Intro to Screenwriting Week 1: Screenwriting Basics

This week we dove into story basics and screened Jordan Peele’s Nope. 

Lecture: Screenwriting Basics

After getting acquainted with the class and going over the syllabus, we dove straight into some screenwriting basics: conflict, premise versus theme, and genre & tone. 

Conflict

We covered the types of conflict, both internal and external, and how there are different size conflicts throughout a story. 

The types are: 

1. character versus self
2. character versus character
3. character versus society
4. character versus nature

Premise Versus Theme

One important distinction we covered is premise versus theme, premise being the central plot and the theme being the central concept. 

Here we also discussed log lines, a 1-2 sentence pitch of your script that covers the most important aspects. To create one, we follow the following format:

“When [INCITING INCIDENT HAPPENS], [CHARACTER] must [DESCRIBE OBJECTIVE] before [DESCRIBE OBSTACLES AND STAKES].” 

Genre & Tone

Genre and tone tend to go hand-in-hand, but it is important to know the difference between the two. 

Genre is the type of story, which is categorized by conventions. Conventions are elements of a film, repeated across the genre, that tell audiences what type of film they are watching. For example, you can tell it is a horror movie if there are masked figures, string music, or certain archetypal characters. 

Tone is the overall mood of the film and should correlate with the genre. 

These concepts are important to learn, not only to follow them as expected, but also to be able to play with going against them. 

Screening

To study these screenwriting basics, we watched Jordan Peele’s 2022 film, Nope. 

When evidence of alien activity catches Otis Jr’s attention, the rancher and his sister must catch the UFO before it consumes everyone and everything on the ranch. 

I notoriously hate horror movies, so this was a hard watch for me. I found the characters and their stories quite compelling, but the whole alien thing sort of lost me.

After discussing it with a friend who had seen it before, I think the theme of Hollywood being all consuming (as represented by the alien) just went over my head. It is very clever though if that is the case. 

Jordan Peele is a fantastic screenwriter though and definitely exemplary in screenwriting basics.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed examining a film to focus on these screenwriting basics with the script. Unfortunately with my background in acting and film production from my other courses and experiences, I don’t think I can ever just watch a film ever again! 

Be sure to tune in for next week’s post, and check out some others!