Lessons from the Screenplay

The premise of Groundhog Day is expertly constructed to drive natural, organic character change. In this video, we examine how Phil is designed to be a character that seems like he could never change, dissect how the premise of the story traps him in a world that will constantly attack his character flaw, and explore how the relentless nature of the premise ensures that the protagonist will have no choice but to transform.

From the first frame of Searching to the last, everything the audience sees happens on a computer or phone screen. While the plot of Searching is fairly conventional, this storytelling approach is used to enhance the mystery and elevates the film to a nail-biting thriller. This video dissects how the screenwriters made the film emotionally compelling by ensuring the designing principle, theme, and story were perfectly in sync. It investigates how they adjusted traditional screenplay format to convey a plot that takes place entirely on screens. And explores how they took something as simple as typing a text message and used it to reveal character.

The Silence of the Lambs is filled with compelling, tense scenes between Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. In this video, we look at the anatomy of a scene. How each follows a three act structure, and plays a larger role in the narrative.

Adaptation does a fantastic job of portraying the insanity of the writing process. It is a movie about the screenwriter writing the movie the audience is watching, and it cleverly examines the struggle of trying to create something original while also making it accessible to an audience.

One of my favorite scenes in the MCU is the car ride to homecoming in Spider-Man: Homecoming. At first glance, this scene could be straight out of any high school comedy, especially since the film was intentionally modeled after the John Hughes high school comedies of the 80’s. But being in a superhero film, and following a huge revelation in the story, it is also a scene of real tension—three characters trapped in car, trying to hide some really big secrets. So in this video we explore why the twist that sets the stage for the scene is so effective. We examine how the characters’ secrets are teased out in a way that keeps the scene dynamic. And we look at the importance of crafting clever obstacles to put in the way of your characters.

Phillip K. Dick is well known for inspiring some of the greatest story worlds ever put on screen, and Minority Report is no exception. But the design of the technology isn’t the most important part of the story world. The concept of Precrime—arresting people before they’ve actually committed a murder—is the important part of Minority Report’s story world; the futuristic cars, jetpacks, and illogically transparent screens are just cool. In this video we compare three versions of this story—Philip K. Dick’s original short story from 1956, Jon Cohen’s 1997 script, and Scott Frank’s final script—to explore how each tries to establish the philosophy of the story world. We look at how they attempt to persuade the audience to believe in the system of Precrime, and examine how the story world itself becomes the antagonist of the story. Let’s take a look at Minority Report.

The “Before Trilogy" is, in my opinion, one of the greatest gifts of modern cinema. Three films, each separated by nine years, that together tell a beautiful and brutal story of what love means as we progress through life. All three films have an unusual form—comprised almost exclusively of lengthy conversations between the two central characters, Jesse and Celine. So in this video we break Before Sunset into five acts and dissect each one to uncover the invisible structure that keeps eighty pages of conversation engaging, we look at how the script constructs and then destroys each character’s facade, and we examine how each moment is tied to the central dramatic question.

In this video we explore how The Matrix expertly conveys exposition by making the audience curious and embedding it in thrilling action.

Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day are generally regarded as two of the best sequels ever made. In this video we explore some reasons why.

In this video we chat with writer and creative director Neil Druckmann to learn about some of the techniques game designers use to tell their stories. Many people might not associate video games with "storytelling," but video games can tell deeply emotional stories with rich character arcs that you don’t simply watch unfold, you participate in. The 2013 game "The Last of Us" from developer Naughty Dog is one of the very best examples of how to tell a story through the medium of a video game.