Journal+4+-+Scriptwriting

One valuable thing that I learnt from the book Story by Robert Mckee is the importance of story values. Story values are universal qualities of the human experience that switch from positive to negative and vice versa. This is differentiates an empty story from a meaningful story. In The Blind Date, even though what the characters go through are not that common/relatable, the values are important to the characters in the film. For example, the notion of hope/despair is one of the values in our film. But instead of making the value switching between hope and despair, I exacerbated the despair with the progression of each scene. Through this kind of structure, I want the audience to feel sympathy for Frank and Lauren, and create a less conventional story.

Our whole film is about the interaction between Lauren and Frank, and the Beat is very important in their development. The book explained how the Beat is the smallest element of structure in a scene. It is an exchange of behavior in the form of action/reaction, and shapes the turning of a scene. As the scriptwriter, I decided to utilize this in the form of dialogue as well as a few minor actions. For instance, in the first scene, Frank compliments Lauren’s eyes, leading to a positive reaction from Lauren (she smiles), which encourages Frank. Frank then goes on and makes a stupid comment about Lauren’s nose. Lauren’s reaction is a slight shock, leading to an awkward silence. Lauren then excuses herself and never returns again. By the exchange of Frank’s actions and Lauren’s reactions, the scene turned from being a good date to a horrible date. The interchanging action/reaction between Lauren and Frank is crucial to the plot as well as shaping their unique (awkward but drawing) relationship.

Another very important and useful piece of information that I learnt from my reading is writing specifically for comedy. Unlike drama, comedy often points out how in the best circumstances human beings can find some way to screw up. Even though most comedy writers use this to criticize something, I simply used this to create the awkward tone as well as the humor in my film. Frank screws up the first date, and as the story progresses, Frank and Lauren are both placed in the worst situation possible. I am hoping for the audience to feel that the situations are so ridiculous that they are funny. Another thing that I used to my advantage as a scriptwriter is how comedy tolerates more coincidence than drama does. The coincidences in our film is not 100% coincidental as they wouldn’t happen if the characters didn’t decide to do something (ex: Lauren decides to do a nose job). However, they are kind of like fate playing with their lives as they can’t do anything without bumping into each other.