Why Story Matters

For the last several years, there’s been much talk in Hollywood about the extinction of feature screenwriting. The spec market is dead. Digital platforms are on the rise. It’s widely known that most writing jobs are in television, not features. Even the ABC/Disney Fellowship Program, designed to discover new talent, has put their feature fellowship on hold because they can’t figure out how to yield the same kind of immediate career results that happen in their TV fellowship. Furthermore, nice, character-driven, middle of the road movies just don’t get made anymore. The market has become polarized, from the gigantic, spectacle-driven, sure-bet tent poles, to the teeny, one location, no risk, micro-budgets. In production offices, Directors of Development (if their job still exists) have shifted from shaping and crafting writers and their stories to locating a script that can be shot, as-is, with  certain tax incentives in mind. Hollywood seems to care less about a good story well told, and much more about what can be monetized RIGHT NOW.  

This kind of news can make a feature writer despair, and cause some to think that investing years into a craft that might never pay off just isn’t worth it. For most, it’s not.

However-

No matter what current trend is selling in Hollywood, there will always be longing in the souls of men and women for great stories well told.  The craft of storytelling is immortal, and feature-length stories have been the medium for thousands of years.  There’s harmony found in a story whose length is designed to be long enough to explore a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, and short enough to take in at one sitting, without interruption.

Anyone who attempts to tell a story in any length, for any size screen, must learn feature screenwriting as a foundation to the craft. Even if they never go into the feature market, screenwriters need to study Aristotle’s Poetics and watch classic movies and understand three act structure in the same way that medical students need to study Latin.  Feature narratives are the root language of all screen storytelling. Without an understanding of features, screen stories in other formats will fall, uh, short.

Because of the rise of digital platforms, everyone seems to be watching this recent “change” in format closely and trying to figure out ways to be successful in delivering story content (i.e. reach more eyeballs) in a new way.  The flaw in this kind of thinking is that it presumes that stories change. Story does not change.

Instead of chasing current trends, we students of screenwriting need more of the classics. Everything that is great about a one minute short gone viral can be evidenced in any one of Aesop’s fables.

We need masters of feature writing to continue to teach the craft in the same way that we need masters of sculpture and poetry and charcoal drawings to teach theirs. Feature screenwriting is high art.  Creating delightful characters who make strong choices that further a complex, yet clear plot is high art. Building fantastic arenas which are integral to the story and delivering stunning visual imagery is high art. Doing this in a narrative format with a complex and satisfying beginning, middle and end is high art. Accomplishing this in a two-hour narrative format for the screen is the foundation of accomplishing this in any other medium. 

The business of Hollywood will always be about making money off of stuff people watch. The business of storytellers will always be about communicating truths that speak to souls. There will always be a tension between the two, but it is important to remember that Hollywood needs storytellers more than storytellers need Hollywood. Still, it is better to work together. Trends will shift.  Formats will change. Story will remain constant. 

If you agree that story matters, check out our book, Notes to Screenwriters.

"Notes to Screenwriters" in the News

Here's a new interview with Barbara and Vicki about our book and the current crisis in storytelling. Thanks to the Azusa Pacific University magazine for spreading the word!

Here's a snip...

What are the biggest challenges the movie industry faces in terms of storytelling?

Nicolosi: The system of movie creation is broken, which makes good storytelling difficult or impossible. Today, movies are not stories, but a product. So many people at the table try to change the story and these alterations have everything to do with selling it as a product—marketing the product, making the product more global – and nothing about whether it works as a story. Generally, we moderns lack detailed, focused, rigorous labor in all of the arts. Storytelling is suffering from this too. Our book says the way to move forward is to look backward. Look at what Aristotle said about story and what Aesop did and try to bring those principles into the modern era.

Film Courage 'Notes to Screenwriters' Full Video Interview

A couple months ago we sat down with the producers of Film Courage to talk about our book, Notes to Screenwriters. The whole 70 minute interview is here:

Thanks, Film Courage! We enjoyed talking with you.

Four Great Reasons to Love Kimmy Schmidt

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, now streaming on Netflix, is a new comedy by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock in which a woman escapes a doomsday cult and starts life over again in New York City. In the pilot, Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) delightful, effervescent, and determined to not let fifteen years of horrific abuse get her down, takes charge of her new circumstances to find a job and an apartment with world's most contagious smile on her face.

Not everyone can say they know what it's like to live in a post-apocalyptic bunker for fifteen years, so what makes Kimmy so darn likeable and relatable? 

In our book, Notes to Screenwriters, we break down the four qualities of a relatable character as described by Aristotle in Poetics. Here are just a few things Kimmy does to model these qualities:

1. Goodness
Kimmy's goodness in the face of adversity is what makes her so refreshing and delightful. She is not just basically good, she is almost wholly good. She made the most of a horrific situation and she is determined not to be labeled a victim. And just when her brightness and positivity might be brushed off as innocence or denial, she springs into action to defend herself and others. Her flaws are sympathetic, too. Her occasional post-traumatic flashbacks set her off in surprising ways. She blurts out details from the bunker that she otherwise would bury.

2. Propriety
In the pilot, Kimmy catches a boy stealing candy (twice) and chases after him. This action inadvertently leads her to her new employer, Jacqueline Vorhees (Jane Krakowski) whom she quasi-mistakes as a woman trapped in an oppressive relationship needing help. Kimmy is a hero who stands up for justice. But she is also quirky and upbeat while doing so. Aristotle says that a relatable character should be quirky and strange, but not grotesque or scary. Juxtaposed with her captor, the bearded megalomaniac by day and party DJ by night, she is by far a more sympathetic character.

3. Consistency
Kimmy makes consistent choices which support her motivation to defend the weak and free the oppressed. As positive as she is, she is no shrinking violet. She stands up to bullies, including Vorhee's rotten step-daughter Xanthippe (Dylan Gelula) who try to tear her down. She is steadfast in her quest to improve her life, make a living, get an education, and protect the innocent.

4. Truth 
Kimmy and her fellow "mole women" were fed horrible lies about the apocalypse for fifteen years. They were told that they were dumb and bad. They were forced to worship a lunatic. It is precisely because of this back story that Kimmy stands for truth. Interestingly enough, the four mole women react differently to their experience after they are freed. One cashes in on her "victim" status and accepts plenty of pity perks, including a boyfriend who doesn't love her. Another starts a "Mole" business- that is, the Mexican sauce, mole (get it?). The third continues to dress in plain clothes and sympathize with her oppressor. Kimmy is the only one who clings to what is good, noble, and true.

Complex Structure: A Storyteller's Enigma

There is a lot to like in one of this year's Best Picture nominees The Imitation Game.  As a beautifully recreated period piece with a quirky, brilliant protagonist and high stakes internal and extrernal stories, it's the kind of movie that will always do well with movie fans and critics alike.  So, why didn't it really catch fire? Why did it play, in the end, as basically enjoyable, but not something we would ever need to see again?  Possibly because of the risks the storytellers took in structure.  Risks that proved too much for the story. 

The structure in The Imitation Game was very problematic. Weaving in and out of three stories spread over forty years is always going to emotionally distance the audience from the characters. The story of Turing falling in love as a young boy offered the main pathos of the movie and was the filmmakers' attempt to make us forgive Turing for his ill-treatment of others as an adult.  But it didn't add much if anything to the main story of breaking Enigma, nor really even of explaining his social disorders. Just because somebody has their heart broken when they are twelve does't excuse that person treating all other people badly forever. What was gained from the boyhood story could have gotten done in one short scene, we didn't need to spend twenty minutes of the movie going back there. 

Flashing ahead to the investigation of Turing by the police also added little to the main story.  The whole episiode was contrived to get to the historical fact that Turing was prosecuted for indecency.  It would have had more power to the audience it if had been left as a title card at the very end.  What was lost in audience engagement by the periodic flashing forward to watch the police figure out something the audience already knew, ended up as an insurmountable obstacle to the storytelling.

Every time The Imitation Game jolted back into the distant past or ahead into the future the audience was lifted out of the movie and distanced from the illusion of the story as being their story.  Flashbacks and flash forwards are very, very tricky. They belong on the shelf of tools on the cinematic workshop which has the sign, "Just because we can doesn't mean we should."