I posted my last short, Break-In, on here a couple of days ago (I'll link to it at the bottom of this you may want to watch it before you read the whole post as otherwise it might not make sense).
It is a short action viral that has no dialogue but does have a clear narrative. Somebody asked me how I had gone about writing it so I thought I would post a fresh thread here in case it was useful to anybody else.
The plot is relatively simple. 5 men in black clothes and masks drive up to a multistorey car-park in a Land Rover and break in, undetected by the guard in the CCTV centre.
As you are wondering what they are doing, the driver of the Land Rover drops a football and the 5 men set off in pursuit trying to score into the open back gate using a large number of impressive stunts and tricks.
When the CCTV guard spots what they are doing he is about to call the police, but instead becomes a spectator in the game. They pursue the Land Rover to the top of the car park and after a few near misses, they finally score. (If you haven't spotted it already, my intention was to make something that looked like a Nike commercial)
Anyway. How do you write a (hopefully!) cohesive and enjoyable action sequence? This is what I tried to do, I hope it is informative (or at least sparks some constructive discussion)
Structure
The most important thing I think, is ensuring that you have drama and narrative within your action sequence rather than just a series of stunts, otherwise it isn't going to be engaging. I wanted to include dramatic elements such as suspense, immediate danger, failure, near misses, and eventual success, I also wanted there to be a clear narrative to the film.
With this being set in a multi-storey car park, there is an obvious narrative arc, a chase to the top, followed by a final confrontation, so I chose that as the basis for my structure. If your narrative arc goes unchallenged or undisrupted then there is no real conflict - things need to get worse before they get better. In the context of this film all the good work that has been done chasing the Land Rover is undone as the ball get's kicked out of the building. When your characters are knocked back to square 1, you don't want to repeat yourself so they then deal with this disruption in an innovative manner.
As we all know, action/thriller/horror/suspense films always have a false ending before the real final climax as otherwise all that suspense tends to fall a bit flat (did you hear me, Iron Man II?). So I have a setup for what appears to be the ending 3/4 of the way through the film - it is in the form of a stand-off so hopefully creates suspense. The players are denied, but again, you don't want to start from scratch - the players turn the situation to their advantage, and using a fresh tactic all five surround the Land Rover on the very top of the building and score.
One of the key structural elements of Break-In is the secondary scene of the CCTV guard watching the game... it's a bit twee, perhaps, but a high octane action sequence with people wearing masks isn't exactly something people can relate to on a human level. The CCTV guard sits as an intermediate between the game and the audience, his reactions (literally) put the human face on the film and we end up spectating as he does... this technique is obviously not going to be applicable to all action sequences directly, but having a human (usually the protagonist) go through the emotional experience we want to put our audience through is obviously an important technique for getting people to engage with a film, and it should apply equally to action sequences.
Writing the stunts
I think that what I may have been asked was "how do you write a stunt" but I think that the really important thing is to create an emotional and narrative structure first and then find stunts which do the job. The slow motion of the guy jumping through the railings is visually impressive, but it only really works because he does it in order to block the path of the Land Rover, and therefore has an impact on the narrative. Seeing extras fly half way across the screen because an explosion sends them flying is cliche and tedious - it is set dressing that achieves nothing.
Half of my cast were traceurs - what they do is get from point A to point B efficiently and gracefully, this is a narrative all by itself, which is great! However, the other half of my cast were freestyle footballers - who normally do skilful and aesthetically pleasing tricks with a ball with no clear narrative. I'm not talking it down, I think what they do is awesome, it just doesn't work well in the context of a narrative film. What I did with them was watch their showreels to get familiar with their skills and tricks and then tried to fit those to elements of the narrative.
The trick the player does where he knocks the ball into his shirt is cool, but it fits with the narrative because he's using it to address the stand-off in a surprising way in order to catch the driver off guard - there's a reason for him to do it!
I think it is best to work from a narrative need and then find a stunt that fits. A lot of the time when stunts and special effects leave you cold it is because they are done entirely for their own ends. Think about the power created in Jurassic Park and Jaws by a big rubber leg and a big rubber shark, compared to the indifference created throughout most of Peter Jackson's King Kong. It is because the former examples are addressing emotional concerns rather than aesthetic ones. You believe that it's a dinosaur because it's %&^$ing terrifying, not because it's photorealistic.
I'll confess to including a stunt that I wanted for purely aesthetic purposes... the freestyle footballers do some of their best tricks when they are sitting down, which obviously doesn't make sense in the context of a chase. I wrote in the sequence in the lift (which does serve a narrative purpose) to give me the opportunity to include some floor work, and work in a bit of characterisation (the idea that they're just nonchalantly having fun) as well.
I'm not saying that I've achieved the world's greatest action sequence here, or necessarily that it is even entirely successful (we all have plenty of criticisms of our own work!). But I'm just trying to share some of the things that I did which I felt proved successful, and some of the things I learned whilst making this film. Hopefully they will be useful to you!
I would love to hear people's opinions on where and why the film succeeds and fails and if anybody else has any other thoughts on this subject that they would add.
Cheers,
Jon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xSj-fKnZ3g
It is a short action viral that has no dialogue but does have a clear narrative. Somebody asked me how I had gone about writing it so I thought I would post a fresh thread here in case it was useful to anybody else.
The plot is relatively simple. 5 men in black clothes and masks drive up to a multistorey car-park in a Land Rover and break in, undetected by the guard in the CCTV centre.
As you are wondering what they are doing, the driver of the Land Rover drops a football and the 5 men set off in pursuit trying to score into the open back gate using a large number of impressive stunts and tricks.
When the CCTV guard spots what they are doing he is about to call the police, but instead becomes a spectator in the game. They pursue the Land Rover to the top of the car park and after a few near misses, they finally score. (If you haven't spotted it already, my intention was to make something that looked like a Nike commercial)
Anyway. How do you write a (hopefully!) cohesive and enjoyable action sequence? This is what I tried to do, I hope it is informative (or at least sparks some constructive discussion)
Structure
The most important thing I think, is ensuring that you have drama and narrative within your action sequence rather than just a series of stunts, otherwise it isn't going to be engaging. I wanted to include dramatic elements such as suspense, immediate danger, failure, near misses, and eventual success, I also wanted there to be a clear narrative to the film.
With this being set in a multi-storey car park, there is an obvious narrative arc, a chase to the top, followed by a final confrontation, so I chose that as the basis for my structure. If your narrative arc goes unchallenged or undisrupted then there is no real conflict - things need to get worse before they get better. In the context of this film all the good work that has been done chasing the Land Rover is undone as the ball get's kicked out of the building. When your characters are knocked back to square 1, you don't want to repeat yourself so they then deal with this disruption in an innovative manner.
As we all know, action/thriller/horror/suspense films always have a false ending before the real final climax as otherwise all that suspense tends to fall a bit flat (did you hear me, Iron Man II?). So I have a setup for what appears to be the ending 3/4 of the way through the film - it is in the form of a stand-off so hopefully creates suspense. The players are denied, but again, you don't want to start from scratch - the players turn the situation to their advantage, and using a fresh tactic all five surround the Land Rover on the very top of the building and score.
One of the key structural elements of Break-In is the secondary scene of the CCTV guard watching the game... it's a bit twee, perhaps, but a high octane action sequence with people wearing masks isn't exactly something people can relate to on a human level. The CCTV guard sits as an intermediate between the game and the audience, his reactions (literally) put the human face on the film and we end up spectating as he does... this technique is obviously not going to be applicable to all action sequences directly, but having a human (usually the protagonist) go through the emotional experience we want to put our audience through is obviously an important technique for getting people to engage with a film, and it should apply equally to action sequences.
Writing the stunts
I think that what I may have been asked was "how do you write a stunt" but I think that the really important thing is to create an emotional and narrative structure first and then find stunts which do the job. The slow motion of the guy jumping through the railings is visually impressive, but it only really works because he does it in order to block the path of the Land Rover, and therefore has an impact on the narrative. Seeing extras fly half way across the screen because an explosion sends them flying is cliche and tedious - it is set dressing that achieves nothing.
Half of my cast were traceurs - what they do is get from point A to point B efficiently and gracefully, this is a narrative all by itself, which is great! However, the other half of my cast were freestyle footballers - who normally do skilful and aesthetically pleasing tricks with a ball with no clear narrative. I'm not talking it down, I think what they do is awesome, it just doesn't work well in the context of a narrative film. What I did with them was watch their showreels to get familiar with their skills and tricks and then tried to fit those to elements of the narrative.
The trick the player does where he knocks the ball into his shirt is cool, but it fits with the narrative because he's using it to address the stand-off in a surprising way in order to catch the driver off guard - there's a reason for him to do it!
I think it is best to work from a narrative need and then find a stunt that fits. A lot of the time when stunts and special effects leave you cold it is because they are done entirely for their own ends. Think about the power created in Jurassic Park and Jaws by a big rubber leg and a big rubber shark, compared to the indifference created throughout most of Peter Jackson's King Kong. It is because the former examples are addressing emotional concerns rather than aesthetic ones. You believe that it's a dinosaur because it's %&^$ing terrifying, not because it's photorealistic.
I'll confess to including a stunt that I wanted for purely aesthetic purposes... the freestyle footballers do some of their best tricks when they are sitting down, which obviously doesn't make sense in the context of a chase. I wrote in the sequence in the lift (which does serve a narrative purpose) to give me the opportunity to include some floor work, and work in a bit of characterisation (the idea that they're just nonchalantly having fun) as well.
I'm not saying that I've achieved the world's greatest action sequence here, or necessarily that it is even entirely successful (we all have plenty of criticisms of our own work!). But I'm just trying to share some of the things that I did which I felt proved successful, and some of the things I learned whilst making this film. Hopefully they will be useful to you!
I would love to hear people's opinions on where and why the film succeeds and fails and if anybody else has any other thoughts on this subject that they would add.
Cheers,
Jon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xSj-fKnZ3g
