Breaking Stuff You Like

Gruber linked to an excellent post today written by John August on his blog (a ton of useful information about screenwriting), which was a response to a question asked of him by a reader of his site who is a working screenwriter who felt like he was running into a wall with his sense of story, and was worried about continuing to "get better" at his craft. I'm not keen on this post for the screenwriting related reason necessarily... I'm keen on it because of the answer that John gives him, and how the technique offered can apply to EVERY craft - especially in media and art, where there are thousands of other good examples out there of people doing stuff well, and stuff that we like (and don't like - just as valuable!). Break it down, take it apart, learn from what you see there.

The questions August poses could ALSO be re-engineered so as to be useful in any career or creative endeavor be it songwriting, photography, composition, design, mixing, recording engineering... Filmmaking and screenwriting are only one version of this excellent technique. Thanks John, and John.

The questions themselves - in case you don't end up linking over to John August's post, which you should do!

My advice for you is to dedicate one day a week to disassembling good movies. Take existing films (and one-hour dramas) and break them down to cards. Think of yourself as an ordinary mechanic given the task of reverse-engineering a spaceship. Figure out what the pieces do, and why they were put together in that way.

Here are the questions you need to ask about each scene or sequence:

- As the audience, what am I expecting will happen next?
- What does the character want to do next?
- Is this a good moment to let the character achieve something, or knock him back?
- How long has it been since we checked in with other character and subplots?
- What would have happened if this scene had been cut? Or moved?