Awesomeplenty: Ultimate Story Telling

At least that was what the workshop organized by Mdec for IPCC winners was called. 22/9/2010.

The workshop is lead by Yasu Tanaka, a Japanese working as a scriptwriter in Hollywood. Surprisingly he's quite an American and he has a Malaysian wife if I'm not mistaken.

Well lets get straight to the point. The workshop is about how to tell a good story and if there were any forms or standards to follow. There isn't any specific rules, however there are certain guidelines to follow even when telling a story through an interactive game.

I will list down the important key points as well as the current Hollywood story forms that director and scriptwriter use.

Story telling is about primal desire. What it means is that everyone understand the concept of money, power, lust, hunger, marriage, etc. Therefore don't be afraid to use these elements as a premise for your story.
Hook in the beginning. If you can grab the attention of the audience in the first 5-10 minutes, you will successfully grab the rest of their attention for the entire experience. Use either visual or emotional hook for instance the starting battle scene in Star Wars IV (visual) or the a scene where William Wallace as a boy loses his father in the beginning of Braveheart (emotional).
Have a strong and clear antagonist. There is no story without a conflict and antagonist is the one driving the conflict. The antagonist does not necessary be a person, it could anything that causes the conflict.
Using stereotypes. For example Titanic, the movie is about a love story but everyone knows that the ship is going to sink eventually therefore the audience is anticipating and accepted the sink of Titanic even before watching the movie.
Set the destination and goal for the main characters. In every story, there is always something the main characters want or desires therefore sets up for a journey, quest, training or adventure.

The basic format for any story telling is the three act structure in the ratio of 1:2:1.

Syd Field's Paradigm

Syd introduced the idea of plot points into screenwriting theory. Here's my interpretation of Field's paradigm in sequence:

Act 1 - Setup. The daily life or ordinary world for the main protagonist.
Plot point 1. The last scene in Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2. Turning Point 1 is a surprising development that radically changes the Protagonist's life, and forces him to confront the opponent. In Star Wars IV, this is when Luke's family is killed by the Empire. He has no home to go back to, so he joins the Rebels in opposing Darth Vader.
Act 2 - Conflict. The extraordinary world for main character's transformation arc.
Midpoint. In the middle of Act 2, often a reversal of fortune or revelation that changes the direction of the story. Field suggests that driving the story towards the midpoint keeps the second act from sagging.
Plot point 2. The last scene of Act 2 and beginning of Act 3.The decision moment or the confrontation and resolution. This is the scene where the main character must decide whether to stay or escape from his/her extraordinary world back to the ordinary world to resolve the conflict.
Act 3 - Solution. The main character has gain something, a certain set of skills, knowledge, companions, that can help him confront the conflict.
Showdown. In the middle of Act 3, the protagonist will confront the conflict directly, either overcome it or come to a tragic end.

Some additional key points like rocket boosters after midpoint to keep the audience awake, using borderlines like doors, walls, bridge, tunnel, river, etc to go in/out of the extraordinary worlds, change the vector of story constantly to keep audience guessing, internal (emotional/psychological) and external (physical) goals, and writing good loglines.

The movie examples used in the workshop was