Film Courage: How important is story analysis for a screenwriter?
Script Doctor, Writing Coach, and Author Daniel Calvisi: I think it's the main way
to learn screenwriting. I think it's actually more important than writing okay maybe that's because I
worked as a reader on the job for studios and production companies and I learned so much on
the job but I think forcing yourself to take apart a script or a movie or a TV show and do
written analysis forcing yourself to write down an analysis of it and for some reason just gives
you a better learning experience than just if you watch a movie and you say oh okay I can see that
it's in four acts and there was a big midpoint but if you force yourself to really analyze it
on paper I think it really really helps how much do you think new screenwriters realize this don't
they think that it's just an innate talent and and I have these amazing stories in my head all that
doesn't matter I need to get my story out well I mean there's the some people say just writing
is the best thing you can do write write write write as many scripts as possible and yes that's
great but you can't write in a vacuum you need to get notes from friends and people who know
scripts in the industry it's absolutely key that you get notes and I don't I think talent quote
talent is maybe a part of it I think it's just I don't know if we even call it talent it's just
a proclivity towards expressing yourself with the written word and then can you do it in screenplay
format maybe there's a certain ability there that's kind of innate some people just can't
get it and some people it comes second nature but the myth that great writers are just born
and they just type out their first screenplay and it's genius I mean that's a total myth you it's a
lot of practice it's a lot of work it's a lot of craft it takes a while what are the first steps
to analyzing a story for me what I call the basic story map is you want to Define your foundational
elements to the narrative and that's things like your protagonist their internal and external goals
the obstacles in the way of those goals your theme which is what is it about why are you telling
this story there certain characters like a shadow character antagonist Ally those kind of things and
then how are you going to end it what is going to be the ending of the story hopefully ahead of time
sometimes you don't but hopefully you do and those once you've decided on those elements that informs
then how you're going to beat out the story the plot of the story but you need those foundational
elements to begin how much to encourage new writers to analyze other stories not their own
so they're because maybe they think oh I just want to be focused on my story that's all I care about
but to really dissect and reverse engineer someone else's story that's a huge part of learning any
kind of writing especially screenwriting for movies and film because it's so structure-based
you want to analyze good scripts and bad scripts I mean as a reader I learn just as much from the
bad scripts as I did from the good ones because it shows you what not to do do and you just get
a sense of like oh that's not working on the page or here's what it looks like when act one goes on
too long so yeah doing story analysis taking apart existing movies existing TV shows it also helps to
get a kind of template show for yours like let's say let's say you wanted to write a seral killer
thriller so maybe dissect seven and the Silence of the Lamb maybe something more recent and use
one of those as your basic structural template on your first pass and then when you rewrite
you can change that up but it helps to just say okay here's a structural template for me here's
an example of kind of what I would want to do so you find a film or a show that has a similar tone
maybe it targets a similar audience and then it's definitely similar genre and that will provide
kind of a initial road map for you do you take notes when analyzing a story I don't really take
many notes as I'm reading it for the first time I'm usually reading on my computer on a PDF and
I embed notes in the PDF for my clients and my students and so the first pass I don't note that
much but then the second pass I will embed notes in there I just insert notes into Adobe and what
I'd like to do is give them my impression as a reader as I'm reading it so since I know from
being a pro reader I want them to know what I'm thinking at that time what is the reader thinking
so like oh okay this moment on page 12 I don't understand it it's I'm confused and then page 15
oh I see what you were going for now but I want them to have both of those notes so they know
that even though on page they they resolved it or maybe they had the payoff on page 12 the reader
was confused so I want them to have my quote live reactions as I read through something and those
notes will be something emailed and also verbally gone over with like a phone or an inperson session
yeah usually we have a follow-up Zoom call if they're a coaching client we do weekly zooms
and I just share my screen with the PDF and we go over for them Page by Page whereas as a
reader in the past when you in a prior interview we talked about your prior time as a reader for
Studio scripts that was never something that would happen it was only just a a pass or a recommend
it yeah it was a coverage report which was like three to five pages and you do you kind of list
the the major things like length and author and who submitted it and stuff and you have a
little box score excellent good Fair por with different elements then you summarize it then
you do one page of notes only and then you give your recommendation whether it's a pass consider
or recommend how will thinking like a script reader benefit a screenwriter putting yourself
in the position of the reader I think is key you want to know that the reader is going to be clear
on what you're writing you can't 100% know on your first pass whether something is going to be total
toally clear to the reader that's why you want to have other people read it but you want to think
to yourself if this was a cold reader who didn't know the story who didn't know me and they were
reading this for the first time is it going to be clear the way it's flowing on the page another
thing like for example you don't want to have super thick description paragraphs like 12 lines
of text in a description paragraph because that basically pisses off the reader they're like God
there's so much Tex on the page it's like black ink everywhere like they want it to flow and they
want it to basically go faster so it doesn't take a lot more time to read your script than it does
another script so I think reading scripts that's another reason why you want to read in other other
scripts is you figure out what can be annoying to a reader what can hamper the process that's why I
think anyone does this and I learned this when I was a reader the first thing you do when you get
a script is you check how many pages it is so if you're getting a movie script and it's like
135 Pages they're like oh man this reader they're writing this writer they're writing too much they
really need an editor this you don't want to have a script be that long unless it's like an epic and
then it's like well you should be a established Pro or something like that scripts used to be
120 Pages was the Target now they're more kind of like 100 to 110 maybe like 105 is The Sweet
Spot maybe go up to 115 but it's those cues to the reader it's how long is it how long is each
act how long does it take before you have a really strong catalyst and the through line kicks in and
the engine kicks in and reading scripts will help you get in that mindset so is it where you kind
of have to know the system and be quote part of the system in order to figure out what the system
wants or what might even surpass what's some of the material out there I'm just thinking of people
that would be like I don't really enjoy Hollywood I don't want to be part of it so therefore I don't
want to have to think like a member of Hollywood yeah no matter what budget level you're working
at whether it's indie or studio people still need to read that script and they need to understand
it and feel the tone and the flow and it needs to be clear you're even if you're raising the funds
yourself and you're shooting it independently you still need to give it to actors you still need to
give it to crew members if you want a really good DP well they're going to have to read it too so it
has to be clear and make sense on the page it if you want to do your own thing that's okay but just
remember that you still need to attract people to your project okay so this reader quote unquote is
not a litmus test for Hollywood it's does another human being understand what's happening with the
story yeah I think that's probably the best thing to the best way to think about it and
you don't want to psych yourself out and think oh Hollywood readers think this so I'm going
to change this you still want to follow your gut and tell the story how you want to tell the story.