Film Courage: I’m not sure if this relates to contrast but to say that the audience loves
contrast, I think you talked about it in one of your videos.
If a character comes in [to a scene] angry, then they need to leave with some resolve
or happy (something).
But if they come in happy, then they need to leave the scene angry there needs to be
some kind of a contrast.
Adam Skelter: Yeah that’s a principle I learned from you know just reading Robert
McKee basically that the idea is that a scene turns on the emotional state of the character
or characters and basically the idea is that by contrast the whole point of story is to
get us to engage emotionally so when we’re tracking something the logical should be as
it should be as logical as it needs to be so that we can emotionally invest in something
so something needs to be logical if it within the confines of the world just enough so that
we can care about what they care about because what we really are interested in is what is
the emotional state of these characters.
So the best way to know if the scene has turned is if this character comes in with this positive
emotion, they experience some conflict and the results causes a shift.
If they come in happy and generally speaking nothing significant has happened.
And so what we’re looking for when we structure our scenes (what I’m looking for when I
structure the scenes is some sort of emotionally significant experience changes the way they
are seeing their situation.
And then from there using their strategy they adapt to new conflict.
Film Courage: Is that the one where you use GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS?
Adam: You know Mamet’s creed is what does the character want, why now and what happens
if they don’t get it?
So it’s asking those three questions which form a kind of litmus test to whether the
scene is worth it.
And then from there you take McKee’s principle of turning a positive to a negative or a negative
to a positive and the idea of contrast is what I’m trying to say is that you want
to pace out a film and it shouldn’t be just ridiculous jumps and contrasts.
Like if a main character comes in and she’s just gloating with joy and then it’s the
depths of sorrow that’s melodrama and we begin to disengage.
I mean there are plenty of exceptions to it.
But ultimately what we are looking for is a kind of journey which means we’re following
the emotional journey that they are going through where we’re following the ups and
downs and usually some shifts and then sometimes it drops out from under you.
So a lot of that is about understanding the way you can pace out and establish a rhythm
of different scenes and you start to develop certain stakes and then you drop it and raise
the stakes and things like that.
So it’s all about playing with the expectations and getting the audience to guess what’s
going to happen next.
Film Courage: So are those the three questions you are asking characters, even supporting
characters?
Not just the protagonist or the antagonist just some of the supporting ones?
Adam: Yes, so a lot of things about structure especially is largely to do with rewriting
although it does inform outlining as well.
That’s all the principles inform each other.
A lot of the story structure theory, like for example especially scenes dynamics, that
video was largely due to kind of almost like checklist once you’ve already written a
scene, these are some ways to know if it’s working or not.
So I took Mamet’s creed and I took Robert McKee’s principle of turning from the emotions
up to positive to negative and vice versa and then I can up with a list of essential
scene dynamics and a lot of that, it’s kind of like a checklist of something that I’ll
be reading something, I’ll make sure that each scene that I write has these elements
and if they don’t have the elements then usually I can diagnose exactly what’s wrong
with it, what’s not working with it.