okay let's talk about dissecting the screenplay so uh when we look at screenplays which is the written portion of a film or a television show um there's some fun things that we really need to know about how things are set up so that it makes sense and there's some tips and tricks that sort of make all screenplays work um especially full-length films so that's what we're going to really be looking at today so first things first we're just going to look at what I know you've seen this many times before this this concept of the basic dramatic plot structure now I put in dramatic here because this looks slightly different than uh maybe what you've seen um in your English classes and stuff like that sometimes there's looks more like a witch's hat that goes up and down all the way and across um but ours the biggest thing is is in uh dramatic performance um there's no way for your your characters to end up back to where everything is just regular and life is easy cheesy peasy as where they started at the beginning of the film or the play or that sort of stuff so we start off in just everyday life this is the Expedition Exposition not Expedition this is where we figure out the setting the time the place the conditions you know they're on the moon it's 20 92 and um all the human race has tried to make it to Mars and these people have been left on on the moon or something like that right we meet our main characters and we already normally meet the protagonist and the antagonist so who you're supposed to be rooting for and who is against them within this Exposition time period we may not meet other friends in the search that go on the journey with them at this point but we at least know um or have inklings of who this antagonist is going to be then right here happens the inciting incident so with the inciting incident one of the biggest deals is this word inciting and in literature a lot of time you'll just see initial incidents so in other words the first thing that happens but in dramatic plot structure you're going to see the inside incident it's like a riot riots don't just happen something occurs to incite them to get them stirred up to get them going um something very dramatic happens and this gets us going here so this is where we figure out our conflicts now sometimes where our main character our protagonist is only going to have one conflict now I know these are are masculine terms these are just the general like literature terms but it's also like they are not gendered per se uh so person versus person so man versus him man like person against person Man versus himself person against like inner thoughts worries concerns fear sadness that sort of stuff or Man versus environment now the environment can be nature itself and things like bird box or that sort of stuff where you know the The Happening where nature is trying to get you or you know there's going to be a big storm or that sort of stuff or also society as a whole whether it is gangs or war or uh politics or family only belief systems of you know that sort of thing like maybe it's the female trying to break out and they're trying to do their own thing or something like that right and a family belief system that says women can't do that or you know all sorts of different concepts of what Society is so Society can be huge and overarching or it can be a small Society a family and that sort of thing um then we start our journey this is our hike up the mountain and if you notice there's lots of little Peaks as we go so there's multiple times where we sort of come to a climax but instead of coming back down we we are actually still moving upwards even as it feels like we have this release and what this does is this helps your audience stay tuned in so they it gets more intense and then oh we calm down a little bit more intense and then we come down a little bit oh if we just stay super intense the whole entire time the audience actually will disconnect from you because they say we can't stay at that sort of intensity all the time then we get to the climax and to me the climax is always the point of decision um and some people say well if there's not a decision uh do this or I'm gonna kill you well just because because you said or I'm going to right there is a choice even in the worst times there's a choice sometimes it's not the best choice mind you but there is a choice here that I believe that happens at the climax and either it resolves the choice or we explode and we we and come into that sort of cliffhanger thought process Now we move into a falling a lot of times this is not called resolution because when we go into if you know if you notice there's no word resolution here on the dramatic plot structure because even though some things are going to be solved because we don't come all the way back down we just conclude our story our story is left purposely so that the audience is going hmm I wonder what's going to happen I wonder what's going to happen or they walk out going well I know that now the The Prince and the princess are together but they don't even know each other they've only met each other for three days so are they even gonna like each other in a week you know or six months like there's not actually this resolving of all these issues wow they they made that last they finally did were able to steal that last car and appease this but they're probably still going to head to jail for a very long time so oh this isn't really a resolving we sort of conclude without all the bows tied and we like that we want our audience to walk out still discussing so this word right here is in other words this is sort of the idea of it like coming to an end but it doesn't per se mean that it is resolved that everything is over and this bothers people a lot of times on really good uh dramatic um films plays television shows that sort of stuff is not having that bow tied at the end and we go what's gonna happen it's also where we leave our audiences going oh is there going to be a sequel okay so let's look at this this is the hero's journey I need to make sure yeah let's re-share and make sure I have the sound shared as well too hey [Music] went to Harry Potter Katniss Everdeen and Frodo all have in common with the heroes of ancient myths what if I told you they are all variants of the same hero do you believe that Joseph Campbell did he studied myths from all over the world and published a book called the hero with a thousand faces retelling dozens of stories and explaining how each represents the mono myth or hero's journey so what is the hero's journey think of it as a cycle the Journey Begins and ends in the hero's Ordinary World but the quest passes through an unfamiliar Special World along the way there are some key events think about your favorite book or movie does it follow this pattern status quo that's where we start one o'clock Call to Adventure the hero receives a mysterious message an invitation a challenge two o'clock assistance the hero needs some help probably from someone older wiser three o'clock departure the hero crosses the threshold from his normal safe home and enters the special world and Adventure we're not in Kansas anymore four o'clock trials being a hero is hard work our hero solves a riddle this plays a monster escapes from a trap five o'clock approach it's time to face the biggest ordeal the hero's worst fear six o'clock crisis this is the hero's darkest hour he faces death and possibly even dies only to be reborn seven o'clock it's treasure as a result the hero claims some treasure special recognition or power eight o'clock result this can vary between stories to the monsters bow down before the hero or do they chase him as he flees from the special world nine o'clock returned after all that Adventure the hero returns to his ordinary world 10 o'clock New Life this Quest has changed the hero he has outgrown his old life 11 o'clock resolution all the Tangled plot lines get straightened out 12 o'clock status quo but upgraded to a new level nothing is quite the same once you're a hero many popular books and movies follow this ancient formula pretty closely but let's see how well the Hunger Games fits the hero's journey template when does Katniss Everdeen hear a call to Adventure that gets the story moving when her sister's name is called from the lottery how about assistance is anyone going to help her on her Adventure hey Mitch what about departure does she leave her Ordinary World she gets on a train to the Capitol okay so you get the idea what do you have in common with Harry Potter Katniss Everdeen and Frodo well you're human just like them the hero's journey myth exists in all human cultures and keeps getting updated because we humans reflect on our world through symbolic stories of our own lives you leave your comfort zone have an experience that transforms you and then you recover and do it again you don't literally slay dragons or fight Voldemort but you face problems just as scary Joseph Campbell said in the cave you fear to enter lies the treasure you seek what is the symbolic cave you fear to enter auditions for the school play baseball tryouts love watch for this formula in books movies and TV shows you come across you will certainly see it again but also be sensitive to it in your own life listen for Your Call to Adventure accept the challenge conquer your fear and claim the treasure you seek and then do it all over again okay so the that's such a quick one and it's really worth going back and watching through as well too but we look at this hero's journey almost in every single one of our films and you'll see how it actually lines up very well with your dramatic plot structure as well too there's a few little inklings there and some word choices again like we see the word resolution but let's look through and see so our hero starts out and we're in the Ordinary World right life is regular and ordinary does not mean boring ordinary means that this is the world that we go okay um like this is still heightened enough to be worthy of of being some dramatic thing for us to watch but it is that character's Ordinary World it is their status quo meaning what's regular for them then they have that Call to Adventure they get the assistance um if you're a Lord of the Rings fan um you can easily step along through this um very very easily um you know Call to Adventure you've got to go return the ring assistance we get the whole group of all the people right um then we depart on the journey okay we head out and this is where we start switching from that Ordinary World to the special world so once we're in the Special World things get they start moving much quicker usually um and events are always like this is that that Jagged Mountain that we're climbing okay so we have next we have our trials different things that we have to come against sometimes it is just simply the terrain is difficult sometimes it's multiple things that we have to come up against or people who are standing in the way of what we're needing to get done we have the approach in other words we're trying to get to that point where something big is going to happen and while we're approaching uh if you think Wizard of Oz think it's the poppy field right well we're finally going to make it to the wizard oh no here's the poppy field and we're all put to sleep or oh we're finally trying to make it to the castle oh the flying monkeys attack right we have these approaches multiple times but this is up to our crisis this is our biggest moment right our biggest moment you can think of the word crisis also meaning climax normally happening right here so it's our at our highest point of our special World Journey okay then what do we get that resolution of the of the crisis do we get something from this is our treasure that we save a life is it that we get the broomstick is it uh that we win uh and survive the Hunger Games um what is it okay um then how does that affect us what's the result of getting that treasure from overcoming this and sometimes the treasure doesn't seem so wonderful and the result isn't so great for our uh our hero as they're going through and these are called one that's like oh this is really nice good this is really not good these are called uh French endings the French really like these and so they're actually called French endings as these sometimes are very negative most American films are not going to be super negative at this point we're still going to be able to find some rosiness um you know but like in a French ending these results and the treasure is that we realize we really don't need to have that person in our life and the result is that the main characters break up and they don't ever get back together again and you're like what why am I watching this movie um and then we return back to the Ordinary World we go back to school we go home but again it doesn't come all the way back down that Mountainside this person this character can never whether it could be a dog or a mouse it doesn't matter this this character cannot go through all of these trials and be back to regular even though the Ordinary World of the of the story they're entering back home they are changed they are changed this is where sometimes you go oh this character is going to need some therapy um and you go please therapy it's worth it um and but so this is a new life so again when we have that mountain this is why we've gone up a mountain and we've come back down but our Valley isn't the same spot where we left entire Valley is new and we're on a different level than what we used to be at um and our story resolves in the idea that it stops for the film it does not like and he talks about tying a bow and novels most novels do they'll tie a bow and allow you to like solve all of what's going on but films tend to try to have it where they could move into um a sequel or television shows are going to move you into the next show so how does this work with our uh films so let's look at the minutes equal Journey moments so minutes uh the minute of a film equals a page of a screenplay so when you look at a screenplay if it's on page 19 it's most likely going to be at the 19th minute now if you have musicals this sort of edges things around a little bit because the script itself the screenplay itself doesn't have the songs laid out in it normally the songs are laid out separately so that can sort of edge things around these these exact times so the Ordinary World normally is from minute 1 to 16. so Pages 1 through 16 so Pages equals minutes um are just the Ordinary World that Exposition who are these people where are they what are we getting introduced to then we get our cultiv and adventure around page 17. sometimes it's exactly on 17 and this is where you're going to see this happening in a film and you're going to be like I need to check my watch um and uh normally right around 17. give her take a page or two on either side but normally right around page 17 you're gonna get this call to Adventure head off somewhere right the lock or the crossing of the first threshold in other words the first big step into this where life you're going wow this is already getting difficult um is around page 30. okay so this is where that crossing the threshold into the extraordinary or special word world happens right here this locks us into our story we're leaving what we know of ordinary and moving into the special world is around page 30 or minute 30. um the ordeal passive to active so this is where you know a lot of times our heroes are going along and these are males females um uh people of all types you've got inanimate objects a toaster oven having an adventure a mouse a dog it doesn't matter right but this is where they stop going the world is happening to them and they start attacking going I'm going to take control over this I'm going to move forward um and this is where um the story really starts to change and this is about page 60. and so they've got they have to make a choice here and sometimes they make a choice that you don't want them to make but they make a choice sometimes we see them leading themselves down a bad path or sometimes we see them really making you know like Headway in their storyline um we get to that climax or the crisis this is that live or die moment um right here and then that is about page 90 or minute 90. now depending on the length of the film this can scoot up some think about your shorter animated films 60 and 90 might scooch up a little bit but a lot of times that's why it feels like your story becomes rushed and you're like what is happening why did we suddenly get their climax so fast in children's films this scoots up a little bit and on films for adults that or musicals that sort of stuff it scoots out a little bit so this one is definitely but it's around that you know if you take the whole thing it's going to be at three quarters or so in the film and from 90 to the end is that road home whether it is back to that Ordinary World or into its new world uh uh but this road home that's solving of problems this getting us to the point and this does not mean that it goes oh sometimes after the climax that final live or die moment of that choice we still are gonna have lots of things happen all the way to the end of the the film think action films that sometimes this road home um is filled with all sorts of craziness but then we finally get a breath out right here or sometimes you know think of the Marvel films they take that breath right back because something bad's just about to happen again and we know we're headed back off on another Journey so let's look at one of the world's most famous one and you'll notice in that little clip he even says we're not in Kansas anymore because if we look at The Wizard of Oz the 1939 version this is uh the original film version um it pretty much goes through quite wonderfully so we start off in our Ordinary World um uh this this film has about two minutes of uh uh filmmaking uh of credits at the very beginning before it goes into here so let me look real quickly so we've got this Ordinary World this is our Exposition she's dreaming of something better oh Somewhere Over the Rainbow maybe I'll have something and I won't be on this Farm in Kansas then she's still in the Ordinary World her dog has gotten him and bit the mean lady um like she's the local librarian uh but her family said the librarian's got the law on it and the family says well we can't fight the law we can't do this um so this is Man versus society it's awesome man versus man because her family won't stand up for her um and she's young and she doesn't see why they won't but also um this is also that societal things if we can tell that these are lower class and she's upper class so this is economic issues as well too all sorts of stuff we start uh we we're still in our Ordinary World even as we are starting to run away she says forget you I'm taking my dog and I'm going I'll do it but we're still in this Ordinary World here we still really haven't moved into the story that we're getting for Wizard of Oz um oh look but we already still in our Ordinary World we already meet our first helper right um and are getting this uh this the Magic Man here um who turns out to be the wizard leader in this stuff man versus himself he sees like she probably shouldn't be running away and gives her um a uh a fortune telling that says you probably need to go back home because your people love you um and so she goes oh my gosh maybe I should go back home all of this is still just Exposition it's still getting us to know who she is really as a person before we head her off into that extraordinary world so and as the Ordinary World still keeps going now man versus environment or tornado hits just as she's trying to almost resolve our problems that we're already starting to have in this we think wow like okay so she tried to run away she's come back home life is fine well not if uh a tornado hits well so these minutes are a little bit different again because the credits at the beginning of the film so to take the time stab of the months to buy two and you forget this so we moved to the Call to Adventure right at it was like 156 is that two minutes at the beginning write it in almost 19 so that would be 17. we get to our Call to Adventure the tornado lands Dorothy and Oz literally right here boom she lands in Oz and when she opens the door we move into Technicolor um she gets to that first threshold she's going to head out on her journey to solve a problem right she's really gonna spread her wings she's got to make it to the Emerald City so she's got to Follow The Yellow Brick Road this is at 32 minutes minus two which equals 30 minutes exactly what we're saying so this is one of the few that like really hits it almost exactly she says literally right here Follow the yellow brick road right exactly at 30 minutes of the film um now passive to active she is right here at our 60 Minute Mark we get the surrender Dorothy oh is that and this is where because of the songs I believe that we start edging a little bit deeper into our stuff I don't think this is where she goes passive to act if I think when she gets when she gets her her call go to get that broomstick and they say yes we're gonna go do it this is where she goes life has been happening to her oh I have to do this I have to do this I have to do this now she has the thing I will go get that broomstick I will save and it's actually at about 70 minutes okay but again songs will edges out a little bit here and then climax the liver die moment is that at the 90 minute mark this is at 93 um is this when this is when the the wizard is going to take her home but then she gets out because Toto runs out of the deal and she the balloon goes away and he doesn't know how to fly it so is there any way for her to get home oh no she's by herself she can't get home or is it actually when she clicks her heels right here at 96 where she realizes that she could have always gotten home so I don't know I think maybe this this right here she says I can't do anything I can't do anything and then she makes the decision she will be okay even if she has to stay here and she never gets to get home and when she realizes this I think this opens her up to realize that she actually has the power to make decisions in her own life therefore she can click her heels and say no please like home and start heading on on this again 96 minutes we're going along okay um we get continued resolution right in other words we're just tying some bows but not fully right because even there say wait oh this was just a dream and she's like no this is not a dream you were all there and you were there and you were there and you were there and this isn't a dream and 98 minutes and then we have our conclusion right at 99 minutes she realizes that there is no place like home yay she's back home and it's worth it but she has to have found the worth of her own home and therefore she is changed and now she even sees that even on this little Old Farm life is wonderful because you have family and friends and it is she can start seeing her regular life as something more important than when she started okay so for you you're gonna take your turn you're going to pick uh on that final graph on your notes you're going to pick your favorite film or at least one of your favorite films that you have access to because you'll see what I did as well too you're going to go through the film using the film's timestamps just like I did right here okay and you're going and your knowledge of that storyline and you're gonna Mark the timestamps and what is happening in the film on the chart as it coordinates with the minutes pages and storyline chart remember that the times are approximate so it might be a minute or two on either side and that's okay if you say no this is where the climax truly happens and it's at 62 minutes you're you're probably correct okay but if it's at some like 43 minutes oh you need to keep looking get to that around that 60 Minute Mark and you'll know a little bit better where you're heading there um and then you're just going to turn that into Blackboard on your week two so you're filling out this one right here but of your favorite film so enjoy have a fun time with it and I know you're gonna really I think and like have some funness with how this works with your favorite film see you soon