Transcripts
1. Developing The Idea: Introduction: Everyone. Welcome to our very first
class, developing the idea. My name is J T, and I'm an
award winning filmmaker with a bachelor's degree in film and TV and a minor in
creative writing. One of the first things I
learned is that there is no such thing as bad ideas,
just undeveloped ones. It's super important
to make sure that you develop your idea before you start writing the script. Because if your idea
is underdeveloped, then your script is going
to be underdeveloped, then the overall story is
going to be underdeveloped, and it's going to decrease the quality of your entire film. One of the big
mistakes that a lot of young writers make or a lot
of beginner writers make when they're writing
a screenplay is that they start the
script right away, and then they just develop
the story as they go. Will, yes, depending on the direction that you go and
there's going to be things that come up that make you
have to change course or make you develop different
aspects of the story, it's very important to make
sure you get the core idea down as a blueprint so that way you can make sure that
when you write the script, you have a clear vision
on what the story is, what the theme is,
what the message is, and what the story is that
you're trying to tell. In this course, we're
going to be talking about the core element
of every idea, different types of stories, what is a log line and how
to write one for your film, and where to come up with ideas. The goal of this class
is to get you set up for your writing journey
and set you up for success as you
begin creating stories. By the end of this class,
you will be able to write your own log line
and get started developing your own story. I'm so excited to go on
this journey with you, and I'm looking forward
for our first class.
2. Developing The Idea: The Core Element of Every Idea: Alright, let's get started.
So when developing the idea, it's important to focus on
the main event of your film. The main event and the cool idea of every film is the problem. The problem is what your
characters have to face, and the problem your
character faces is also the driving force
of the entire story. Think of any great film, there is always a major problem that the characters
have to face. And back to the future,
Marty McFly gets stuck in 1955 and has to
get back to 1985. In plan of the
apes, Taylor has to survive a world where
apes rule the Earth. Avengers Endgame, the
Avengers have to find a way to get back half
the world's population. But do you notice
something different about all of these films besides these films
being stupid, expensive? They each have a big problem or what we call a high
concept problem. This is the type of problem that your film needs in order to be a developed idea that has a problem that has stakes big enough for it
to be a good story. Now, it doesn't have to
be this huge thing with time travel or
monsters or monkeys. Like, it just has to be
a high concept problem. And let's talk about
the certain elements that make a good high
concept problem. There's three essential elements that your problem needs or your idea needs in order for it to be a high
concept problem, and it needs all three of
these things checked off. So the first thing is that the problem should be
difficult, right? Every single problem of the
examples that I listed, and you can probably think
of your favorite movie or a movie that you
recently watched. And the problem that
the characters had to face most likely was
a difficult problem. And what I mean by
difficult is that they couldn't just solve it
in five to 10 minutes. It was going to
take long time and really hard work for them
to solve this problem. The second thing is that
it needs to be important. And so a lot of this comes with the writing and how you
develop your character. Really, the big component on
whether or not you feel that the story or the problem is important enough is how you
feel about the character. Do you actually care
about the character? If the audience
doesn't really care or understand or have
empathy for the character, then the audience isn't going to care whether the problem
is solved or not, and then they're
just going to be disinterested
throughout the story. Now, the character doesn't
have to be perfect. In fact, audiences love
flawed characters. We love a character
that is related. But at the same time, we want the character
to be likable. We want to empathize with what the character is going through, and we want to get to know
who this character is. And with that, the
reason why it's so important is because if
this problem isn't solved, it's going to be bad
for this character. It's going to be life
altering for this character. And because we care
for this character and because if the
problem isn't solved, it's going to be life
altering for this character, we want the character
to solve the problem, which makes us
invested in the story. Third and final
element to what makes a good high concept problem or idea is that it
is challenging. Now, this sounds the
same as difficult, but it's a little different. With it being
difficult, it means that the problem itself is going to be hard for the character to try
to solve this problem. Challenging means
that there are going to be obstacles along the way, things that the character
has to overcome, whether it be
physical obstacles, whether it be mental obstacles, whether it be
emotional obstacles, relational obstacles, whatever those things are it should be challenging for them. There should be obstacles
that come their way that try to stop this character
from solving the problem. And a lot of times this
comes with the antagonist. The antagonist is the
conflicting force of the conflicting desire or nature the protagonist is trying to get to
towards this goal. The antagonist has
different goal. The antagonist has
the opposite goal. But the antagonist doesn't
always have to be a person. You can have man versus man, which is the typical
hero versus villain, or you can have man
versus self to where the protagonist is having to
deal with inner conflict. You can even have a situation
of man versus nature with an apocalyptic scenario
or thinking of more of a natural disaster
type of conflict. Whatever your antagonist
is, whether it's a man, whether it's nature
or whether it's the self of the protagonist, the antagonist is going to have a set of obstacles that
the character has to try to hurdle over
in order to get to the we're talking in a
plot and characters, we're ready to get
into this next lesson, we're going to talk about the
different types of stories. And so when you're ready, let's go ahead and dive
into this next lesson.
3. Developing The Idea: The Two Main Types of Stories: Okay, so now let's talk
about plot and characters. Now that we know the
main idea comes from the problem and we know the different elements
of what makes a good, high concept problem, let's talk about the different types of
stories that you can tell. So obviously, we talked about the different types
of conflicts, man versus man, man versus
self or man versus nature. And while those are really great different types of conflicts, let's talk about the
different types of stories to tell with the
characters that we have. So there are two main
types of stories. There's plot driven stories, and there's character
driven stories. Plot driven story, the problem is solved by a
character's actions. Each of the big plot
points build towards a major event where
the character has to take a big action. In a character driven story, the problem is solved by the main character dealing
with a personal conflict. Each of the big plot
points primarily affects the character's relationships
and inner struggles. And so you probably are
thinking of a lot of stories that have a
blended approach. In fact, a well rounded film has characters
that by themselves are interesting and
compelling enough while having a plot to keep
the audience entertained. The goal really is to have both. A lot of films fall in
one category or another. There is a lot of films, in fact, a lot of great films. In fact, I'd say most of the best films do have
a blended approach. This is where I want to
give a personal tip. If you're just starting out, and maybe this is the first
screenplay you're writing, and you're just starting
out with a short film, I would suggest doing a
character driven story. This way, you can continue doing character
driven stories. You can do multiple short films. You can continue practicing the craft of
writing, filmmaking, cinematography, lighting, sound, all of these
different things. You can continue to
build your skills in, continue to build your
craft in, and over time, you can add different
plot elements to the stories as you go. Continue to add those
plot elements to make the story more
compelling and make the story more entertaining
and more interesting. But really diving into
a character study of different characters and
what they're dealing with is still interesting
within itself, and it's where most
filmmakers start out at. And it's a perfectly great place to start. That's
where I started in. Now I'm going into
my third short film, and we're working
on a feature film, and that's going to
really build a lot of all the plot and
all of the things that I've been learning
and growing in. But I started out with just
doing character short films, and that is a okay
place to start. The reason why plot
driven stories are a little bit harder
or a little bit more difficult to write
for beginners is well, a lot of it is finances. You have to rely
on the fact that, are you going to have the budget to do all these big
action moments, and it doesn't necessarily
have to be like Avengers moment or these big fight action
sequences or explosions. But you have to think simply just filming at a location or doing special effects or
having a lot of extras. You grow the horizon
of your film, when you grow the
view of your film, when you grow the
scope of your film, it's going to get a little
bit more expensive. On top of that, I
think the reason why character driven films are easier is because we spend time with characters every day. I mean, you yourself
are a character. You know your interpersonal
problems that you deal you have problems that
you deal with every day, interpersonal relationships,
conflicts, emotions, and you also have friends and family that deal with those
different things, too. Everybody has a story. And so there's multiple stories
out there from people. Everyone has a story. If you look around
just your circle of friends and family and
the people you work with, there are millions of
stories that you can tell. It's really easy to
grab one of those and tell a really
compelling short film in 15 to 20 minutes than it
is to try to think of this story with all of these different
characters in this plot, and it all builds up into
this big action moment. It's really hard to do that when you're
first starting out. It's really easy to
start small and to work your way up as you go and you continue to get better. Now, I'm sure that
talking about problems and conflicts and these
different types of stories have allowed you
to really come up with some ideas that you feel like you're really ready
to start writing in. Now, before you start writing, there's actually
something I want to teach you that you can do that's
actually going to be your final project that's
going to set you up for success when it comes
to writing a script. So let's go ahead.
When you're ready, let's go ahead and go
to the next lesson.
4. Developing The Idea: How to Write A Logline?: Alright, so I'm sure
that now that we've talked about problems and
conflicts and stories, your mind is rolling
with so many ideas and you just want
to start writing. Now, I want to take everything
that we've learned, and I want to compile it
in one to two sentences. And so this is what we as
filmmakers call a log line. Now, a log line is a one
to two sentence summary of the plot of your film. This is your sort of
mission statement. Think of when you're
starting a business, you set up a mission
statement that this is what the
business is going to be. This is the vision. This is the goal. This is the message. This is the story
that we're telling this is what the film is about. And so when you write this, this is something that
is really going to help you set you up for
success because whenever you are dealing with a writer's block
or you don't know where to go or you feel like you've sort of lost track
on where the story is, you can go back to this,
and it's really going to help you continue to
drive the story forward. So this is going to be
your final project. So let talk a little bit about what exactly a
log line contains. So like I said, it's a
one, two sentence summary, and this is really going to unpack where your
story is lacking. And so what I want you to look at when you write
these two sentences. And this is going to
take a few times, right? So you're probably not going to get it right the first time. You think it's just
two sentences. It's just a summary.
Here's the thing. When you look at
these two sentences, I want you guys to ask yourself is this
problem difficult? Is this problem important? And is this problem challenging? And if it doesn't check
all those three boxes, I want you to try to
rethink and reshape, destroy and vision what
you're wanting to tell. Sometimes I'll spend
about a week or so just continuing to think or ponder about this and may
not take you that long. It may take you a day.
It may take you an hour. But I promise you,
the more that you spend thinking and
chewing on this, the better that
it's going to be. If the problem doesn't seem important and if it's
not checking that box, figure out how to get a sense
of this main character, how to really showcase why
is this character likable? Why is this character
someone that we should empathize with or relate
really showcase that. So this is going to
be a final project. So if you do have any questions
when it comes to this, I would love to set up a
one on one with you in this way that we can talk one on one and we can
talk about your idea. We can talk about your problem, and maybe we can come
with a log land together. Now, granted, there's
a lot of you guys that maybe coming up with stuff, and you know you're going to
need some more time on it, but maybe some of you guys just aren't even thinking
of ideas at all, and that's okay, too. And I want to address
those people. So when you're ready, let's
get to the next lesson, we can talk about where to come up or where to find
these different ideas.
5. Developing The Idea: Where to Find Ideas: So maybe you've gone
through this entire course and you still don't
have any ideas. Now, can I tell you that's okay? A lot of the times, it takes
me a while to really get a good idea or for me to even come up
with something at all. And again, that's okay. You're not alone, and it's not just because
you're a beginner. A lot of people, even
professional writers in Hollywood and in
the movie industry, struggle sometimes or get in writer's block midway through a project or at the
beginning of a project, and sometimes they
continue to develop it, and then they realize that maybe this isn't going to work,
and they just have to start. It's frustrating.
And so I want to give you guys some pro tips. This isn't anything I've
learned from a textbook. This is all just sort of things that I've learned of
what works for me. And this is also
coming from pro tips that I have learned
from professors or other people that are independent film
writers that do what I do I kind of got a
little bit of a survey. These are all pro
tips from people that have been in your shoes that know exactly what
you're going with. And so let's talk about. So the first thing I'd say is be curious about the
world around you. I talked a little bit
earlier about this. Everybody has a story.
You have a story. Everybody around
you, your friends, your family, they
all have stories. And each of their stories have little mini stories,
little bitty chapters. And the truth in
that is sometimes the best ideas I come up with
are not when I'm writing, but when I'm with people,
when I'm talking with people or even when I'm
just listening to music, because the thing about music is music is the expression of self, good, good music, good songs, because I'm listening to
someone give their heart out in a song form that is very poetic and that really allows
for me to get an idea, to get a sense of where
someone's heart is in certain situations,
what someone's feeling. But on top of that, besides
just listening to music, just listening to
people, listening to people listening to your
friends, listening to people. Be curious about the people around you and be curious about the world around you because the world is full of stories. My second pro tip is
to ask questions. And so this goes outside
of asking people questions or even asking
yourself questions, but asking questions about the
story that you're telling, a lot of the times
when we're like, Oh, I don't have any ideas. It's not that we
don't have any ideas. It's that we think our ideas
aren't really that good. And maybe it's the case you just don't have
any ideas at all, in that case, like, like I said, continuing to talk to
people and be curious. But maybe you even have
a very small idea, and maybe you don't
think it's good. But just start there.
And if it doesn't work, then you can pivot a little bit. A lot of times, you don't
have to start from scratch. Just start with what you have. Ask questions. Okay. Why is
the character doing this? Why is the character in the
situation that you are now? What is the character's
relationships like? Why are their
relationships like that? What would cause their
relationships to fall apart? When you ask these questions, you start thinking
of different events or occurrences that
could happen that could disrupt or that could change or alter where the character
is at or even sort of build a background or backstory
for this character or even get a little bit of foreshadowing of what could
happen for the character. Be curious and ask the questions about
the character itself. The third and probably most
important thing don't stress. And I know this is just saying, like, with someone with
anxiety. Don't worry. Like, it's a very
obvious answer, but I feel like the need to say it because sometimes
I'll find myself stressed when I'm trying to
write or when I'm trying to build a story
or write a script. And so this really applies to any part in the
creative process. No great idea was developed
when a writer was stressed, and that is just a fact. The best ideas always come when the writer feels free to create. And if you feel restricted, if you feel you're
in writer's block, you feel like you're trying all these different things and you're just feeling stressed and frustrated, take a break. And that break could
last 5 minutes. It could last 5 hours.
It could last five days. It could last five
weeks. That's okay. If you're watching this, you're probably not doing
this for money. You're probably doing this as a hobby and you're just
doing this for fun. There's no rush to try to get
your first film out there. It takes time. This is the first time that you're
probably doing this. It took me a long time to
get my first film out. It took me even longer to
get my second film out. This third film that
I've been working on is really the first time
that I feel like I'm able to really just start going
because I've done it now twice and I kind of
know what to do and how to get myself out of
different situations. The first few times, it
is going to be hard. Take a break, take a step back, and come back to it when you find that you're actually
having fun doing it. Alright, so I hope that
helped a little bit. Again, this is really
just some pro tips. None of this is textbook, and none of this is
obviously foolproof. So if you've tried all of this and it's still not working, again, that's okay.
Don't stress. You're not alone, and
I can promise you that every single writer has
been exactly where you are. At the beginning or even
later on in their stage. And so, again, I would love to schedule a one on one with you. If you are feeling like you're stuck and you can't
come up with anything, let's talk, and maybe we can come up with
something together. I would love to
talk with you guys. But let's go ahead and
wrap this class up. So when you're ready, we're
going to close up this class.
6. Developing The Idea: Conclusion: You know that the
idea is the problem, the different types
of conflicts. You know what makes a good
high concept problem. You know the different
types of stories. You know how to write a log line and you know where to
come up with ideas. Now I want to hear your idea. And so your final project, like I said before, is
to write a log line. So remember, the log line
should be one of two sentences, and it should contain
three things. It should check all the
three boxes of what makes a good, high concept problem of it being difficult,
important, and challenging. If you have all these things, I guarantee you
your idea is gold. Now it's about developing
it and executing it well. So when you're ready, go ahead
and send me that log line, and I would love to read it
and I love give you feedback. If you are having
difficulty writing it, I would love to set up
a one on one with you, or if you're having
ideas at all, I would love to set up
a one on one with you. Let's talk. Let's come up
with an idea together. Let's come up with your
log line together. I want you guys to be set up. I this log line to set
you up for success. And success doesn't mean that
your film is going to be a Hollywood hit or it's going to go into theaters or anything, but it's gonna be a good story. I'm not going to say
that it's going to have 1 million views
or it's going to earn a lot of money or it's
going to gain some traction, and you're going to go viral. That all is multiple
different components, but what I can tell you is that it's going
to set you up for success for telling a really
great, compelling story. So when you're reading, go
ahead and send that to me, I can't wait to read it, and I can't wait to get
to the next class.
Jacob Pratt
