8. Do You Have Any Images or Ideas, However Unformed, as to
What the Climax Might Be? The Ending?
Keeping in mind that the climax, by definition, ought to be the most intense
moment in the film or video—both for the audience and for the protago-
nist—we should be searching for a powerful image, or series of images, that
will express not just what Icarus is doing at that moment but also what he is
feeling.
Sometimes a writer is in possession of such an image early on and needs
only to articulate it; sometimes he or she finds ideas by going back to the
original material, or by doing further research. Sometimes an image of the
climax does not appear until the writer is actually working on an outline, or
even the first draft, of a screenplay. As professionals well know, each project
can prove quite different in the writing from every other; the imagination
works in mysterious ways.
This myth is a tragic one, but it doesn’t at all follow that the script should
be unrelentingly grim. On the contrary, if viewers are to identify with a
doomed character such as Icarus, it’s essential that they empathize with the
passion that drives him to destruction, that they be able to feel compassion
for his belief in the possibility of achieving his heart’s desire. In our project,
where the climax will be the moment in which Icarus ignores his father’s
shouts of warning and continues soaring up toward the sun, we need images
that convey the wonders of such flight, the glory of wheeling and swooping
and gliding like a seagull. In answer to the first part of Question 7, then, the
climax is to be a series of images in which a joyful Icarus swoops, glides, and
wheels up and up through the dazzling sunlight.
What about an ending? Because death is the ultimate escape from any sit-
uation in life, we can say that Icarus has achieved his dramatic action—to
escape his father any way that he can. But at what a cost!
It seemed to us that in order to explore the irony of this, we would need two
different sorts of images for the ending—those showing the boy’s terror as he
falls, and those showing the indifferent world through which he falls: blazing
sun, tranquil sea, cloudless sky, and fields where peasants labor. (This last is
suggested by a renowned painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, “The Fall of
Icarus.”)
At this point, we imagine the very last image of the film to be that of Icarus
plunging into the sea and descending underwater in slow motion past the
camera.
FINDING A STRUCTURE (II)
In long narrative films, there is time to develop plot as well as subplots, but
in most short narratives, there is time only for a fairly simple story line, how-
ever complete the characters or experimental the approach. In order to care
about what happens to the main character, we need to be engaged as early
as possible. We need to see that character in the midst of life, however briefly,
before the catalyst occurs, introducing or stimulating the main dramatic
action.
Basically, developing this action through the character’s struggle with a
series of increasingly difficult obstacles constitutes the story line or simple
plot of a short film script. And while the concept of a full three-act structure
has proven useful to writers of longer films (mainly features), it can be
unhelpful—even obstructive—to writers of short films. With some excep-
tions, it is best to think of the story line for a short as a single flow of inci-
dents. In our experience, the following structure is a simpler, more flexible
scaffolding for the short, whether it is original or an adaptation.
STRUCTURING YOUR SHORT SCREENPLAY
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