BRING THE SCRIPT TO CLOSURE WITH A BRIEF SCENE—OFTEN A SINGLE SHOT—...

5) Bring the script to closure with a brief scene—often a single shot—

which comments on, or simply reveals, the main character’s situa-

tion at the end of the film.

In a sense, the first and last steps above can be thought of as a simple fram-

ing device that shows the protagonist before the main dramatic action gets

underway, and again, after that action has been completed. Closure is the

writer and director’s last word on the subject, the image or images they wish

the audience to come away with.

(More on closure in Chapter 7, Rewriting Your Script.)

WRITING A STORY OUTLINE

In an interview discussing the architecture of the screenplay, screenwriter

William Goldman, author of the film scripts for Butch Cassidy and the

Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, and All the President’s Men, says, “I’ve done a

lot of thinking myself about what a screenplay is, and I’ve come up with

nothing except that it’s carpentry. It’s basically putting down some kind of

structure form that they [the actors and director] can then mess around with.

And as long as they keep the structure form, whatever I have written is rel-

atively valid; a scene will hold, regardless of the dialogue. It’s the thrust of a

scene that’s kept pure.”

One of the most valuable tools we have for structure is the story outline,

wherein each step briefly describes a full scene—ideally a scene that furthers

the action.

The writing of a story outline often begins with collecting notes or making

observations on character, location, events, bits of dialogue, or images that

you have about the project. When these notes take on some sort of coherence,

you can start asking yourself the questions we’ve listed. Keep in mind,

though, that for most people the best way to work on ideas for writing any-

thing is with pen in hand or fingers on keyboard.

In the short script, where dialogue is best kept to a minimum, a detailed story

outline can occasionally serve the purposes of a first-draft screenplay. There are

students who prefer to answer the questions and move directly to a rough

draft. If this second method is your choice, you will probably find that writing

a bare-bones outline of this draft can help you spot problems in motivation and

structure before going on to the next draft. It is much easier to see such diffi-

culties when the scenes are laid out in sequence on a single sheet of paper.

There are those who find that using index cards, or photocopied cutouts

from the draft of the outline, for each step and moving them around helps in

finding the sequence that works best. (Most people who have done any film

editing at all discover, sooner or later, that casual or even accidental juxta-

positions can yield extraordinary results.)

When you arrive at the assignment, keep an open mind and be prepared

to experiment with these strategies to find out what works for you.

Because our first example of such an outline is intended for a very short

animated film or video, and story-boarding is all-important in animation,

it will be somewhat more detailed than it would be for most live-action

films. Essentially, what we are aiming at is an outline that could almost

serve as a first draft of the screenplay.

STORY OUTLINE FOR “ICARUS’S FLIGHT”