Scenes
Every episode tagged Scenes, newest first.
2026
"When a character says something that’s actually true they lose power."
— Chas Fisher | DZ-127: Secrets and Clues 2 - The Cost of Revelation
DZ-127: Secrets and Clues 2 - The Cost of Revelation
What does it cost a character to find something out, or to say it?
AI✦Mel, Stu, and Chas apply the Landmark-Hidden-Secret framework across Side Effects and Shrinking to show how what the audience, characters, and filmmakers each know changes the emotional impact.✦
Listen to learn the emotional impact of revealing secrets vs discovering them.
DZ-126: Secrets and Clues
How can Secrets and Clues motivate characters?
AI✦The episode’s central framework examines how secrets (information characters know exists but must unlock) and hidden clues (invisible until characters pay a cost) motivate character action across WAKE UP DEAD MAN and other narratives.✦
Listen if you want to understand how hidden information drives character motivation and plot structure!
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“Getting information puts your character in danger. And danger rewards your character with information." — One of three ideas we steal from game design in this episode. In this two part series, we talk about how secrets, clues and hidden information motivate characters and may (or may not) help you plot from a character perspective. Part One (this episode) looks at WAKE UP DEAD MAN; while Part Two looks at SIDE EFFECTS, and the pilot episode of SHRINKING… →
Films:
Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
2025
"Often, gangsters are about the gang and the mob or the people within that. And noir is more interested, very broadly speaking, in... the system and the system being broader society, being the police, being, you know, culture at large and how you can or cannot necessarily win with it."
— Mel Killingsworth | DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir
DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir
What can Film Noir teach us about character arcs and audience engagement?
AI✦Double Indemnity and The Long Goodbye both tip their hand to the audience from the opening--you know the transgression happened before the plot begins--which means you’re not watching to find out what occurred, but rather watching how the character’s own certainty that they’re smarter than they are leads them into the trap.✦
Listen if you want to write morally compromised characters without endorsing their choices.
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In this two part series, Mel and Chas use Noir (the genre) as a lens to interrogate flawed characters. How can characters doing reprehensible things still engage audiences? How can you ensure representation isn’t endorsement? And whether these characters undergo transformative arcs, or simply reveal their true natures… →
DZ-120: Subtext is Overrated!
How do character goals, tactics, and fears create subtext automatically?
AI✦Tom identifies how Tony Gilroy constructs the Michael Clayton scene with three clear emotional movements and beats that create subtext through structure rather than exposition, each beat caused by what came before.✦
Listen if you're struggling to write subtext without it feeling forced!
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Or, how focusing on good drama will result in good subtext. We often hear how subtext is important for good screenwriting. We’re here to tell you it isn’t. Good subtext is a result of good drama, and your focus should be on creating that good drama. But how… →
DZ-118: ADOLESCENCE -- How Questions Create Dramatic Tension
How do dramatic questions create tension?
AI✦Chas and Stu analyze how the decision to shoot in a oner constrains and clarifies the writing: it forces real-time character experience, demands careful handovers between POV characters, and prevents the spectacle-driven distractions that would undermine emotional discovery.✦
Listen when you need tension without external stakes--subtext, stillness, and thematic weight do the work.
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In this episode, Stu and Chas delve into the cultural phenomenon of ADOLESCENCE. We try to find the craft tools that have made the show so compelling and such a catalyst for conversation… →
Films:
Adolescence (2025)
2024
"they started out sparring and then groves opens a window like opens a door for oppenheimer to pitch and then this third bit is them going like actually still sparring but agreeing essentially that he’s got the job, that they’re going to work together."
— Chas Fisher | DZ-108: The Emotional Event with Judith Weston
DZ-108: The Emotional Event with Judith Weston
How and why should every scene have an emotional event?
AI✦Status transactions--the moment-to-moment shifts in power between characters--form the backbone of how Judith and the hosts read emotional events within scenes.✦
Listen to understand why a scene's power lives in what shifts between characters, not what happens to them.
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2023
"In some stories it’s really fascinating to watch how maybe one of the characters doesn’t really understand the situation they’re in. They don’t know they’re in a negotiation. They don’t realise they’re actually in an argument. They’re not aware they’re being broken up with, or literally, they’re not aware that they’re in a fight. And it’s watching how those different expectations are in conflict, not just the two people."
— Damon Young | DZ-100: Scenes through Swords
DZ-104: Characters Alone - Dramatizing the Internal
How can scenes where characters are alone increase our connection with them?
AI✦The entire episode centers on how solitude functions as a structural and emotional tool to reveal what characters think and feel when their masks come down.✦
Listen to understand how solitude reveals character interiority and deepens audience connection
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In this episode, we explore the audience’s connection with characters through the lens of characters being alone… →
DZ-103: Game of the Scene 2 - Triangle of Sadness, The Favourite
How can games elevate dramatic scenes?
AI✦Stu and Chas build directly on their previous episode by showing how games force characters other than the protagonist to interact and reveal themselves through the rules they follow, break, or enforce.✦
Listen to understand how games force characters to interact and reveal themselves (through competency, decisions, and rule-breaking)
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In part two of this two parter, Stu and Chas go further into the game (of the scene) and look at how games force characters other than the protagonist to interact. We deep dive into the wonderful social satires of TRIANGLE OF SADNESS and THE FAVOURITE… →
DZ-102: Game of the Scene - Bluey, John Wick 4
How can 'games' help us write better scenes?
AI✦This episode is built entirely around the idea that every scene has an underlying game with rules, arenas, players, referees, and win conditions that can make your writing more dynamic.✦
Listen to make your scene writing more dynamic (by looking at the underlying game)
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Stu and Chas turn their attention to a topic that has long eluded them: the game of the scene. We look at how considering the game that characters are playing — its rules, arenas, players, referees, and win conditions — can help you write more dynamic scenes… →
DZ-101: Oners - Creating Immediacy & Anchoring Action on the Page
What can we learn by analysing how 'oners' are written on the page?
AI✦The entire episode is built around understanding how screenwriters write oners on the page--using the Copacabana shot, the Tintin chase, and the Children of Men attack to show how continuous takes are constructed through word choice and action description.✦
Listen to understand how screenwriters direct the camera without calling shots.
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Chas, Stu and Mel reunite to talk about writing the feel of camerawork in screenplays. We use “oners” — a long-playing continuous take — as a lens to talk about how some writers have “directed” from the page. We talk immediacy, camera positions, handovers, and anchoring action and more… →
DZ-100: Scenes through Swords
What scene-writing tools can be learned from martial arts?
AI✦Stu and Damon frame martial arts distance, timing, and approach as a structural model for how characters move through conflict within a scene.✦
Listen if you want to know why the distance between two characters matters more than what they say.
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In this slightly unusual episode of Draft Zero (but also incredibly on brand), Stu and philosopher-swordsperson Damon Young discuss how the lessons they have learned from martial arts can be applied to scenes. In particular, they discuss how approaching an opponent in a sword fight can be analogous to how characters approach conflict, such as: the distance between the characters, who chooses to engage first, how to feint, how to lure an attack by leaving yourself vulnerable, etc… →
Shows:
The Clone Wars 3x20
DZ-99: Scene Questions
How do audience questions shape scenes?
AI✦Chas and Stu structure their entire analysis around how questions posed to the audience within individual scenes become the organizational principle for that scene’s momentum and payoff.✦
Listen if learn how to structure individual scenes through the questions you pose to your audience!
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Inspired by our earlier episodes on sequences, Chas and Stu narrow their focus to look at the atomic unit of screen storytelling: the scene. In particular, we breakdown how question and answers prompted in the audience structure individual scenes… →
Films:
Loki (2021)
, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
, The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
, Queen & Slim (2019)
, Do the Right Thing (1989)
DZ-97: Ensembles 2 - Servicing Characters
How do you give your audience access to a lot of characters?
AI✦The episode applies the intimacy spectrum framework to analyse how ensemble films distribute emotional access across characters, examining which characters the audience gets closest to and why.✦
Listen if you're writing ensemble stories and want to discover tools for giving all your characters adimension
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In Part 2 of our exploration into ensemble stories, Stu, Chas and Mel examine films whose plot and genre require a lot of characters. Thus we tackle a team sports film (PITCH PERFECT), a murder mystery (GLASS ONION), a slasher (SCREAM 2022) and a family holiday flick (THE FAMILY STONE)… →
Films:
Pitch Perfect (2012)
, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
, Scream (2022)
, The Family Stone (2005)
2021
DZ-84: Choices & Decisions 1 - Booksmart
What is the difference between choice and decision when it comes to characters?
AI✦Separating choice, decision, and consequence allows the audience to know things the character doesn’t, creating emotional effects that depend on what information is withheld or revealed at each stage.✦
Listen how the separation of choice, decision, and consequence (for a character) creates emotional impact.
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In order to better understand dramatising of character, Chas and Stu take a very draft zero look at very specific tool: choices and decisions. We analyse three films through the decisions made by their characters. In particular, how the audience understanding of: the choice available, the considered decision itself, and the consequence changes how we feel about these characters. And how separating those three things can create different emotional effects on your audience… →
Films:
Booksmart (2019)
, Se7en (1995)
, Star Wars (1977)
, The Farewell (2019)
, Wrath of Man (2021)
, Fleabag (2016)
Shows:
Fleabag
DZ-80: Interweaving Timelines 3 - Little Women
How can interweaving timelines elevate the emotional experience for the audience?
AI✦Gerwig’s interweaving allows her to build thematic connections across timelines that wouldn’t exist in chronological storytelling, making the structure itself a carrier of meaning rather than merely a delivery system for plot.✦
Listen to explore non-chronological structures can make work thematically resonant.
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In our final part, part 3, of our Interweaving Timelines series, we — Chas, Stu & Mel — take a deep dive into Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women. In her adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s iconic novels, Greta chose to interweave the seperate timelines of Little Women and it’s sequel, Good Wives, to create a thematically and emotionally potent work. This differs from all the other adaptations, which have chosen to keep the chronological storytelling of the source material… →
DZ-78: Interweaving Timelines 1 - Destroyer
How does interweaving two timelines change how the audience feel?
AI✦Interweaving timelines inherently creates dramatic irony by showing viewers information about a character’s past or future before the character themselves fully understands it.✦
Listen when you're writting multiple timelines and struggling to anchor your reader to one timeline's perspective.
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Stu and Chas are joined by Mel Killingsworth to dissect interweaving timelines. Not anthology films. Not Cloud Atlas. But films where two plot lines featuring the same characters, but from different timelines, are woven together… →
Films:
Destroyer (2018)
2020
DZ-68: Using POV to structure KNIVES OUT
How can shifting narrative point of view drive your sequences?
AI✦The episode hinges on how Rian Johnson withholds and reveals information to create gaps between what audiences and characters know, manufacturing suspense and recontextualization.✦
Listen to help you master the gap between what your audience knows and what your characters know.
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Born out of isolation madness, this episode is an edited version of Draft Zero’s first YouTube livestream. Stu and Chas both watched KNIVES OUT and - together with our listeners - broke down each sequence and turning point by reference to what the audience knows in relation to the characters (aka narrative point of view). They then answer listener questions on KNIVES OUT and much else besides live on air… →
Films:
Knives Out (2019)
DZ-66: The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker - Audience Knowledge vs Character Motivation
How does audience knowledge affect your character's motivations?
AI✦The episode hinges on the gap between what characters know and what the audience knows -- particularly how that gap is weaponized in fan service -- which is the engine of dramatic irony.✦
Listen to understand how fan service weaponizes external knowledge against character logic.
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By Order 66: Chas and Stu are joined by special guest - filmmaker Mel Killingsworth - to talk all things Star Wars. Well. Focusing on The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker and wherever else our tangents take us… →
2019
DZ-63: Tools for Better Dialogue 2 - Hook and Eye
How can you create flow and contrast in your dialogue?
AI✦By breaking down key scenes from Fleabag, Juno, and Deadwood, Chas, Stu, and Stephen reveal how dialogue functions as the engine of scene construction and pacing.✦
Listen when you're rewriting dialogue and want to create connection between characters.
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A full three years after the first instalment (and one of our most popular), Stu and Chas have kidnapped Stephen Cleary to once again develop some craft tools around dialogue. It would be fair to say that - in that time - all three have learnt a lot more about dialogue than they knew in 2016. It would be also fair to say that Stephen perhaps learnt a little more through his research into “genderlect”… →
DZ-58: Game of Thrones - Character Exposition
How can you let your characters tell us how they feel?
AI✦The power of these scenes comes from the audience knowing (or thinking they know) more than either character, making what they choose to reveal the dramatic engine.✦
Listen to understand why what a character *doesn't* say reveals more than exposition ever could.
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In watching Season 7 (and the first three episodes of Season 8) of Game of Thrones, Stu noticed that there were lots of scenes where characters either met for the first time or were reunited after a long time apart. In these scenes, the audience knows (or thinks they know) more than either character. And so the fascination, power and subversion comes from what the characters choose to reveal... or not… →
Films:
Game of Thrones (2011)
Shows:
Game of Thrones
2018
DZ-54: Thematic Sequences
How does removing character and plot question force your audience to engage with theme?
AI✦Stephen Cleary returns to explain how thematic sequences function as a distinct type--one that strips away plot and character questions to force audiences into direct engagement with meaning.✦
Listen if you want to make theme your primary driver (for a sequence)
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Chas and Stu are joined, once again, by the inestimable Stephen Cleary. This episode is a spiritual sequel to our last episode with Stephen, the one on sequence structure. That episode explored how sequences could be broken into plot, character, and plot/character sequences… →
Films:
Love Actually (2003)
, The Exterminating Angel (1962)
, Apocalypse Now (1979)
, In the Bedroom (2001)
DZ-49: Antagonists! 1 - vs Humans
What makes a strong human antagonist?
AI✦This is Part One of a five-part series on different types of antagonistic conflict, with this installment narrowing focus specifically to human vs human as the primary narrative engine.✦
Listen if you want to understand how to craft compelling antagonists who oppose your protagonist through direct human conflict
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Prompted by a listener (and patron of the podcast) question, Stu and Chas dive into antagonistic forces. And because Draft Zero does not do anything by halves, this is Part One of a Five Part Epic Exploration™ into antagonists; namely: vs humans, vs self, vs nature/supernatural, vs systems and “other”. aka the classic narrative conflicts… →
2017
"Road movies often have that feel where a plot sequence or even a plot character sequence ends, and they’re still on the road and they’re still going in the same direction. The overall plot question of the film has not really changed. That’s why they feel episodic."
— Chas Fisher | DZ-43: Driving Sequences - Character and Plot Intensity
DZ-46: Structure & Point of View
What questions do you want your audience asking at any given time?
AI✦Stu and Chas analyze how being absorbed in the irony of knowing more than all the characters interacting on screen can drive structural choices, examining films like GET OUT and THE LIVES OF OTHERS that weaponize this asymmetry.✦
Listen if you want to understand how narrative point of view can organise your entire story structure
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Waaaaaaaaaay back in DZ-5, Stu and Chas examined how shifting narrative point of view (i.e. what the audience knows in relation to the characters on screen) heightens emotions in any given scene. We’ve now taken that micro idea and applied it to the macro: how can deciding what the audience knows and when in relation to the characters organise your story? Are whole sequences or even acts driven by the audience following a character, feeling concerned about a character, empathising with a character or being absorbed in the irony of knowing more than all the characters interacting on screen… →
DZ-45: Arguments of the Scene
How can you dramatise your theme on a scene level?
AI✦Stu and Chas demonstrate that thematic conflict emerges when a character’s worldview collides with the dramatic circumstances of a scene, making worldview the generator of scene-level antagonism.✦
Listen to discover how a character's worldview becomes the engine of conflict inside a single scene.
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As part of their ongoing exploration of scene-work, Stu and Chas apply their earlier thinking on theme and character worldview to individual scenes. Can examining a scene from a thematic perspective impact the drama, conflict or stakes of the scene? How does your character’s conscious and subconscious world views dramatise the overall theme of the work? How can an individual scene reflect the larger themes of the overall story? Do any of these questions or approaches lead to writing better scenes… →
DZ-43: Driving Sequences - Character and Plot Intensity
What gives your sequences their intensity?
AI✦By examining sequences through BOURNE IDENTITY, FARGO, and CHILDREN OF MEN, Stephen reveals how the internal structure of scenes compounds to create different intensities based on question type.✦
Listen to understand how dramatic questions shape audience engagement and pacing through sequences.
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Chas and Stu are joined for the fourth time by the inestimable Stephen Cleary - this time to take a deep dive into sequences. A real deep dive. A 3+ hour deep dive… →
Films:
The Bourne Identity (2002)
, Naked (1993)
, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
, There Will Be Blood (2007)
, Fargo (1996)
, Children of Men (2006)
, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
DZ-42: One-Shot - Character Worldview & Macro POV in SPLT
What screenwriting lessons can be we learn from SPLIT?
AI✦SPLIT’s twist structure depends on sustained dramatic irony--the audience and protagonist gradually discovering truths that reshape how we understand everything that came before.✦
Listen when you're writing a twist and need to earn it through point-of-view rather than surprise alone.
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In our first (and perhaps last) one-shot, we take a close look at the M. Night Shyamalan’s SPLIT. Rather than having one topic with many examples, we use the one example to look at many topics. Well, okay, a few topics… →
Films:
Split (2017)
DZ-40: Tactics and Scenes
How do tactics make your characters and scenes more dynamic?
AI✦Tactics determine the game each character is playing in a scene, and understanding that game makes scenes more dynamic and reveals what characters will do to win.✦
Listen to learn how a character's tactics reveal who they are under pressure--and how their changing tactics reveals their growth.
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In this episode, Stu and Chas turn their gaze to the “tactics” that characters use in scenes to get what they want. Tactics are how the characters try to achieve their goals and (we reckon) can be revealing of the essence of their character. The shifting and thwarting of tactics can make scenes more dynamic; while over the course of a story, the changing of tactics can reflect the growth of characters... even if their goal stays the same… →
Films:
Zodiac (2007)
, Training Day (2001)
, Hell or High Water (2016)
, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
, Winter's Bone (2010)
2016
DZ-38: Excelling at Exposition (Part 2)
How can exposition twist your story in new directions?
AI✦When exposition lands as a twist--like the reveal in Gone Girl--it works because the audience has been positioned to believe one thing while the truth was hidden in plain sight.✦
Listen to learn how to use exposition as dramatic revelation rather than mere information delivery.
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In the second part of Draft Zero’s two-part episode on “Exposition”, Stu & Chas take an even deeper look at this notoriously challenging part of screenwriting. For many stories there are pre-existing facts (or given circumstances) that need to be communicated to an audience, and often we rely on dialogue to do it. But exposition can do more than just communicate, it can serve as dramatic revelation that twists a story into a new direction or provides an emotional payoff - or both!. So how do great writers make exposition work for the story, rather than just tell audience stuff they need to know? And how can writers go wrong… →
Films:
Gone Girl (2014)
, Shutter Island (2010)
, Ghostbusters (2016)
, The Matrix (1999)
, The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
DZ-37: Excelling at Exposition (Part 1)
How can you successfully integrate exposition into your story?
AI✦By deconstructing scenes from PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, SHORT TERM 12, INSIDE OUT, and others, the episode reveals how successful exposition is embedded within functional scene construction.✦
Listen if your exposition scenes feel like information dumps disguised as dialogue.
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In Draft Zero’s first two part episode, Stu & Chas take an in-depth look at one of screenwriting’s most common challenges: EXPOSITION. For many stories there are pre-existing facts that need to be communicated to the audience — whether those facts be about the rules of the world, the nature of a location, character motivations, character backstories or just character names. So how have great writers made exposition move the story forward, rather than stopping it to tell the audience stuff they need to know… →
Films:
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
, Short Term 12 (2013)
, Inside Out (2015)
, The World's End (2013)
, The Big Short (2015)
, It Follows (2015)
, Jurassic Park (1993)
, Jurassic World (2015)
DZ-35: Driving Characters or Character Driven?
How can films maintain audience interest without stakes or plot questions?
AI✦The episode digs into scene work as the primary technique these filmmakers use to maintain interest when plot takes a backseat, suggesting structure operates at the granular level.✦
Listen if you're writing a character study and unsure how to build momentum without external conflict.
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Continuing their focus on “character”, Stuart and Chas take a close look at films that may be considered character-driven... or rather character studies... or just plot-lite films? Whatever you call them, these films — CHEF, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, and AMOUR — let their plots take a back seat to a closer examination of their characters. Stuart and Chas dive in to investigate how, without plot driving the story forward, do these films maintain our interest? We talk Mike Leigh’s idea of the ‘Running Condition’, Character Choice, SceneWork and the myriad other techniques the filmmakers use to keep us interested… →
DZ-32: High-Tension Sequences
How can you recreate the feeling of cinematic high-tension on the page?
AI✦The episode explicitly identifies shifting POV and dramatic irony as key tools for recreating high-tension sequences across genres like thriller and horror.✦
Listen if you want to evoke fear and tension using only the written word (without relying on camera, lighting, music, or sound).
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Chas & Stu take a close look at sequences of high-tension - the ones that make you lean forward in fear, or jump backwards in terror. Without camera angles, lighting, music or sound, how can screenwriters can evoke those emotions in readers using only the page? These sequences can be found in any genre of film, not just thriller or horror. To that end, Stu and Chas dive into high tension scenes from NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, ZODIAC, ROOM, and THE BABADOOK. We cover their use of shifting POV, Dramatic Irony, Status Transactions, White Space, Sound FX, and many more… →
DZ-31: Tools for Better Dialogue 1
How does dialogue serve to reveal character?
AI✦Chas and Stu analyze how dialogue shifts the power dynamics between speakers, using scenes from ANALYSE THIS and NOTTING HILL to show status moves in real time.✦
Listen if your want your dialogue to individualizes characters, reveal characterization, and shift status!
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Chas & Stu are joined once again by the renowned script developer and producer, Stephen Cleary. In the first part of our series on writing better dialogue (there will be more!), we take a close look at how dialogue serves character: individuating characters, revealing characterisation, shifting status, and much more… →
Films:
Analyze This (1999)
, Notting Hill (1999)
, The Remains of the Day (1993)
, The Avengers (2012)
DZ-29: Showdowns & Scene Structure
What can fight scenes - whether physical or verbal - teach us about structuring any scene?
AI✦Stu and Chas use fight scenes as a laboratory for understanding how mid-points, reversals, and escalation function within the architecture of a single scene.✦
Listen to discover how fight scenes can be great inspiration for writing any kind of showdown (verbal or otherwise)
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In exploring how to write good fight scenes, Stu and Chas compare how writers structure memorable showdowns - both verbal and physical. Fights vs arguments. Swords vs insults. Lightsabres vs passive aggressive subtext. To do this, they analyse the showdowns in EASTERN PROMISES, ROB ROY, THE FORCE AWAKENS (yes, yes, we finally let Stu officially discuss Star Wars), A FEW GOOD MEN, BREAKING BAD and BEFORE SUNSET… →
Films:
Eastern Promises (2007)
, Rob Roy (1995)
, A Few Good Men (1992)
, Before Sunset (2004)
, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
2015
DZ-28: Containing Your Script
How do you keep contained movies engaging?
AI✦Because contained stories eliminate the possibility of scene transitions between locations, the internal architecture of each scene becomes the primary tool for maintaining engagement.✦
Listen if you're writing a contained thriller, drama, or any story limited to a single location
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Contained Thrillers* *seem to be a genre that never goes out of fashion. But being contained is not just limited to thrillers. It’s a way of telling stories on a lower budget, regardless of genre. So - while allegedly easier to make / get made - limiting a story to a single location also limits the tools that maintain an audience’s interest. Changing audience or character point of view, intercutting between locations or characters are all much harder (if not impossible) in contained films. So how do good contained films hook their audience and keep them… →
DZ-21: Scene Transitions and the Hook
How can scene transitions do more than just move from one location to another?
AI✦Stu and Chas examine how transitions function as a foundational building block that does far more than mechanically move between locations--compressing time, strengthening thematic coherence, and unifying story threads.✦
Listen to understand how transitions compress time, enhance thematic connections, unify story threads, and orient your reader
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Stu and Chas look at one of the basic building blocks of a script: scene transitions. Transitions don’t just move you from one scene to another in a slick way, they can help you compress time, enhance thematic connections, unify different story threads, orient (or disorient) your reader... and just make your script feel more like a movie… →
Films:
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
, Highlander (1986)
, American Splendor (2003)
, Boyhood (2014)
2014
DZ-14: Writing For Actors with Succession's Sarah Snook
How can we make our screenwriting more appealing to Actors?
AI✦By examining specific scenes from the play-to-screen adaptation, the conversation shows how scene construction either enables or constrains an actor’s ability to find and execute character objectives.✦
Listen to understand how writers can craft more compelling material for actors (and how they approach scripts)
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In this episode, Chas and Stu are joined by a very special guest, SARAH SNOOK - star of Succession, Predestination, Jessabelle, and Oddball, amongst many others - to discuss ACTING and it’s relationship with WRITING… →
DZ-13: True That - Tips from Tarantino
What is it about Tarantino's *writing* that elevates his work?
AI✦Stu and Chas identify dramatic irony as the particular engine that makes Tarantino’s scripts work, breaking down how he deploys it across TRUE ROMANCE, KILL BILL, and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS.✦
Listen to steal Tarantino's technique for planting details that detonate as payoffs three scenes later.
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Chapter 1: Of Milk and Men… →
Films:
True Romance (1993)
, Inglourious Basterds (2009)
, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2011)
, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
, Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
DZ-10: Midpoint Reversals and The Ride
How can the middle of your film pivot so much that it pulls the rug out of your audience?
AI✦Films like Up demonstrate how a well-placed midpoint shift exploits what the audience thought they knew versus what the story actually requires, creating ironic reversals.✦
Listen when your second act sags and you need a structural jolt to accelerate audience engagement.
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Stu and Chas embark on the first of a series of explorations into the dreaded Second Act. Their first stop is midpoint reversals or shifts, a plot point bang in the middle of ACT II that changes the protagonist’s goal, raises the stakes and potentially leaves your audience leaning forward and asking “How the hell is this going to end?&rdquo… →
Films:
Death at a Funeral (2007)
, Prisoners (2013)
, Short Term 12 (2013)
, Alien (1979)
, Aliens (1986)
, The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
, Full Metal Jacket (1987)
, Philomena (2013)
, How I Live Now (2013)
, Elysium (2013)
, Die Hard (1988)
, Star Wars (1977)
DZ-8: Status Transactions
How does a shift in status or power reveal character?
AI✦Stu and Chas center their entire analysis on status as a source of dramatic revelation, examining how shifts in character status function as a storytelling engine independent of plot mechanics.✦
Listen to make your character relatinships more dynamic.
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Stu and Chas explore an idea they both came across studying theatre: status and by extension (or juxtaposition) power. Is a story where a character changes status or experiences loss (or gains) in power more compelling… →
Films:
The King's Speech (2010)
, The Princess Bride (1987)
, The Social Network (2010)
, True Grit (2010)
DZ-6: Key Scenes and Unlocking the Story
Can one scene be the key to unlocking the whole story?
AI✦Stephen Cleary’s central argument is that a single key scene--like the diner in HEAT or the boardroom in MARGIN CALL--can unlock your entire story structure if you understand your characters.✦
Listen if you want to understand how a single key scene between protagonist and antagonist can unlock the entire structure of your story!
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DZ-5: Shifting audience point of view and heightened emotions
Can forcing your audience to ask questions - and then answering them - trigger an emotional response?
AI✦By analyzing how thrillers systematically change what the audience knows relative to characters, Chas and Stu demonstrate dramatic irony as the genre’s primary emotional lever.✦
Listen to learn about the most powerful tool in screenwriting: narrative POV.
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Stu and Chas delve into audience point of view - not character point of view! Does your audience know more, less or the same as your characters? And does changing this within a scene trigger or heighten the desired emotional response… →