Film Courage: What is The Nutshell Technique?
Jill Chamberlain, Script Consultant/Author/Writer: The Nutshell Technique is a method that I
created for my students and clients to address this chronic problem I see that 99% of writers
fail to tell a story.
That instead the 99% situation.
All I did is I drew up 8 essential elements required to successfully tell a story, created
this schematic (one-page schematic) and these are not beats in time, these are elements
that are connected that’s what makes it different.
This isn’t a strictly linear structure.
If you look at the form (and folks can download my form from my website Jill Chamberlain (dot)
com) the key is the connect...see all of these little arrows and things explain the connection
between the boxes and that’s what makes it different.
I’m getting at the glue that is required to tell a story, that is required to make
sure that it’s not episodic.
A story is not isolated events, there’s a connection between them and this gets you
visually (to see) and identify first of all what are those elements?
Do you have those 8 elements in your story.
Then are they working together in conjunction.
They need to work together.
It’s about making choices actually.
It’s about finding out what you are married to because it forces you to get out of your
head and on this piece of paper and it’s not a lot of homework.
It’s not like I’m asking you to write a long beat sheet (multi-page beat sheet)
to explain.
It’s pretty brief (one page)…let’s see if I can identify these 8 elements first of
all.
If you can’t you want to see visually how they’re working together and if they’re
not working you can see it right on the form.
So it’s a way of finding out what am I married to?
I really love this premise about a guy who wakes up and it’s the same day all over
again.
But it’s not working with this flaw that I identified that he is naive.
That flaw doesn’t work with this.
Which one do you want to change?
Do you want to change the flaw or change the great premise?
I’d probably stick with the great premise right?
But then I’d have to think what would be the right character to put in that circumstance
where they wake up and it’s the same day again?
Somebody who is naive, that wouldn’t really work.
That’s not a really good test for them.
What about somebody who is really self-centric?
Right?
Now you can see the form “okay that works much better.”
This is going to be a much better test than somebody who is self-centered and self-centric
if they are repeating the same day again and again.
It’s going to get really boring right?
It’s going to force them to start trying different things and maybe finally change
and find something better in themselves and they realize that life isn’t really worth
living if you’re just living it for yourself everyday, right?
So it’s going to take him all of that time to figure out in this journey and this test
you put him on in suddenly being caught in a universe where he’s waking up and it’s
the same day again to finally face this flaw deep down in himself and to find a way to
change and that’s how he breaks from the cycle.
Film Courage: And also play off of someone who is more naive and who also has sort of
a broader view of the world.
Jill: Right, as a contrast to that character.
So it’s a way of just isolating these elements really simply.
It’s very simple method really.
Very simply you can see what’s working and what’s not working right there on a piece
of paper.
It’s just a matter of kind of small adjustments very often can make a huge difference between
a huge story first of all not working (being a situation and not feeling satisfying and
one that is satisfying.
It helps you find that unexpected and surprising ending and satisfying way of doing things
that you’re probably not going to find otherwise if you’re just following a beat sheet method
or if you’re just keep with a situation.