Beyond the visuals of Studio Ghibli’s films, which are astonishing on their own accord, Miyazaki’s storytelling is what grounds these films as masterpieces. Kiki’s Delivery Service, the double feature of Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro, and Miyazaki’s latest and last film The Boy and the Heron are stories that are radically at odds with Hollywood storytelling, yet have a level of gravitas that is often overlooked as something wholly unique that can’t be taught. It just is. 

While we can’t teach you to create stories like Miyazaki — which is why Studio Ghibli stopped making films for almost a decade–there are trademarks of Miyazaki’s storytelling that we can learn from and mold into our own stories. Let’s get into it. 

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1.) Using the Kishōtenketsu Story Structure  

Rather than using the American standard three-act structure to tell his stories, Miyazaki’s stories follow a plot structure known as kishōtenketsu. Used since ancient times in Japan, kishōtenketsu is the method of storytelling composed of four parts: ki (introduction), shō (development), ten (turn or twist), and ketsu (conclusion).

While most stories have a rigged structure that is easy to follow and break down, kishōtenketsu has a wandering quality that can feel unusual to people who are not familiar with East Asian storytelling. The structure lends itself to a long, quiet beginning that is quickly twisted to shake up the story. In the end, the twist is settled, revealing the connecting theme between everything. Miyazaki always uses the kishōtenketsu structure in his storytelling, dividing his story into four parts. In the third part, there is always a big hurdle the hero must overcome to get to the end of the film. While the conflict might impact the story, it is not the focus. Instead, the story features a conflict, but the purpose of the story is the change in the protagonist. 

My Neighbor Totoro is the clearest example. It lacks a conflict, which has led many American critics to believe that nothing happens in the film. But the kishōtenketsu structure is at work, revealing that Satsuki and Mei are attempting to adjust to life without their mother. The sudden twist of Mei running away is shocking, but order is quickly restored. It is an easy film with a structure that isn’t overwhelming. There is more than one type of structure out there in the world of storytelling beyond the three-act structure. It is up to you to decide what type of structure fits your style of storytelling. 

Read More: The Simple Guide to Writing Animated Screenplays

A diagram of the kishōtenketsu structure (Courtesy of Randy Finch)

2.) Unfinished Scripts 

While the structure of Miyazaki’s stories is set, he typically doesn’t finish the story once his team is ready to start working on a film. A key part of Miyazaki’s filmmaking process is the creation of storyboards, a series of images that help map out a movie’s sequence of events. While storyboarding is an essential part of the animation process, Miyazaki tends to forego screenplays of spontaneity. 

“I don't have the story finished and ready when we start work on a film,” he said in a 2002 interview. “I usually don't have the time. So the story develops when I start drawing storyboards. The production starts very soon thereafter, while the storyboards are still developing. We never know where the story will go but we just keeping working on the film as it develops. It's a dangerous way to make an animation film and I would like it to be different, but unfortunately, that's the way I work and everyone else is kind of forced to subject themselves to it.”

At the core of his process, Miyazaki’s goal is to capture the beauty of the world he is creating. He can’t fully or clearly see them, nor does he know how his stories will end. Miyazaki leads the group of animators to find the film based on the few ideas he brings to them. 

Takahata, Miyazaki’s late mentor, explained the process in the 2000s:

Hayao Miyazaki stopped writing screenplays a long time ago. He doesn’t even bother to first finalize the storyboards. … After diving into the process, he then begins to create storyboards while doing all his other work, from key animation on down. Using his powers of continuous concentration, the production starts to take on the elements of an endlessly improvised performance.

Read More: Hayao Miyazaki Says 'Ma' is an Essential Storytelling Tool

Storyboard from 'Kiki's Delivery Service'

3.) Female Protagonist 

In a majority of Miyazaki’s films, the story is driven by strong female leads, who are brave girls or women who don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe is right. Inspired heavily by his own mother, Miyazaki’s female characters are complex and conflicted, like Princess Kushana in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke, and the witches Yubaba and Zeniba in Spirited Away.

Miyazaki stated, “In my family, it was a very male universe. I only have brothers, the only woman was my mother.” Miyazaki is one of four brothers. Perhaps this is why mother figures in his work have such a grounding nature, while the female leads, inspired by his mother, are on a quest for self-fulfillment, helping each other and humanity along the way. They share a universal language of compassion, tolerance, and fairness. These female leads do not want to be anything other than themselves, which is a powerful message in itself. 

'Princess Mononoke'

4.) Flying Scenes 

Another childhood influence in Miyazaki’s work is his love for airplanes, particularly old ones. His family owned a company that produced wingtips for Zero fighters, and this is possibly what has led to each of Miyazaki’s stories containing flying scenes of some kind. From Tombo’s flying bicycle in Kiki’s Delivery Service to Haku’s transformation into a flying dragon that Chihiro eventually rides in Spirited Away, flying has become a staple of Miyazaki’s work. 

While flying is a key trademark of Miyazaki’s storytelling, the filmmaker tends to stay away from military aircraft. Miyazaki released the destructive power of military aircraft. This feeling of conflict Miyazaki feels is highlighted in The Wind Rises when Jiro Horikoshi dreams of building planes, but realizes the consequences that warplanes can have. 

'The Wind Rises'

5.) Conflicts Solved Through Pacifism 

What makes Hayao Miyazaki movies so beloved by a wide range of audiences is that his films do not depict any violence. That’s because Miyazaki, who grew up during World War II, despises unnecessary violence and advocates for pacifism through his stories. 

In multiple interviews that Kotaku found through Japanese blogs, Miyazaki spoke out about his disdain for violence in Hollywood films, saying, “If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them. Lord of the Rings is like that. If it’s the enemy, there’s killing without separation between civilians and soldiers. That falls within collateral damage.”

Hayao Miyazaki movies share a common theme that disputes can be resolved without the use of physical force. Castle in the Sky, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Princess Mononoke are examples of this since the main characters strive to bring peace to a world filled with conflict. Of course, physical confrontations are also present, but they are used to point out the uselessness of it.

'Howl's Moving Castle'

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Hayao Miyazaki movies are beautiful and meticulously crafted, taking a single film year to build from the few ideas that Miyazaki brings to his team at Studio Ghibli. While there are several trademarks that signify that a story belongs to this filmmaker, Miyazaki’s scripts are almost non-existent. Everything lives in the storyboards. While it is highly recommended that you finish a script before moving into the production process, there is beauty and a level of acceptance to Miyazaki’s creative process. 

Read More: 101 Enchanting Animation Story Prompts

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The post 5 Trademarks of a Hayao Miyazaki Movies appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Over the last several years, Swift has been shifting toward filmmaking, expanding on her highly detailed storytelling skills that already exist in each of her songs since the beginning of her songwriting career. While Swift hasn’t directed anything longer than 15 minutes, her short film  All Too Well: The Short Film, showcased her talents as a storyteller on another level. Her talents are in her storytelling, which captures a tiny, nuanced moment in her life. 

Let’s take a look at the lessons we can learn from Swift’s career as an emerging filmmaker, and how you can incorporate them into your workflow. 

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Use Your Experiences

One of the factors that makes each of Swift’s projects stand out amongst the crowd is the narrative she crafts. Each song she writes tells a story. The specificity of the lyrics describes events, visuals, and feelings that seem to come from lived experiences. These are stories that no one else could have written because nobody experienced these moments the way Swift did. 

One of Swift’s favorite quotes is Nora Ephron’s motto of “Everything is copy,” which means that every single aspect of your lived experiences can be used in your creative work. Everything that happens, good or bad, can be used as material for our writing. This could include personal experiences, observations, and even our mistakes. Don’t be afraid if the idea isn’t wholly original. Instead, discover the details that make this story specific to your life. Personal experiences are valuable and can be used to create meaningful and resonant writing.

Read More: Write Your Short Film in 7 Days

Pay Attention to the Details

Throughout Swift’s entire career, there is a meta-narrative that Swift has been carefully crafting since her debut in 2006 by embedding easter eggs and hints in her song lyrics, album notes, media posts, and music videos. The symbolism and imagery have grown over time to a point that fans use abbreviations, coded catchphrases, and references that build a bigger world that seems foreign to anyone outside Swift’s carefully built world. 

Swift is a master at crafting an ongoing narrative because she pays as much attention to the details as her fans do. From each inch of a frame of her music videos to how much information she can deliver in as few words as possible. To Swift, the details matter. To Swift’s fans, the details matter. Needless to say, the details are what make crafting a story, be that a single narrative or the metanarrative that ties your entire catalog of work together, exciting for you and those interacting with the world you are creating. 

Read More: How to Incorporate Visuals Into Your Screenplay

Use Strong Visuals to Evoke Emotion

During Swift’s 1989 era, her music videos took a step away from a direct translation of her lyrics to a more cinematic story that plays along with an idea in the song. Taking a note from her long-time director Joseph Kahn, Swift obsessively storyboards her music videos, filling each video tightly with visuals that evoke the emotions of the song. 

“One of my favorite parts of directing music videos is the daydream/prep phase: writing up a treatment, a shot list, and working with an animator to storyboard it out ahead of time,” Swift wrote on her socials. “Thanks to illustrator Vincent Lucido, we can check off our shots as we go. A video showing the before and after of the willow video is out now.” 

Swift’s storyboarding is a natural extension of her already masterful storytelling. The details in the frame both play to and add to the already existing metanarrative while creating a visual narrative that the audience wouldn’t hear in her song lyrics. A recent example comes from the “Karma” music video when Swift sings the line, “Karam is the guy on the screen coming straight home to me,” and the oar cuts through the water, breaking up the image of Swift singing these lines. This line likely references Swift’s relationship with actor Joe Alwyn which ended sometime between the release of the song and the release of the music video. The oar that breaks the reflecting image of Swift singing this line highlights the changes in Swift’s life while adding visual layers to the overarching narrative of Swift’s personal life in her work. 

There is power in showing the audience a detail that lends itself to the visual subtext and overall themes of your story. 

Read More: How to Write Short Stories That Make An Emotional Impact

Just Keeping Writing

Like any other skill, your storytelling can improve if you keep practicing and letting others read your work. Not every single story you write will be gold, but not writing at all would be devastating to your screenwriting career. 

During one of the Variety Directors on Directors conversations, Swift told writer/director Martin McDonagh that she feels freer to create because “the more you create, hopefully, the less pressure you put on yourself.” As a screenwriter, it is important to stick to a writing schedule to achieve writing goals, build your creative momentum, and sharpen your writing skills, which will make the next writing project (hopefully) easier. 

While we can’t be Taylor Swift, there are lessons we can pull from her success as a storyteller and implement them into our creative processes. Don’t be afraid to use moments from your life to influence a story, pay attention to the details that make the visuals stand out, and just keep writing, even if you don’t feel like it. You might surprise yourself along the way. 

Read More: Tips For Staying Inspired Between the Highs and Lows of Screenwriting

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The post 4 Lessons Taylor Swift Can Teach You About Storytelling appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Christopher Nolan piqued audiences' interest in his twelfth feature film, Oppenheimer, when he told Total Film that he had achieved the effect of detonating an atomic bomb without the use of CGI. This led to many fans jokingly saying that the British auteur with his eye on realism had somehow convinced Universal Pictures, the studio he worked with on Oppenheimer rather than Warner Bros., to purchase and blow up a real nuclear device in the middle of the desert to replicate the Trinity Test, the world's first atomic bomb explosion.

However, this wasn't the case—and isn't practical narrative filmmaking either. So how did Nolan create the bomb effect in Oppenheimer? Let's get into it.

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How Oppenheimer Pulls Off the Atomic Blast Effect

Special Effects Supervisor Scott R. Fisher, who has now worked with Nolan on the director’s previous films including Interstellar and Tenet, let Total Film peek behind the curtain to see how the larger-than-life visuals were created.

“It was definitely not as rigorous with day-to-day filming,” said Fisher. “[Nolan] said, ‘There’s not as much stuff for you on this as the other one, but there’s a couple of things we do have to cover. And that was, of course, the Trinity explosion, and some prop builds, and elements of different things that we had throughout the film.”

Nolan is famous for using practical effects in a world where most films use heavy CG to create larger-than-life effects. “I find CG rarely is able to grab you,” Nolan told Empire for their July issue. “It tends to feel safe. Even if it’s impressive and beautiful, it’s difficult to make you feel danger. And we were presenting the ultimate danger. We needed it to feel threatening, nasty, and frightening to the audience.”

Read More: Barbenheimer: Why Barbie and Oppenheimer Are Facing Off at the Box Office

Oppenheimer (2023)

Recreating the Trinity Test without CG was a huge challenge for Nolan to take on, which is why he brought Visual Supervisor Andrew Jackson on board early to find ways to create most of the visual elements, such as the quantum dynamics and quantum physics, of the test practically.

Nolan, Fisher, and his team found a way to create the practical effect by using an old Hollywood in-camera trick: forced perspective. Forced perspective is a technique that uses the space between your subjects to manipulate the viewer's perception of the space and distance between the two objects to create an optical illusion. One of the most famous examples of forced perspective in cinema is in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

"We don't call them miniatures; we call them 'big-atures,'" he explained. "We do them as big as we possibly can, but we do reduce the scale so it's manageable. We get it closer to the camera, and do it as big as we can in the environment."

When it came to the explosion of the bomb, the intense blaze was “mostly” a combination of gasoline and propane “because you get so much bang for your buck,” Fisher said. Aluminum powder and magnesium were then added to the mixture to mimic the instant blinding flash that so many records recall of the nuclear blast. "We really wanted everyone to talk about that flash, that brightness. So, we tried to replicate that as much as we could."

But not every explosion is created equal. Nolan described the technique of creating the bombs used during filming as “very experimental” and ranging in size. "Some on a giant scale using explosives and magnesium flares and big, black powder explosions of petrol, whatever," Nolan said. "And then some absolutely tiny, using interactions of different particles, different oils, different liquids."

Director of Photography Hoyte Van Hoytema told Variety, "We created science experiments. We built aquariums with power in it. We dropped silver particles in it. We had molded metallic balloons which were lit up from the inside. We had things slamming and smashing into one another such as ping-pong balls, or just had objects spinning. We had long shutter speeds, short shutter speeds, wide negative color, negative overexposure, underexposure. It was like a giant playground for all of us."

Read More: Screenwriting Wisdom from Christopher Nolan

'Oppenheimer' (2023)

How Do You Record Explosions on Film?

Nolan and Van Hoytema set out to make Oppenheimer on film and finished it on film. Using Kodak 35mm and 65mm on IMAX, the largest format available, Nolan and Hoytema captured some of the best-looking explosions in cinema history.

A deep depth of field is already necessary when working with the “big-atures,” which allows the camera to already be in the best settings to capture explosions. This protects the film from being overexposed by the intense flash of the explosions.

Now, you have to capture explosions that audiences can see. Explosions are quick, and the awe-stopping moment of the explosion can start and end within seconds. By adjusting the frame rate of the camera, the team can capture the explosions in slow motion.

Rumor had it that one of the cameras Nolan and Hoytema attempted to use was a Photo-Sonics 35mm 4C high-speed rotary prism camera, which is capable of 2,500 frames per second. However, if a shot requires a faster camera, then creatives must rely on a rotary prism camera. The Photo-Sonics 16mm E10 is one such camera that can capture up to 10,000 frames per second while still using film, making it a great solution for slowing down motion to a near standstill.

Unfortunately, the camera was unable to capture usable footage at such a high rate for a feature film. Instead, the cameras used on Oppenheimer maxed out at 150 fps. The pyro work on the film was done at a substantial scale due to the limits of in-camera magic.

Read More: The Insane Film Technology Behind 'Avatar: The Way of Water'

Oppenheimer (2023)

While the close-ups of the fiery explosions that have been teased throughout the trailers of Oppenheimer are a hair-raising experience in themselves, the infamous mushroom cloud that the atomic bomb creates is a challenge that Christopher Nolan accepted without hesitation.

"The most obvious thing to do would be to do them all with computer graphics," the writer-director said. "But I knew that that was not going to achieve the sort of tactile, ragged, real nature of what I wanted. ... The goal was to have everything that appears in the film to be photographed. And have the computer used for what it's best for, which is compositing, and putting ideas together; taking out things you don't want; putting layers of things together."

Nolan is a filmmaker who is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of filmmaking, creating new technology with IMAX to present the brilliant complexities of Robert J. Oppenheimer in a way that presents the visual tones to the audience while entertaining them. The filmmaker is one who cares about the details, spending most of his pre-production time creating accurate depictions of atomic bombs and black holes in a way that serves the audiences and pushes filmmaking technology, all while keeping his cast and crew safe.

Oppenheimer is now in theaters.

Read More: How 'Evil Dead Rise' Carries on Sam Raimi's DIY Filmmaking Legacy

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The post How Oppenheimer Created a CGI-Free Atomic Blast appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Taylor, who is still relatively new to screenwriting but has had his scripts optioned by major studios like Warner Bros. and Netflix, stepped onto the scene with a script that landed on 2019’s Black List.

Although the official script for the film has not been released, the 2019 script from the Black List is available online for our reading pleasure. After watching the film and chatting with Taylor about his project, here are six lessons we learned from his screenplay for They Cloned Tyrone. 

[Editor's Note: Beware of Spoilers!]

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1. Mix Genres

Written by Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier, the film tells the story of an unlikely trio coming together after uncovering a government conspiracy that threatens their home and community. Fontaine, a drug dealer, finds the help of a pimp named Slick Charles and a sex worker named Yo-Yo, who witnessed Fontaine die the day before. 

Throughout the script, the tone of the story works as a satirical hybrid of genres that shifts from: 

• Gangster film that focuses on the community and dynamics of the Glen
• Political thriller as unmarked black cars and secret underground lavatories kidnap Black community members to test on them
• Coming-of-age film as the character discover who they want to be and how they can break away from the system created to keep them down
• Heist movie as the gang tries to save a lost member of the trio and free the clones 

The script maintains comedic undertones that bring levity to the heavy tones and themes that take over at the end of act two to keep the story from falling victim to the assumptions and tropes of the genres listed above. Here is how Taylor was able to subvert expectations in his script while keeping his audience hooked from beginning to end.

Read More: The Power of Genre-Bending Screenplays

Jamie Foxx (Producer) as Slick Charles and Writer, Director, Producer Juel Taylor on the set of They Cloned Tyrone. Cr. Parrish Lewis/Netflix © 2023.

2. Use the References People Know

Throughout the screenplay, Taylor sets the scene or upcoming events by drawing on references that most audiences are familiar with. 

“I had this silly idea of creating a bootleg Scooby-Doo movie,” Taylor says. “So it's a blend of something frivolous with something personal and somber, and as the project grew, it delved into weirdness.” Some of the weirdness comes from a slew of references Taylor calls on to like John Carpenter’s They Live, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 

Taylor incorporates these references in his screenplay in multiple ways. For example, he has characters reference moments in the film to specific shots in iconic films, like when Slick Charles says, “We just found out they're Clockwork Orange-ing [people],” (pg. 61). Other references are in the small details, such as the name of the corrupted radio DJ named DJ Strangelove (in reference to the Nazi-turned-American Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers) in Dr. Strangelove) or when the gang finds the breakroom in the trap house and a small TV is playing Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

These references in the screenplay allow the reader to understand the tones of the film and the structure of a specific genre of the film that the story is following.

Read More: 101 Epic Sci-Fi Story Prompts

They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

3. Lean Into Your Unique Voice

Establishing your voice is crucial to creating a standout script. Taylor’s voice is present within the first few lines of the screenplay by using language to perfectly capture the aesthetics of his world. 

When describing the world, Taylor’s language is short and exact, yet there is an energy to it that brings the image into clear view for the reader. When describing the Glen, the neighborhood the story takes place in, Taylor describes it, writing, “...past boarded up abodes and homes barely holding on … rusted lemons… crackheads… It’s active out here. Folks just… around.” 

In so few worlds, we can see the Glen clearly. It’s a run-down yet active community. 

Taylor’s voice understands the stakes of the world he has created immediately, the stakes of his characters, and how to escalate conflict or de-escalate moments by leaning into the comedy of three unlikely heroes fighting against a government conspiracy. 

Read More: How to Develop Your Voice as a Screenwriter

They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

4. Find the Balance Between the Comedy and Drama

They Cloned Tyrone is a satire that balances a delicate edge of absurdity. Taylor balances between a cool-effortless gang who have an asks-questions-later type of energy and the drama of what is happening, which is a hard tightrope to walk. 

“It’s an ongoing negotiation with each scene to avoid being too obvious,” Taylor says. “I never want to come across as preachy or prescriptive. I recoil from anything in that sphere.”

In the first laboratory scene, Fontaine is experiencing a very life-altering moment, but Taylor brings levity to this by having Slick Charles accidentally kill someone and attempt to convince the others that the dead man is still alive. While the dead man might seem like a life-altering moment, Fontaine's discovery of a clone of himself weighs down the chaos of what happened on the other side of the room. It’s an odd balance that works visually.

Read More: You've Got to Have Heart: The Power of Comedy in Drama

They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

5. Repetition Builds Familiarity

One of the biggest references that Taylor looked at while writing the script for They Cloned Tyrone was The Truman Show. Similar to how Truman has a distinct routine every day, Fontaine has the same day, every day. 

Taylor establishes this by walking us through a day in the life of Fontaine. He wakes up, lifts weights, and goes to the gas station for a drink and a scratch-off that always says “You Lose!” We walk through the same events the next day when something strange happens. From there, every time Fontaine goes through those same motions, he is following his “life plan” established by some higher force. 

This is a thematic element of blame and responsibility that Taylor wanted to explore in a sci-fi satirical story. If Fontaine continues his routine, he will always lose. But who is to blame if he does? Who tells him that he isn’t responsible for his actions, even if he is a clone? 

Taylor understands that audiences understand visual repetition very well and lean into that to showcase who his characters are and their internal struggles as the story unfolds. You don’t have to explain things that the audience already knows. 

They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

6. Plant and Pay-Off

ScreenCraft writer Ken Miyamoto wrote it best when he said that the most entertaining movies are the ones that have plants that pay off. These moments of foreshadowing feel rewarding when an audience notices that small details have a purpose in the larger narrative. 

For They Cloned Tyrone, Taylor creates a tight screenplay by having the smallest moment have the biggest impact on the screen. 

The government conspiracy is established early on in the film when Fontaine interacts with the world around him. From the hair formula making people careless about their problems to the commercials for fried chicken with “Inserts of folks lovin’ the shit outta said chicken. Motherfuckers dancin’ after every bite,” the gang becomes aware that they are being used as lab rats for a government experiment. 

Another plant and pay-off is the code, “Olympia Black.” Originally, the phrase is used against Fontaine and his gang to take control of the clones. However, Fontaine ends up using the code to save himself, his neighborhood, and the corruption of power from the person in charge. 

There are so many little details that end up paying off in a satisfying way in the script, which makes each detail strong and meaningful. After the first plant pays off, the audience is hooked and is ready to find more of those entertaining and satisfying moments. 

They Cloned Tyrone is a masterfully written screenplay that subverts expectations in a number of ways. Taylor's use of references, his unique voice, and his ability to balance comedy and drama all contribute to the film's success. Additionally, Taylor's use of repetition and plant-and-pay-off techniques help to keep the audience engaged from beginning to end.

If you're a screenwriter looking to learn from the best, then I highly recommend checking out They Cloned Tyrone. It's a film that is sure to inspire you to create your own unique and entertaining stories.

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The post 6 Screenwriting Tips from Juel Taylor's ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ appeared first on ScreenCraft.

What started this madness, and is there already a clear winner? Let’s get into it. 

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Twin Films Happen All the Time… So Why is Barbenheimer Different?

Twin films are not a new phenomenon. They typically happen when two studios invest in similar scripts at a similar time and are racing to get their film in theaters first. 

However, two completely different movies becoming twin movies are rare. The only example that comes to mind is in 2008 when Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight were released on the same date. 

When we look at the cast and crew of both Barbie and Oppenheimer, we see industry-beloved, Oscar-nominated writers/directors creating projects with a highly awarded and praised crew and an all-star cast. These movies are more similar than we realize when we look at the posters. 

While they couldn’t be more different in aesthetics, tone, and style, Barbie and Oppenheimer have similarities. They were both created by auteurs. Case in point when Barbie's director Greta Gerwig captured the attention of the male-dominated cinephile world, who would have never been willing to give the Barbie movie a minute of their day, by referencing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with the first Barbie trailer.  

Read More: Screenwriting Advice from Lady Bird Writer/Director Greta Gerwig

The marketing of Barbie is trying to convince a male audience who isn’t comfortable with their masculinity that this movie is also for them through careful marketing and highlighting the level of craft that went into each and every frame. 

Oppenheimer's director Christopher Nolan, however, doesn’t have to prove that he is making a movie for a specific audience. He is a filmmaker that has established himself by taking risks and crafting visually compelling narratives as an auteur that film bros. and cinephiles everywhere adore. He is a filmmaker who also cares about the details of each frame, which makes audiences care about the story he is telling us. 

At this point, both films and filmmakers have told audiences everywhere that their movies are for people who love movies. Neither film is targeting a specific audience, but they are rather opening the doors for original stories that have the potential to perform well at the box office. 

Read More: Screenwriting Wisdom from Christopher Nolan

Why Are ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Releasing on the Same Day?

While it is not fully transparent why Barbie and Oppenheimer are being released on the same day, there are some excellent theories behind the strategic move. 

After Warner Bros. Discovery decided to dump its entire 2021 theatrical slate on HBO Max during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nolan, who had a 20-year relationship with the studio, packed his bags and went to Universal. 

"Some of our industry's biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service," Nolan told THR in December 2020.

When Deadline reported that Nolan would be making his next movie, Oppenheimer, at Universal, Warner Bros. saw the opportunity to release a major film on the same day to compete. 

As theatrical-release dates began to fill the 2023 calendar, Oppenheimer was slated for July. 21, which studios, theaters, and movie fans know is the prime blockbuster season and Nolan’s preferred-release week since 2008’s The Dark Knight (four out of his last six movies have been released in mid- to late-July). Rather than going for an adult drama that would ultimately not perform well at the box office, Warner Bros. decided to swing in the opposite direction and slate Barbie, a light-hearted comedy from Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig. 

Sources familiar with the issue tell Insider that Nolan was upset with Warner Bros. scheduling Barbie on the same weekend as Oppenheimer. There was even an attempt by the movie-theater community to convince Warner Bros. to change the release date of Barbie. However, the studio didn’t budge or comment on why they wouldn’t change the date. 

While Nolan has avoided answering interview questions about this theory, he does state that “those who care about the theatrical experience, we’ve been longing for a crowded marketplace with a lot of different movies. That’s what theaters have now, and those of us who care about  movies are thrilled about that.” 

Despite the possible efforts from Warner Bros. to sabotage their ex-filmmaker, the plan may have backfired as audiences are eager to watch both films for one of the strangest double features to date.

Read More: How Oppenheimer Created a CGI-Free Atomic Blast

Who is Winning “Barbenheimer”?

It seems that almost everyone excited for Barbenheimer has already gotten their hands on tickets for the opening weekend of both films. 

Cillian Murphy and Tom Cruise have both stated that they will be watching both films in theaters on Jul. 21, with Murphy saying in an interview, “I think it’s just great for the industry and for audiences that we have two amazing films by amazing filmmakers coming out on the same day. Yeah, you get to spend a whole day in the cinema. What’s better than that?” 

Currently, Barbie is projected to gross $80-$100 million on opening weekend, while Oppenheimer is estimated to gross $50 million. Two weeks before their release, AMC Theaters released a press statement that over 20,000 AMC Stubs members had already pre-booked tickets to both films on the same day, seeing a 33 percent increase in people buying double feature tickets from Jul. 7 to Jul. 10. 

While Oppenheimer might be the more critically-acclaimed film of the two, it’s clear that Barbie has a larger appeal to the general public. 

Read More: America Ferrera's Glorious 'Barbie' Monologue Explained

Unfortunately, Oppenheimer is a mature drama, and adult dramas have notoriously not done well in the theaters in our post-pandemic world. Sure, the three-hour-long biopic will be stunning to see in theaters as we watch the first black and white IMAX footage ever shot shine on the silver screen, but Barbie is barely an hour and a half long and is telling the story of an American icon and cultural phenomenon. 

While Barbie will more than likely come out on top, further drawing a divide in Nolan and Warner Bros. strained relationship, it will be wonderful to spend a day at the cinema watching two great films made by writers/directors who care about the longevity of cinema and the moviegoing experience.

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The post Barbenheimer: Why Are ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Battling at the Box Office? appeared first on ScreenCraft.

There has been a lot of discourse around what a Mary Sue character is and what characters do or don’t fall into this character type. The history around this term is complicated, and people have used it incorrectly and in misogynistic ways. 

Let’s define what a Mary Sue character is, the term’s origins, examples of the character, how you can avoid writing them in your screenplays, and if there is a specific story that allows Mary Sue characters to thrive. 

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Mary Sue Meaning

Mary Sue is a derogatory term used to criticize a character that fits into either or both of these two character archetypes: 

1. An author-insert character used for wish-fulfillment 
2. An idealized character who is talented at everything and has no meaningful flaws, but may have a tragic backstory

Despite the gendered name, the Mary Sue trope can apply to both female and male characters (the male-specific is sometimes referred to as a Gary Stu or Marty Stu). 

The term originated from Star Trek fan fiction and was coined by Paula Smith in the 1973 parody short story, A Trekkie’s Tale. However, the author-insert character has been around in literature since the 1800s. Although Mary Sue was first identified in fan fiction and literature, the term naturally found its way into other forms of storytelling like film and television.

The Characteristics of a Mary Sue

As the derisive term grew in popularity and entered the mainstream, the rules for what characteristics would be considered "Mary Sue" became slightly skewed. There are a lot of debates and disagreements over precise characteristics. However, these are the main characteristics to help you understand what traits to look out for: 

• One-dimensional, flat, and lacking nuance. There is nothing distinguishable about who this character is or what they want. 
• Exceptionally talented at everything, and rarely struggles. 
• The conflict revolves around them and is solved by them. 
• No weaknesses or realistic character flaws, which means there are no negative consequences for their actions. 
• Beautiful and desirable with stereotypical attractive traits.
• A dramatic tragic backstory.
• Immediately loved, admired, and idealized by other characters who are captured by their wit, charm, beauty, and/or bravery.

It should be noted that Mary Sue is often misattributed to characters who are poorly written or fit into another cliche. There are also individuals who use the Mary Sue trope to label any female characters in prominent roles that they dislike. 

Although the term is used for sexist arguments, the term itself is a point of criticism not directed at the gender of a character but at the weak or lazy writing.

Read More: 5 Tips on How to Write an Awesome Female Protagonist

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Examples of a Mary Sue in Film and TV

Just as there is debate over the definition of the Mary Sue trope, there is also debate over whether or not particular characters are considered Mary Sue examples. Since the term is informal and flexible, there is no concrete rule on what makes a character a true Mary Sue example.

When we look at examples of the Mary Sue trope, we have to consider each character on a sliding scale. At one end of the scale, we have Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) from the Twilight saga, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) from Fifty Shades of Grey, any iteration of James Bond, and Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. These characters are typically bland and average enough for everyone to see themselves in the role. 

In the middle of the scale, we have characters like Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) from The Hunger Games, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) from the Harry Potter franchise, and Jim (John Krasinski) from The Office. These are characters who face struggles and are somewhat developed, but they seem to be skilled at everything they do without much effort.  

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Rey (Daisy Ridley) from Star Wars, and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) from Game of Thrones. These characters’ status as Mary Sues is greatly debated because they don’t exactly fit the trope. 

It's important to note that not everyone will agree that these characters are Mary Sues. The term is subjective and some of the criticism may be unfair or based on stereotypes and biases about characters or stories.

Read More: How to Craft the Perfect Friend Character Archetype

Twilight (2008)

How to Avoid Writing a Mary Sue

Weak characters that serve the plot and nothing else are tropes that every writer needs to avoid. Rather than relying on this crutch to get a character on the page, remember these few tips to avoid writing a Mary Sue character. 

When you are writing your character, make sure to give them flaws and weaknesses. By giving your character flaws, you can make them more relatable and help the audience connect with them. This will also make the character not seem too perfect since Mary Sue characters often seem too good to be true. 

Once you have a flawed character, have them face consequences for their actions. A Mary Sue character often gets away with everything and faces no real consequences for their actions, which can be frustrating and unrealistic. Make sure your character faces consequences for their mistakes and learns from them.

You can further develop your characters by creating a backstory that influences their personality and motivations throughout the story. Instead of writing a two-dimensional and uninteresting character, develop a backstory that makes them three-dimensional. You don’t have to include the backstory in the film, but make sure you know who your character is. 

Lastly, avoid making the character the center of attention all the time. No one likes a scene stealer, so develop all of your other characters and give them a chance to have their moment in the story. There is a reason why you’ve written them. Don’t create poorly written characters that have no purpose.

Overall, creating a well-rounded and interesting character requires time and effort, but it can result in a more engaging and relatable story. By avoiding the pitfalls of a Mary Sue character, you can create a more realistic and compelling character that audiences will enjoy.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015)

Can a Mary Sue Work for a Film or TV Show?

The best practice is to avoid writing a Mary Sue character in the majority of your screenplays. However, there are certain situations where an author-insert character who lacks flaws may be the perfect protagonist for the story. 

Many of the best coming-of-age films have a Mary Sue nature to their storytelling. Oftentimes, there is an autobiographical or semi-auto-biographical nature to these films, and use an author-insert character to lead the story. 

Mid90s, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Almost Famous feature author-insert characters that pull heavily from the lives of their creators. 

If you are telling a narrative story that pulls heavily from your memories, creating a Mary Sue isn't a bad thing. Be mindful that you are creating someone who isn't “perfect,” but is rather an author-inserted character. Create a protagonist that is complex and flawed and ensure that they have a character arc, much like you did in the real world. 

Read More: Four Keys to Developing a Strong Protagonist

Almost Famous (2000)

What you write matters, and will influence your future audience. Make sure all of your characters are not poorly written. Take the time, develop them and put in the effort to make a meaningful and moving screenplay that the audience will enjoy responding to. 

Read More: 99 Archetypes and Stock Characters Screenwriters Can Mold

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The post What is a Mary Sue Character? appeared first on ScreenCraft.

The standards of the Evil Dead franchise established by writer/director Sam Raimi are practically a bloody good time, featuring many practical effects and make-up that deliver an immeasurable amount of disgust throughout the original trilogy. The B-film aesthetic and horror-comedy have been a staple of the franchise, with Fede Álvarez’s gritty 2013 requel Evil Dead using little CGI in the film, often to remove wires and protect the cast and crew from the last act’s house fire, and Lee Cronin’s upcoming Evil Dead Rise, which star Alyssa Sutherland tells /Films that "there's no digital" effects. 

Read More: How Oppenheimer Created a CGI-Free Atomic Blast

Practical effects in a horror movie are always fun to break down. In a world where CGI reigns, practical effects are a creative solution that looks better and gives filmmakers a chance to make their audience’s skin crawl. 

Whether possessed characters are levitating, climbing on walls, or sawing a part of their body off, all of these lend themselves to practical stunts, stop-motion animation, and highly theatrical acting. 

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Creating the Perfect Deadite

What makes a monster in a film terrifying is its ability to transform human characters into something uncanny. Evil Dead Rise’s Ellie (Sutherland) looks gruesome with her sickly decomposing skin, following closely to Álvarez’s portrayal of a Deadite possessed rather than Raimi’s white-eyed demons. 

When Ash (Bruce Campbell) returns to find his girlfriend Linda (Besty Baker) possessed by a Deadite, a demon that possesses humans and feasts on their souls, in The Evil Dead, her appearance is instantly memorable. The glazed-over, white eyes, and hauntingly wide smile were done practically. 

Raimi had actors wear contact lenses that were painful to apply and blinded the actors wearing them. While the eyes of the Deadite-possessed characters are a gold hue that actors can see out of, a little CGI is used to control the contacts. 

As for the bloody, scared, decomposing bodies that the Deadite possessed, it’s all special effects makeup and gore. It’s safe to assume that most of Ellie’s look is done through special effects makeup as she becomes something more sinister throughout the film, and camera angles and lens choices will also help contort her face to make her look even more uncanny as she taunts her family into an early grave. 

Read More: 25 Films You Have to Watch If You're Writing a Horror Script

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

The Demonic Movements

The Deadites enjoy showing off their supernatural abilities, mostly to scare the life out of their next victim. We’ve seen spot-motion, practical effects, and heightened acting used to create the unique ticks and inhuman movements of the possessed, from Linda’s decapitated body dancing around in The Evil Dead 2 to Mia’s (Jane Levy) final encounter with the abomination (Randal Wilson) in Evil Dead. 

Evil Dead Rise continues the legacy of practical effects with stunt doubles doing most of the daring effects throughout the film. Sutherland tells /Films that stunt doubles replaced post-production digital FX. Although she fought hard to do her own stunts (and was unfortunately told no by production for time constraints), Sutherland did work on perfecting the twitchy movement of a Deadite possessed. 

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Blood, Blood, and More Blood

Evil Dead films do not shy away from graphic content, which often features a lot of blood, guts, and gore. According to All The Right Movies, audience members who gave blood got a free ticket to see The Evil Dead in theaters, establishing itself as a film full of bloody moments. 

The Evil Dead did have its limitations with gore, with censor boards cutting multiple scenes that were too graphic despite the blood being different colors of liquid, and Germany banning the film for its graphic content. Special effects artist Tom Sullivan created many of the bloody effects, adding coffee grinds to the traditional fake blood formula of corn syrup and food coloring to give it a more visceral texture on camera. 

Actor Bruce Campbell has stated that the ideal recipe for fake blood on a budget requires half a bottle of clear Karo syrup, a full bottle of red food coloring, a few dashes of blue food coloring to make the color more vibrant, and some powdered nondairy creamer to add opacity to the blood. This recipe creates visually stunning movie blood for under $25. Just don’t eat it, please. 

Read More: A Horror Writer's Responsibility: What to Consider When Writing Violence

The Evil Dead (1981)

While Evil Dead had an excellent blood rain sequence, Evil Dead Rise might take the cake for using the most movie blood in the franchise.

While Cronin and his team didn’t use Raimi’s homemade recipe, Evil Dead Rise uses a type of movie blood that is a viscous, soupy mixture that we saw dripping out of horror legend Christopher Lee’s month in the 1950s.

Today, a gallon of this type of blood costs about $135.

Cronin says that Evil Dead Rise uses about 1,717 gallons of this expensive movie blood, which is about $231,795 worth of blood. For perspective, the human body only contains about 1.5 gallons of blood. The film would have required 1,113 completely drained people. All of this is to say that there is a lot of blood for a movie focused on four people.

"[It's] all proper sticky, icky movie blood. Like the real deal. There's no cheating of taking some water and putting red food coloring in because that will not do,” Cronin told /Film. “This was all cooked. We had to hire an industrial kitchen to make the amount of blood that we needed, and it was everywhere. So yeah, it's the real deal. And it's splattered all over the screen."

Fake blood, no matter the shade or texture, has roots and connects film to the audience’s lived experience. Blood reminds us of the reality we are being presented with, and Raimi’s created reality is horror and comedy. It’s gory and over-the-top. If CGI blood was used in any of these films, the audience would be taken out, removed from the reality of the film, and only approach it as make-believe. This is the power behind practical blood effects. 

Read More: The Art of Writing Horror: Constructing a Scare

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

The Sound of Evil

To sell any practical effect, the perfect sound has to be created. The sound elements of horror films are the glue that takes everything to the next level and makes us believe in the practical effects on screen. As Sam Raimi once said to the Hollywood Report, “Sound is one of the best tools a filmmaker has at [their] disposal.” 

For The Evil Dead, Raimi’s low-budget film didn’t have the funds to create the monster, but the cult director saw this as “the luckiest thing that ever happened.” 

So, how did Raimi create his practical monster on a budget? 

“We took out the natural sounds and created a track that was part voice, part music, part sound effects – the voice of the evil,” Raimi says. “We didn’t show what it was; we used these sound tools to plant the seeds in the minds of the audience of what this horror could be.”

Read More: 101 Terrifying Horror Story Prompts

Even though Evil Dead Rise might have a higher budget, the sound design established by Raimi has become a staple of what makes Deadites so terrifying and unnerving. In the trailer, we saw multiple instances of the sound design working overtime. From the constant cracking of eggs to the tile-shattering scream from Deadite Ellie, the sound of Evil Dead Rise carries on Raimi’s legacy of a terrifying hell on Earth. 

“I take sound extremely seriously and I’m glad that people are connecting with the soundtrack, the soundscape of the movie, from the music to the sound design,” Cronin told TheWrap. “It’s a full noise film.” 

Take a listen to the horrors Cronin designed.

Raimi’s take on low budget horror showed the world the possibilities of the genre. 42 years later, Evil Dead Rise continues the legacy established by a master of horror by delivering practical effects, intricate makeup design, buckets of blood, and hair-raising sound design that is impossible to escape. 

Evil Dead Rise is relentless in its pursuit of fear. It is a love letter to the world Raimi created with his no-budget masterpiece by continuing the practical legacy of filmmaking. 

Read More: 3 Low-Budget Horror Movies To Inspire Your Scary Screenplay

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The post How 'Evil Dead Rise' Carries on Sam Raimi's DIY Filmmaking Legacy appeared first on ScreenCraft.

That is a surprisingly low amount of words, but there are some films that have the main character remain silent throughout the film like Gordon/"Silence" (Jean-Louis Trintignant) in The Great Silence (1969) and Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun) in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeacne (2002). 

Wick is known as a character of few words, but why does it work for his character? Let’s get into it. 

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John Wick: A Man of Few Words

John Wick is a character who, despite having few words, has an abundance of talent and assassin skills to showcase on screen. According to the Wall Street Journal, in the first installment of the John Wick franchise, Reeves speaks only 484 words over a 101-minute runtime. This trend continues in subsequent films, with Wick delivering only 380 lines over a 168-minute runtime in John Wick: Chapter 4, and many of those lines being featured in the movie’s trailer. In fact, Reeves’ longest-running line in the upcoming installment is a mere twelve words.

This limited dialogue has a purpose. Throughout the franchise, Wick has evolved into a symbol of death driven by revenge for the loss of his wife and dog, Daisy. He is feared and respected as the boogeyman of the underground world of assassins, and no words from anyone, including himself, will dissuade him from his quest for vengeance.

Despite his fearsome reputation, little is known about Wick, adding to his mysterious and enigmatic nature. His quiet demeanor and lack of words serve to enhance this mystique, making him seem more unpredictable and tactical. 

The result is a character that is not only deadly but also intriguing as the audience waits to see what he will do to get out of almost any perilous situation.

Read More: 10 Things to Delete From Your Dialogue Scenes Right Now

Keanu Reeves in 'John Wick Chapter 4'

How Visuals and Sound Design Allow John Wick to Say Less

John Wick transformed how Hollywood approaches the action genre. With neo-noirs and genre-bending becoming a staple in cinema, the John Wick films adopted the Hong Kong-inspired genre of gun-fu, a style of action that merges martial arts with gunplay. This innovative approach to action choreography gave screenwriters the ability to convey character development through the fighting style of the characters and highly stylized visuals.

As Wick fluidly shifts between hand-to-hand combat and firearms, we can see the intelligence and strategic thinking of the character through Reeves’ on-screen performance, camera angles, and camera movement. Wick doesn't need to use words to intimidate his opponents. Instead, Wick is framed in camera and the story as someone whose actions will speak for themselves. 

Read More: The Difference Between Necessary and Unnecessary Dialogue in Screenplays

Editing Style

The Kuleshov effect — a film editing style that employs the theory that two shots in a sequence create more of a psychological effect than one — is often used in the edit to convey precisely what John Wick is thinking without slowing down the pace of a fight sequence. This character-building approach relies on subtle visual cues and doesn't require dialogue. It's used effectively throughout John Wick: Chapter 4, like when Wick is looking for a weapon to fight Caine in Osaka or when Wick is trying to outmaneuver the many other assassins after him in Paris.

There are also scenes during action sequences that are long-form, long takes designed to look like a single shot. These long takes establish the size and magnitude of the threat to Wick before Wick can see it. In one scene near the end of John Wick: Chapter 4, director Chad Stahelski navigates a shoot-out in an abandoned Parisian building by following Wick with an overhead long take. It might be the coolest shot of the film, but it also showcases how Wick’s character has the ability to assess a threat, adapt to any given space, and become an overtaking threat that is so terrifying that the camera has to get out of his way. 

This video essay by Thomas Flight explains in more detail how the film's editor Evan Schiff broke action genre norms when cutting together the third installment of John Wick.

Shot Design

The cinematography of each shot allows John Wick to exist within the space without saying a word. The use of desaturated blues, reds, greens, and gold reflects John Wick's mental state and reinforces the stylized neo-noir tone of the story.

On the technical side, cinematographer Dan Lausten, who shot the last three films of the franchise, decided to switch from shooting on an Arri Alexa SXT Plus to an Arri Alexa LF — the LF standing for "large format." So, what? How does that affect the image and how does it change the visual storytelling?

I'm glad you asked.

Without going too much into detail about camera sensors and lenses, a camera that has a larger sensor can shoot more pixels, and lenses designed to shoot large format can capture more of a frame. In more technical terms, your angle of view is higher and your camera can capture larger images without losing resolution. This means that, say... highly choreographed and complicated fight scenes like the ones in John Wick Chapter 4 can be captured in a single frame. You get all the action in a single shot!

Check out this awesome breakdown from Frame Voyager that explains how something like camera choice changed so much about the visual storytelling of John Wick Chapter 4.

Sound Design

The sound design is another technique that adds to the visual language. The sound of a gun being cocked adds tension to a scene that words can't convey. Even in moments of silence, John Wick's lack of dialogue creates an atmosphere of danger as he navigates a world that is brutal and unforgiving.

John Wick's scarcity of dialogue in the franchise is meaningful. It reflects his personality and emphasizes the visual and auditory language of the film. His silence is a deliberate choice that adds to his mystique and intrigue. 

If you're writing a neo-noir story, it can be challenging not to overwrite your stoic character’s dialogue. I get that you want your main character to be at the top of the call sheet. But sometimes, trust that less is more, especially in action-packed films. Challenge yourself to communicate what needs to be said through actions, sound design, and location descriptions can lead to a more compelling and immersive story.

The post How Visuals Let Keanu Reeves Say Only 380 Words in 'John Wick Chapter 4' appeared first on ScreenCraft.

Asteroid City follows the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention disrupted by spectacularly world-changing events. Co-written with Roman Coppola, Anderson always nails his whimsical style due to how meticulously detailed his scripts are. Here are some of Anderson’s classic quirks we see in his scripts, and how they make an appearance in Asteroid City.

How Does Anderson Nail His Visual Language?

By the time Wes Anderson is ready to start principal photography, his scripts are completely finished. He doesn’t limit his imagination and writes what he wants to see on film. 

The action is precise because he knows exactly how he wants each scene to play out. If there is any room for misinterpretation, then Anderson will double down on the needed descriptions. 

Read More: How to Incorporate Visuals into Your Screenplay

Anderson’s exposition is so wonderful to read because it is on the nose, and there is nothing wrong with being on the nose. It tells everyone reading the script exactly what they should expect from the tone of the film. The best part is that he can deliver a scene’s worth of information in a single line and in a single frame, a challenge that many writers and directors struggle with. 

There is an obsessive control and reiteration of information, which is a trademark of Wes Anderson’s style. While we don’t have the screenplay for Astroid City, we can see some of his trademarks in the film’s trailer. Here are four ways Anderson translates his obsession from the page to the screen. 

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Delivering Information Through Characters

One way Anderson drives home information in a way that a viewer can’t miss is through the characters. Screenwriters know that there has to be an inciting incident near the beginning of the film that kicks off the film. In Asteroid City, we see this through the conversation between Augie (Jason Schwartzman) and Tom Hanks’s character. 

Over the phone, Tom Hanks’ character reveals that Augie and his family didn’t make it. Augie delivers the information of the inciting incident by stating that his car exploded. 

Necessary information is also told to the audience by the audience so a pivotal moment isn’t lost if someone isn’t looking at the screen. 

Read More: Supercut of the Day: Clustercuss of Swearing in Wes Anderson Films is Fucking Great

Setting the Scene

As I mentioned earlier, Anderson has an obsessive control over his story’s aesthetic. In Moonrise Kingdom, we see Anderson's Art Nouveau adapted to fit the naturalistic environment of the woods and the island in the film.

In his description of one of the locations, Anderson pointedly states what we see and what should and shouldn’t exist in the frame, even down to exactly what each character is wearing: 

Download the script!

These highly detailed descriptions establish the visual language of Anderson on the page, and easily translate to the screen because of how clearly everyone from the cast and crew understands his vision. 

'Asteroid City' (2023)

Separating Stories Within the Story

Anderson is not afraid to tell stories within his main story and play within the medium of film. In The French Dispatch, Anderson separates his vignettes with inserts that describe a title card that we see. The stylized card acts as an introduction to a scene that exists outside of the main story. 

Check out how Anderson introduces the “City Section” in The French Dispatch:

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In Asteroid City, we see that there is at least one aspect ratio change that the town’s folk showcase their latest achievements in technology. From this, we can assume that Anderson separates this moment from his story by having an insert introducing this visual tangent that adds to the film’s overall narrative. 

Split Screen Conversations

Anderson's films often have characters having phone conversations. Rather than have one character on screen at a time, Anderson chooses to show off his characters and their atmospheres through the split screen. 

Split screens allow viewers to see both characters, and the editing plays a central role in establishing closeness and the tone between the characters. In Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson establishes the use of the split screen in his screenplay: 

This highly descriptive exposition establishes the scenes and the relationship the characters have with each other. 

Anderson’s Asteroid City uses the split screen to craft a vivid portrayal of the relationship between Augie and Tom Hanks’s characters, emphasizing the tension between them through contrasting color palettes.

Read More: Screenwriting Basics: How to Write Cinematic Phone Conversations

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There is an undeniable charm to Anderson’s aesthetic, and it comes from his ability to establish exactly what he wants in his screenplays. His stories are lean. They say exactly what needs to be said without beating around the bush. 

Screenwriters can learn from Anderson’s unique style by writing their exact intentions with a scene through the exposition. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the traditional form of a screenplay to translate your visual intentions with your story. 

In the meantime, we will be patiently waiting for Anderson’s Asteroid City to hit theaters on June 16, 2023.

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The post 4 Screenplay Trademarks from Wes Anderson We Spotted in ‘Asteroid City’ appeared first on ScreenCraft.

While Shrek had his last onscreen performance in 2010 with Shrek Forever After, his feline companion Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) starred in a 2011 prequel, Puss in Boots, that followed Puss’s adventures before joining Shrek and Donkey in their adventures. After ten years, Puss returns with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which takes place after the events of the Shrek franchise, where Puss struggles to live up to his reputation. 

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From the opening scene, the film declares that “this is a fairy tale,” and the film remarkably changes everything we have expected from the franchise in the first ten minutes. Director Joel Crawford injects stylized action sequences and visual gaps reminiscent of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but makes the style own through unique visuals that we haven’t seen in animation before.

Read More: 5 Serious Takeaways From Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Co-Writer Rodney Rothman

For an animated film targeted towards younger audiences, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a great movie to learn from for any person interested in making live-action or animated films. Let’s break down the story of The Last Wish and what made this story a technical and visual delight.

What Happens in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

After renowned hero and outlaw Puss in Boots is fatally crushed by a bell, Puss wakes up in a hospital where a doctor informs him that he has used eight of his nine lives. With one life left, the doctor urges Puss to retire from his life of adventure. 

Puss refuses but later changes his mind after meeting a mysterious black-hooded wolf (Wagner Moura) who disarms Puss, cuts him on his forehead, and taunts him to pick up his sword. Out of fear of dying, Puss flees to the house of Mama Luna, a cat lady, and ceremoniously buries his attire in her garden. 

Later, the crime family of Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears show up at Luna’s, looking to recruit Puss to steal the magical map of the Wishing Star from Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney) so they can grant a wish. After only finding Puss’s “grave,” the crime family leaves, and Puss follows with a stray dog that is only referred to as Perrito (Harvey Guillén).

Once Puss breaks into Horner’s bakery to steal the map and restore his life, he unexpectedly reunites with Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault), who is seeking the map to find someone she can trust. The map leads the trio of Puss, Kitty, and Perrito into the Dark Forest, a pocket dimension that changes its terrain depending on the map’s holder. While Puss and Kitty both receive dark, hellish landscapes, Perrito’s is a colorful and tranquil forest.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

During another run-in with Honer and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Puss spots the hooded wolf again and flees. Perrito follows and calms down Puss from his panic attack. Puss confesses to Perrito that he is living his last life and leaves Kitty at the altar on their wedding day. Kitty overhears this and tells Puss that she never attended the wedding either because she knew she couldn’t compete with someone who loved themselves more than her. 

After reclaiming that map from Goldilocks, the landscape morphs, and Perrito is captured by the bears while Puss is trapped in a crystalline cave. Inside the cave, Puss encounters crystal reflections of his past lives, who mock him for changing his perspective on life.

During this argument, the hooded world appears, saying he followed the scent of Puss’s fear and introduced himself as Death. Death reveals that he seeks to kill Puss as retribution for wasting his past lives. Again, out of fear, Puss flees with the map, leaving Kitty and Perrito behind. 

Meanwhile, Goldilocks reveals that she wishes for a human family, which devastates the bears, who see her as one of their own. Even though they are hurt, the bears agree to help her if this wish ultimately makes her happy.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Ending Explained

At the wishing star, Kitty confronts Puss for his selfishness. During their argument, Goldilocks, the bears, and Horner arrive, and another fight ensues.

Goldilocks forfeits her wish to save Baby Bear’s life during the fight. Horner is trapped inside his magical bottomless bag. When Puss is given the map, Death arrives, trapping Puss and himself in a ring of hellfire.

When Death challenges Puss to a duel, Puss agrees, forfeiting his wish and choosing to be brave and face Death. During the fight, Death notes that Puss has lost his arrogance and has finally accepted his mortality, and spares him after promising Puss that they will meet again. 

Having eaten a magical growth cookie, Horner reemerges from his bag as a giant and takes the map from Puss and Kitty. As he attempts to make a wish, Perrito distracts him so Puss, Kitty, Goldilocks, and the bears can rip the map to shreds. This causes the Wishing Star to collapse and consume Horner. 

As they watch the meteor shower from the ground, Goldilocks accepts the bears as her family, while Puss rekindles his love for Kitty and includes Perrito as a member of their group.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

The Existential Crises of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish 

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we start to understand the finality of death. While the concept of death is relatively simple, the “ah-ha” moment of realizing that everything has an expiration date is…well, terrifying. 

Understanding this grim subject matter is hard to make comforting, yet The Last Wish breaks down this existential crisis in an honest and comforting way. How does an animated movie about a suave anti-hero cat in the Shrek universe handle death? Let’s get into it. 

For one, death is present from the beginning. A bell kills Puss, but the audience must remember that we live in a fantasy world, and the myth that a cat has nine lives becomes true in this story. The world’s rules are established without any room for misinterpretation: Puss is in his final life and will die if he doesn’t change his perspective on life. 

Puss’s previous deaths resulted from his arrogance and lack of care for himself or others around him. He believes that his bravery came from a belief that he was invincible, which means that he had never felt accountable to himself or to anybody else. 

If you truly want to understand Puss’s perspective on life, listen to the opening song of The Last Wish:

After being confronted by Death, both physically and methodically, Puss realizes that he can die. His last life is all he has. To persevere in this life, Puss chooses to let the legend of Puss in Boots fade into oblivion as he lives the rest of his days in a cat retirement home where he is miserable and goes through the motions of life. 

After being forced into an adventure, Puss realizes how physically vulnerable he is and that he needs others’ support as much as he needs to support theirs. 

In one of the most beautiful scenes of The Last Wish, Puss has a panic attack and disappears into the woods. When the animators put us into Puss’s perspective, the world is blurry, and the voices are distorted. Perrito finds Puss in this state, understanding that Puss is having a panic attack, and lays his head on Puss to comfort him in his time of need. 

It is a simple moment, yet so profoundly moving because it shows how being there for someone in their time of need can make all the difference. 

Death is scary, but The Last Wish reminds us that we all have to face death one day. Nobody dismisses Puss’s fear of death, yet they are all encouraging him not to run away in fear of it. Instead, enjoy the life you have and do what you can to be happy in the end. 

Once Puss finds happiness from this adventure, a feeling he has never had before, his joy becomes a source of courage. He battles Death and admits that while he may not be able to defeat him, he will continue to fight for his life.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Smelling the Posies With Perrito

I am also skeptical about side characters in animated films, especially ones as adorable as Perrito. These characters are often reduced to being the butt of the joke, but Perrito is different. Perrito is okay with being the butt of the joke because he is involved with the other characters. 

Dreaming of being a therapy dog, Perrito is relentlessly optimistic, offering insight into a new perspective on life. There are many reasons Perrito exists in this narrative, but one of my favorite moments is when the trio walks into the field of posies.  

In this scene, posies violently shoot from the ground and block the path ahead. Puss and Kitty chop through the posies, attacking the enemy as they normally would, but the posies overwhelm them. Perrito, blissfully unaware of the dangers of the flowers, sniffs the posies, which allows him to walk past the flowers easily. Puss and Kitty must let go of their survival instincts and learn to take the time to smell the flowers. 

When confronting death, we often lose sight of the small joys of life. Perrito reminds us to take the time and find value in those small, joyful moments.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Finding Your Chosen Family

While death is the ever-looming theme in The Last Wish, the B story, which often features secondary characters and their problems rather than having them support the main characters, focuses on Goldilocks and her wish to have a family of her own.  

In this version of the fairy tale, Goldilocks is an orphan, or at least so young that when the bears discover her sleeping in Baby Bear’s (Samson Kayo) bed, they decide to keep her and raise her as one of their own. When we meet them in The Last Wish, they’ve been operating as a crime family. 

The foursome works so well together that it is a gut punch to the bears and us when Goldilocks reveals that she wants a “proper” family. Papa and Mama Bear (Ray Winstone and Olivia Colman) make a heart-breaking decision to continue helping Goldilocks find the star anyway because they love and care for Goldilocks and want her to be happy. 

The unawareness of the hurt Goldilocks causes something we have all done with people who care for us. It’s natural to be caught up in your ideas of what you want that you don’t take a step back to realize that you already have everything. 

The relationship between the bears and Goldilocks is a perfect example of a chosen family and the mutual love and support we all crave in our lives.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Is This the End of Puss in Boots?

With his confidence restored and a newfound appreciation for the company, the future for Puss is open to new possibilities. 

One possibility that The Last Wish explicitly teases at the end of the film is the possibility of checking back in with Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey as Puss and his team sail for the kingdom of Far Far Away. We did see many familiar faces from the Shrek films in The Last Wish, like Gingy the Gingerbread Man (Conrad Vernon) and Pinocchio. We also see brief glimpses of Shrek and Donkey with Puss as his lives flash before his eyes. 

Puss is a wonderful character that is open to any challenge that comes his way. Although he tends to stick to his Zorro-esque ways, Puss is a revolutionary figure who is open to change if it means helping those he does care about. Even though it took more than ten years to get the first sequel to Puss in Boots, the spin-off franchise is fully realized and knows how to tackle heavy conversation in a fun and honest way.

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