3 ms·

The Real McKee: Lessons of a screenwriting guru (2003)

29 points by samclemens 6y ago

__jf__ 6y ago
TLDR from the article: “I’m not here to teach you how to write a Hollywood movie,” McKee said, the scorn in his voice sending a wave of reassurance through his well-educated audience. But then he drew a triangle on an overhead projector slide: at the top was “Classical Design” (stories with causality, closed endings, linear time, an external conflict, a single, active protagonist); in the other corners he wrote “Minimalism” (open endings, passive protagonists) and “Anti-Structure” (coincidence, nonlinear time). “This course is about the top, about classical design,” he said, pointing at the triangle. “Why? For your careers. As you move down the triangle, your audience shrinks. The top of the pyramid describes his magnum opus “Story”. For anyone interested in the lower corners I can recommend “Me and You and Memento and Fargo” [1]. This gives an interesting counterpoint to McKee’s shrinking audience hypothesis. [1] https://www.amazon.com/You-Memento-Fargo-J-J-Murphy/dp/0826428053 https://www.amazon.com/You-Memento-Fargo-J-J-Murphy/dp/08264...
- securingsincity 6y ago
  Save The Cat[1] is another book for the top of the pyramid he describes. This is taken to the extreme where each of the beats should happen on this page number of your script. If anything it helped me recognize why blockbuster movies even though they might have completely different situations feel so samey [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00340ESIS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00340ESIS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
  - teachrdan 6y ago
    In particular, the trope of "Villain lets himself get captured, only to escape" was in Batman, Star Trek, James Bond and the Avengers before I stopped keeping track.
orlandohill 6y ago
I highly recommend Brian McDonald's three books on screen writing, Invisible Ink, The Golden Theme, and Ink Spots. They're short, succinct, and practical. Brian also hosts a podcast on storytelling, You Are a Storyteller. https://writeinvisibleink.com/episodes/ https://writeinvisibleink.com/episodes/
danbmil99 6y ago
Good thing someone is teaching Hollywood's next batch of writers how to churn out boring sequels with de-risked financial prospects for the investors. What I want to hear about is, how will the medium of uncertain-life multi-year serials get beyond the 4th/5th season disapointments of GOT, Lost, BG(reboot)? I spend an inordinate amount of time investing in these endless storylines, only to have them 1) get canceled after Season 3 or 2) start sucking in season 4 or 5 (Might get lucky with a Dexter and not suck until year 6 or 7, but still...) This is an important cultural issue, what with the pandemic and whatnot
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  Failure is not inevitable. Maybe you just need an extremely talented showrunner/lead actor with a father/actor/cultural icon and to film it away from Hollywood?[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schitt%27s_Creek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schitt%27s_Creek
- joshuak 6y ago
  I somewhat agree. It seems clear to me that its a consequence of not writing to a story arc, which in turn is a consequence of not knowing the running length of your story. Even the best execution I've seen are series that end ambiguously with open questions left for the audience to decide. In feature writing open endings are often considered edgy or avant garde, in series writing it is the most obvious of cliches. Series that have a known fixed length do much better imho. Mind you I think it is possible to execute on a story arc without knowing your running length in advance as long as you are within an order of magnitude in estimation. I just haven't noticed anyone trying.
sammalloy 6y ago
> As you move down the triangle, your audience shrinks. That hasn't been true in years. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. All of the non-classical approaches are on cable and streaming, and have larger audiences than ever before. Note, this article is dated 2003, before streaming outpaced Hollywood in 2007.

29 points by samclemens 6y ago

TLDR from the article: “I’m not here to teach you how to write a Hollywood movie,” McKee said, the scorn in his voice sending a wave of reassurance through his well-educated audience. But then he drew a triangle on an overhead projector slide: at the top was “Classical Design” (stories with causality, closed endings, linear time, an external conflict, a single, active protagonist); in the other corners he wrote “Minimalism” (open endings, passive protagonists) and “Anti-Structure” (coincidence, nonlinear time). “This course is about the top, about classical design,” he said, pointing at the triangle. “Why? For your careers. As you move down the triangle, your audience shrinks. The top of the pyramid describes his magnum opus “Story”. For anyone interested in the lower corners I can recommend “Me and You and Memento and Fargo” [1]. This gives an interesting counterpoint to McKee’s shrinking audience hypothesis. [1] https://www.amazon.com/You-Memento-Fargo-J-J-Murphy/dp/0826428053 https://www.amazon.com/You-Memento-Fargo-J-J-Murphy/dp/08264...

securingsincity 6y ago
Save The Cat[1] is another book for the top of the pyramid he describes. This is taken to the extreme where each of the beats should happen on this page number of your script. If anything it helped me recognize why blockbuster movies even though they might have completely different situations feel so samey [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00340ESIS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00340ESIS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- teachrdan 6y ago
  In particular, the trope of "Villain lets himself get captured, only to escape" was in Batman, Star Trek, James Bond and the Avengers before I stopped keeping track.

orlandohill 6y ago

I highly recommend Brian McDonald's three books on screen writing, Invisible Ink, The Golden Theme, and Ink Spots. They're short, succinct, and practical. Brian also hosts a podcast on storytelling, You Are a Storyteller. https://writeinvisibleink.com/episodes/ https://writeinvisibleink.com/episodes/

danbmil99 6y ago

Good thing someone is teaching Hollywood's next batch of writers how to churn out boring sequels with de-risked financial prospects for the investors. What I want to hear about is, how will the medium of uncertain-life multi-year serials get beyond the 4th/5th season disapointments of GOT, Lost, BG(reboot)? I spend an inordinate amount of time investing in these endless storylines, only to have them 1) get canceled after Season 3 or 2) start sucking in season 4 or 5 (Might get lucky with a Dexter and not suck until year 6 or 7, but still...) This is an important cultural issue, what with the pandemic and whatnot

anonAndOn 6y ago
Failure is not inevitable. Maybe you just need an extremely talented showrunner/lead actor with a father/actor/cultural icon and to film it away from Hollywood?[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schitt%27s_Creek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schitt%27s_Creek
joshuak 6y ago
I somewhat agree. It seems clear to me that its a consequence of not writing to a story arc, which in turn is a consequence of not knowing the running length of your story. Even the best execution I've seen are series that end ambiguously with open questions left for the audience to decide. In feature writing open endings are often considered edgy or avant garde, in series writing it is the most obvious of cliches. Series that have a known fixed length do much better imho. Mind you I think it is possible to execute on a story arc without knowing your running length in advance as long as you are within an order of magnitude in estimation. I just haven't noticed anyone trying.

sammalloy 6y ago

> As you move down the triangle, your audience shrinks. That hasn't been true in years. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. All of the non-classical approaches are on cable and streaming, and have larger audiences than ever before. Note, this article is dated 2003, before streaming outpaced Hollywood in 2007.