Being a Screenwriter: Part 2 Student Book Preview

Part II: Writing Your Screenplay Being a SCREENWRITER T BOOK STUDEN NAME:

Introduction Being A Screenwriter Welcome to Being A Screenwriter 2, an activity-filled course that helps you get ready to point your video camera and succeed! Now that you’ve completed the basics of screenwriting in Being A Screenwriter, Part 1, Part 2 is here to light the way for you to professionally prepare your script, refine your plot, and load your screenplay with crackling dialogue, fast- paced action, and heart-tugging emotion. In this course, the focus is on you and your ideas. Rev up your pencil and open your activity book as you immerse yourself in a quick review of the lessons covered in Part 1. Next, forge ahead into planning your screenplay, outlining scenes, and sorting through the instructions you might provide for directors and actors. No screenplay can succeed without fully realized characters and dialogue that zings and sparkles. Use the dialogue lessons to hang flesh on your villains, heroes and romantic leads as you punch up those wisecracks, soften those sighs, and perfect those ghoulish screams. You’ll even spend time looking for those “signature” dialogue phrases from movies of the past. But wait—there’s more! Gather your fellow screenwriters around in a studio setting and take your script through a trial run in a table reading exercise. With feedback from your peers, you’ll quickly be able to identify where your script works best, and where to tweak the weak spots. Using clips from the very funny movie Groundhog Day, your whole class gains insight into movie making techniques, as it once again assumes the role of audience and critic. In this setting, you’ll get experience in identifying camera angles, and come to understand such technical terms as cut, fade and dissolve. Finally, you’ll learn how to integrate these cutting-edge techniques into your own screenplay. Action writing gets special attention in one set of super-fun activities. Are your characters ready to soar into space, swing from vines, or hack their way through a dark and snake-infested rainforest? Writing action requires especially tough writing chops—cut your teeth in this powerful set of exercises that reminds you that what people do is often more important than anything they say! If you’re serious about building your skills in screenwriting, Being A Screenwriter 2 is the right course for you. The future promises a multitude of careers for motivated and talented young people who bring not only the wildly popular technical skills,—but, most critically—a firm grasp of the fundamentals of fine screenwriting technique. Are you eager to get started? All right, everyone. Grab your pens and journals. Quiet on the set! Imagination ready? ACTION! Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Table of Contents Lesson 1: Screenwriting 101 The Building Blocks of a Great Script........................ 2 Lesson 2: Understanding Scenes The Building Blocks of a Screenplay........................... 8 Lesson 3: The Scene Outline Planning Your Screenplay..............................................10 Lesson 4: How Screenwriters Write Screenplay Formatting................................................. 15 Lesson 5: How to Start a Screenplay Writing Slug Lines and Transitions...........................25 Lesson 6: What Your Characters Do Writing Action................................................................33 Lesson 7: How Characters Talk The Importance of Dialogue........................................38 Lesson 8: Writing Dialogue Deciding What Your Characters Will Say................43 Lesson 9: Bringing It All Together Finishing Your Screenplay .......................................... 50 Lesson 10: Your Script Comes to Life The Table Reading..........................................................65 Glossary................................................................................................. 67 Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  1

Lesson 1 2  Student Book Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Lesson 1 Activity 1: Back To Basics Groundhog Day Treatment Pittsburgh meteorologist Phil Connors is not happy when his boss sends him to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to cover the annual Groundhog Day festival. He’s even more upset when a blizzard strands him and his crew in the small town. When he wakes up the next morning to find that, somehow, it is still Groundhog Day (February 2), he must try to figure out what is happening and how he can make it stop. When Phil tries to convince the people around him that, for some reason, every day has become Groundhog Day, they think he’s crazy. He begins to take advantage of the situation, lying to the town’s residents and even stealing from the truck that pulls up to the bank every day. Eventually, he grows tired and begins to lose hope that he’ll ever escape from Groundhog Day. It’s not until his coworker Rita, on whom Phil has a crush, suggests that Phil start using his situation to make Punxsutawney a better place that Phil finds hope again. When he begins to use the time loop for good by helping people and bettering himself, he finally escapes Groundhog Day. It’s then that Rita and Phil find themselves in love and decide they should stay in Punxsutawney. Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  3

Lesson 1 Activity 1 Three-Act Structure Movie title: Genre: Theme: Act I Setting: Antagonist: Protagonist: Conflict: Act II Low point: Act III Climax: Resolution: 4  Student Book Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Lesson 1 Activity 2: Getting Started What I remember about the treatment I wrote in Part 1 (lesson 10)... Three-Act Structure Movie title: Genre: Theme: Act I Setting: Antagonist: Protagonist: Conflict: Act II Low point: Act III Climax: Resolution: Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  5

Lesson 1 6  Student Book Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Lesson 2 Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  7

Lesson 2 Wrap-Up 8  Student Book Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Lesson 3 Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  9

Lesson 3 Scene Outline Scene Outline: Act I of Groundhog Day 1. Phil Connors delivers the weather report from the news studio in Pittsburgh. He and his crew leave for Punxsutawney. 2. Phil and his crew drive to Punxsutawney. 3. The crew drops Rita off at her hotel. 4. Phil wakes up in his hotel room. 5. Phil discusses Groundhog Day with a man in the hall of the hotel. 6. Phil discusses the weather with the hotel’s owner at breakfast. 7. Phil walks to the festival. He passes a homeless man who is panhandling for change. He runs into an acquaintance from high school. 8. Phil arrives at the festival and delivers his report. 9. The crew attempts to drive home to Pittsburgh, but they run into a blizzard. 10. Phil attempts to call for help from a gas station. 1 1. The crew get drinks in Punxsutawney. 12. Phil attempts to take a shower at his hotel. 13. Phil runs into the hotel owner in the hallway outside his room. 14. Phil wakes up in his hotel room and discovers that it’s still Groundhog Day. 10  Student Book Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Lesson 3 Activity 1: Writing a Scene Outline Continuation of Groundhog Day scene outline 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 1 1. 12. 13. 14. 15. Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  11

Lesson 3 Activity 3: Outlining Your Screenplay Act I 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Act II 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Act III 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 12  Student Book Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Lesson 3 Wrap-Up Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  13

Lesson 3 Wrap-Up 14  Student Book Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved.

Glossary action: what the characters are doing in a scene protagonist: the hero/heroine of the movie. besides speaking. resolution: the point in the film when the conflict is antagonist: the enemy of the movie’s hero/heroine. finally worked out. climax: the emotional high point of the movie. scene: all of the continuous action that takes place in conflict: the problem the hero/heroine is trying to one specific time and place in a movie. solve and/or tension in a story. scene outline: a list of scenes that will appear in a cut: transition between scenes in which one image movie or screenplay. comes right after another. setting: the place and time in which a story occurs. dialogue: conversation that takes place between slug line: capitalized text at the beginning of each characters in a screenplay or movie. scene in a script that denotes where and when the dissolve: transition between scenes in which one scene takes place. image gradually fades into another image. storyboard: a visual representation of the scenes of a dramatic language: the unrealistic way movie movie. characters speak when they’re talking about studio: the company that makes a movie. something important to the movie. table reading: a part of the filmmaking process in executive producer: person in charge of organizing which the actors of a film and others sit around a the production of a movie. table and perform a reading of the movie’s script. exterior (EXT.): a scene that takes place outdoors. theme: a word or phrase that sums up the main fade: transition between scenes in which one image emotion of a movie, such as love, revenge, greed, etc. fades into black and then another fades up from three-act structure: the structural system for most black. Hollywood films composed of the setting, conflict genre: the category of a movie, such as action, and resolution. comedy, horror, science fiction, etc. interior (INT.): a scene that takes place indoors. transition: the means by which one scene ends and logline: a succinct sentence that describes the overall another starts. story of a movie. treatment: a summary of a screenplay idea that includes the movie’s genre, theme, main character and important scenes. low point: the point in the film in which the hero/ heroine seems farthest from his or her goal. peer review: process in which writing is exchanged between partners who then critique one another’s work. Copyright © Community Learning LLC. All rights reserved. Student Book  67

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