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Lesson 3
Reply to post your assignment.
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18 Replies
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Lynn is Cliche Busting!
VISION: I am determined to become a great screenwriter capable of getting my screenplays in various genres produced into movies that inspire vast audiences to mitigate climate change.
THE PITCH: WEATHERING IT (Rom-Com) is about two college students who try to overcome family fights about global warming and get married during the worst ever Texas freeze.
I LEARNED that I haven’t seen a whole lot of movies, so I’m not sure if I have some cliches unawares. But to my knowledge I don’t have any cliche scenes. That’s mainly because nearly all the scenes come from my personal experiences in the Rio Grande Valley and Houston and my unusual focus on climate change stories. This latter seems to me a bigger turn-off problem. I know, if you want to send a message, use Western Union.
I do have a cliche “situation” — where the heroine in this Rom-Com falsely suspects the hero of having a bad motive and he wrongly suspects her of drifting to “the other man.” However, I think these situations are common to a lot of romances, if not most or all. I’m hoping this doesn’t make for a turn-off cliche. If so, I could redo it. All it does is extend Act 2 and cause the couple on make-up to come together more strongly, admit their love for each other and desire to get married. These are not their biggest hurdles.
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Hi again, Lynn.
That doesn’t sound like a cliche to me, any more than romance itself and all the fear and hope that go hand in hand with that game are cliched. Sounds more like a context and a useful plot device. And obstacles and complications are all grist to the Act 2 mill.
All the best, Andrew
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Hey Lynn,
What you’re describing isn’t a cliche but a trope of the rom-com. There is nothing wrong with including genre tropes in your film because audiences expect them and if they aren’t there you could end up upsetting the audience.
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Andrew Boyd is Cliché Busting
Vision: For Hitler’s Choirboys to be such a compelling screenplay that Steven Spielberg and Mel Gibson will battle it out to produce their most powerful WW2 drama since Hacksaw Ridge or Schindler’s List.
What I learned from doing this assignment:
The situation may be familiar (Holocaust, Nuremberg), but I believe this take on it is unique, as is this perspective.
One of the protagonists, Sam, is a hustler (similar to Battle of the Bulge, Dirty Dozen) and a singer (see Memphis Belle) but given his colour and his backstory, I think that’s OK.
Sam is a trickster and brings light relief to an otherwise harrowing setting, as well as acting as a foil to his more earnest boss. He also shows that racism is everybody’s problem and blind spot.
Sam Fuller is movie audience bait, he articulates their point of view, and is the reason why a younger generation would pay to watch this.
There are two chaplains at Nuremberg, Henry Gerecke and Sixtus O’Connor, but what comes out of them is squeezed out under intense stress. We might not agree with their perspective, but they’ve earned the right to give it. And I don’t see this kind of grit, anger and pain in most modern warm-to-the-notion-of-faith movies.
In summary, I haven’t seen this story before, and if there is cliché in the dialogue, then it would take a fresh pair of eyes to point that out.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Andrew Boyd.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by
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Subject: Monica is Cliché Busting!
Vision: I will continue to learn everything I can through all different media to apply what I learn to become the best screenwriter I can be. To be successful in getting my movies made and to win awards in the process.
What I learned from doing this assignment is you have to be ever vigilant in writing. I’m always cognizant of clichés but sometimes they sneak in.
Then do this 4-part process with each scene that qualifies:
Identify the Cliché. Scene
6 – What part of this scene has been done before? The antagonist is
reciting the hero’s war crimes – feels like the scene from Avengers when
Loki recites Black Widow’s war crimes.
What is the purpose of
the scene? To get the hero to take the mission.
Brainstorm ideas that
deliver on that purpose until you find a unique one that works for your
story. I think I’m either going to do a montage of the war crimes or have
the antagonist find out what happens when you poke a bear!
Rewrite the scene to
honor the unique version.4. Give us a list of the changes you made to your script. But don’t post the actual script.
Cliché: Listing war crimes
New Version: Montage showing the war crimes instead.
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Amy is Cliché Busting!
Vision: I want to become known as an expert in the family-friendly genre and make a full-time living as a screenwriter.
What I learned from doing this assignment is there are a lot of clichés in my writing in general so the act of busting clichés will elevate my writing overall.
4. Give us a list of the changes you made to your script. But don’t post the actual script.
I only rewrote one scene, but I have another scene that needs to be rewritten and I just haven’t figured out what to do with it. I think there are others as well, but I’m just going to keep rolling through this module as I see the next assignments deals specifically with scenes so I will still have chance to fix them.
Cliché: The prince proposing at the ball
New Version: He proposes outside with fireworks writing “will you marry me” in the sky.
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MODULE SIX LESSON THREE
FRAN’S CLICHÉ BUSTING
MY VISION: I want to write great movies. Movies that are magical, movies that move people and tell the truth. I want to write movies that stars will want to be in.
What I learned:
I started thinking about my scenes and then found two or three that could be easily plagued with a cliché. I proceeded to fix them according to the assignment, but then there was this one scene that made me start thinking about the Olga’s character and how her life would relate to Meredith’s.
This work, being a unique story in itself, it finally came to me Olga’s life was ruled by the past. She had protocols to honor and keep. And in Russia the woman’s place was in second class. She had no room to grow as a woman, become her own unique self—become the ruler of Russia.
She fought that tooth and nail, every step of the way in the few years she lived. She loved her brother. She loved her sisters and her parents. But the one thing that she wanted the most was to become czar if for any reason her little brother didn’t survive. She wanted to be ruler of Russia after her father, Czar Nicholas II. She wanted to be like Catherine the Great. But she was always told, she could not. She had to take a backseat to the men in her family. Her uncle Michael would be the heir apparent after Alexei.
Thus, her search was always for a way to stay in Russia, a way to become czar against all odds and to have a love who would honor her wishes, her goals and support her.
Her mother didn’t (her battles with her mother were often the typical mother vs. daughter battles we see today) honor Olga as a unique individual. Alexandra had her own problems to deal with. So, that would be a cliché. Her fits of temper would be themselves cliches. Her loves, the men she fell in love with, would be cliches.
So, I decided to write Olga’s story as uniquely as I could by keeping the fact that she wanted to be czar in mind. Everything she did, the men she fell in love with all hinged on her wanting to be czar. Even Dmitri II and her love for him. He was a soldier in the war. He fought for Mother Russia. How could she not love a man who loved her country as she did?
Meredith is the same way. She wants to have her career. She wants it on her terms. She doesn’t want to ride the backs of others to the top. She wants to earn it on her own. But with Jerome, she’s taking a backseat. As it was for Olga and her father trying to support her and encourage her, Meredith finds Kyron, not just an old flame, but someone who really cares and really supports her and really wants her to shine.
This is what has to come through as I write my scenes. And I really do have to start over again. All my scenes are really crappy. Fits and starts. But I want to show how from the past and the women who fought for the right to be heard and to reach for the goals they wanted, but didn’t get them, that long road was not in vain. Meredith is also taking that trip with her marriage to Jerome ending. She will find her strength through Olga to become the person she wants to be. Even though Olga was murdered at 23 and never got to live her dream. Meredith will.
CLICHÉ: The affair between the starlet and Jerome. This often crops up in the movies.
NEW VERSION: A “corporate climber,” starlet’s holding something over Jerome’s head to insure her climb to success.
CLICHÉ: Classic mother vs. daughter feud that’s between Alexandra and Olga.
NEW VERSION: Olga makes her wishes known to become czar in case Alexei dies. The mother will do everything she can to ensure Alexei lives through his hemophilia so he can become czar. Jealousies, rivalries, Olga’s hatred for Rasputin keeps them from resolving their issues.
CLICHÉ: The old flame returns to make the struggling suffering screenwriter the star and they fall in love again.
NEW VERSION: This version shows that Kyron does, indeed, support Meredith, but he doesn’t do it for her. He gives her the freedom to make her own choices, be her own person, be the best she can be on her own. The falling in love again is just a benefit from their partnership.
CLICHÉ: Olga’s temper gets the best of her. She acts like a little brat. Classic move for a young girl in a coming-of-age movie.
NEW VERSION: Olga is a woman ahead of her time. She is royalty. She is like a fish out of water, out of her element. She fights for rights that will come later for others, but not her. Her temper has reason, purpose. She believes the world should treat women wholly better than it does, allow them to be more than it does. And she wants to love fiercely, openly, but she wants to remain in Russia to rule because she loves her country. She believes the man she would love would want the same. And that she could love beneath her station, because she loves that person, not because it’s her duty. But that is not to be. She finds the men treat her in the old world style her parents grew up in. The only man who truly respects her and wishes her to be more than she is, is her father Nicholas, who supports her in every way possible.
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WIM2 – Dana is Cliché Busting
My Vision: I intend to perfect my skills to become a successful screenwriter, scripting acclaimed and profitable films, recognized by my peers, and living an adventurous life.
What I learned during this assignment:
My concept is a kidnap film, which has been done before, but I think I broke the cliché by having my protagonist kept in the smelting ladle of an abandoned steel mill. I looked over the outline and script to find any cliché scenes, actions, statements, and I think I combed them out. It’s hard to see the clichés until someone else reads the script.
Here are a few I may need to improve.
Cliché: Antagonist uses email and phone to contacts husband with ransom threat
New version: Still researching a new method.
Cliché: Husband works with FBI to save his wife
New version: Husband conspires with antagonist to kill protagonist wife
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<div>Joe’s Bustin’ Cliche’s.
</div><div>My vision is to persevere and stay the course of building steady daily routine, and disciplines that produce consistent writing of exceptional quality. Ultimately, the fruit of those habits and disciplines will be a track record of great marketable scripts that will make other successful talented pros seek me out.
Hmmmm….
What is the difference between a cliche and a trope? I think when it comes to Rom Coms there is a very thin line between “Honoring the Genre” and “busting cliches”. I think this because when I was writing my previous Rom Com in the Pro-Series, I watched a bunch of Rom Coms and made a list of all the Cliche’s I could find. here’s that list…
-snarky best friend
-melancholic best friend
-slob/oddball best friend
-the token gay friends
-coffee shop meccas
-picturesque New York city
-both parties have lush beatiful appartments
-snowing Holiday scenes.. 1st one is romantic, 2nd one is lonely, or vice versa
-the main parties hate each other at first
-the chase and then the big speech at the end to reclaim the mate; usually a proposal, or even better, interrupting a wedding to the wrong person.
-referencing a classic romantic movie
-pets doing something funny, or making humans make fools of themselves.
-whacked out new age Mom
-redneck/clueless dad
-Malin Ackerman
– the female does something awkward that leads to sexually-based embarrasment
– one of them sees the other naked unintentionally.
I am proud to say I had very few cliches that I could recognize. The end “chase” is sort of there, but then you find out it’s not the end. It’s sort of a fake-out. So I’m proud of that, but I’m also open to changing it more. There were cliches in my dialogue, so I worked on some of that, but then I realized that technically that falls under the category of wordsmithing, and so I didn’t obsess about it.
Really, honestly, I don’t think this cliche-ish. I think it feels fresh, like I haven’t seen this before, yet still honoring the Genre in just enough ways. I mean they still don’t like each other at first, and they come from different worlds, and are forced into this same environment, but I avoided a lot of potential “Pizza place” cliches, and a lot of Italian stereotype cliches, and the “best friend saves the day” cliches, as I was writing the outline, so I’m happy about that.
-Oh but here’s one confession: There is this lingering plot problem deep in the 3rd act, and so I was working to solve it this time around, and, well, to solve it, I.. well.. I kindasorta, made the rich uncle fall so he could go to the hospital, and then die, so that my main Lead can inherit his money so he can pursue his dream with his new wife. This feels very dues-ex-machina cliche-ish. Perhaps when we get to feedback, I can find out how bad it sounds to anyone else. In the meantime, I’ll have my subconscious mull over it while I’m sleeping.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Joe Donato.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by
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Renee is Cliche Busting
Vision: I will work hard to become a well-respected writer with my movies produced and enough work to keep me busy and keep the light on.
What I learned doing this assignment is that while many of my scenes at first glance seemed like a cliche, they were, in fact, tropes of the horror genre.
I am working on identifying any scenes that might be considered cliche and will brainstorm ways to change them up as I work through the script and the next lesson.
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Dave is cliche busting.
My vision: I would like to be a successful writer in Hollywood, with a number of successful movies to my credit that put forward a core belief about environmental, political, or personal values.
What I learned doing this exercise is that the method of cliche-busting it lays out is undoubtedly an effective one. Identifying the purpose of the scene is a good way to make sure the rewritten scene will carry out its function in the screenplay while doing so in an original way.
I’m sorry but I couldn’t identify parts of any scene, or entire scenes, that I felt had been taken from any movie I’ve seen in the past.
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Module 6, Lesson 03 – Cliche’ Busting
Subject: Rob Ingalls is Cliche Busting!
MY VISION:
To be a Talented writer that delivers quality fast, with the film industry seeking me out.
WIL: Focus on one topic (cliche’), then use it to enhance scene works.
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Cliche’: p.2 Jewelry Store heist descend from ceiling onto glass case. Floor with LED beams and motion detectors.
– We’ve seen this type of heist many times. Scratch the descending, the LED beams, the motion detectors.
Purpose of Scene: One of several different heists to grab the audience’s attention. Keep the Jewelry Store heist but
have different theft protection devices and new solutions not seen before.
New Version: Drone hovers over case with cable and magnets. The cable descends, scoops up jewlery to drone, returns to robber.
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Cliche’: p.3 Le Mans Street. Formula-1 racing car theft. May not be cliche’ but it is boring.
Purpose of Scene: One of several different heists to grab the audience’s attention. Needs beefed up – more interesting.
New Version: F-1 car turns corner, drives into back of lorry with tailgate and ramp down, then closes up, lorry drives away.
Have cutsie logo on lorry panel.
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Cliche’: p.24 Simon’s Warehouse – Room filled with cool gadgets for top heist
Purpose of Scene: Show all the cool gadgets a top heist thief would have. Make it better than Bond or the England group and
more interesting
New Version: Various drones.
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Cliche’: p. 27 Museum – Simon enters and descends onto jewelry case. We’ve seen this many times before in other movies.
Purpose of Scene: Need to show unique way to reach the necklaces.
New Version: Change the infra-red beams and night-vision type goggles to mist bomb. Still kept descend maneuver for now.
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Marcus’ Is Cliché Busting.
My Vision: Get a script made into a movie.
This assignment pointed out that getting rid of cliches will improve the quality of the movie. It’s always a good idea to be original, but a closer check for cliches seems like a good idea that might easily be overlooked. My problem is that I’m writing a western and every scene feels like a cliché. Not sure I’m getting this one.
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Joel Stern WIM Module 6 Lesson 3 Cliché Busting
My Vision: To write eight screenplays that become Hollywood blockbusters.
What I WILL learn from this assignment: To be as original as humanly possible.
Sorry, but I’ve fallen behind due to mega work hours the past few weeks. But at least I have two days to catchup this week.
This time around I’ll keep a sharp eye out for scenes that have been done before. It’s tough trying to reinvent the wheel, but of all the feedback I’ve received from my previous screenplays the most common comment is how original my plots and characters are. I always look to be original and never copy anyone else’s work.
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Joyce’s Cliche Busting
To create memorable films that actors want to perform.
WIL: I changed several scenes and it is stronger.
The romantic scenes were too common and needed to be elevated and moved.
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Joel Stern WIM Module 6 Lesson 3 Cliché Busting
My Vision: To write eight screenplays that become Hollywood blockbusters.
I found it hard to find clichés since I try to be as original as possible from the very beginning of a script. On one hand virtually everything under the sun has been written before in one form or another so it’s difficult for me to draw the line between what has already been done and what will raise a red flag with a producer.
One thing I did change was in my opening scene. Jim, my protagonist steps off a troop train after WW II’s end and greets his wife and young son. He sees his son in a wheelchair, stricken with Polio — something he was never told about. After warm hugs and kisses they head home. As Jim wheels his son, Jim crushes and drops a small family photo of all three during healthier times. Originally I did not have him crush the picture, instead leaving it just as a happy reunion.
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Module 6 – Lesson 3 Cliché Busting
Lisa is Cliché Busting!
My Vision: I will do whatever it takes to be comfortable saying that I am a writer by creating impactful stories with amazing characters in order to sell my scripts.
What I learned from this assignment is not to use things that have been seen before unless they are used in a new way.
CLICHÉ: Scene 7 – had bully hold the head of the much smaller Protagonist so she couldn’t reach him.
NEW VERSION: Changed it to him holding down her arms so she couldn’t swing at all.
CLICHÉ: Scene 29 – the Antagonist cuts his hair and beard off, declaring he needs to change. Cliché, but I think it works in this scene because it also shows the tender and close relationship, he has with the person cutting his hair.
NO NEW VERSION.
CLICHÉ: Scene 33 – I wrote, “Look what the cat dragged in”.
NEW VERSION: Looking for a new phrase that means basically the same thing but hasn’t been overused.
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Erin Ziccarelli is Cliché Busting!
Vision: I am going to create profound scripts that leave audiences remembering my movies and leave me excited to keep writing and moving up in the industry.
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>What I learned from doing this assignment is: the process of finding cliches and brainstorming new ideas. Uniqueness is key and can help your script sell!
Give us a list of the changes you made to your script. But don’t post the actual script.
Cliché: Character drunkenly singing in a bar.
New Version: Character promises her gambling winnings to her friends if she doesn’t
make it through the song. She doesn’t…and loses all of the money she won in poker that night. She’s still drunkenly singing, but with the purpose of keeping her winnings.
Cliché: Protagonist and Antagonist play poker.
New Version: Protagonist and antagonist play poker surrounded by backup. Protagonist interrupts the poker game to leave and say his final piece. The game is never “finished.” Scene ends with the antagonist’s suicide.
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