DO YOU HAVE ANY IMAGES OR IDEAS, HOWEVER UNFORMED, AS TOWHAT THE CL...

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