A director’s tool for script analysis E. Jane Thompson
Industry Centre > Blogs > A director’s tool for script analysis | E. Jane Thompson
Posted by E. Jane Thompson
on Tuesday, September 01, 2009.
Categories: Film, Directing, Alumni
With this entry, a return after a long hiatus, I’m moving away from using the blog, as I said in my first post, to “chart the journey of making my first feature film” (see update below) and turning my focus to the craft of directing.
I’ll post when I’ve got something I think might be interesting or useful to you, based on my on-going study and practice of directing.
I truly welcome your feedback on anything I post. Chime in!
A director’s tool for script analysis
Last fall in the bookstore at London’s National Theatre I stumbled onto The Director’s Craft by Katie Mitchell.
I’d been knocked out by the sheer inventiveness of her play The Waves in 2006 and jumped at the opportunity to see what she had to say about directing.
In her book, Mitchell observes that whereas actors are taught to act, directors very often are thrown in and left to their own devices.
Early in her career she conceived a training program for herself, touring and studying at major theatre companies in Eastern Europe and Russia. Back in England, at one point, she hired a directing coach.
Convinced that directors need training, Mitchell has written a clear, concise book. While it is based in a theatre practice, I believe it is immensely useful for film directors. Every page is loaded with information like Mitchell’s "twelve golden rules for working with actors."
She is known for her extensive research and a methodical rehearsal process which includes rigorous script analysis.
One tool for scene analysis that Mitchell came to relatively recently, and one I’ve been working with a lot since reading her book, is events.
To prepare for blocking and planning shots, I analyze scenes for story beats. The process is both crucial and tricky, not to mention time-consuming.
I’ve always used actor’s objectives to guide me. Once I’ve identified the end of a beat (an actor has won or lost, achieved or failed to achieve an objective), I draw a line in pencil at that point right across the page.
Mitchell’s 'events' are a powerful tool for scene analysis. They are enormously helpful in clearly identifying beats – or units of story – and illuminating the narrative chunks that a good director makes manifest.
So what is an event?
Mitchell defines an event as the moment in the action when a change occurs. The change affects everyone present. Entrances and exits are always events and when you begin to look for events this is a good place to start.
An event could be one character revealing a piece of information for example, a woman to her husband: "I’ve been having an affair. For years." That information would be like dropping a bomb in a room – it would definitely affect everyone present. Or Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction telling Michael Douglas "I’m pregnant." That’s an event.
So look for the bombs in your scene.
Use a pencil to mark a box around the events in the scene. Work in pencil because as you continue to explore a scene, the precise moment an event begins may shift slightly: you may decide that the sound of footsteps approaching on gravel, for example, is the beginning of the event rather than the moment the character opens the door and enters.
Sometimes events demarcate beats but there can be events within beats as well.
In working with the directing participants in the 2009 NSI Drama Prize program, I’ve seen over and over how using events in scene analysis opens up the internal structure: the emotional 'what happens' of a scene. It lays the story wide open.
We’re still working with objectives – it’s not possible to do this work without them – but adding events to the analytical toolbox has brought greater clarity to and sped up the analysis.
After a working session with Joe Kicak, one of the NSI Drama Prize directors, about beats in his script Still Love, Joe commented on the usefulness of this approach to script analysis. He was surprised that in all the directing workshops and classes he’s taken (Joe’s a graduate of Sheridan’s Advanced Film and Television Program) no one has dealt with script analysis in anything like this way.
What do you think of the approach?
Update on The Berliner Complex
We hit a wall in developing The Berliner Complex.
Neither writer Katherine Collins nor I ever wanted to spend forever developing the project. We had expected to shoot this year.
Coming to understand that after almost two years our script was not production-ready, that we would not shoot this year – indeed all time lines are off for now – was more than disappointing. It was, for a time, immobilizing. Having stepped back from the script, sought outside opinions and assessed them, we are again in discussions in anticipation of another draft. When I’ve got an update, I’ll post it.
Upcoming
Upcoming for me this fall is a Bravo!FACT, The Exit, written by Nicolas Billon.
The Exit is the story of a couple in a 'relationship hiatus' who awaken one morning to discover that each has brought home a young lover.
Nic’s play Greenland recently won both the Audience Choice and Outstanding Production Awards at Toronto’s Summerworks Theatre Festival. You can find out more about Nic by clicking on his logo.
Nic and I met a few years ago in a directing workshop that Joe Ziegler gave for Soulpepper Theatre. We’ve since become good friends. I’m thrilled to be working with him.
Image: stock.xchng
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Views expressed here are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).
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The views expressed here are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI).