Sometimes a Good Notion

Archive for the category “Mckee Says”

25 Jan 2013

McKee Says

I open up Robert McKee’s Story to a random page and write about what I find.

McKee says:

Storytelling is the creative demonstration of a truth. A story is the living proof of an idea, the conversion of idea into action.  A story’s event structure is the means by which you first express, then prove your idea… without explanation.  Master storytellers never explain.  

Story_Page_08h-150x150What I love about McKee is that sprinkled through the 400 pages of Story are these nuggets of pure truth that every writer should take to heart.  It is by no means original, Seger and Field say the same thing, but nobody does it with the same dramatic flair as McKee.

I have been carrying Story around with me for the last couple of weeks just waiting for an opportunity to open it.  I was delighted that this was the random selection this go-around because it is typically one of the very first things I explain to students who are just beginning their journey as screenwriters or filmmakers.

We all commit the crime of falling in love with an idea.  Many times we also try hard to write the idea, or pitch the idea when in fact we should be trying to write or pitch the story — the action.  When a student begins to talk about their screenplay by saying “my story is about”   I stop them and remind them that their job is to communicate action.  Tell me what happens in the story, not what it’s about. To exemplify why they should do this I show them the scene from Sideways when Miles explains his novel.   It goes like this:

                                     MAYA
                         So what's your novel about?

                                     MILES
                         Well, it's a little difficult to 
                         summarize. It begins as a first-person 
                         account of a guy taking care of his 
                         father after a stroke. Kind of based 
                         on personal experience, but only 
                         loosely.

                                     MAYA
                         What's the title?

                                     MILES
                         "The Day After Yesterday."

                                     MAYA
                         Oh. You mean... today?

                                     MILES
                         Um... yeah but it's more...

                                     MAYA
                         So is it kind of about death and 
                         mortality, or...?

                                     MILES
                         Mrnmm, yeah... but not really. It 
                         shifts around a lot. Like you also 
                         start to see everything from the 
                         point of view of the father. And 
                         some other stuff happens, some 
                         parallel narrative, and then it 
                         evolves -- or devolves -- into a 
                         kind of a Robbe-Grillet mystery -- 
                         you know, with no real resolution.

                                     MAYA
                         Wow. Anyway, I think it's amazing 
                         you're getting it published. Really. 
                         I know how hard it is. Just to write 
                         it even.

                                     MILES
                              (squeezing it out)
                         Yeah. Thanks.

                                   

After saying all of this, he has said nothing at all. It’s what typically happens when the writer believes it is the idea that communicates. In truth, it is the other way around. Like McKee says, story is the conversion of an idea into action. It is the summation of all events, from Inciting Incident to Resolution, which allows you to communicate the idea.

The act of understanding comes from the interpretation of action.  What did the character do? How did he relate? What was the result? It is the answers to these questions that allow the viewer to understand what the movie is about. Without action there is no meaning … there is no art. Without action there is no idea, just the ramblings of a writer who doesn’t know what he/she just wrote.

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04 Jun 2012

McKee Says

I open up Robert McKee’s Story to a random page and write about what he says.

The Empire Strikes Back:  When Darth Vader reveals himself to Luke, this pays off multiple setups strung back through two films.  In an instant, however, this also becomes the setup for Luke’s next action.  What will the young hero do? He chooses to try to kill his father, but Darth Vader cuts off his son’s hand ­– a payoff to set up the next action. Now defeated, what will Luke do? He hurls himself off the sky city, trying to commit an honorable suicide – a payoff to set up the next action. Will he die? No, he’s rescued in mid-air by his friends.  This stroke of luck pays off the suicide and becomes the setup for a third film to resolve the conflict between father and son.

McKee explains that when a payoff is delivered it sends the viewer hurling back through the story looking for the moment when the expectation that this payoff would occur was set up.

In the case of Vader’s parenthood reveal, the viewer immediately thinks of the moments when Obi One and Yoda expressed concerned over Luke’s fate.  The Payoff, “Luke I am Your Father”, informs those moments and makes them meaningful by letting us know what Obi-One and Yoda knew all along but held back.  It makes those moments setups for this encounter.

To McKee, setups and payoffs are about creating gaps in the information provided. Writers create the expectation that information will be delivered and then deliver it.  Sometimes it takes a sequel for the information to be delivered, sometimes it is delivered in the very next beat of the scene.

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12 Dec 2011

McKee Says

I open up Robert McKee’s Story to a random page and write about what he says.

To achieve complexity the writer brings characters into conflict on all three levels of life, often simultaneously.  For example. The deceptively simple but complex writing of one of the most memorable events in any film for the last two decades: the French Toast scene from Kramer vs. Kramer . This famous scene turns on a complex of three values: self-confidence, a child’s trust and esteem for his father, and domestic survival. As the scene begins all three are at the positive charge.

The three levels  of conflict that Mckee is referring to are inner, personal, and extra-personal .  And he is absolutely right, the scene has all three.  On the extra personal level Kramer finds himself in conflict with the kitchen which is foreign to him.  The personal is the son, who he has to lie to, promise to, and feed.  The inner is the insecurity about his own ability to get through this moment and the rest of their lives.  It all bubbles to the surface and the simple act of making French Toast is transformed into a moment filled with meaning and tension that rises and explodes.

Developing moments like this is what every writer dreams off and it’s not easy. It cannot be forced. It requires an understanding of why the scene is being written in the first place and then the complex layers of character and symbolism can come into play.

It is also an example of brilliant acting and an actor who knows he is the instrument through which subtext is delivered.  Hoffman adds two little words (Goddamn her!) at the end of the scene. These words change the nature of that moment and get right down to what the scene is about. They express the reason we are in that kitchen in the first place:  Kramer needs to realize that he cannot take his wife’s departure for granted,  there is simply too much at stake.


						

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