Film Courage: You touch on something regarding
the 99% and you say many writers can format a script? But most writers can’t do…and that is? Jill Chamberlain, Script Consultant/Author/Writer:
Yes, so in my experience as a script consultant 99% of writers fail to tell a story. That what the 99% do instead is I would describe
as present a situation. So they pay me good money as a script consultant
to come in and read their script. It may be perfectly formatted in industry
standard. It may have some interesting characters here
and there. Maybe some great dialogue. It may have some interesting plot points. But invariably I was discovering that 99%
of the time they were failing to tell a story a story. Instead they were presenting a situation. One way I can describe a situation is it’s
like life where in life this happens, this happens and then this happens. And that’s not a story right? That’s episodic. A story there’s a connection where between
the parts this happens which leads to that happening which makes it ironic when this
other thing happens. There’s a connection between the parts. This happens which leads to that happening
which makes it ironic when this other thing happens. There’s a connection between the parts. Another way I can put it is if I can take
your protagonist out of your script and put a completely different one in and maybe with
a couple of tweaks it works just as well, you have a situation my friend not a story. Film Courage: Interesting. Jill: I shouldn’t be able to do that. If you’re telling a story, if I take a protagonist
out it would no longer work. A story is unique to your protagonist. There’s a unique journey, a reason why you
(the master of the universe here) has put this character on this path. There is something in that character that
you’ve chosen to do this particular plot in order to bring out something in them. And so if I can just put another character
in it works just as well. That’s not a situation, that’s not testing
anything specific to the character. It’s just an arbitrary situation that you
put a character, that you put someone into. And that’s what most people do, I mean that’s
how a lot of us start. It’s not…it doesn’t mean that it’s
not a fixable situation and that’s why my method, why I have these on form so we can
see visually right there and then “Oh yeah, this piece is working, but you can see this
piece doesn’t work.” We can isolate these elements and we can fix
them looking at this one-page for and it’s way easier to do it on this one page form
then if you’ve already written a screenplay then that’s going to be a little bit more
of a mess. We can still use the form but it’s going
to mean going back a little bit to the drawing board in order to fix those parts. In order to make it into a powerful story. Film Courage: I’m wondering if we can reverse
engineer a current film that is out and make it into a situation? So I know sometimes I use movies that are
dated, so let me use try with A STAR IS BORN. How can we reverse engineer it so that if
we broke it down and changed it to a situation? So we could see…dissect it? Jill: Let me give you a different example. It’s my favorite to give. The movie TOOTSIE. Film Courage: Love it. Jill: So every screenwriter, every filmmaker
should know TOOTSIE, right? If you haven’t seen it, you have to go see
it. It’s a great movie to look at structurally. This is exactly what is happening. 99% of writers are writing what I call “Fat
Tootsie.” This is fat tootsie…I’m going to take
the same movie (TOOTSIE) we have a protagonist Michael Dorsey an out-of-work actor. Can’t get an acting job and he’s desperate
for an acting job and so he’s going to audition for the soap opera and I’m going to make
two very small changes to the plot. He’s going to audition for the soap opera
in disguise. But the part isn’t a female character. The part is going to be a male character but
the character is an obese man in the fictional soap opera world (so the town that the soap
opera takes place in). So Michael Dorsey is desperate for an acting
job right? So he’s going to his make-up artist friend
to have prosthesis made and a costumer to make him a fat suit. And he’s going to go into the audition pretending
he’s actually an obese man AND he’s going to get the part. We have the exact same movie Michael Dorsey
out-of-work actor desperate for an acting job gets a part on a soap opera. The only thing I’m going to change is that
instead of the part being a female character it’s a part of a fat man right? Very similar movie, it almost works right? We tend to think it’s funny seeing a man
dressed up as a woman in movies. We also could find it funny seeing this little
guy like Derek Huffmann pretending to be a big, fat guy. He’s got to get in and out of his fat suit
before anyone sees him. It almost works. But ultimately fat TOOTSIE is a situation,
not a story. Do you have any idea what the difference might
be? Film Courage: [Long pause]…forgive me it’s
been awhile since I’ve seen it. I’m just remembering that when he is Tootsie
there is this…someone falls in love with him and then there’s this dilemma of how
does he tell them he’s a man, he can’t. He’s got to keep his cover. So what would be…? Jill: Yes and I can even tweak it though when
that wasn’t an issue where in it he gets a crush on his female co-star. I’m make another tweak though for “Fat
Tootsie.” He’ll tell his co-star that he is gay so
Julie (the love interest) feels just as comfortable with him as she felt with
the “Dorothy” character the female persona. So still almost works right? We have the exact same thing and then for
the love interest because he says he is gay part of the movie in TOOTSIE we see that Julie’s
father gets a crush on the Dorothy character. We will make Julie’s father gay, right? So that could work. So it’s still working the same... Film Courage: You’ve stumped me here... Jill: Yes! Well I’ve stumped a lot of people. This is key. And let me tell you 99% of writers are writing
“Fat Tootsie.” It’s a clever sounding situation but it’s
not a story. The key...the big difference is one of the
biggest structural (and this is one of the 8 elements) but the most important element
is the flaw. That there is something in this journey that
you’ve chosen in the plot (you’ve created that you’ve put this character in) that
is going to test a central flaw in them. Any idea what Michael Dorsey’s flaw might
be? Film Courage: Well...I guess he is struggling
in his career. Jill: Yes...but a flaw is something that we
can blame them for. So something where you look down upon them. So what would you say is a negative about
him that we are judging (that we can judge him) about? You are kind of in the ballpark though. It’s related to his career. Film Courage: Lack of confidence? Lack of skills? I don’t know...going after the wrong [acting]
parts? Over-inflated view of himself? Under-inflated view of himself? Jill: Well I think most people point out the
over-inflated view. That he is very, very arrogant, that this
is one of the reasons he hasn’t been getting acting work is because he is so difficult
to work with. The only thing is I would argue after the
movie TOOTSIE, do you think this guy is going to be any less arrogant on his next acting
job? Film Courage: No...because he was able to
pull it off and so now he has this extreme confidence. Jill: Exactly. That is one of his flaws - arrogance. It’s not the one that the movie is testing. The one that the movie is testing is his lack
of respect for women. Okay so we see in the beginning this early
scene at this party he hits on every single woman with the same stupid line even though
I think he’d probably call himself a feminist he’s actually a real jerk to women, right? He is great friends with the Teri Greer character
but the moment they sleep together he suddenly freaks out and treats her terribly. So deep down he has this lack of respect for
women. That is the perfect test of somebody who has
a lack of respect for women if you make them have to pretend to be a woman, right? But in fact Tootsie, that has nothing to do
with his flaw. It’s an arbitrary situation we put him in. So unless we were able to change the flaw
and we made him a flaw, somebody who had a prejudice against people of different weight
or different appearance or something like that, we could change the character so it
was testing someone. But with the character that’s in the original
TOOTSIE of this man who is arrogant and doesn’t respect women, putting him in a fat suit,
that doesn’t do anything to test that character. So that’s what 99% of writers are doing. It sounds clever, it sounds interesting to
see somebody where he’s trying to pretend, it seems to have some interesting themes about
trying to pretend to be someone that you’re not. We’ve got some funny comedy moments, ideas
in there...it has nothing to do with the character? Film Courage: Right and he gets hit on and
I remember the one scene where they were like [the crew] “Can you guys back up the camera?” And they were like “How far can you go?” So he’s being judged for his looks, being
hit on, all of these different things. Jill: All of these things that he does that
he doesn’t even realize he is doing. Even in that Second Act he is still doesn’t
realize that he has been doing these things all along. There is a great moment where the chauvinistic
director turns things around and says something that he’s the chauvinistic director has
been dating Julie and Michael’s Dorothy persona kind of suggests “I know what is
going on.” And the director says “Yeah, yeah, sure
I see other women but I wouldn’t want to tell her. I wouldn’t want to hurt her.” And Michael Dorsey used that exact same line
talking about Teri Greer right? “Of course, I don’t want to hurt her.” So he doesn’t even realize he is doing these
things. So this is the way we are going to get the
character to finally face something. Another important concept about this is that
your character is not a victim. Michael Dorsey is not a victim of the Universe
suddenly making him half to be a woman and deal with that. He actually asked for this, he wanted an acting
part. He said that he could handle this. He said “I’ll do anything. I’ll do any acting job.” He willingly went in there to audition for
this. This is another part of the 99%, they are
making their character a victim of circumstance. They are having arbitrary stuff happen to
the character. It shouldn’t be. Your character should not be a victim. EVEN if your character is a victim, for them
truly to be a protagonist then you have a certain amount of agency involved. They need to be contributing to the problem
in some way. If you don’t give your character a strong
flaw, you are just making them a victim. The reason these bad things are happening
to them is just fate. It’s just bad luck in the world. It shouldn’t be that. That might be part of it but part of why it’s
so difficult for Michael Dorsey in TOOTSIE is the fact that he’s chauvinistic. If he weren’t a chauvinistic guy he wouldn’t
have been having a difficult time in Act 2 of TOOTSIE. So that what we are doing is making sure that
we’re testing the character with something that is getting down to something deep down
inside of them that is unique to them and that is why this character exists in this
story instead of another character.
