Kernels to Storytelling Mastery

Kernels to Storytelling Mastery

How watching movies

and munching popcorn

can lead to masterful storytelling

by Bill Johnson

Published by Blue Haven Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 & 2020 Bill Johnson

Kernels to Storytelling Mastery

Copyright © 2013 & 2020 by Bill Johnson. All rights reserved.

Published by

Blue Haven Publishing

Collins View Performance Center

318 SW Palatine Hill Rd

Portland, OR 97219

Book Design: Bill Johnson

Cover: Nancy Hill

ISBN: 978-0-9673932-6-1

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Nancy Hill, who has provided me many wonderful, beautiful book covers.

How watching movies and munching popcorn can lead to

Introduction

I wrote many of these essays while teaching screenwriting and breaking down films in class as a teaching tool. I quickly discovered that many of my students had no idea of the dramatic point of a scene, that underlying message that said this is a story about X; the main character is seeking Y; the point of this scene is Z.

Because they lacked that understanding, the scripts they wrote were invariably about what was happening, but never about why, or why anyone should care.

I called these students blind imitators. They thought they were doing what successful screenwriters were doing, but they were not.

The goal of these essays was to help perceptive students gain a deeper understanding of storytelling. This is not an easy path, for it requires understanding of why one choice works and adds something to a scene, while another choice is just a meaningless background detail.

In my experience, most people prefer the magic beans that would transform their ideas into scripts they could sell in place of the difficult path to understanding the art of storytelling.

So, be warned, no magic beans here; and understanding the mechanics of storytelling AND being able to apply it to one’s own writing is a process, sometimes a long one. One I’m still learning.

And, this process might not be for you. You might be an intuitive writer. I’m an intuitive for ideas, but the craft of writing, I had to learn.

For yourself, to use these essays, you might read an essay and watch a movie, or some variation on that.

If you are an entirely intuitive writer, and successful, you should not read further, and I envy you. For everyone else who hasn’t internalized an understanding of storytelling, you should keep reading.

Or, if you want to try a different process, consider Chris Vogler’s The Hero’s Journey or Save the Cat. The point is, find something that works for you and stick with it.

Good luck, and perhaps we’ll meet on this journey of understanding.

Table of Contents

The Shawshank Redemption

Chinatown

Anatomy of An Action Adventure Movie, Notes on Die Hard

Ideas and Stories -- A Review of Toto le Hero

Why Police Stories? Notes on Lethal Weapon

Moving Audiences to Think About What Moves Them, A Review of Seven

Creating Story Movement by Traveling in Circles: A Review of Groundhog Day

The Art of the Romantic Comedy

Book of Revelations, A Review of Run Lola Run

A Room With A View, Creating Drama by Writing to the Point

Using a Movie to Explore Race in America, notes on Get Out

Body Heat, Creating Scenes With Double Meanings

Wonder Woman, The Art of Misdirection

The Shawshank Redemption, Writing to a Dramatic Purpose

Shawshank Redemption is a film that points out once again a fundamental truth of storytelling. That by clearly setting out and writing a story around a dramatic issue like redemption, the storyteller sets in motion both a plot -- what the main character must do to gain redemption -- and a deeper story issue – whether adversity can lead to redemption.

By potently and vividly resolving and fulfilling its promise, the story offers a vivid story journey around the transforming power of adversity.

The story begins with its title, which suggests the story's promise. The title, then, is written around setting out the point of the story, not hiding it. By quickly setting out the story's promise, the storyteller can begin developing drama over the story's outcome. Will the main character here gain redemption? To delay the presentation of this issue risks weakening the story to create a distant plot revelation.

Music lyrics, 'If I didn't care... would I feel this way. If this isn't love, then why do I thrill."

This song is a set up for an introduction to the main character, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), and his inner feelings. The lyrics are ironic when we discover his inability to express his feelings, and the repercussions of that failure. Knowing the situation the main character confronts as the story opens, the storyteller choose a song that makes a pointed reference about him. The song and its lyrics are an integral part of the story, just as every element of a well-told story has a discernible purpose. Writers weaken a story when they try and construct it from details that only have a vague association with the dramatic context of the story.

Next we come up on street lights; a quiet night. Another contrast to what will soon be happening.

We move into car, a man listening to the same song that opens the story. Who is he? Andy. What's he doing? The questions arise naturally.

He puts something in his lap. A gun. He loads bullets into it, drinks. He needs courage. Question, courage to do what? The questions here multiply. The song, coupled with the gun and drinking, suggests Andy is tormented by his feelings and is readying himself to do something about them. As a character, he is dramatically ripe. Ready to act as the story opens, not just thinking about taking action. If he were still thinking about acting, he would be a static character no matter how dramatic the situation around him.

Cut to Andy being asked a question at a trial about his conversation with his wife; that his wife asked for a divorce. He was very distraught at the time, but as he testifies, he appears calm, cool.

His wife, it comes out, was having an affair with golf pro. Cut between Andy in car and the trial, where he appears cool, unfeeling.

Andy calmly insists he didn't kill wife and her golf-pro lover, but the DA insists he was on the scene, had a gun. That the gun he insists he threw in the river was never found.

Is he innocent?

We see Andy get out of car with gun. Walk toward house.

DA talks about people being shot eight times. So gun had to be reloaded. A crime of passion.

We see Andy's wife and golf pro making passionate love.

Judge sentences Andy to life in prison, consecutive terms.

Cut to bars sliding open, a man entering a room. Andy? No, it's Red (Morgan Freeman) in for parole hearing. He's asked if he's rehabilitated. He's very agreeable, says that he's a changed man. No longer a danger to society.

Cut to: 'Rejected' being stamped on his parole form. The scene gets right to the point. No one buys that Red is rehabilitated.

He returns to the prison yard at Shawshank prison. This naturally frames a question, will Red ever change? Ever be ready for parole?

Red walks up to see view in yard.

Through a voiceover, Red explains he is a con who can get anything for anybody. A regular Sears and Roebuck.

We hear siren, see prison van approach. Question, who's in the van? By withholding that information, simply showing the approach of the van and the fuss about its arrival, a small revelation is set up about who's in the van.

We come up over roof to 'see' prison. This visual image is suggestive that we're going to be allowed a full view of this world. Even the camera work here, then, speaks to a dramatic purpose in the story, becomes another element in how the story is presented.

Men in the prison yard move with purpose toward the van and the arrival of new prisoners. Why are the men excited? The audience is set up to anticipate something.

Guards and cons alike await new prisoners, lining up to see them.

Door to van opens; guard comes out, then others. Finally, Andy comes out.

It quickly comes out that the cons like to torment the new arrivals.

Andy is shy, wears a suit. He's really out of place in this new, harsh world. By showing how out of place he is, a question is naturally generated: can he survive here? What will happen to him in the coming days? Minutes?

Red takes bets on which new man will get beat up first, will be broken.

Red, I didn't think much of Andy... my first impression of the man.

The story will change the impression of Andy for Red and the audience. Red is set up here as our guide in this story, a guide to the world within the walls of Shawshank.

Andy looks up at the formidable walls as he enters prison. This is to let the audience more fully experience this moment. It also becomes a sly commentary on the inner fortress walls Andy must surmount.

We meet Captain of guards and the Warden. Rules are spelled out for the new prisoners.

Rule # 1. No blasphemy.

One guy wants to know when they'll eat. Captain cusses him out and hits him while Warden looks on. The audience is being shown that Andy has entered the abyss.

Naked men are hosed, deloused.

Men are taken into prison naked and put into cells. It's meant to degrade, and the moments are set up for the audience to experience, to feel the degradation of these men.

Red narrates what it all means, how many men break down and cry their first night. The question, Who's it going to be? Who's going to cry first? That's what the betting in the yard was about. Red has bet that Andy will break first.

Red narrates, remembering his first night in prison. Red, the boys always go fishing with new men. The cons bait the new men.

Fat man, a new prisoner, cries out plaintively, I don't belong here.

Cons jeer him.

Fat Man, I want my mother. Con, I had your mother; she wasn't that great.

The fat man can't stop pleading that he shouldn't be there. A con in a cell quietly pleads with the fat man to shut up. The Captain brings the fat man out and beats him senseless with a club.

We're shown the brutal immorality here. That the real evil is with those running the prison.

Red narrates that he lost cigarettes because Andy didn't break that night, that he never made a sound. This is another step in our journey to take in the full measure of Andy as a man.

Morning, men walk along cell block and into mess hall.

Where will Andy sit? What will others do? He sits by himself. Picks maggot out of his food. An old man asks for the maggot. Andy gives it to him. Will the old man eat it? It turns out the old man has a baby bird in his coat.

The bird becomes a continuing character in the story, not just a momentary effect in this one scene. Great stories layer their effects, build on them, develop them, deepen their impact, in small moments and large.

A happy con comes in; he's won cigarettes from the bet about who would break first.

Andy listens to conversation, that fat men received no medical treatment. Andy asks his name.

Con, What the fuck do you care? Doesn't matter what his name was, he's dead.

Andy is listless in shower. Another man asks, Anybody get to you yet? He's offering protection for sex. Question, how will this turn out?

Red narrates that it took Andy a month to speak to someone... and that someone turns out to be Red.

Andy still maintains his innocence.

Red, Rumor has it you're a cold fish... think your shit smells sweeter than most.

Andy asks Red to get him a rock hammer.

Red thinks he might want it for a weapon. Boggs (the prisoner who spoke to Andy in the shower), wants Andy for sex, according to Red. Red tells Andy to grow eyes in the back of his head. Andy says he won't use the rock hammer as a weapon.

Will Red get it for him? They agree on ten dollars as the price.

Set up of question, pay off. One way to draw an audience through a story is to raise a small question at the beginning of the scene and resolve it by the end of the scene. Questions can also be set up to play across scenes, or through the body of the story, its plot, character goals.

Red tells Andy the rules. If he's caught with the rock hammer and mentions Red, he'll never get him another thing... gum, anything.

Red, He strolled... like he had on an invisible coat that shielded him. Question, will he be able to keep that shield?

Cut to laundry room. Black man sticks something in shirt. It gets to Red. He gets rock hammer and realizes it can't be used to escape or as a weapon. Or so it appears.

Old man who fed maggot to baby bird delivers book with hammer to Andy.

Andy sent to basement area. Other men surround him. He's beaten by three men, including Boggs, and, we assume, raped. We have an answer to that question of what would happen to Andy.

Red, Prison is no fairy tale world.

Red talks about Andy showing up with fresh bruises. That sometimes he fought them off. Red continues that this went on for two years, that it might have eventually broke Andy, but something happened.

Question, what?

Cut to Warden talking about new license plate factory needing volunteers. Andy and others volunteer.

Red smiles that he's called because of bribe. Andy is on detail as well.

While cons works, Captain talks about how a brother died with money and he's only getting $35,000, and the government will take most of that in taxes.

Andy looks off at something. What?

Andy walks toward the Captain. This sets off a reaction by guards. Will Andy be killed. What's he doing? He tells Captain he can keep money if he trusts his wife enough to give her the money. The Captain is outraged. Will Captain kill him? Andy, an ex-banker, explains that he can set it up so the Captain gets to keep most of the money if he puts it in his wife's name, and he wants three beers each for the work crew for the advice.

Captain goes along.

Cons get to drink ice cold beers.

Red, We felt like free men.

The audience gets to experience this great victory with the men.

Andy has a strange smile. Big question, what's he smiling about? He refuses beer. Red believes Andy did that to feel 'normal' again.

Andy plays chess; Red hates the game. This comments on how Andy will eventually get out of prison, one move at a time, in a game that takes 20 years to play.

Andy needs rocks to carve chessmen.

Red comments that they are becoming 'friends.' Andy wants to know why he's there. Red's in for murder, the 'only guilty man in Shawshank.' Red knows who he is. Question, who is Andy?

Andy gets up. He carves something into wall with rock hammer. Question, what?

Cons watch movie.

Andy asks Red to get him Rita Hayworth. A poster? What?

Andy leaves. He's attacked again in the movie projection room.

Man takes out knife. He threatens Andy for oral sex. Andy refuses and is beaten senseless.

But now the Captain has something invested in protecting Andy. Boggs, the con who's been raping Andy, spends a month in solitary for the latest attack on Andy. When he returns to his cell, the Captain waits for him. He beats him into a wheelchair as a broken cripple. The Captain is sending a message that Andy works for him now, and he won't tolerate him being abused.

Cons decide Andy is someone to respect. They go out to get him rocks for chessmen.

Man finds a rock, but not right one. It's petrified horse shit.

Red gets in a shipment. It includes a poster of Rita Hayworth.

We now see walls of Andy's cell. It's covered with pictures.

Con mops. Guards come along for sweep of cells.

Captain, to Andy, on your feet. They trash his room, possessions.

Warden comes in. He's pleased that Andy reads Bible. Andy's favorite passage about being ready for Master's appearance.

Captain finds chessmen.

Warden disapproves of Rita poster, but he allows it.

Warden, Salvation lies within. True words. It lies within Andy.

Andy then is taken to see Warden. Warden asks him if he wants to work in Laundry.

Andy is reassigned to Library. We see raven who was baby bird when first met, with Brooks, the old man in the prison.

Brooks doesn't know why Andy has been assigned to be his assistant.

Captain brings in guard who needs help with Trust. Andy, here, is not a con; he's a man. He sits across from guard as his advisor.

Brooks relates in mess hall how guard shook Andy's hand. Andy wants to get new books. Can he get funds? Another question that will play out across several scenes.

Andy asks Warden for funds. Warden says he'll mail letters. Will he? What will the letters accomplish?

Andy continues doing financial services. Does tax returns...first year, half the guards, then everyone, then guards from other prisons.

Red narrates Andy needed staff... which turns out to be Red.

Red, And still, he kept sending those letters.

One day Brooks the old man goes crazy, pulls a knife. Andy tries to talk him out of killing Heywood.

Then it comes out that Brooks must kill someone or be released.

Red tells the others why Brooks wants to stay in prison, that it's the only life he knows. Some cons don't believe it.

These walls are funny. First you hate them. Then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you depend on them.

They sent you here for life... that's the part they take.

Will this happen to Andy?

Brooks tells 'Jake' the raven he's free.

Brooks leaves prison. He doesn't know what to do.

Brooks on bus, on city street. Sad music plays.

Brooks, narration, I can't believe how fast things move on the outside. Cars are everywhere; everyone hurries.

He gets room in a half way house and job as bag boy.