Writing a Great Movie by Jeff Kitchen

Before I move on with structure, I really have to apologize to , the author of the book who’s image you see on the left… I had written a review of Jeff’s book, but never got around to uploading it here to the site… As a result of my recent hard drive failure, the review was somehow converted into some kind of binary bullshit text…

My mistake?

I wrote the review in Microsoft Word instead of …

All my Word docs somehow became corrupted and converted and I’ve tried everything I can think of to get them back to where they were… Unfortunately, even Open Office couldn’t open them and make them read right.

However, all my Open Office docs are in pristine condition…

Sometimes FREE IS BEST.

What’s interesting here is that I have now lived with Jeff’s book for several months now… Often referring back to it when I’ve wanted to do a little brainstorming using the . In Writing A Great Movie, Jeff has really expanded Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations with modern terminology as well as some explanation as to how to use them to assist you in plotting out your story and screenplay.

Jeff discusses how to use the 36 Situations in several different ways…

On top of using the 36 Dramatic Situations for the tools outlined above, Jeff then goes into a discussion of how the 36 were used in such films as:

After a fairly thorough discussion of using the 36 in these films, Jeff ends the 36 by giving you a little HOW-TO… This how-to goes into the actual utilization of 3 X 5 cards and your own story and screenplay…

Did I say THOROUGH?

Hmmm. Other descriptive words also come to mind… Comprehensive. Conscientious. Dare I say almost encyclopedic?

In other words, if you’re a seasoned screenwriter, you may find yourself wanting to skip and or scan certain areas where the discussion tends to keep on going like the bunny in the commercial… God knows I did it here and there… Having said that, as time went on, I found myself going back to those very same passages that I had scanned some months earlier and read them with absolutely no interruptions. After reading them the second time around, I was glad I did. Dare I say that I picked up a few more insights to the craft and how to go about improving what I already know?

I dare.

So… If for no other reason than to jump start your own brainstorming when it comes to plotting out your story, Jeff’s book is worth the squeeze.

But there’s more…

Another outstanding chapter in the book: Chapter 4, The Enneagram: Creating Deep, Complex, and Distinct Characters.

You already know that I subscribe to the CHARACTER IS STORY mode of screenwriting so I took a special interest in this chapter… The is not Jeff’s invention of course but he does the same thing with it here that he did with the 36. He goes into the 9 personality types:

  1. The Reformer
  2. The Helper
  3. The Achiever
  4. The Individualist
  5. The Investigator
  6. The Loyalist
  7. The Enthusiast
  8. The Challenger
  9. The Peacemaker

–and within those 9 types, each type has 3 aspects:

Writing A Great Movie goes into each of the personality types… Giving adequate explanations about each personality type as well as going into their key motivations and rounding it up with some outstanding examples of those personality types so you can achieve focus on your own characters…

What I like best about Jeff’s discussion of each personality type are their character traits within each of the 3 aspects i.e., Healthy, Average, and Unhealthy. In other words, you quickly find out what is the best, worst, and average of each personality type. Outstanding material when it comes to giving your characters dimension.

Chapter 4 ends with Jeff using the Enneagram to analyze the characters in TRAINING DAY… Afterwards, he goes into the actual creation of a character, utilizing the Enneagram and lays out an additional 9 points of thought utilizing the Enneagram in your own scripts.

Eye opening reading and even IF you subscribe to different personality types as I personally do, these same 9 points of thought can easily be used within my own method of creating characters.

Really good stuff.

Writing A Great Movie does NOT get into traditional explanation of structure which was one of the other aspects I loved about this book… In other words, even if you find it a little too dry at times, it’s refreshingly DIFFERENT from the slew of screenwriting books out there on the market…

I found myself going back several times to gain a better understanding of Jeff’s discussion about DILEMMA. He does lay it out structurally but trust me… If you simply read his discussion of character dilemma and then threw the book away, you’d know more than 80% of the screenwriters working today.

Am I serious?

Deadly fucking serious.

Which takes me back to Chapter 1: Dilemma, Crisis, Decision & Action, and Resolution: Dramatizing a Plot

This is, WITHOUT A DOUBT, the very best analysis of DILEMMA you are ever going to read when it comes to screenwriting.

Bar none.

Jeff thoroughly goes into DILEMMA here… What it is… When it should approximately occur. When it reaches a CRISIS point which requires the Protagonist to make a decision and act, which of course leads to a final resolution. He of course gives examples of movies that use dilemma as a driving structural force i.e., TRAINING DAY, WHAT WOMEN WANT, MINORITY REPORT, THE GODFATHER, TOOTSIE, and BLADE RUNNER. Read these examples and I think you will definitely have a grasp of how important dilemma can be to your story.

*NOTE: I don’t think Jeff knew this but I attended one of his Screenwriting Expo workshops a couple of years ago and he discussed the use of DILEMMA in THE FIRM. It was this workshop that caused me to go back to the drawing board with my own form of structure and weave dilemma into it because yes, I think it’s that important.

Weaving Jeff’s analysis of dilemma into your own structure will certainly strengthen your story… No doubt about it but Jeff goes deeper with equal discussion of CRISIS and RESOLUTION and how all three work together to strengthen a plot.

Fascinating reading but I warn you up front… It’s more discussion oriented than it is HOW-TO. Don’t get me wrong… You’re definitely going to learn from this book but I suspect that a lot of screenwriters will find themselves wanting to skip to sections that get into the HOW-TO. Fine. Go ahead. I did it but do yourself a favor and go back and reread the material a few times from beginning to end because for me… It was the rereading that solidified the importance of Jeff’s book.

Not to breeze over the other areas of the book but the above discussions are what I found most profound inside Writing A Great Movie. Jeff also gets into THEME and the value of KNOWING your theme.

Last but certainly not least…

Chapter 7: Sequence, Proposition, Plot: Constructing and Tightening Your Plot

Once again, Jeff discusses his encyclopedic knowledge here but what I found most fascinating in this chapter was Jeff’s discussion of REVERSE CAUSE AND EFFECT. Most likely, a lot of us are doing this instinctively… i.e., know your ending first and work backwards in a CAUSE AND EFFFECT mode to brainstorm plot ideas. I know I’ve been doing this since the first day I started writing but in Writing A Great Movie, Jeff Kitchen deconstructs the process in a way that I think will make perfect sense for most of us writing movies today.

This is the first time I’ve seen the process broken down and explained and after I read it, I throroughly agreed with it since I’ve been doing it from the get-go. I think I probably received some kind of subconscious validation after reading Jeff’s breakdown of it…

What does that tell you?

Well, it tells me that Jeff knows screenwriting. It tells me that this is one of the books I tend to carry around with me. On some days, I’ve picked up Jeff’s book and simply read a couple of paragraphs and that information made something click in my head and made so much sense that I was immediately able to go back and tweak something I wasn’t feeling good about. Yes, Writing A Great Movie is that good.

*NOTE: Jeff also had someone send me his workshop on DVD. I was able to finally sit down and watch the DVDs after a couple of months of having read his book. The two really compliment each other and had I had BOTH the DVDs AND the book, I think my preference would have been to watch the DVDs FIRST and then read the book.

Why?

Because watching the DVDs got me very excited to learn MORE. Because I think I know myself fairly well… I’m almost positive I would have gotten more out of Jeff’s book on the first read if I had watched his DVDs first. Watching the DVDs and then reading the book seemed to make the book less… How do I say this?

Copious.

And I mean copious in a nice way… LOL.

Get the book AND the DVDs:

Jeff Kitchen’s Full Day Seminar

Unk

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The most expensive screenwriting book I have ever seen… And the Transformational Character Arc Part 2

The Secrets of Action Screenwriting by William C. MartellYou heard me… How about a screenwriting book that STARTS at $189.95? Don’t believe me? Go ahead and see for yourself over at !

Whew! I’m just glad I got my copy a while back when it was cheaper! I even like the way Bill took some , covered up the name he autographed the copy to, and wrote over the old… Seems to me that would make it worth even more, RIGHT? LOL.

My DOG-EARED copy of has served me very well over the last several years and I just thought I would mention this fact to those of you looking for good screenwriting book to have at your side for QUICK REFERENCE. Bill’s book is ALWAYS in my backpack! As well as several of his at any given time and yeah, I got ‘em all.

What’s in YOURS?

That reminds me… I have another review of a book coming up by the end of the month that is simply OUT-FUCKING-STANDING. I’m not spilling the beans about it just yet but I will tell you that it is an advanced techniques book and WILL DEFINITELY MAKE YOUR SCREENWRITING BETTER.

Stay tuned for that. Where were we? Ah yes… The Transformational Character Arc Part 2. Very good stuff. Let’s do it.

Let’s start out by making a list of the twenty-three (23) personality types… No, you don’t have to agree with any of this and I really don’t give a shit if you do or not so PLEASE don’t email me about semantics… I’m too fuckin’ busy. Sorry… I’ve been up almost 3 days STRAIGHT and I can’t work on my rewrite because I’m too fucking wired from all the coffee. I can’t sleep because I’m too fucking wired from all the coffee.

So what’s an Unknown Screenwriter to do? Post to his fucking blog I guess… LOL.

I still can’t believe so MANY people come here to read this stuff… Who’da thunkit?

Since the came out this month, traffic has been kinda crazy and it was already crazy before… By the way… The article also mentions , Dave over at , and Craig over at .

If you’re not reading them, I only got one question for you… Why not?

The 23 Personality Types

  1. The Adventurer
  2. The Boss
  3. The Conformist
  4. The Conventional
  5. The Creator
  6. The Dependent
  7. The Eccentric
  8. The Extrovert
  9. The Fall Guy (or Girl)
  10. The Fearful
  11. The Flamboyant
  12. The Hyper
  13. The Loner
  14. The Man’s Man
  15. The Manipulator
  16. The Passive-Aggressive
  17. The Perfectionist
  18. The Personable
  19. The Problem Solver
  20. The Show-Off
  21. The Resilient
  22. The Ultra-Feminine
  23. The Victim

I know I know… You thought there were only … Or is it ? LOL. Again, don’t email me about semantics… Whether you prescribe to the 9, 16, or to the above 23… The exercise serves a purpose when it comes to creating and writing your characters ON THE PAGE and it really doesn’t fucking matter whether you believe in it or not. I had quite a few academic TYPES (hey, that’s not on the list! WTF???) email me about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and tell me HOW FULL OF SHIT I AM.

I read and I read and I read these emails that KEEP FUCKING TRICKLING in and tell me Maslow is outdated. Guess what?

I DON’T GIVE A SHIT.

I apply it to screenwriting and characters ON THE PAGE and it works for ME. Are we CLEAR? LOL. So please let’s not get into another slurry of emails about the above list… Make YOUR OWN FUCKING LIST if that makes you happy! Go get a in the shit…

Whatever.

Okay… Sorry, I’m wired. Of course we’re talking adult character types here… How can knowing about these 23 different personality types help you with your characters?

Glad you asked. Oh you didn’t? Too bad… Vote with your mouse.

Knowing the personality type of your characters will go a long way toward knowing how they react to the obstacles you throw at them throughout the story. That doesn’t mean it’s time to make a cliched character and then like a puppeteer, make him do what we all expect him to do.

Uh… No.

Knowing this information simply helps make your characters more believable to your audience. Knowing what traits these personality types possess will certainly help you figure out how they will react, develop, grow, and change by the end of your story.

Have you ever seen a character in a movie do something SO OUT OF CHARACTER that you’re just pissed off for the rest of the film? Sure you have. We all have. Don’t get me wrong… It’s perfectly OKAY (hear me, ?) to have your characters do something out of the ordinary… That’s what good films are all about but you have to balance that line carefully because it is EXACTLY that fucking line that you can lose your audience.

Many if not all of the above personality types share lots of traits so it’s really not that difficult to get it right and it’s really not that difficult to GET IT WRONG. LOL. You just have to be careful… Many times I have come to a point in my screenplay where I just have to make my character do SOMETHING so different and out of character that I end up taking a step back and CONSIDER whether or not I really knew his or her personality type from the get-go.

That’s right… It can change.

As your characters come alive to you… As they react, develop, grow, and change right on the page in front of you, you SOMETIMES have to wonder if you got it right UP FRONT. It’s okay if you didn’t because let’s face it… Do we really know people? Do we know what THEY want us to know or do we really know them?

As your character(s) develop within YOU, you might very well find out that they are NOT who you thought they were — so knowing what personality type they are can be a big help even if that personality type changes at some point in your story.

Are we clear? Cool… Or as my Actor niece always types… KEWEL.

So yeah… YOU GUESSED IT. Now we must DELVE into these personality types and all the traits they share with each other… Don’t worry… I don’t have the STRENGTH to post any of that information right now… For now, just absorb the fact that we’re trying to make realistic or as I prefer to say, HYPER-REALISTIC CHARACTERS in our stories…

Before I make yet ANOTHER pot of coffee, yes I am working on SCREENWRITING RULES and yes, it will be available for download right here and then you can make it available for download at your site… If you have no way of uploading a file to your blog or site — NO PROBLEM… Just link to the file once it’s sitting on my server and people will still think they’re downloading it from your site. Together we can probably get THOUSANDS of these files circulating all over the net and since there will be hyperlinks inside the document leading to all the contributor’s sites, this means that there’s a lot of future traffic that’s gonna happen. It’s not too late to contribute!

Trust me. I know what I’m doing.

Unk

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Joe Eszterhas talks about his book and screenwriting in general…

View Joe Eszterhas on FORA.tv

View Joe Eszterhas on FORA.tv

discusses his new book The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter as God — worth watching if you have the time. 58 minutes total… If not, you can watch it in chunks… LOL.

Unk

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