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Lesson 3
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4 Replies
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Paul is cliché busting!
Vision of success from this program: I want to write scripts that become movies that change people’s lives.
5. What I learned from this assignment was that this is a game-changing assignment.
It was difficult to identify clichés, for two main reasons.
First, I am not sufficiently movie-literate to know what has been done before.
Secondly, it’s difficult to question what I have already written. Since I thought it up out of nowhere, I naturally assume it’s original and not a cliché. Of course, that’s not true, but it’s difficult to admit that and identify the clichés.
However, once I got over this misconception, I found it to be an assignment with tremendous potential.
When I came up with two or three changes, I was so excited and saw the potential it had. I realized this is what a script-writer is supposed to do – come up with something new and surprise the audience.
The other thing I learned from this assignment was that, even if I might not have identified all the clichéd scenes in my script, simply asking the simple question, “What is the purpose of this scene?” is such a great diagnostic tool and a cure.
As I asked myself that question, I found myself adding elements so that the purpose becomes more obvious and eliminating scenes that serve no real purpose.
Of course, this assignment also took much longer to do than others and I am still involved in the cliché-busting process. Here is just a sample.
4. Changes.
Cliché: Sc. 2. Old man, shot by cops, dies in his wife’s arms in their miserable shack of a home.
New version: Moments after the old man dies, his son appears from a back-room in a wheel-chair (increasing our sympathy for this victim of the drug war.)
Cliché: Sc. 34. Hank is brought to small village in mountains to learn the truth about drugs and is set to work in the poppy fields.
New version: He comes face-to-face with El Charro (the man who engineered his kidnapping and transport to Mexico and who controls the village) who forces him (with a gun to his head) to take up a gun and execute a young guy of his age.
Cliché: Sc. 46. Lilia and Tino bring Hank to the funeral of Marisol, Lilia’s daughter, whose death Hank caused, so that he shares the pain.
New version: Tino knocks Hank out with a spade, pushes him into the grave and starts shoveling soil on top of him.
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KZ is Cliché Busting
Vision: To master screenwriting so that I can turn any of my ideas into salable scripts, and work with producers to get them made into successful movies.
What I learned doing this assignment: clichés have a way of sneaking in.
1. Cliché? The Indian mother tries to find a suitable young woman for her son.
I’ve read this in a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, and I also recently watched THE BIG SICK, where an Indian mother keeps inviting beautiful young women to dinner, hoping her son will find an appropriate mate.
Originally, the son tells his mother that he’s gay, and later she tries to set him up with a guy; so I moved that scene forward.
New Version: The Indian mother is convinced her son is gay, so she tries to find him a suitable young man.
That’s for sure something we haven’t seen before… maybe because it hasn’t happened in the history of the world. LOL.
2. Cliché? Montage of dates at the Speed Dating not going well.
We have seen that kind of thing before. I think I recently saw it in ABOUT A BOY.
However, this is about showing how the protagonist is the date-from-hell, so does that make it different? It’s also where a rival firm gets hold of her scorecard to use against her. So I’m not sure that I want to get rid of it. I haven’t thought of a replacement scene, but I’m sure… it will come to me 😉
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Hello Kristina, I don’t know about you, but Assignment 14 represents a lot of work. I’m going to need 2-3 more days to complete. (Writing on Monday 27 March). Good luck with your script!
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You’re right, Paul – I was thinking the same thing.
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