Hollywood Screenwriting Using Mini-Movie Method
WHERE'D THE MINI-MOVIE METHOD COME FROM?
Hi, It's Your Screenplay Mentor Chris Soth!
What is this thing I call The Mini-Movie Method come from?
Well, there are a few ways to answer that question:
The Mini-Movie Method comes from the fact that films are shot on reels – up till the advent of cinematic storytelling, there was no such technological beast, so the only thing that influenced structure was the technical intervention of raising and lowering a curtain, which spawned two plot points.
But when films started to span across multiple reels to tell their stories, filmmakers found it useful to divide the story into chunks that corresponded to the breaks in the reels – movies were shot on reels, edited onto reels, and ultimately projected on reels in theaters, so it was natural for those first filmmakers, from the Lumiere Brothers to Eisenstein, DW Griffith and up through Hitchcock to THINK of their stories in "reels" rather than "acts". It broke the stories down into smaller chunks and enabled the directors, writers, cinematographers and editors to all be on the same page in the creative process when designing and creating their story.
So where'd the Mini-Movie Method come from?
From the Greatest Filmmakers of all time, that's where. It's OLD SCHOOL, YO!
Michael Curtiz, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Frances Marion, these people were thinking of their story in reels – they may not have thought of them as "Mini-Movies", but it's all the same thing.
Then…what happened to The Mini-Movie Method?
Well, the first screenwriting books were not written by any of these people, nor by anyone who was in the business of writing screenplays or feature films – these books were written, as so many "how-to" books are, to fill a demand in the marketplace, and not by anyone with hands-on knowledge they wanted to impart…
…so the first authors of these books, having not been on the set of a movie, or having worked for a studio did what you or I would do – they looked at the body of work written about story in the previous medium – the stage – just as the first writers of books on photography undoubtedly looked to painting to provide them with an aesthetic, so the first writers of screenwriting books stole their aesthetic from the stage…
…so The Three-Act Structure is for the Theater. The Mini-Movie Method was created for movies…and it was nearly lost forever.
Why wasn't it lost forever?
The late, great Frank Daniel, who founded the screenwriting departments, first at Columbia University in New York and then at The University of Southern California film school, recognized, analyzed and preserved a story design that is based on the fact that film is shot on "reels". He referred to them as "sequences" and taught this method to two generations of screenwriters at both Columbia and USC. Frank died in 1995, and I was lucky enough to be one of his last students. His methods are still taught at USC in the Filmic Writing and Graduate Screenwriting Programs. If he called it "sequencing" –
Why do I call it "The Mini-Movie Method"?
Well, it sounds less technical and intimidating – the fact of the matter is, each "sequence" is a little movie all unto itself, which serves as a chapter in a bigger movie…
…and I've spent years refining and honing Frank Daniel's great reasoning and genius into my own repeatable, simplified technique, including a simple, clear and penetrating method of teaching it.
I'm not saying you get everything I learned at USC for $60,000. I AM saying you get everything I learned at USC that I haven't seen in another book or course or heard re-hashed a dozen times in every screenwriting resource.
I AM saying, you get it at a fraction of the price and it's the easiest, simplest, clearest and most repeatable way of generating, breaking, honing and refining a story that I have ever found or expect to find.
I hope you'll take a look: www.MillionDollarScreenwriting.com
The course is available on DVD and ebook or a package of the two – also through privately taught seminars.
Thanks "A Million",
Chris Soth
Million Dollar Screenwriter developed the Mini-Movie Method after years of success as a Hollywood screenwriter. Chris has multiple projects in development at major Hollywood studios. This master story teller is also an expert in pitching and selling - necessary tools for a screenwriter in Hollywood.
Chris holds an MFA in screenwriting from USC. He is the only seminar instructor whose work has been produced by a major Hollywood studio.
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