Film Courage: You touch on something regarding the 99% and you say many writers can format
a script?
But most writers can’t do…and that is?
Jill Chamberlain, Script Consultant/Author/Writer: Yes, so in my experience as a script consultant
99% of writers fail to tell a story.
That what the 99% do instead is I would describe as present a situation.
So they pay me good money as a script consultant to come in and read their script.
It may be perfectly formatted in industry standard.
It may have some interesting characters here and there.
Maybe some great dialogue.
It may have some interesting plot points.
But invariably I was discovering that 99% of the time they were failing to tell a story
a story.
Instead they were presenting a situation.
One way I can describe a situation is it’s like life where in life this happens, this
happens and then this happens.
And that’s not a story right?
That’s episodic.
A story there’s a connection where between the parts this happens which leads to that
happening which makes it ironic when this other thing happens.
There’s a connection between the parts.
This happens which leads to that happening which makes it ironic when this other thing
happens.
There’s a connection between the parts.
Another way I can put it is if I can take your protagonist out of your script and put
a completely different one in and maybe with a couple of tweaks it works just as well,
you have a situation my friend not a story.
Film Courage: Interesting.
Jill: I shouldn’t be able to do that.
If you’re telling a story, if I take a protagonist out it would no longer work.
A story is unique to your protagonist.
There’s a unique journey, a reason why you (the master of the universe here) has put
this character on this path.
There is something in that character that you’ve chosen to do this particular plot
in order to bring out something in them.
And so if I can just put another character in it works just as well.
That’s not a situation, that’s not testing anything specific to the character.
It’s just an arbitrary situation that you put a character, that you put someone into.
And that’s what most people do, I mean that’s how a lot of us start.
It’s not…it doesn’t mean that it’s not a fixable situation and that’s why my
method, why I have these on form so we can see visually right there and then “Oh yeah,
this piece is working, but you can see this piece doesn’t work.”
We can isolate these elements and we can fix them looking at this one-page for and it’s
way easier to do it on this one page form then if you’ve already written a screenplay
then that’s going to be a little bit more of a mess.
We can still use the form but it’s going to mean going back a little bit to the drawing
board in order to fix those parts.
In order to make it into a powerful story.
Film Courage: I’m wondering if we can reverse engineer a current film that is out and make
it into a situation?
So I know sometimes I use movies that are dated, so let me use try with A STAR IS BORN.
How can we reverse engineer it so that if we broke it down and changed it to a situation?
So we could see…dissect it?
Jill: Let me give you a different example.
It’s my favorite to give.
The movie TOOTSIE.
Film Courage: Love it.
Jill: So every screenwriter, every filmmaker should know TOOTSIE, right?
If you haven’t seen it, you have to go see it.
It’s a great movie to look at structurally.
This is exactly what is happening.
99% of writers are writing what I call “Fat Tootsie.”
This is fat tootsie…I’m going to take the same movie (TOOTSIE) we have a protagonist
Michael Dorsey an out-of-work actor.
Can’t get an acting job and he’s desperate for an acting job and so he’s going to audition
for the soap opera and I’m going to make two very small changes to the plot.
He’s going to audition for the soap opera in disguise.
But the part isn’t a female character.
The part is going to be a male character but the character is an obese man in the fictional
soap opera world (so the town that the soap opera takes place in).
So Michael Dorsey is desperate for an acting job right?
So he’s going to his make-up artist friend to have prosthesis made and a costumer to
make him a fat suit.
And he’s going to go into the audition pretending he’s actually an obese man AND he’s going
to get the part.
We have the exact same movie Michael Dorsey out-of-work actor desperate for an acting
job gets a part on a soap opera.
The only thing I’m going to change is that instead of the part being a female character
it’s a part of a fat man right?
Very similar movie, it almost works right?
We tend to think it’s funny seeing a man dressed up as a woman in movies.
We also could find it funny seeing this little guy like Derek Huffmann pretending to be a
big, fat guy.
He’s got to get in and out of his fat suit before anyone sees him.
It almost works.
But ultimately fat TOOTSIE is a situation, not a story.
Do you have any idea what the difference might be?
Film Courage: [Long pause]…forgive me it’s been awhile since I’ve seen it.
I’m just remembering that when he is Tootsie there is this…someone falls in love with
him and then there’s this dilemma of how does he tell them he’s a man, he can’t.
He’s got to keep his cover.
So what would be…?
Jill: Yes and I can even tweak it though when that wasn’t an issue where in it he gets
a crush on his female co-star.
I’m make another tweak though for “Fat Tootsie.”
He’ll tell his co-star that he is gay so Julie (the love interest) feels
just as comfortable with him as she felt with the “Dorothy” character the female persona.
So still almost works right?
We have the exact same thing and then for the love interest because he says he is gay
part of the movie in TOOTSIE we see that Julie’s father gets a crush on the Dorothy character.
We will make Julie’s father gay, right?
So that could work.
So it’s still working the same...
Film Courage: You’ve stumped me here...
Jill: Yes!
Well I’ve stumped a lot of people.
This is key.
And let me tell you 99% of writers are writing “Fat Tootsie.”
It’s a clever sounding situation but it’s not a story.
The key...the big difference is one of the biggest structural (and this is one of the
8 elements) but the most important element is the flaw.
That there is something in this journey that you’ve chosen in the plot (you’ve created
that you’ve put this character in) that is going to test a central flaw in them.
Any idea what Michael Dorsey’s flaw might be?
Film Courage: Well...I guess he is struggling in his career.
Jill: Yes...but a flaw is something that we can blame them for.
So something where you look down upon them.
So what would you say is a negative about him that we are judging (that we can judge
him) about?
You are kind of in the ballpark though.
It’s related to his career.
Film Courage: Lack of confidence?
Lack of skills?
I don’t know...going after the wrong [acting] parts?
Over-inflated view of himself?
Under-inflated view of himself?
Jill: Well I think most people point out the over-inflated view.
That he is very, very arrogant, that this is one of the reasons he hasn’t been getting
acting work is because he is so difficult to work with.
The only thing is I would argue after the movie TOOTSIE, do you think this guy is going
to be any less arrogant on his next acting job?
Film Courage: No...because he was able to pull it off and so now he has this extreme
confidence.
Jill: Exactly.
That is one of his flaws - arrogance.
It’s not the one that the movie is testing.
The one that the movie is testing is his lack of respect for women.
Okay so we see in the beginning this early scene at this party he hits on every single
woman with the same stupid line even though I think he’d probably call himself a feminist
he’s actually a real jerk to women, right?
He is great friends with the Teri Greer character but the moment they sleep together he suddenly
freaks out and treats her terribly.
So deep down he has this lack of respect for women.
That is the perfect test of somebody who has a lack of respect for women if you make them
have to pretend to be a woman, right?
But in fact Tootsie, that has nothing to do with his flaw.
It’s an arbitrary situation we put him in.
So unless we were able to change the flaw and we made him a flaw, somebody who had a
prejudice against people of different weight or different appearance or something like
that, we could change the character so it was testing someone.
But with the character that’s in the original TOOTSIE of this man who is arrogant and doesn’t
respect women, putting him in a fat suit, that doesn’t do anything to test that character.
So that’s what 99% of writers are doing.
It sounds clever, it sounds interesting to see somebody where he’s trying to pretend,
it seems to have some interesting themes about trying to pretend to be someone that you’re
not.
We’ve got some funny comedy moments, ideas in there...it has nothing to do with the character?
Film Courage: Right and he gets hit on and I remember the one scene where they were like
[the crew] “Can you guys back up the camera?”
And they were like “How far can you go?”
So he’s being judged for his looks, being hit on, all of these different things.
Jill: All of these things that he does that he doesn’t even realize he is doing.
Even in that Second Act he is still doesn’t realize that he has been doing these things
all along.
There is a great moment where the chauvinistic director turns things around and says something
that he’s the chauvinistic director has been dating Julie and Michael’s Dorothy
persona kind of suggests “I know what is going on.”
And the director says “Yeah, yeah, sure I see other women but I wouldn’t want to
tell her.
I wouldn’t want to hurt her.”
And Michael Dorsey used that exact same line talking about Teri Greer right?
“Of course, I don’t want to hurt her.”
So he doesn’t even realize he is doing these things.
So this is the way we are going to get the character to finally face something.
Another important concept about this is that your character is not a victim.
Michael Dorsey is not a victim of the Universe suddenly making him half to be a woman and
deal with that.
He actually asked for this, he wanted an acting part.
He said that he could handle this.
He said “I’ll do anything.
I’ll do any acting job.”
He willingly went in there to audition for this.
This is another part of the 99%, they are making their character a victim of circumstance.
They are having arbitrary stuff happen to the character.
It shouldn’t be.
Your character should not be a victim.
EVEN if your character is a victim, for them truly to be a protagonist then you have a
certain amount of agency involved.
They need to be contributing to the problem in some way.
If you don’t give your character a strong flaw, you are just making them a victim.
The reason these bad things are happening to them is just fate.
It’s just bad luck in the world.
It shouldn’t be that.
That might be part of it but part of why it’s so difficult for Michael Dorsey in TOOTSIE
is the fact that he’s chauvinistic.
If he weren’t a chauvinistic guy he wouldn’t have been having a difficult time in Act 2
of TOOTSIE.
So that what we are doing is making sure that we’re testing the character with something
that is getting down to something deep down inside of them that is unique to them and
that is why this character exists in this story instead of another character.