Robert McKee Story Seminar

Transkript

1 Robert McKee Story Seminar Florence Gould Hall, New York april

2 Robert McKees Story Seminar har til formål at styrke deltagernes kompetencer inden for storytelling: For over 25 years, Robert McKee's Story Seminar has been the world's ultimate writing class for over 50,000 screenwriters, filmmakers, TV writers, novelists, industry executives, actors, producers, directors and playwrights. Using examples from over 100 films, in addition to television shows and novels, Robert McKee demonstrates why structure and story design are about form and principles, not formulas and rules. I kursusmaterialet beskrives Robert McKee på følgende vis: McKee is the most widely known and respected screenwriting lecturer in the world today. His former students' accomplishments are unmatched: They have won 53+ Academy Awards, 170+ Emmy Awards, 155+ Golden Globe Awards, 30+ Writers Guild of America Awards, and 26+ Directors Guild of America Awards, the British Book of the Year Award and even the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. Some recent notable former students to win or be nominated for Oscars include Akiva Goldsman (Winner - Best Writing: Adapted Screenplay) for his screenplay A Beautiful Mind, Peter Jackson (writer/director of Lord of the Rings I, II and III), Andrew Stanton (Wall*E, Finding Nemo), Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Quantum of Solace) and many others. Robert McKee regularly consults and conducts workshops for major film and production companies around the world. As The New York Times boasted, About the only Hollywood notable not to have taken the Story Seminar is Steven Spielberg. McKee har samlet sine idéer, tanker og værktøjer i bogen Story Substance, Structure, Style, And The Principles of Screenwriting. Seminaret følger på mange måder bogens opbygning og indhold, og derfor vil vi anbefale, at man anskaffer sig bogen. Den kan dels fungere som redskab under selve seminaret, dels kan den være brugbar efterfølgende, hvis der er specifikke emner, man vil læse op på. 2

3 I forgrunden t.h.: Lars Møller, Christian Nordkap og Henning Lund under kurset. McKee Story Programmet for det fire dage intensive seminar (kl hver dag) så sådan her ud: DAY I THE WRITER AND THE ART OF STORY THE STORY PROBLEM The decline of story in contemporary cinema, theatre, prose: The relationship of the writer to himself, to the art, to humanity. THE STRUCTURE SPECTRUM Structure within structure: Beat, Scene, Sequence, Act, Story; Mapping the story universe: Archplot, Miniplot, Antiplot. STRUCTURE AND SETTING The war on clichés. STRUCTURE AND GENRE Limitations and inspirations. STRUCTURE AND CHARACTER The great debate. STRUCTURE AND MEANING How stories mean: Premise idea/counter idea, Controlling creation. THE SUBSTANCE OF STORY Shaping the translinguistic source of story energy and creation. 3

4 DAY II THE PRINCIPLES OF STORY DESIGN THE INCITING INCIDENT The first major event. ACT DESIGN Progressive complications: The great sweep and body of story. SCENE DESIGN Turning points; Set-up/Pay of; Emotional dynamics; the nature of Choice. COMPOSITION The ordering and linking of scenes. CRISIS, CLIMAX, RESOLUTION Final decisions, final action, closure. THE PRINCIPLE OF ANTAGONISM Taking story to the end of the line. DAY III THE PRINCIPLES OF STORY DESIGN EXPOSITION The dramatizing of information. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS Logic and coincidence, mystery/suspense/dramatic irony, curiosity and concern, point of view, comedy, adaptations. CHARACTER The principles of character dimension and cast design. THE TEXT Dialogue, description, poetics, titling GENRES The spectrum of genres Day IV THE WRITER S CRAFT APPLIED STORY ADAPTATIONS Adapting stories for the screen IRONY AND MELODRAMA A WRITER S METHOD The creative process from inspiration to final draft. SCENE ANALYSIS Text/Subtext; Design through dialogue vs. Design through action. THE PRINCIPLES APPLIED A six-hour scene by scene analysis of Casablanca. 4

5 I pauserne er det muligt at stille spørgsmål til Robert McKee (t.h.) på tomandshånd. Foto: LMH Robert McKee gennemgår alle de aspekter, der skal til i en god historiefortælling. Først og fremmest skal historien være værd at fortælle. Den skal have en struktur, der består af en række events, der alle ideelt set indeholder billeder, action, konflikter, følelser og de rette karakterer. Han går i dybden med den dramaturgiske opbygning af en fortælling, og hvordan man skaber de rette karakterer, der gør fortællingen interessant for publikum. Undervejs henter han eksempler fra filmens verden til at konkretisere pointerne. Desværre viser han ikke eksemplerne, men refererer til de pågældende film. Før kurset modtager man en liste over de film, han mere eller mindre vil referere til. Det kan være en god idé at se så mange af filmene som muligt, hvis ikke man kender dem. Men det er lidt ærgerligt, at McKee ikke viser nogle klip 5

6 indimellem. Det ville dels have gjort eksemplerne mere nærværende, dels ville det have givet lidt mere liv til kurset. På fjerdedagen går det meste af tiden dog med at se og dissekere filmen Casablanca. Det bruges til at samle op på de pointer, der er blevet givet i løbet af de første tre dage, og det giver en rigtig god afslutning på kurset. Vi anbefaler kraftigt, at man ser filmen, inden man skal på kurset for at få det bedste udbytte af McKees analyse og gennemgang af Casablanca. McKee opstiller en række hovedspørgsmål, der skal hjælpe til bedre storytelling: 1. What event starts my story so the crisis and climax must occur? 2. What is the relationship between the inciting incident and the crisis/climax of this story? 3. Do the inciting incident and the way in which it occurs make the crisis/climax eventually necessary? 4. The inciting incident occurs and creates branching probability. Given this, do you feel the ending you ve designed absolutely must occur? 5. What event starts the story so that the protagonist must go into action? Even if the action is saying, I m not going into action, the protagonist must react to that inciting incident. Even if it is to deny action. 6. What does my protagonist want that comes out of this inciting incident? What drives the protagonist on? What goal must the protagonist accomplish? What has he/she failed to accomplish? 7. What position does the character meet? What are the sources of antagonism? From what levels of reality? Always try to create threedimensional stories in which conflict is coming from ALL THREE LEVELS OF REALITY. 8. Is the opposition equal to if not greater than the protagonist? The protagonist cannot be up against forces that he can easily handle and overwhelm. Do these forces really test him/her as a human being? Do these forces become so powerful and cumulative in their power that they are severely testing the deepest human qualities in this person? 9. As we move toward the ending, do we become more deeply involved? Not staying the same, not losing interest, but more deeply involved. 6

7 10. Have we grown to identify with and/or like the protagonist? 11. As we near the ending, do we feel an exhilaration/acceleration of action and reaction? 12. Does the action in the crisis/climax fully express my root idea WITHOUT the aid of dialogue? 13. Every movie is about one idea. How does each scene in the film bring out an aspect of that one idea, positively or negatively? 14. What is the worst possible thing that could happen to my character? How could that turn out to be the best possible thing? Or vice versa. Champagneskål for Casablanca på kursets sidste dag. Foto: Lars Møller Hansen 7

8 Vi vil anbefale kurset til folk, der arbejder med manuskriptskrivning, litterære værker eller længere journalistiske formater, fx dokumentarer. Det giver en god tilgang til grundlæggende historiefortælling, hvad man skal gøre og ikke gøre og dermed en række brugbare værktøjer. Henning Lund, fotograf og redigeringstekniker, DR Nyheder Christian Nordkap, journalist, DR Nyheder Lars Møller Hansen, journalist, DR Nyheder April