beneath The Plot – A Guide For Screenwriters by Peter Dunne (Quill Driver Books, 2007)

This is potentially one of the most important books on screenwriting you can get your hands on. It’s not flawless, but it focuses on the character development side of screenwriting in an unprecedented way.

Dunne basically distinguishes between plot – the actions of the screenplay – and story – the emotional evolution of the characters, and he stressed that both aspects must support and feed off each other in order to create a great script. In his structural model (which is an elaborate version of the three-act structure), the second act focuses on the story, while acts 1 and 3 respectively set up and resolve the plot.

Dunne uses Witness as an example, and the same narrative method is at work in Some Like It Hot. Dunn also provides a great technique to use with index cards.

As a writer, Peter Dunne can be somewhat verbose and too prescriptive, and the script he develops in the book is unfortunately not very good (as usual for scripts developed in screenwriting manuals). But the core content and the practical way in which emotional development is integrated with the narrative structure makes it a book every beginning screenwriter should read.




THE ANATOMY OF STORY: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby (2008, Faber & Faber)

With this release, we finally get the screenwriting model of the last remaining 'unpublished' big-name guru in print. John Truby has previously taught his method through classes and through the BLOCKBUSTER story development software, but getting this material in book form means that it can now reach a wider audience.

Truby’s approach is explicitly anti-3-act-structure, but his criticism is frankly wrong. He proposes an alternative method which will develop the script organically, but ironically it seems far more complex than most other approaches to screenwriting out there (with the exception of DRAMATICA). His 22 steps combine backstory, characters and narrative events without really helping the writer shape their story.

On the plus side, though, the material on using the story world, creating character webs to people your script in the most effcient way and effectively using symbolism on several narrative levels is very good and deep. For more advanced students of screenwriting the book has some great material to offer, though it’s an unnecessarily textbook-like read. Beginning writers will probably be overwhelmed by the complexity of the method.

One story to bind them all... But that's not necessarily a good thing

Last year, Cosby and Major Dad writer/creator Earl Pomerantz bemoaned the general state of American movies on his excellent blog, and more especially because they always tell the same story. It's either 'somebody wants something and gets it' or 'somebody wants something and goes mad'.

Of course, mr. Pomerantz nuances this blanket statement (there are movies in which the protagonist doesn't get his wish, and these are his favourites), but there's more than a little truth in his statement. The underlying story structure of most American films has become extremely uniform over the past two or three decades.

And that underlying story structure is the Hero's Journey.

For those screenwriting enthusiasts who lived on Mars for the last thirty years or who never opened a book beyond Field or McKee: The Hero's Journey is the screenwriting structure developed by Christopher Vogler, who based it on Joseph Campbell's classic The Hero With The Thousand Faces.

Basically, it's about the process of becoming an adult: the hero leaves his home, ventures into the unknown world, is challenged and returns to his home transformed, an adult who adds something to society.
It's a fictionalized representation of the ritual of adulthood, which in primitive societies generally takes place when puberty occurs.

Now, I'm not criticizing the Hero's Journey: it's a story archetype which works, and which appeals to psychological mechanisms and processes in everybody's mental make-up.

Yet there is far more to life than moving from childhood to adulthood.

There are countless stories to tell about the challenges of adulthood, about the slow decline when middle-age sets in, and about old age and facing one's mortality. In James Bonnett's Stealing Fire From The Gods, all of these story types are placed on a story wheel, divided into quadrants. It shows very clearly how much more story material is available to screenwriters.

And these stories were more prevalent in the past (and are also found more often in the films of other countries). For some reason, though, the Hero's Journey model has pushed all others aside.

One of the reasons for this may be that it's the only story structure of its type that is commonly known and described so exhaustively. Bonnet's book is very inspiring and, in its second edition, also attempts to provide practical models of the kind, but the fact remains that Vogler's rightly famous manual is extremely effective in fixing the Hero's Journey model in the reader's mind - and in making it immediately applicable.

Secondly, the whole character arc concept which is so prevalent in screenwriting theory (and which every teacher, myself included, imparts to their pupils), always implies an evolution in the main character. Something is missing in their life, and through their experiences, the flaw is healed. No matter what the genre, this is the 'genetic blueprint' for just about every film protagonist since the '80s - although Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4 and Shia Leboeuf in Transformers had no character arcs to speak of.

In both these cases, the lack of an arc is a weakness: John McClane feels stale, now, and Leboeuf's character is so bland it beggars belief. There are other characters, though, who do not need an arc. James Bond (pre-Brosnan) is the best example. Here is a man who is complete, who has flaws he will never be able to overcome (compulsive womanizer, snob, sometimes overconfident, impulsive). Yet his talents more than outweigh these weaknesses. Similarly, Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes, Dirty Harry etc. are characters who are what they are. Their flaws are part of their appeal, and they do not need to 'learn' in order to be effective and entertaining. What is important though, is that they are portrayed with enough multi-dimensionality when they first appear, so they come alive to the audience and create a very strong impression - an impression which overshadows the details of the actual narrative.

This is a huge topic and I've only touched on the surface - I may return to it later to investigate certain points more deeply. What I would like you to take away from reading this is the following: the Hero's Journey is but one story model, which is ideally suited to (many) screen stories, but not all of them. Investigate the alternatives. Learn to fit the structural model to the content of the story, as form and content are one. One size might fit many, but it does not fit all.

Making Your Script Editor/Story Editor/Show Runner Happy

You know what script editors/producers/show runners like best?

To find a script on their desk they're totally happy about.

That happens only very rarely. But in order to help all writers out, here are some recurrent script problems you should be on the lookout for. Remedying these before you send your script out will go a long way towards getting your gatekeeper in a good mood.

Some of these problems can occur in any script. Others are more specific to television writing.


SUBTEXT—MISSING IN ACTION

Subtext is an element often missing from the work of beginning writers (and unfortunately, more than a few professionals as well). It’s pretty easy to define what subtext IS. However, it’s far harder to put this knowledge into practice.

Subtext can be defined as a layer of meaning underlying the action within a scene. For example, one character is expressing his love for another character without ever saying the words, “I love you.”

This example is very basic, but there’s a wide range of emotion and information, which can be conveyed by subtext. For some excellent examples, check any of Billy Wilder’s films.

Why is it so difficult for beginning screenwriters to use subtext?

I always say they’re “trapped by the page.” Novice writers have trouble visualizing the scene and therefore underestimate the potential of the audiovisual media of getting the point across obliquely.

An understandable reaction, but an unfortunate one since subtext is probably the single most effective tool in a writer’s arsenal to bring a sense of complexity and life to a scene.

The fact that the audience is actively making sense of what’s happening, involves them directly with what they’re watching, and brings about a great sense of pleasure. Moreover, it gives the actors ‘something to play’. They don’t just say their lines, they infuse them with hidden meaning which results in layered performances.

Be aware that:

(1) Sometimes, the meaning of a scene or an explicit expression of emotion is necessary. If the audience has been waiting for this for a long time, you’ve to give them what they’ve been waiting for—but hopefully not in a way they expect.

(2) When attempting subtext you must be VERY CLEAR about what you try to express. Any confusion or lack of clarity on this matter will result in an aimless, waffling scene which simply doesn’t work on either the textual (i.e. surface) or sub-textual level.

Injecting subtext into a scene can be quite difficult, and it definitely takes more work than just writing the scene in a straightforward fashion. But it is absolutely worth the extra effort.

WRITE VISUALLY—SEE THE ACTION
Once again, a problem resulting from writers not being sufficiently able to visualize the scene. This usually manifests itself in the "talking heads" syndrome. The writer places two people in the scene and has them spout dialogue at each other (the dinner table being a favourite “location” for this sort of thing).

The result is often boring and static scenes, especially when their purpose is primarily expository. The writer doesn’t consider how the characters interact with their surroundings, or how the dialogue can provoke physical reactions (standing up, sitting down, turning away etc.). If you want irritate a director, piling on these “talking heads”-scenes definitely is the way to go...

Visualizing the scene can make it more active and effective, and automatically increase the possibilities for adding subtext.
This includes placing it in an interesting location, giving the actors an activity during the scene, and even trying to set up interesting shots and transitions in the script. No guarantee they’ll be used – but they may inspire the director to lift the scene out of the ordinary.

This applies to ALL scripts; from big budget blockbusters to the most humble soaps – where applying this technique is often essential.


DO NOT TREAT THE CHARACTERS AS PROPS

Characters don’t exist in a vacuum. They don’t disappear into thin air just because they’re no longer the focus of attention. You should always give your characters an “inner life.” Why are they there? What’s their emotional state—or how does this evolve during the scene? What’s their goal?

Answering those questions will reduce the number of times in which a character starts reciting dialogue on cue and lapses in limbo when his/her immediate function has been played out in the scene.

Of course, this becomes a bigger problem when you’ve many characters within a scene; some of which have only a small function although their presence is required for plot reasons.

It can be very hard to keep track of seven or eight people and give all sufficient exposure, especially when you work within the constraints of episodic television. However, it’s important you make an effort because actors will always notice this and complain—and justly so.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING STRUCTURED

Structure is far more than act breaks and plot points. Structure is at work in EVERY SINGLE SCENE of your script.

A scene has to have shape. It needs a goal. An objective that needs to be achieved. And obstacles which prevent this.

Failing to provide this will result in aimless and dull scenes. If you provide too many objectives, on the other hand, they often get in each other’s way. This confuses the issue and leaves the scene a shapeless mess.

You need to have the scene objectives clearly in mind and decide beforehand the order in which they’ll be dealt with. Only thus can any sense of order, and therefore structure, be brought to big and complex scenes.

It’s important your scenes have room to evolve and reach a climax.
If you start a scene on a very high note, whether conflict or comedy, it will be almost impossible to top.
If one of your characters start a quarrel with a killer reply, the rest of the scene will turn out to be anti-climactic or repetitive. If you open a scene with a big laugh, trying to top it may lead to very strained humour.

The solution in this case is often simple. Move your opening gag to the end of the scene and build it up using the old “rule of three.” The audience remembers the big pay-off. Not the way in which it was reached.

Another level on which structure is important is, surprisingly perhaps, character.

Character IS Structure. Your characters need room to develop. It’s important not to have them hit the same note over and over again. Too much intensity can make them very irritating.


Structure is at work in every part of your script. All the time. The more attention you pay to it, the better the chance your script will work as desired.


THE PHYSICAL REALITY OF THE SCENE


This problem is more common in TV series with fixed sets. Sitcom and soap writers often write without considering the blocking of the scene. Most of the time this is not a problem. However, sometimes they forget to consider the physical aspects of the setting.

It’s possible to have your character interact with someone, and with the next line of dialogue have him/her talk to someone at the other end of the set. This is usually glossed over during the writing or script-editing stage, but it can provide directors serious headaches when the scene has to be staged.

Similarly, it’s very easy to write a simple action which takes a considerable amount of time to perform. Having your character coming from behind a bar just to serve a table some distance away, can take more than ten seconds of screen time during which nothing happens on the dramatic and narrative level.

Those problems are often intercepted during rehearsal. However, solving them can prove to be quite difficult if there’s no way for the actors to “cover” the dead time.

You need to SEE the characters move through the scene. You have to consider their actions and try to cover movement by dialogue or by changing the focus to other characters in the scene.


MAKE MINOR ROLES INTERESTING

When you work with your characters, you pull off a great sleight-of-hand. You make the audience believe your characters are real. They just “happen” to do or say things which propel the script forward.

You completely disguise the fact that your characters are actually steered along a narrow path and have a technical FUNCTION to advance the narrative (e.g. transmit information, act as obstacles, provide comic relief, set up a subplot etc.).

Sometimes you’ll write secondary characters whose “function” is all too visible. It’s important you try to give EACH character an individual voice. Keep in mind that even bit-players are supposed to be real people, which should be discernible in their actions and dialogue.

It’s often sufficient to give minor characters one memorable characteristic for the illusion to work. See the works of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges for some great examples. Don’t worry too much if you don’t get it right from the start – but keep practicing, as it is a very valuable writing skill.

Also be aware that you may have ‘stock’ characters, which keep recurring from script to script. For instance, you might be very partial to introducing suspects in a crime series who all cheat on their wives and abuse them physically. Try to avoid falling into this trap, as it gives the impression that you have a very limited range and imagination. It will also make your scripts feel the same, which once again will result in a negative impression.


SUPPLY MOTIVATION FOR YOUR CHARACTERS


Within the scene: Your characters should be there for a reason, not just because you want them to be. Again, this comes back to keeping the sleight-of-hand going. If your character HAS to do or say something in order to make the narrative progress, make sure it appears logical for the character. When this doesn’t happen, the effect is almost like a non sequitur; a character suddenly changes track in the middle of a scene and/or behave out of context. The result is a jarring loss of credibility.

Within the screenplay: Give your characters a reason to be the way they are. If your villain is the head of a sinister business conglomerate who dresses up in skirts and angora sweaters and has a semi-incestuous relationship with his daughter, fine! But WHY is he this way? Just because it’s “shocking” or “cool” doesn’t justify it. The character’s traits must follow (or be explained by) their psychological profile and backstory. If not, they’ll seem gratuitous and make suspension of disbelief that much harder.


There, that should be enough to be getting on with. Go forth and multiply happy editors, producers and show-runners!

Script review Loft (2008) Part 2 - MORE SPOILERS!

PLOT

In order to review the plot of Loft, it will be necessary to spoil the story, unfortunately. So if you haven't seen the film AND don't want to know the surprises in store... Well, a script review isn't the best thing to read, I guess.

Anyhoo...

The script opens on a rainy night. Police cars arrive near a building, a loud smash is heard, and then we see Chris looking down from the loft, distressed, saying 'I could have helped you'.

The scene shifts to a interrogation room in a police station. Vincent is being interrogated by two police inspectors, and claims to be innocent. 'They' were framed. The police inspectors ask him to tell the whole story again, and this leads into the first flashback.

A man arrives at the loft (his arrival is intercut with images of as-yet unidentified people making love), and discovers a dead naked young woman, bathing in her own blood, on the bed. He reacts with shock. The man is Luc.

Vincent arrives later, reacts horrified. Luc wants to call the police, Vincent is dead set against this. Luc reveals the door was locked and the alarm was off, so the girl must have been let into the loft by one of the friends as they are the only ones with keys.

In the police station, Luc is now interviewed, and the reason for the existence of the loft is revealed: it's a bachelor pad for five friends, where they could bring their girlfriends and mistresses. Luc claims he's never been to the place, and this morning he had breakfast with his friend Chris, a psychiatrist.

In the flashback, Chris arrives at the scene of the murder, soon followed by Marnix. It is discussed whether Chris' brother Filip could be the culprit. Vincent takes charge: they're friends, they'll get out of this mess together.

We then flash back again, to a party in an art gallery one year ago. We are introduced to the wives of the friends, and to Filip. During the party (in honour of Vincent's latest project, Vincent takes the men to the loft and proposes that they share it in order to sleep around once it's finished.
At the party, Chris meets the beautiful Ann, the sister of a former patient of his. Ann claims to be the assistant of the mayor. She flirts with Chris in a roundabout way - he is intrigued.

Back at the crime scene, Luc flips out and has to be kept under control. Marnix discovers a Latin phrase on the wall, written in the blood of the dead girl. Someone is out to get the men.

In the police station, Chris is now being interrogated and translates the phrase: Fate will unite us. We get some backstory about Filip's violent past as well.

Back at the crime scene, the men start accusing each other and discover the murder weapon - a knife from the kitchen. Chris urges the guilty party to confess - to no avail.

And we flash back again to one year ago, to the wedding of Filip. His father-in-law, Tyberghien, is introduced, a project developer who is close friends with the mayor. We're introduced to Sharon, Filip's younger sister, as well, and Filip turns out to be fiercely protective of her. Vincent hands the men the keys to the loft, except for Chris who doesn't want it. Chris meets Ann again. It's clear she is the mayor's mistress. Chris confronts her with this truth, she admits it and entices Chris with a description of some of the sex games the mayor likes her to play. Chris is interested, wants to invite her for a drink sometime, but she doesn't want that. Soon after, Chris asks Vincent (who has kissed Sharon in the meantime) for the final key.

Once again at the crime scene, the men try to find out who might have had access to the loft. Chris hasn't got his key with him.

In the past, the men and their wives are at Chris' house for dinner. Marnix almost reveals too much about the loft. Luc's wife asks him whether he's in love with someone else, Luc denies it.

At the crime scene the recriminations keep flying without anyone getting the wiser. The possibility is raised that someone is out for revenge against one of the men.

We then flash back again(!) to the loft, where Chris and Ann have sex. He's madly in love with her by now, she however doesn't want that, and reveals she's actually a call girl. She's obviously upset, and clearly feels more for Chris than she wants to.

At the police station, Marnix is now interviewed and admits to having met the dead girl once.

This leads to a flashback in Düsseldorf, where Marnix, Luc and Vincent meet two Flemish women at the hotel bar. Marnix is roaring drunk and has sex with the least attractive of the two. Vincent and Luc hang out with the other girl, Sara, and Vincent has sex with her in the swimming pool while Luc watches. Sara turns out to be the murdered girl (who we also have seen in short flashbacks in the loft where she is apparently being dumped by her as-yet unknown lover).

At the crime scene, the men suddenly suspect Vincent of having been there yesterday, and Vincent confesses the girl was still alive when he left. Chris wants to go to the police, Luc thinks Vincent has to confess something more first. Vincent reveals to Luc and Marnix they know the girl - they met her in Düsseldorf. They are interrupted by someone ringing the doorbell: a woman from an estate agency has a meeting here with Sara Delporte (the dead girl)regarding the sale of the loft. The men send her away (without letting her in, of course), but the news that someone is putting the loft up for sale causes more panic. Vincent admits he broke up with Sarah the night before and she took it badly.

In flashback, Chris meets Ann again, he wants her back. But they are interrupted (accidentally- by Luc's wife, and Ann runs off.

Back at the police station, Luc defends Vincent and his friends, and claims he's never cheated on his wife. He gets angry at the cops and their insinuations.

At the crime scene, the recriminations keep flying. But we soon flash back again to Marnix who has been dumped by his wife, looking for solace from Vincent. Vincent promises to help Marnix get his wife back.

At the crime scene again, the men now discuss how to get rid of the body.

And we flash back AGAIN to a previous visit to the loft, when Chris and Vincent have to save a Russian prostitute from Filip's cocaine-fueled rage. Chris offers the girl a lot of money to keep things quiet. He feels guilty about it, though.

Marnix and Luc didn't know about this event, but Luc has an even bigger secret to reveal: he's been taping all the sex play at the loft. Filip beats him up in a fury, but the men realize that the solution to their dilemma might me captured on tape. Luc mysteriously asks Vincent what he thinks will happen when all the betrayed ones get together.

We then flash back to a gala at a casino, about a week before the murder. Vincent puts the mayor and Tyberghien under pressure in order to get a big commission. Filip quarrels with his wife and then beats up some guy who is hitting on his sister, which causes his father-in-law to diswon him.
Chris is lured to the toilets by Ann, but there he is confronted by the mayor who warns him that Vincent is playing a dangerous game and should stop it. Chris asks the mayor to stop seeing Ann, but the mayor reveals that someone paid Ann to seduce Chris. Chris, shocked, confronts Ann about this, but she doesn't reveal who paid her. She confesses to be in love with Chris too, but he runs away, looking for more answers, and runs into his wife - an uncomfortable situation.
Sarah, meanwhile, confronts Vincent, wants to be with him, and is about to reveal everything to Vincent's wife when Luc stops her. Vincent notices the five women look at him in a strange way...

... And at the crime scene, he realizes the women know about the loft and what they've been up to. At this point, his friends reveal that they know what he's been up to, and that they've planned everything to get him. Vincent suddenly discovers he's been drugged, and his friends take off his clothes. He's powerless to resist.

The four men reveal (in another flashback to that same morning) they discovered the body of Sara a hours ago. She left a suicide note for Vincent. Luc reveals he didn't call Vincent because he has to show his friends something. He reveals the DVDs he made, where we see Vincent having sex with Marnix's wife, Filip's sister, Ann and Sara - who Luc had fallen in love with. Vincent betrayed each and every one of them.
Filip wants to kill him, but cooler heads prevail and a deadly trap is prepared. The men have to work together and deny everything to the police. Chris wants to be sure, though, before they go through with things - he'll give the signal if he thinks Vincent deserves his punishment. The men go to fix their alibis, while Filip remains behind to dress up the crime scene. When everyone's gone, he cuts the wrists of the dead girl and writes the Latin phrase on the wall.

Back in the crime scene present, Vincent realizes he's been betrayed, and Chris asks him why he did what he did. Vincent's answer: because he could. Nothing means anything to him. With these words, he seals his fate. Chris manacles him to Sara's corpse, and Vincent faints in a drugged stupor.

In the interrogation room, Vincent now tells the police inspectors what his friends dod to him, but they don't believe him. There were no traces of anyone but him and the dead girl, and his fingerprints were on the knife. The others all have alibis.

Chris is released from the interrogation room, the policeman has one more question: why does Vincent keep inculpating his friends? Is he covering up something else? Like the fact he murdered Sara? This shocks Chris: he didn't realize Vincent was going to be accused of murder. The police came to this conclusion because the way Sara's wrist was cut was done by someone else, not herself. And there was no suicide note...

Chris is very upset, feels in his pocket and suddenly realizes something. He goes back to the loft and confronts... Luc. He claims Luc stole the suicide note from his pocket and tricks him into admitting he organized the visit from the estate agency. And didn't Luc hide the note because HE wrote it?!

Luc confesses: he was in love, not with Vincent as everyone thought but with Sara. She, however, felt nothing for him. So when Vincent dumped her, Luc gave her sleeping pills and an insulin overdose. He killed her because he loved her too much. However, it now turns out she only died when Filip cut her wrists, and Vincent is now going to be tried for her murder. Luc is surprised by this, but when Chris tells him it's over, he gets furious and tries to force Chris to jump from the balcony of the loft, threatening him with a knife. The men fight, and Chris finally gets hold of the knife and throws the suicide note down, informing Luc he's called the police (who are just arriving). Luc throws himself off the balcony, to the horror of Chris - and we're back at the opening of the film.

In an epilogue, we see all the men are now divorced (except for Marnix who's back with his wife), Filip will be tried for the murder, and Chris meets Ann again, with the possibility of a new romance left open.


Whew. That took much longer than I thought!

What becomes clear when you analyze the plot of Loft is that it is a preposterous story. The inciting incident makes sense, the basic situation has dramatic power. But once you start tracking the plot and subplots, scrutinize the behaviour of the characters, and look at the way the storytelling tries to obscure plot holes or strive for effect, it's obvious that nothing makes any sense. In many cases, the narrative cheats in order to keep the audience guessing.

Some of the bigger questions one is left with:

- Why does Vincent claim not to know Sara when discovering her body?
- Why are the men so surprised when Vincent is accused of murder? They chain him to a woman with a slit wrist, for heavens sake. What is the police supposed to believe, especially since she's in a position where she couldn't have cut her wrist herself?
- Why do the other men pretend not to recognize Sara?
- Why don't the police grill the other men about the accusations of Vincent? Why don't we see them ask them anything about the final moments?
- How do the four men manage to fool Vincent AND the police perfectly? Are they such accomplished liars?
- How could Chris not tell that Sara wasn't dead yet? He is a medical professional, after all.
- Why is Chris so surprised the suicide note is gone? He kept it in his pocket, didn't leave it in the loft to get Vincent off the murder hook.
Moreover: how did he suddenly realize Luc was behind it all? There is no real linking piece of evidence for him to piece together.
- Why does Chris say he could have helped Luc (after the suicide)? He's the one who was going to get him arrested!
- Why doesn't Vincent accuse his friends from the very first interrogation scene?
- How did the friends - none of whom are in any way associated with the police - manage to clean the crime scene to such an extent that not a single trace of them could be found? Especially with DNA testing, their presence at the crime scene would definitely have been discovered.
- Why did Filip write the Latin phrase on the wall?
And finally
- What do the men hope to accomplish with their sinister 'game'? If they don't want to land Vincent in jail, why do they bother? And why do they come up with such a tortuously complex plan (and in such a short time too)?

As you see, from the moment you start thinking about what happens and why, Loft's narrative collapses like a house of cards. So why doesn't this become obvious to the audience?

Because of two reasons: the genre, and the narrative choices. Whodunits are very often totally preposterous once the mystery is revealed. However, the trick is for the author to make the preposterous seem logical or at least acceptable, at least at first glance. Once you join in the game, as viewer or reader, you're trying to outwit the storytellers, and they have to do their best to keep at least one step ahead of you. I think it's fairly safe to say that no one could guess the exact outcome of Loft at the beginning of the film. They might have guessed the killer's identity (I did from a very short clip on television, in fact, but it was purely a lucky guess based on the actor cast in the part and the role he played), but the reasons for the murder and the twists and turns of the story were utterly unpredictable.

Secondly, the narrative choices obscure much of the plot holes on first reading (and viewing). Because of the multi-layered flashbacks, the audience is somewhat disoriented, has to work at making sense of the time frame, characters relationships towards one another etc. As I said before, without the flashbacks, almost everything would have been revealed much sooner to the audience. And they would have had too much time to reflect on the likelihood of the plot twists and revelations.
There are also several narrative cheats: the men pretending not to recognize Sara (and then suddenly admitting to knowing her after she was introduced in the flashback), the first interrogation of Vincent where his behaviour makes no sense when seen in the light of the later revelations, or the interrogations of the other men where Vincent's accusations are never mentioned), Chris suddenly realizing Luc is the killer...

To be fair, most of the implausibilities come in the final stretch of the film, and most reviews praised it but found the final 20 minutes too over-the-top, stretching credibility too much.

STRUCTURE

Structurally, Loft is a complex beast. Not only are there the several layers of flashbacks, which aren't arranged in a linear fashion, but there's also the framing device of the interrogations, and the fact that there's not really a main character driving events.
The interrogations serve as a sort of spine (the men are interviewed consecutively at first, except for Filip who for some reason doesn't have to appear at the police station), and the flashbacks are triggered by a questions, a word, a description, a thought of a character. De Pauw and Van Looy have obviously spent a lot of energy making these transitions special and unpredictable.
The many layers of the story make the structure seem fairly confusing at first glance. However, thinking about the main story beats, we get:

Inciting incident: discovery of the corpse
turning point 1: the men all take the keys to the loft
midpoint: Vincent makes love to Sara, watched by Luc
turning point 2: the men reveal to Vincent that they are behind everything and capture him
crisis: Chris realizes the suicide note is missing, and deduces the culprit
climax: Chris confronts Luc who jumps to his death
resolution: the aftermath, one year later.

What's obvious here is that the structure points do not all focus on one main character (which would be Chris here) but jump around a lot. This is another indication that Loft isn't so much a character-based drama, but a plot-driven script, an ingeniously constructed puzzle which is very clever but lacking in plausibility and character depth.


THEME

The theme of Loft is more than infidelity alone. It's about betrayal. Betrayal of love, of friends, of self, of principles... Not one of the five main characters is honest, either to themselves or to others. Chris betrays his wife, Luc betrays love, Vincent betrays everybody just for the hell of it. On the other hand, the women are true to their men. Even Ann, who is hired to seduce Chris by Vincent, never really lies to him, tries to stop him from falling for her.
In fact, it's on this thematic level that the script for Loft is most succesful. The theme is explored in many ways (thanks to the many possible subplots) and it also lends a feeling of unity to the narrative.

FINALLY

Loft's incredible success cannot be attributed to an exceptionally qualitative screenplay. Thematically the script is strong, its basic concept is clear and speaks to the imagination, even though infidelity isn't as shocking a topic as it would have been several decades ago, and it embraces the whodunit genre fully, keeping the audience guessing thanks to its deliberately complex narrative strategies.
On the other hand, the characters are not very interesting and often one-dimensional, the plot is full of implausibilities, the twists piled upon twists make suspension of disbelief impossible, and emotionally the script never really connects. And the dialogue is serviceable, but rarely inspired.

The enormous success of the film must be primarily attributed, then, to the strong cast, the quality of the direction, the enormous popularity of Van Looy and De Pauw as media personalities as well as filmmakers, the exceptionally well-managed media hype, and the fact that the Flemish cinema audience is now very well-disposed towards local films - a trend which was really started by Van Looy's previous film, De Zaak Alzheimer. A trend which is only made all the stronger by Loft's amazing performance at the box-office.

Book reviews

Part 2 of the script review should be up tomorrow. Here are some more book reviews to tide you over!

WRITING THE TV DRAMA SERIES 2nd Edition by Pamela Douglas (Michael Wiese Press, 2007)

When Pamela Douglas’ excellent manual was first released, the timing was unfortunate, because it was released exactly at the moment when American TV drama went through an incredibly creative period of innovation - and of course the book couldn't take these new developments into account.

Luckily, this second edition is bang up to date and answers all the questions which readers may have had about these new shows.

The new material is spread throughout the book. Some chapters are new – there’s a chapter on internet show sites as an extra resource to gain insight into the inner workings of a TV show, as well as a chapter on all the new forms of multimedia (web- and mobisodes, eTV and ITV and the like) which will become more and more important in the years to come.
There are new interviews with people like Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica), Damon Lindelof (Lost) Ann Donahue (CSI Miami) and Melissa Rosenberg (Dexter). These are as interesting and revealing as you could hope for.

And there is information on the most recent changes to screenplay structure – ABC’s mandatory six-act format is revealed, as well as a very recent seven-act structure which has been developed to maximize commercial breaks within the 1-hour slot.

The rest of the new material is interspersed with the existing text, which of course hasn’t lost any of its relevance. In fact, this edition is so up-to-date it already points out that the serial narrative-boom has ended, with only Heroes and Prison Break somewhat successfully continuing the trend (although both of these have gone downhill dramatically since).

The bottom line: if you didn’t get the first edition and you want to write (American-style) TV drama, or you want to understand how these shows work and why they are structured as they are, buy this book now. And if you do own the first edition, the new material definitely warrants a second purchase.




FAST, CHEAP AND WRITTEN THAT WAY: Top Screenwriters on Writing for Low-Budget Movies by John Gaspard (Michael Wiese Productions, 2007)

The companion volume to Fast, Cheap and Under Control, this book is a collection of interviews with writers and (primarily) writer-directors who have significant low-budget filmmaking experience. Every interview focuses on one film in particular, of which a short script excerpt is included.

The range of subjects is extremely wide: we have cult favourites like George A. Romero and Stuart Gordon, indie mavericks like Alex Cox, and deeply idiosyncratic artists like Miranda July. There are some well-known films up for discussion, and some which never broke out of the arthouse circuit.

In each case, Gaspard proves to be a sympathetic interviewer who asks a lot of pertinent questions and manages to give a good impression of the subject’s personality as well as his or her artistic process. The films are divided into thematic chapters, and include short story and play adaptations, biographies and autobiographies, genre films, ‘true stories’, love stories and art film.

To be fair, not every interview is equally helpful with regards to the instructional aspect of the book – some of the artists work solely on instinct and have no real system or practical tips to impart. But there is plenty of good advice to be found throughout the book. And to make it extra useful, Gaspard collects the thirty most important tips and comments on them from his own experience in the final chapter.

One thing which is missing here is advice on writing really cheap action or science-fiction movies (straight-to-DVD). But it’s clearly a deliberate choice to prove that a low budget is no impediment to crafting films which are highly successful on an artistic and critical level.

Script Review: Loft (2008) part 1

Loft is the most succesful film in Flemish history. Director Eric Van Looy and writer Bart De Pauw succeeded in creating an enormous hype about the project long before filming began, with results which probably exceeded even their wildest expectations.

This runaway success is not that easy to explain, though. Loft is a whodunit thriller with a clear concept: A girl is murdered in the bachelor pad belonging to five friends. Which one of the five is the killer? A clear concept, but hardly a storyline for the ages. So can we determine what makes Loft so popular by analyzing the script? Let's find out.

WARNING: SPOILERS WILL OF NECESSITY ABOUND!!!

What is immediately obvious when reading the script is that the hand of the director is immediately obvious. There are an enormous amount of camera directions in the action description. This script was already visualized in great detail during the writing process. As such, stylistically it isn't the best example for other screenwriters to emulate.

Another thing which becomes obvious very quickly is that there is a very extensive use of flashbacks (and, it will become clear later on, some flashforwards too). This means the narrative isn't linear, and that the audience is made to work during the opening sequence of the film. They get a lot of details thrown at them, but the necessary knowledge to make sense of it all is kept till much later in the script. A linear approach to the opening scene would have worked too (the discovery of the body by one of the five and the arrival of his friends, and their reactions to the crisis they suddenly find themselves in), and might have given the beginning more dramatic immediacy. However, the use of the flashbacks makes the opening of the narrative suitably mysterious, and, as we shall discover, it's an absolutely essential part of the story. Using a linear narrative would have completely negated many of the twists and turns which show up later in the plot.

We have five main characters: Vincent, an architect, charming, manipulative and the owner of the loft who gets all his friends to go along with his plan (sharing the loft to cheat on their wives); Chris, a psychiatrist and the apparent moral centre of the film (more on this later); Filip, Chris' younger half-brother, a very aggressive, drug-using young man who marries the daughter of a wealthy developer; Luc, the most timid of the five, whose wife suffers from diabetes, and who may be secretly gay - we are led to believe; and Marnix, a chubby, sex-obsessed guy who is obviously the least intelligent of the bunch, and the weak link in protecting their secret agreement.

What is bizarre about these characters is that there isn't a single really likeable one among them. Not only do they all cheat on their wives, but their friendship is pretty strange too as the only thing which they have in common is their secret hideaway, but they have been friends long before this. On the page, none of the five really seems to like any of the others - and as we shall discover, this impression is borne out by their subsequent behaviour to one another. Loft isn't just a film about lies within marriage, but lies within friendship as well.

Obviously Chris is intended to be the most likeable among the lot, but even he comes across as selfish, cold and deceitful. Sure, he resists temptation for a little while, and he only has an affair with a woman he falls in love with, but the fact remains that he isn't much different from his companions in crime. Moreover, he defends his violent, possibly psychopathic younger brother, and has helped to cover up his serious misdeeds in the past. He is possibly the biggest hypocrite of the lot.

Be that as it may, Chris is the protagonist, as he is involved in finally digging out the real truth, and he confronts the real murderer in the climax. For much of the film, though, there is no real protagonist, but rather the group of the five men functions largely as a 'protagonistic entity' (man, I love using complex neologisms).

If you have cheaters, you have to have cheatees as well. And De Pauw and Van Looy make sure each of the partners of the men gets some face time too, so we get an idea of who they are.

Vincent is married to Barbara, probably the least well-defined of the female characters. She's pretty, dynamic, and that's it.

Chris is married to Ellen, an attractive but cool woman who appears to be no longer in love with her husband.

Marnix is married to Miriam, a feisty redhead who continually humiliates him and calls him 'Fatty'. Even though this is probably intended as humorous, it is in fact a very toxic relationship and, paradoxically, this makes Marnix the character one feels most sorry for - even though his continual randiness and stupidity make him an irritating character at times.

Luc is married to diabetic Elsie, a frail woman who needs constant care. She's also not developed very well, but fits the 'suffering martyr' archetype to a T.

Finally, during the story Filip marries Vicky, a young, vivacious, rich girl with absolutely no taste. It's clear Filip has only married her for the money, and really despises her and his in-laws. She's mainly a comic relief character but this makes her later descent into grief all the stronger.

And then there are the mistresses. Most important among them is Ann Marai, a call-girl Chris falls in love with (though before he knows what she does for a living). Sharon, Filip's 18-year old half-sister, a beautiful but naïve young girl who cannot resist Vincent's charm. And Sarah, a twenty-something the guys meet in Düsseldorf, who also starts an affair with Vincent - and who turns out to be the dead girl in the loft. Her introduction in the script is on page 66 (out of 145), near the mid-point of the film.

And here we get the first major narrative cheat of the script. When the men find the dead Sarah at the beginning of the film, none of them claim to recognize her. However - Vincent, Luc and Marnix meet Sarah together in Düsseldorf, and she hardly passes by unnoticed - going for a nude swim and attending sex frolic in the swimming pool with Vincent while Luc watches the proceedings. And as the first two men we see near the corpse are Luc and Vincent, it makes absolutely no sense for them to pretend not knowing who she is. And when her identity is revealed to all the men much later in the script (page 76), Marnix claims not to know her because he was too drunk when they met to remember her.

Finally, we get mayor Van Esbroek and property developer Tyberghien, Filip's father-in-law. Their presence in the script is needed for the subplot (which is really very minor) of Vincent's business dealings; and two cops, one male, one female, who interrogate the five friends (the interrogations are a partial framing device, though not used as elegantly as the interrogation in The Usual Suspects). These two don't even get names, and they are extremely interchangeable, being both refined good cop and vulgar bad cop at different times during the script.

With so many important characters, it's no surprise that all of them are sketched with one primary characteristic so they all stand out immediately (except for Barbara). There is a certain lack of depth to the characters, though, mostly because of the whodunit genre which makes it essential that there are many reveals throughout the story which shock and surprise the audience. These include hidden aspects of the characters (such as Luc's voyeuristic tendencies, Marnix' sincere love for his wife despite his womanizing obsession, and Vincent's perfidy and utter lack of scruples towards his friends).

Because these aspects need to be hidden for a certain length of time in the narrative, they cannot be used to flesh out the characters more during the earlier scenes. What the story gains in twists and turns, it loses in psychological depth. But then, this is a very common occurrence in the whodunit genre, which is primarily an intellectual exercise rather than a psychological approach to crime.

Some more book reviews

Here are some more book reviews from the Screentalk days on books which are worth looking into.

The Screenwriter Within : How To Turn The Movie In Your Head Into A Saleable Screenplay (213 pages, Three Rivers Press) is by D. B. Gilles, a teacher at New York University, and it reflects his teaching experiences. It is primarily aimed at newcomers to screenwriting.

Gilles is a three-act-stucture thinker, and as such does not offer a radically new way of looking at screenplay structure. He does offer an interesting insight in the content of each act (the punctuation theory of screenwriting, as he calls it) : the first act ends in a question mark (how is this going to end), the second in an exclamation mark (my god! Things just got so much worse!), and the third act ends in a period (the answer to the dramatic question). It is a simple way of defining the main parts of a script; however, I feel it could potentially lead to inexperienced writers mistakenly thinking there should only be one big reversal of fortune near the end of the second act. Still, it’s a potentially useful tool.

Gilles writes in a very informal and breezy style (references to frat boys abound), and reveals quite a lot about himself. He correctly claims that our own psyches and lives offer a wealth of potential story material, and urges writers to delve into the darkest sides of their mind to come up with creative material. In fact, this was the first screenwriting book I’ve read in which this topic is treated so exhaustively (there have been others since). I feel that this is where its greatest value lies, as it causes the reader to re-evaluate his or her own experiences and discover new wellsprings of creativity there.

Where Gilles does not convince me is in his very, very offhand treatment of dialogue. He claims that no one can be taught what words to write, and this is obviously correct. However, there are many, many do’s and don’t of dialogue writing which can at least help new writers avoid mistakes, and these aren’t even mentioned. There’s also a very, very short chapter on different genres which doesn’t really contain any practical information.

Despite these criticisms, The Screenwriter Within is still a valuable addition to the writer’s bookshelf. It contains some interesting notions and fresh perspectives which can benefit any screenwriter. However, I would not recommend it as the SOLE source of screenwriting information for novices. In my opinion it works best as a supplement to the basic screenwriting texts which cover the essentials more thoroughly.





PLOTS AND CHARACTERS : A Screenwriter On Screenwriting by Millard Kaufman (Really Great Books, Los Angeles, 1999, 265 pp.)

Here at last is a book which provides today’s screenwriter with a living link to the Golden Age of Hollywood. For Millard Kaufman is a veteran of those mythical times, and a succesful one too : his best-known film is Bad Day At Black Rock and he’s also the co-creator of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

This book is not just another how-to manual : it is also partly a memoir of the screenwriter’s life during the Fifties. As such it is packed with anecdotes about stars, directors and the legendary producers of yesteryear, all of which are amusing, enlightening or horrifying - and somehow more glamorous than contemporary gossip. But there is a lot of serious writing material to be found here as well, of course.

In fact, what is most obvious about Kaufman is his love of language. This is undoubtedly the most beautifully written screenwriting manual on the market. In fact, at times the stylistic flourishes almost threaten to get in the way of the information on offer. But this is a very minor quibble, and all of Kaufman’s points –both practical as well as more philosophical, with considered discussion of Aristotle and other drama theorists – are well worth making.

While there is nothing stunningly new here, they help the new writer focus on the truly important elements of the script. One cannot but hope that books like this might finally help recover some of the magic which screenwriting is so sorely missing of late.




SCRIPT PARTNERS: WHAT MAKES FILM AND TV WRITING TEAMS WORK by Claudia Johnson and Matt Stevens (Michael Wiese productions, Studio City, 2003, 298 p.)

Many screenwriters are constantly looking for Mr. or Ms. Right – the writing partner who will make their professional life heaven on earth. Sharing the money and fame are a small price to pay for the friendship, support and extra creativity which a good partnership brings. But finding the right writing partner is almost as difficult as finding the right spouse. While Script Partners doesn’t provide any magic formulas to help you find your dream collaborator, it examines the entire process in great detail.

Claudia Johnson and Matt Stevens are themselves a screenwriting duo and have interviewed some twenty teams of co-writers for this book. They’ve included all the biggies (Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, Harold Ramis and Peter Tolan, Woody Allen’s collaborator Marshall Brickman) and quite a few lesser-known writing teams. Chapters include finding the right partner, solving time and place issues, and all aspects of the actual writing (although the theoretical information mentioned here doesn’t differ from the usual advice given to solo writers). Johnson and Stevens also use a lot of examples from their own experience, which proves you cannot always depend on first impressions – as they started out hating each other.

The most valuable chapters in this book are the ones dealing with the personal difficulties inherent in the creative process, and the business side of things. Here, we get some valuable advice on how to handle the many problems which will crop up in almost every writing partnership. For anyone considering a partnership, this book will be a great help.

What Makes Basil Run? Extra material

Remember how I said at the end of part 2 that I didn't have the space to give a detailed breakdown of the fire drill sequence in The Germans?

Well, that was when I had to fit the article into a magazine (e-zine at the time). On this blog, however, I have all the space and time in the world. So here it is, the detailed analysis of the fire drill!

Looking at the entire sequence, we see it is basically one huge scene, only interrupted twice for a short cutaway to the kitchen (where Manuel sets everything on fire), and an exterior shot of Fawlty asking the guests to come back inside again. The entire sequence lasts for nearly ten minutes.

The sequence consists of three parts: first the preparation for the drill, then the drill itself during which the kitchen catches fire, and then Fawlty's discovery of the fire and his disastrous attempts to get the situation under control. There are three 'acts', yet they flow seamlessly into one another.

The sequence is probably most remarkable for its expert use of comedic build-up. Things start off quietly with another attempt at hanging up the moose head (a running gag in the episode), then Basil chides a couple of guests who haven't read the notice about the fire drill. This nicely sets up his feeling of superiority and gives the impression that he is control of things. An impression immediately countered to his response to a potential problem Polly brings up(who's going to do her part in checking the hotel when she's not at work), which he simply waves away.

Then we get a phone call from Sybill at the hospital to remind Fawlty about the fire drill (another running gag), and this sets in motion the events of the rest of the sequence when it becomes clear that Sybill has locked the key to the fire alarm in the safe. It's a perfect example of combining comedy with the advancement of the plot.

As Basil goes to open the safe, the burglar alarm goes off - and the guests naturally interpret this as the signal that the fire drill has started. Fawlty tries to explain but gets into a heated discussion with his assembled guests about how they are unable to tell the difference between the alarms as they don't know what they sound like. At this point Fawlty turns on both alarms consecutively - and the guests walk out, as the fire alarm is now ringing. This drives Basil even more crazy (he hasn't started the drill officially yet) to the point where he insults Mrs. Tibbs ('you old fool'), and things get even more hectic when Manuel and Polly barge in to do their part. The continuing ringing of the fire alarm and Basil's shouting add to the nervous energy of the sequence.

There's a marvelous capper when Fawlty finally switches off the alarm, and immediately afterwards Sybill phones again, causing Basil to explode and smash the phone down. The running gag works to perfection, and its inclusion here is totally unexpected yet profoundly logical.

At this point we get a breather. Fawlty officially starts the fire drill in 30 seconds. But the quiet (which is necessary fot the audience to catch its breath) doesn't last long, as Basil quickly gets irritated by the way in which his guests just stand about in the hall, waiting for the alarm to start. (we should let you all burn)

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Manuel manages to start a real fire...

From now on, superior awareness of the audience is at play, and the stakes have been raised (the drill has now become 'real'). As Basil escorts the guests outside, a quiet moment, we know that the moment where he discovers what's really going on cannot be long in coming. However, the moment of discovery is delayed as long as possible. When the smoke-damaged Manuel barrels out of the kitchen (fire, fire), he is pushed back into the kitchen by Fawlty who locks the door (and who doesn't notice his besmudged state, focussing too much on the way he expects things to be).

As Manuel keeps banging and shouting on the door, Basil goes to ask the guests to come back inside (the drill is over) in the second, very short cutaway during the sequence. Manuel keeps up the ruckus, and finally the complaints of a guest force Basil to let Manuel out of the kitchen. And now he finally realizes that there is a real fire in progress.

And once more, we get a delayed reaction (which again creates a small breathing pause for the audience). Fawlty closes the door to the kitchen, calls the guests back and tries to explain in a roundabout fashion that there's a real fire - while Manuel clings to his knees and moans loudly. When Basil pronounces the word 'fire', he finally flips - stalking through the reception area and spitting out the word 'fire' like an insane stork with Tourette's syndrome.

It falls to Polly to call Basil to order and get him to ring the alarm (his first reaction was to call Sybill - like a little boy running to his mother). Which he tries to do - but 'someone' has lost the key! Basil rants and rave and finally ends up shaking his fist at God (Thank you so bloddy much!), blaming everyone but himself for the crisis. Once again, the comedy remains 100% true to the character. Basil cannot admit to anyone that he might be at fault in any way - not even to himself.

Polly admonishes Basil to break the glass, which he tries twice ineffectually. Then, however, Sybill rings again - and Basil uses the phone to smash the glass and start the alarm. Brilliant use of the recurring gag, and also a wonderful demonstration of the Rule of 3 within the sequence.

With the fire alarm ringing merrily, Basil now tries to extinguish the fire, but the fire extinguisher blows up in his face, and after that he hits his head on the pan Manuel is holding (in a slightly contrived bit of business) as the sequence finally climaxes. He wants to punch Manuel in revenge - but falls over in a faint.


John Cleese isn't as big a fan of The Germans as the audience because the structure of the episode isn't as elegant as some of the others. This is true - the fire drill is a story element which is resolved two thirds of the way through the episode, and it mainly provides the reason for Basil's lunatic behaviour with regards to his German guests. The two storylines never intertwine as they do in (say) The Psychiatrists or Communication Problems. But the comic genius and the structural brilliance of the fire drill sequence more than make up for this minor flaw (as does Cleese's Hitler impression, of course).

What Makes Basil Run? Part 4

VOICE


Finally, I would like to mention the specific voice of the series. The humour of Fawlty Towers is quite specific. It almost always comes from within the characters, rather than from the obviously fertile mind of the writers.

While there are many funny one-liners, these are never mechanical. When Basil launches a quip, it is always to vent his frustrations or revel in a temporary triumph. The same thing applies to the physical comedy. It can go very far (the final scenes of The Germans, for example) but it is always properly motivated. Basil doesn’t just begin insulting his German guests accidentally - he has to have a concussion to do so.

The physical comedy in the series is often slapstick - in fact, some scenes are almost cartoonish. There’s a lot of black humour here, from messing with a corpse to Basil bullying his whipping boy, Manuel. Whatever the style of comedy though, situational, verbal or physical, every comedic opportunity is always exploited to the fullest. One never comes away from a Fawlty Towers episode feeling that the creators missed out on some opportunities.

Finally, taboos. Quite often, Cleese and Booth will break the barriers of good taste, not by grossing the audience out but by transgressing the socially accepted ways of behaviour. Dragging corpses around, insulting guests, screaming into hearing aids and groping Australian tourists are all types of behaviour rarely seen in comedies - at least, before the eighties and the rise of the Young Ones-generation. While shattering taboos isn’t the main thing on the agenda, it does give Fawlty Towers an edginess which many comedies lack, even today.

We hope this look under the hood of Fawlty Towers has proven to be enlightening and inspiring. If there is ONE lesson to be learned from this series, it is this : there is no substitute for a comedy series developed by talented writers who feel truly passionate about their creation. And it is this passion which makes Fawlty Towers a delight to this very day.

What Makes Basil Run part 3

CHARACTERS


As we noted earlier, Fawlty Towers plotting is definitely influenced by farce. Yet whereas farce uses its characters as pawns to further the plot, Cleese and Booth have created one of the richest comical characters of all times in Basil. The psychological depth invested in him lifts the entire series above the mechanically brilliant and infuses it with humanity. Not always the most attractive face of humanity, true, but humanity nevertheless.



Basil is the only character in the series which is this deep, though. The others are more stereotypical and single-minded. Manuel is a loveable oaf. One gets the idea that he’d be pretty far the intellectual food chain even in his native Spain (in order to believe a rat is a Siberian Hamster, one has to be a real ‘witnit’).

Sybil is the moderately shrewish mother-surrogate, Polly the clever maid who tries to get her foolish master out of trouble. The Major is a senile military man whose lapses of reason are either used to further the plot or to get laughs (not always successfully). Terry the Cook, the most recent addition to the cast, is also the least successful. He doesn’t have a comedic archetype, and the potential clash Basil’s snobbery with his Cockney cleverness is never fully realised. But these minor flaws pale into insignificance when we examine how Basil is really put together and how his personality totally drives the entire series.

Basil is someone who sees the world in one particular way, and doesn’t possess the flexibility of mind to accurately react to events which challenge his ideal vision. When he holds a fire drill, the guests have to leave the building when they hear the fire alarm, not the burglar alarm, which, as everyone knows, is at least a semitone lower. Basil does possess an incredible flexibility when it comes to forcing the world to fit his predetermined ideas, though. Unfortunately, the world always proves to resist even his best efforts.



This rigidity of thinking comes from fear and immaturity. Basil is actually still a child inside, though he pretends to be an adult. He is terrified of being found out and humiliated, and will go to any lengths to avoid this. He is pathologically incapable of accepting blame for things that go wrong.

When he has to tell some guests he misunderstood their familial affection for public lewdness in The Wedding Party, he turns the situation around at the last minute and says that Sybil made a mistake. When his car acts up, he prefers to tinker with it rather than take it to a garage and admit that he cannot fix it. His behaviour is like that of a child which doesn’t want to be scolded. So he will cover up the evidence of his mistakes - and in doing so, only makes things worse for himself.

Deep, deep down inside, Basil knows he isn’t as competent as he wants to be - and wants to be seen. And from the gap between his expectations and his worst fears coming true over and over again is born his anger at the world, his fellow men and his truly competent but shallow wife. Basil’s extreme verbal (and occasionally physical) violence is the direct expression of his soul-searing unhappiness.

Though he is insufferable in real life, the audience does take Basil to heart. This is mainly because he is an underdog, who loses control in anger (screaming ‘bastard’ at Lord Melbury while dealing with real aristocratic guests, cursing God) and in grief (he breaks down howling in histrionic displays of despair). He voices the emotions all of us keep bottled inside - we recognise this, laugh at it - but there is some discomfort too. At other times, Basil takes revenge on his tormentors (an obnoxious kid, the spoon salesman, Mrs. Richards) and thus becomes a transgressor himself. Generally, he acts out impulses - mainly negative ones - which we keep under wraps. Once again, this is an example of childlike behaviour in an adult - the main element of Basil’s mental make-up.

The excellence in which characterisation and plotting interact in Fawlty Towers is made very clear by the fact that if Basil truly behaved like an adult and admitted his mistakes, he would have no problems (and there would be no plot). He would not have become the victim of Lord Melbury, he would not have ruined the gourmet night, he would not have been faced with an American-led rebellion of his guests. If he hadn’t gambled on a horse - like a rebellious child going behind mommy Sybil’s back - he wouldn’t have lost all his money to Mrs. Richards. The synergy between main character and plot is complete.

As noted above, none of the other characters has nearly this kind of complexity, but because every episode focuses on Basil, this doesn’t matter. This might have become a problem if many more episodes had been made, but - alas? - this was not the case. The cast serves the needs of the series perfectly.

What Makes Basil Run? Part 2

PLOTTING

One specific peculiarity of the way John Cleese and Connie Booth use the midpoint is that it often serves to introduce a new complication.

In Communication Problems the midpoint is the ‘theft’ of Mrs. Richards’ money. In the very first episode, A Touch Of Class, the midpoint is the moment where Basil realises his new guest is a (fake) Lord and starts to fawn over him shamelessly. In Gourmet Night, it’s the moment where the new gourmet chef is discovered dead drunk just when Basil’s select guests have arrived.

Unlike in American sitcoms where the midpoint has to be a cliff-hanger (how are they going to get out of THAT!?), though, the complications do not arise immediately. The perfect pacing and ever increasing tempo of the best Fawlty Towers episodes are due to the fact that the story structure could be developed without having to make room for commercial breaks.

As for the plotting, there is a recurrent formula in most of the episodes (certainly in all of the best ones). There are almost always two plotlines, which start out having very little to do with each other (e.g. Mrs. Richards arriving at the hotel and Basil gambling on the horses, German tourists coming to stay and a fire drill, a psychiatrist staying at the hotel and a lusty Romeo sneaking a girlfriend into his room, a stalling car and a gourmet night), yet which become completely intertwined and totally influence each other’s development so that in the third act it is usually impossible to separate them. The beauty of the system is that all of these interactions are logical and (largely) credible, yet totally impossible to predict.

It is telling that two of the weakest episodes, The Builders and The Anniversary, sin against these principles. In The Builders there is no second plotline to speak of. In The Anniversary there ARE two plotlines, Basil hiding the fact from his friends that Sybil has stormed out before he could spring his surprise party on her, and Manuel wanting to make a paella for said party; yet they hardly interact with each other. Worse, the plot development is forced along by two moments of illogical behaviour : Polly deciding to invent the lie that Sybil is ill in her room for no real reason, and Basil later challenging his disbelieving friends to go see Sybil if they don’t believe him, and keeping this up so long past their embarrassed refusal that they do take him up on the offer.

Another aspect of structure in which Fawlty Towers reigns supreme is in its use of comic build-up. Every episode starts off slowly and keeps building to an expertly managed crescendo. There is an incredible amount of comic material in each of these scripts : in Communication Problems I count approximately 250 jokes, ranging from mild smiles to out-and-out guffaws. That’s almost ten jokes per minute.

The downside to this abundance of riches is that sometimes intended gags are not registered by the audience because of the great speed at which they follow one another. Once the plot takes off, the audience is taken on a rollercoaster of laughter, with a number of carefully conceived setpieces of increasing intensity serving as the comedic highlights of the episodes.

Between these setpieces, Cleese and Booth make sure to insert breathing space for the audience. These ‘lows’ in the rollercoaster do not stop the momentum, however : they are used to set up the next big gag scene. In fact, it is in these ‘low-energy’ moments that the plot develops most, so the interest of the audience never wanes.

The setpieces, invariably the most memorable parts of the episode, get the necessary time for them to work. There is no Seinfeldian ‘one-minute time limit’ to individual scenes in these scripts. This allows the scenes to build as necessary so they achieve a very organic quality.

An extreme example is the fire drill sequence from The Germans : apart from one cutaway to Manuel in the kitchen, this 10 minute sequence plays uninterruptedly in the same set without ever outstaying its welcome. Space does not permit us to analyse this sequence in detail, but it will repay careful study a hundredfold.

What Makes Basil Run? Part 1

The following article (split into parts because it's just too darn long to post it in one go) was originally presented in the electronic version of Screentalk. It actually got me onto BBC Television as an 'expert witness' in the Fawtly Towers episode of the Britain's Greatest Sitcom series. Quite the honour!

Being made fun of and humiliated by ever-grumpy host of the episode Jack Dee, not so much. Ah, the joys of showbusiness.



But anyway... Here's the first part. Enjoy!

John Cleese’s masterpiece, Fawlty Towers, has been elected as the all-time number one British television programme by the BFI. Not bad for a series of only twelve episodes, which was a ratings failure on its initial run...

In the present article, we will examine the writing of this marvellous show. How did John Cleese and Connie Booth weave their magic? Do they have particular tricks of the trade? And are there lessons to be learned here for us lesser mortals?

STRUCTURE

Fawlty Towers has its antecedents in farce, a theatrical genre in which structure is extremely important. In a typical farce, characters find themselves in a complex web of misunderstandings and confusion. However, the audience must always remain completely clear about what is going on, or they will lose interest. That’s why a good farce is constructed very carefully like an intricate piece of clockwork. It is no surprise that John Cleese, a known structure fanatic, would work within this genre.

When we consider the script as a whole, it is immediately apparent that Fawlty Towers is far more densely plotted than most other comedy series (and certainly all American sitcoms).

This does not mean that the intrigue is hard to follow, but rather that the plot is full of logical yet unexpected twists and complications. I tend to call Fawlty Towers a ‘plotcom’ rather than a ‘sitcom proper’ (where the characters find themselves in less complex situations e.g. learning to drive, going on a diet...).

One element of the artistic success of Fawlty Towers is this in-depth plot development. In fact, when we analyse the episodes for structure, we find the traditional 10-point screenplay structure in its entirety. This means that within the scope of thirty minutes the plot hits as many main story beats as a full-length film. We will illustrate this dramatic structure by analysing two of the most beloved episodes, Communication Problems and Basil the Rat :

COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS




1) Opening : Mrs. Richards, the deaf woman from Hell, arrives at the hotel.
2) Start Plot : Basil gets a horseracing tip from a guest.
3) Plot Point One : Basil sends Manuel off to bet on the horses for him.
4) Focus Point One : Manuel returns with Fawlty’s winnings.
5) Midpoint : Mrs. Richards has some money stolen - the same amount as Basil just won!
6) Focus Point Two : Basil gives his winnings to the Major for safekeeping.
7) Plot Point Two : The money is discovered and handed to Mrs. Richards, to Basil’s dismay.
8) Crisis : Basil is crying hysterically when the man from the shop walks in with Mrs. Richards vase and money.
9) Climax : Basil hands Mrs. Richards her vase when his secret is discovered - the vase drops and is shattered.
10) Resolution : Sybil pays Mrs. Richards for her vase with Basil’s winnings.

BASIL THE RAT



1) Opening : Basil discovers a health inspector in his kitchen and gets a stern warning .
2) Start Plot : Manuel has a pet rat called Basil in his room.
3) Plot Point One : Manuel is forced to remove the rat from the hotel.
4) Focus Point One : Manuel’s rat has escaped from the shed.
5) Midpoint : Basil discovers that the rat is loose in the hotel.
6) Focus Point Two : The staff manages to keep the rat’s presence secret from the health inspector.
7) Plot Point Two : The health inspector wants to have dinner in the hotel.
8) Crisis : The rat is discovered by Manuel and Basil in the dining room.
9) Climax : The rat is offered to the health inspector in the cheese biscuits tin; Polly manages to convince him he imagined it.
10) Resolution : Manuel drags a fainted Basil out of the dining room.

Coming soon: part 2!

If for some incomprehensible reason you do not yet have Fawlty Towers in your possession, you can get it here:

A surefire way to fix your scene

Sometimes a scene doesn't work, but you can't put your finger on why. There's conflict, there's a goal, a protagonist and an antagonist, a climax... And still it won't come to life.

The best way I know to tackle this problem is the following, which was taught in my postgraduate screenwriting course by a British script-editor/writer/teacher (and now also drama therapist) called Charlie Moritz. You do need at least one partner for this technique, which makes it perfect for classroom/workshop situations, or when you're working with a regular writing partner.

Basically, the technique is this: you act out the scene, but you let go of the written dialogue - and you take care to notice your natural reactions/impulses in the situation. Do you turn away at a certain point? Does it feel unnatural to skip to a different subject? Do you want to get closer to the other character in the scene, or conversely try to escape their presence? Body language is extremely important here. Often you will physically realize that a certain gesture or action described in the script just isn't right. In this way, you will instinctively be able to determine where the scene starts to go off the rails.

Once you've done this, you can now try to integrate your natural reaction to the events within the scene into the rewrite. Sometimes this will be very easy - a simple refocussing, adding or deleting a scene beat, or taking more time to register a certain (re)action may be enough.

But in other cases, you may be faced with the fact that your natural impulsive reaction totally contradicts what the scene is supposed to convey. And if you're really unlucky, this may have serious repercussions for the script in its entirety.

Nevertheless, the natural reaction is always truthful, and that is extremely important in screenwriting. So paying attention to this truth is highly recommended.

Now, some people may object that this is all well and good, but all you've done is discover your own impulsive reactions. And the character in the scene is a totally different and separate character from the writer!

That's why it's important to translate what you've discovered about your own truth to the character and their situation. Combining your natural reaction with the psychological make-up of your character can lead to discovering a different, perhaps surprising way to get the same story point across.

In any case, you will now be able to rewrite your scene starting from truthful human behaviour, rather than from 'unreal' imaginings which have no discernible basis in psychological reality.