The rules of cinematic story telling
Culture
The good and the taboo
Bromances are chaste
Triads
The only thing better than a duality
Protagonist
Antagonist
(Christian Bale's) Batman
- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Antagonist (with a Hero's Journey)
Children's stories
Comedy
Light
Dark
Seeing clearly
Misunderstandings are clarified
Identities are revealed
Lovers are united
Anima
Animus
Shrek
The Pixar sandwich
Finding Nemo
- A boy is lost in the ocean
and returns to his loving father - A grieving widower learns to live again
Hero's Journey
- The hero in their world and what ails it
- The hero attempts to heal the world and fails
- The hero attempts to heal the world and succeeds
Compression
Decompression
Rising peril
Anatomy of a scene
Empire Strikes Back, 1980
Compression, rising tension
Scenes are divided into three acts
Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
- Thesis
- Argument
- Statement
He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
- Counter-thesis
- Counter-argument
- Retort
No. I am your father.
- Synthesis
- Resolution
- Escalation
The enjoyable film
- Brings the protagonist and antagonist into conflict
- Moves from misunderstanding to understanding
- Is structured into three acts
- Steadily increases tension throughout the story
- Via alternating scenes of pressure and relief
- Unites the anima and animus
- Ideally in a wedding
Rules
The rules of storytelling reflect our internal demands and reinforce them
Into the woods by John Yorke
Seven basic plots by Christopher Booker
The rules of cinematic storytelling
By Robert Rees
The rules of cinematic storytelling
The basic components of how films tell stories
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