Film Courage: How does someone decide where to start their story? Mark W. Travis, Director/Author/Writer/Instructor: Wow ...where to
start the story? Now I'm assuming we have this little three or four or five
minutes story right a little I'm gonna stay with us you mean where to start
that story? Film Courage: Well if they're going to tell people their life what if they don't
want to say well at all hey you know I was raised in such-and-such a town what
if they want to start it from the time that they left college okay because they
feel like that's when their real self began? Mark: Okay we need we need to talk
about two things then now I understand more we need two under the sequencing. Okay
sequencing of information which I can talk about which has to do with the
events in a story and do you really want to start with the beginning of the story
do you want to start with something in the middle and other words plane with
the sequence the chronology of events as you tell the story so that's one thing
the the other thing we can talk about when you say tell the story of my life
there's another topic and which I'm willing to forget what we're shooting
now but another topic which is about how an autobiographical story is put
together because it's put together differently than a screenplay it's put
together differently than novels put together differently than fiction and
how we the process I use to explore what the story is really about through the
writing and don't make a determination at the beginning so those are two times
that makes sense so sequencing and then sequencing and then structuring the
autobiographical story which are two different
the structure in is which story comes first in the sequence of stories and
then there's the sequencing within a story so is that something you would
determine if someone presents you I'm sorry I'm presents me what so when you
work with someone how do they decide where to begin
okay let's talk about out of where to begin with just one little story if
someone is told a story and done that I'm just gonna go back to your...Film Courage: You know
can we stop? My life is very dull and I'm not really interested in talking about me?
Sorry, why don't we do a hypothetical version of Karen who's much
more exciting a hypothetical. Mark: That's fiction! That's fiction! Okay something... Film Courage:
Another Karen who's had an amazing, wild, incredible life. Mark: Okay I'm going to tell
you a quick story right now one of my stories
and we'll use that we'll use that as an example okay and I'll tell you just just
give you an overview of the story this is when I was nine years old about to
become 10 years old and so I was about to have my 10th birthday I have an older
brother and older sister and I have younger siblings too but my parents
always made the tenth birthday a special birthday special gift
extraordinary so as I'm approaching as I was approaching my tenth birthday I was
very excited about what's my gift gonna be I had seen when my older brother
Peter got it was great at least he thought it was great but it was great
and it was very expensive and I saw what my sister got she thought it was great
they were very happy and so I wanted something that was equally as great or
actually better I thought mine should be better and so I was waiting for that
moment and then it comes the morning and my birthday and I'm waking up I can
barely sleep i'm waking up i can't wait until the we get to the the time of the
day when i'm gonna open the presents and all of that and my father was saying
happy birthday and i'm thinking oh it's a special gift i think it might be it
could be a bike I'm hoping it's gonna be a bike
or I'm how I was hoping that it could be maybe something like skates ice skating
because I was into ice skating and I also wanted maybe some new skis
something like that bicycle skate skis that would have been great
and I was just sitting there wondering what its gonna be and then the time came
when we're opening the gifts and the whole family is around my older
brother's sister and the younger ones are there and when they were there and
when I opened the gift I don't even know if you'll know what this is when I tell
you when I opened the gift what was inside was a wooden press to keep a
tennis racket from warping now I played tennis I knew what this was I had a
tennis racket in fact a new tennis racket might have been nice but why did
I need a new press because they were wooden tennis racquets back then and I
was just devastated and disappointed and my father seemed very pleased and my
mother seemed very pleased but my brother seemed smug Peter right Peter
yeah and faith seemed not terribly interested so I didn't get what I wanted
why do you think they gave you that because they I don't know is it what it
represented to you that you weren't what my yeah I think what that story is
really about Karen is as the third child in a family of six children
I really felt less than most of the other children except maybe my youngest
sister but anyway the last the sixth one and at that time at 10 years old I think
what I really wanted to feel I wanted to feel is that I was as special if not
more special than my older brother and sister and this 10th birthday gift would
do it and only once would you get to do this and I know what they got and I know
and then I saw what I got and it just didn't do it so my expectation is that
after they get the gift I my self-esteem would be super high I would feel proud
of myself I would feel important but I didn't okay
now getting back to sequencing a story right the question is with that story
where do you start now this story and you know this from filmmaking to a story
could start at the moment of opening the gift say what would happen I could this
world will do with students a lot and what would happen if you start with the
opening of the gift well then I said yeah but no but you don't reveal what
the gift is you you start at the moment of the opening of the get the moment
when the adrenaline is so high and the anticipation is so huge and you start
then and then you go back to the big to the beginning and start that way well it
happens if you tell the story out of order the important thing is that by the
time the story is told completely the audience has all the information
that you're going to give them that's it but it doesn't mean they need it in
chronological order in fact it could start after the opening after as I'm
walking back to my room I could start with the story talking about me walking
back to my room with my gifts devastated destroyed feeling despondent I feel like
I want to cry it could start there and now if you think about it if you start
there the audience is going what happened what happened to you that it
was so awful and you're carrying birthday gifts and you want to cry the
audience has no frame of reference to make sense out of that which is great
because it makes the audience curious then they can go back to the excitement
about what I'm going to get now the audience knows the end and they're
trying to figure then not try to figure out where it's going to go but they're
trying to feel how did it get from this to that
I couldn't even throw in the middle of it how much I love tennis threw out in
the middle of the story so that the tennis the the press for the tennis
racket the audience think well that's great but they realize it's not very cuz
it's not greater than what Peter and faith got and where do I get that
information in so it's it's it's not so that's ass that's the sequencing where
are you going to start where do you want to finish that's the sequencing of a
story now this is actually a lot of the
storytelling techniques that we teach in write your life with autobiographical
stories come from film film editing now you've seen films that start in the
middle you've seen events that start there you've seen flashbacks you go what
is that and all of that process
you