Day 4 Assignment

[David Mailman]

David’s BI Stacking Suspense

Things I learned about Thrillers. It is possible to have a thriller so well-crafted that many in the audience miss the conclusion. I thought the suspense was how far Catherine could push the envelope. Everything else was filler for her manipulation. She was 10X smarter than anyone else in the room and she wanted to show it. She did.

Catherine did all the murders. Beth was the Red Herring. Beth was framed. Everything pointing to Beth was planted or arranged by Catherine. That’s the only explanation consistent with all the clues. Although, Nick being the primary target is a possibility.

Catherine planned this years ago to get even with Beth for rejecting her. She killed Beth’s husband to get her back or for revenge. All this was concurrent with all her other murders. Nick was interesting by himself and attracted her attention from the original newspaper articles, and association with Beth. A lagniappe.

Not the least clue is the text Nick read in her manuscript in which Catherine described the murder of the detective’s partner a few hours before it happened. Even the protagonist, Nick, discarded that clue. However, he was not thinking with his head at that point. Catherine did not plan to fall in love, or lust, with Nick. Anyone want to give me odds as to when she’ll pick up that icepick?

What great bookend open and closing scenes.

The acting was a large part of establishing dominance and suspicion, because it was invited.

Editing was tight. Scenes felt as if they were over too soon.

Directing exceptional. Even static scenes had a sense of motion.

[Ramsey Anderson]

Ramsey’s BI Stacking Suspense

Great job David in breaking it down. I agree 100% Every scene had Nick getting beaten.. even when he wins the head-on car chicken game.. he loses because it’s not who he thought it would be. Call this one a tragedy? Great job in foreshadowing and very obvious with the outline 😉

[Leo Sopicki]

Leo’s BI Stacking Suspense Part 1

I hadn’t seen “Basic Instinct” since it first came out. I had forgotten how gripping it was. The numbers below are the scenes during which I had these ideas.

1. Begin the mystery early — in the first scene if possible.

3. Point your hero in the wrong direction at first.

5. Introduce all your characters early to add to the mystery.

6. Create “Whoa!” moments, right at the end of scenes.

8. Have new information create multiple possibilities, increasing mystery and intrigue.

10. Create suspicions about your hero.

28. Make it look like something terrible is going to happen – Suspense!

42. Just when you think everything is OK, more suspense.

[Edward Gadrix]

Eddie Gadrix Suwtacking

Viewing the two thrillers as assignments taught me how to better define a scene through structure and layers of mystery, intrigue, and suspense. Sometimes one seemed to overlay with one of the others, but the exercise was still useful. I had never seen Lambs and really appreciated the ending as I (along with Kenneth Lonergan) believe all stories don’t have to completely resolve in the positive. Hannibal is free to do his thing!!

[Noree Victoria]

Noree’s BI Stacking Suspense

Things I learned:

• There may not be suspense in every scene, but if there isn’t, the scene should be heavy on the intrigue and character MIS.

• It’s becoming second nature to identify the differences among mystery, intrigue, and suspense. I might have been using them interchangeably before.

• Sometimes a mystery can be solved before the scene is over, like “who was the murdered guy?”, but there’s secondary mystery that isn’t.

• Sometimes the mystery I would guess would be different from the mystery in the chart… but there are many ways to break down a scene, as long as the components of the map are there, I am guessing there are many right answers.

• That I am looking forward to reviewing my thriller script with this chart to see what’s missing!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Noree Victoria.

[Leo Sopicki]

Leo’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

Sympathetic Protagonist. Starling is the ultimate “unwitting but resourceful hero.” She is still a student, but is given the hardest case the FBI has.

The hero’s world should be full of threats, not just the main one.

Keep the villain mysterious and hidden.

Make other character’s motivations unclear in order to add to the intrigue.

Keep escalating the threat. In Staring’s case, from jerks hitting on her to a gun pointed at her head.

Make people think the action is going one direction and then surprise them with a reversal. I remember how shocked I was the first time I saw SOTL and realized the FBI were at the wrong house.

Give the hero secrets and wounds which can be used against him by the villain.

[Noree Victoria]

Noree’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

• Through each scene, answering the character MIS gave me so much insight about the character’s core traits. And it’s always through the things that they do, their actions. Never exposition. Gave me insight in how to reveal the traits of my main character using this map.

• How very much Clarice’s MIS actions makes her an unwitting yet resourceful hero. I learned how much I can display this in my own hero from scene to scene.

• How important it is not to skip any scenes during this process, as it could mean missing pieces of the MIS as a writer doing the exercise, and if this is skipped during the filmmaking process, it could mean losing the attention of your audience.

[Jim]

Subject Line: Jim’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

What I learned is I have a hard time differentiating between the BIG MIS and the hero’s MIS. Often what I wrote down for each were quite similar. Am I missing something?

[Noree Victoria]

Hey Jim, I went back a few times to differentiate this myself. What I gathered is that the big MIS has to do with the plot and the hero’s MIS is usually something behavior related. I would ask Hal for 100% clarification, but this is an example I did from the SOTL MIS exercise:

Scene: Psych hospital doc argues with Clarice about visiting Hannibal but being given no information.

Mystery: Will the doctor stop Clarice from speaking to Hannibal?

Intrigue: Doctor wants to be in on the FBI investigation.

Suspense: The doc could sabotage Clarice’s investigation, or he could stall it, wasting time and causing the girl to be killed by Buffalo Bill.

Character MIS:

-The psych hospital doctor views himself as an essential piece in his important world, but is angered by Clarice treating him as if he is small.

-Clarice will not sacrifice the investigation to spare anyone’s feelings.

[Rachelle Storti]

Assignment #1 Rachelle’s BI Stacking Suspense

I learned to keep the audience guessing, but give them a chance to solve the riddle. Thrillers move fast and it is important that each scene contains M.I.S. to keep the viewer involved.

There is a lot of talk throughout BI about Catherine and Nick being similar. Looking for commonalities between two people who should be vastly different had me feeling like I was part of the mystery; psychoanalyzing them and wondering who these people really are. I got a particular kick out of Nick mimicking Catherine’s behavior during his own interrogation.

Complexity in layers can be subtle or glaringly obvious.

Assignment #2 Rachelle’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

Pausing this movie to take notes scene by scene made it so much more intense!

Most of what I learned came from noticing common elements between BI and SOTL.

Both movies had B stories that were just as fantastic as their main storylines. I want to be sure to nail this in my script.

Again with the similarities between the Hero and Antagonist. Maybe it’s not so much that Hannibal and Clarice are similar, but they understand something about each other. Their relationship is special and we as the audience witness it unfolding – something that cannot be explained, but must be seen.

Catherine and Nick talk a lot about playing games. Hannibal was playing a game the entire time, though it was never outright called that.

The psychology of the characters and the games they play with each other are major drivers of M.I.S.

Dark comedic lines are something I hope to be able to incorporate into my script. “I’m having an old friend for dinner.” Why was I hoping Hannibal would eat Chilton the whole time, and now I’m oddly satisfied that this arrogant prick will die a horrific death? Causing the audience to question their own sense of morality or presuppositions must be incredibly satisfying.

[David Mailman]

Excellent analysis. Especially, about strong B story.

[David Mailman]

David’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

Things I learned from SOTL.

I am still having trouble separating M, I and S. Sometimes they seem interchangeable or so interconnected that I don’t know which is which. Frequently, mystery creates the suspense which creates the intrigue which generates the mystery.

I got 40-scenes in the table. I was brain-dead by the time I finished so I couldn’t analyze it more. But, what stuck with me were a few things.

The characters and action had arcs and arcs within arcs. Clarice went from a small country girl (accent and size of people around her) to a feted star at the end. I guess her lambs stopped screaming. She had two-Mentors (Lector and Crawford. I’ve seen Mentors as a role in story-telling.). She was up and down several times. One, first success being sent to Lector, then failure with Lector, but success when he calls her back after Miggs, then failure when she remembers her father. Two, back to FBI classes, then success finding Storage Facility, then partial success visit to Lector, then next victim. Lector had an arc of being in prison to free; being bad by reputation at first, then sympathetic with Clarice, then really vicious when he escaped, then sympathetic when he went after Chilton.

Also, there seemed to be a pattern of good guys being up when the bad guys were down and vice versa. E.g., at end Clarice finds Bill, Bill escapes, Clarice in tough spot, Clarice finds Catherine, Clarice on her way out for help, Bill turns the lights off, Bill clicks hammer, Bill dead.

The MIS arc for the plot and characters switched several times in the story and reconnected. Some of the story lines were; Clarice’s memories, Clarice’s ambition, Clarice’s origins; Buffalo Bill’s crimes, the search for him, Catherine’s capture, her holding the dog, her release; Lector’s plans, clues, escape; Chilton’s character, Lector’s escape, Chilton with a nice Chianti; the search for the false Buffalo Bill, the triple-cuts at the end etc.

It was interesting that Basic Instinct and SOTL both were thrillers that dealt with a superior or super-cunning mind/madman facing detectives. The heroes were thrust into the situation, over their heads, but competent. The endings were very different.

There were some clever directing touches that amplified the script. I especially liked when Clarice went into the elevator at FBI-HQ and everyone inside was at least a half-foot taller.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  David Mailman.

[David Mailman]

P.S. I wonder if there aren’t subliminal questions that make a movie stick in your mind. Did Clarice and Crawford hook up after the movie? Did Clarice see Lector as a father figure/surrogate? What did Lector see in Clarice?

[Gordie Cowan]

Gordon’s BI Stacking Suspense

1. Working toward visualizing and experiencing the stacking of suspense for my script, 72 Hours, as obtained with watching Basic Instinct and as tracked by the chart.

2. Perhaps because of the period from which Basic Instinct came, a number of scenes appear to be more “on the nose” with its M.I.S. than, say, a more modern thriller.

P.S. Incredibly, I had never before seen Basic Instinct.

Best, G

[Linda Kish]

Linda’s BI Stacking Suspense

What I learned about thrillers:

· Making things obvious can heighten the suspense

· Thrillers need lots of twists

· Interesting supporting characters can be great red herrings

· Setting up the mystery in the first scene can pull the audience in quickly

· Almost every scene in BI had mystery questions, intrigue and suspense

· Characters can have strong and obvious personalities and still have some great character MIS

· Dialogue can be used to deliver strong intrigue and suspense

[Gordie Cowan]

Gordon’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

1. Distinguishing between M., I. and S.

2. Scene sequencing.

3. Concept of building or “stacking” suspense from one scene to the next

4. How to write a thorough and compact suspense chart (thanks).

5. That it’s okay, when writing suspense, to write very brief scenes that segue to the next major scene.

6. That a ten-minute in length thriller scene is acceptable [Clarice’s building search (her weakest skill in FBI training) for Buffalo Bill in his underground labyrinth of spooky stuff where he has the clear advantage].

7. Mystery and intrigue’s “peeling of the onion” (subtext??) to use as method of stacking.

And more.

Best, G

[Linda Kish]

Linda’s SOTL Stacking Suspense.

What I learned about thrillers:

· Almost every action and piece of dialogue is MIS. It would be valuable to do a pass on my script to identify actions and dialogue that can’t be categorized as MIS and see if they can be elevated to such.

· There are so many little things that occur that we don’t necessarily notice when they are happening, but as soon as the later reveal happens we have that ah-ha moment.

· There were a number of things that were telegraphed in the script, which added to the suspense instead of subtracting as I would have thought before studying these two movies.

[Heidi Wolff]

Heidi’s Basic Instinct Stacking Suspense

The things that I learned from this assignment are keep the watcher(s) of your thriller on the edge of their seats and wanting more, surprised by a red herring, & wanting to know more about your characters.

[Heidi Wolff]

Heidi’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

The things that I learned from this assignment are keep the watcher(s) of your thriller on the edge of their seats and wanting more, surprised by a red herring, & wanting to know more about your characters.

[Wilke Durand]

Assignment 1

Wat heb ik geleerd van de Thriller Chart Basic Instinct.

Foreshadowing: when the girl mates it’s for life

– You can’t have 1 villain – the villain must change so need a red herring

– Interesting to intertwine the villain with the red herring

– Helpers can cause suspense too

– Good to use mystery in terms of raising questions of how a character thinks about certain issues. Not too obvious good or bad guy/girl.

– Cop can be interesting to use

– All characters must have a strong objective and an underlying motive, plan. These plans should contradict the other character(s) motives, plans.

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– ASSIGNMENT 2

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– Use transitions from one scene to other location/characters by mirroring.

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– Example Hannibal say: Maybe Buffalo Bill is looking for his new ‘ very special lady’. CUT TO: very special lady next victim. Introduction BB.

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– Writer uses suspense 2 x FBI exercise: presents it as reality but it is an exercise FBI.

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– Later in the last suspense sequence, the shoot out, he uses the cutting between two locations. We think it is the killers location. He milks it big time and it’s suspense until the end. Simple device, a lot of mileage.

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– He cleverly intertwines the coping of Clarice’s childhood trauma’s with the investigation.

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– Chilton intervenes with her investigation. He is both her nbemisis and Hannibal’s. Introduction of another villain besides BB and Hannibal.

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– Writer uses the investigation to reveal character.