Aniversário de casamento

Tenho um carinho especial por este texto. É um monólogo que algumas atrizes gravaram para registro em emissoras e que algum tempo depois acabou dando origem ao espetáculo: 'Todas as vezes que eu te amei'.

Texto: Aniversário de casamento
Autor: Marcos Galinari

É sempre assim.
Todo ano acontece a mesma coisa.
Eu me preparo sabe, eu tento me preparar...
Pelo menos tento.
Tento não ficar surpresa...
Uma mulher da minha idade, já se sente mais segura...
Afinal, a vida cobra esta segurança, esta...
Esta... há sei lá.
Eu sou casada há cinco anos.
Conheci o Sergio meu marido no trabalho.
Numa confraternização da empresa, estas festinhas de final de ano. Eu organizei o encontro. Cuidei para que nenhum detalhe fosse esquecido, ninguém fosse esquecido, nada fosse esquecido.
Foi um sorteio feito assim, meio na hora, amigo secreto.
No final, eu acabei tirando o Sérgio. E o Sérgio, claro, acabou me tirando.
Eu tinha comprado uma agenda, meio neutra sabe, afinal de contas eu não sabia quem eu iria tirar mesmo.
O Sérgio gostou, disse que adorou, que ficou surpreso, coisa e tal...
Eu também fiquei surpresa. Ele não me deu nada!
É! Não me deu nada!
Cento e trinta e cinco convidados e eu fui a única a ficar sem nenhuma lembrancinha. Uminha sequer.
Pode uma coisa dessas? O que o Sérgio disse ?
“Desculpe viu... eu não entendi o convite...
Eu achei que ...”
Ah! Achei, achei, achei...
Esta sempre foi a resposta básica ou melhor a desculpa
clássica do Sérgio foi sempre essa... Eu achei que.
O Sérgio sempre teve uma coisa que me chamou a atenção, desde o início. A ingenuidade.
É, apesar de ficar irritada, eu sei que ele não faz por mal. É o jeito dele mesmo. Mas eu fico irritada.
Não! Irritada é pouco. Eu fico puta, loca!
Hoje, 15 de agosto é nosso aniversário de casamento.
Não, ele não esqueceu não. Também, agora eu já aprendi.
Passo a semana toda deixando bilhetinhos, recadinhos, passando e-mail, torpedo... Tudo isso pra ver se ele não esquece.
É sempre assim. No meu aniversário, faço a mesma coisa.
Só que começo uns 20 dias antes.
Se eu ainda gosto do Sérgio ? Eu só tento não ficar mais surpresa...

Monólogo: Taxímetro

Autor: Marcos Galinari


Eu peço sempre pra parar um quarteirão depois.
E ainda fico de olho.
Pelo menos assim eu não dou tanta bandeira...
Ah, quer saber ? Tanto faz também.
A cabeça fica às vezes um pouco confusa...
Dá um nó mesmo.
Um dia desses um cara me falou
por que eu insistia?
Por que eu levava essa vida?
Depois, me contou a vida inteira.
Que era casado, que tinha filhos...
me falou até da sogra dele.
Tem idiota que pensa que eu sou psicóloga,
terapeuta, sei lá o que.
Ficam pedindo conselho.
Como se eu pudesse dar algum tipo de conselho.
No fundo mesmo, eu tô é me lixando pra tudo isso.
Nem tudo é eterno mesmo.
Nada dura pra sempre.
Eu dô risada desses idiotas.
Me divirto com esses babacas...
É, eu sei. A vida não tá fácil pra ninguém, eu sei.
Mas que às vezes eu ganho fácil, ah eu ganho.
Já tive problemas também.
Já levei na cara, amarrei porrada mesmo.
Tive até que correr, deixei tudo pra trás...
Mas no outro dia, eu tô aqui de novo.
Eu escolhi assim.
Não, aqui não! Tá vendo aquele carro?
É, vermelho. Pára ali. Depois daquela esquina.

Characters Make the Plot

by Martha Alderson, M.A.
This year, reviewers have consistently complained about a lack of character emotional development in the movies. At the same time, Hollywood reports a slump in box office sales. Are the two related? Perhaps. Even the top five moneymaking movies for the summer of 2006 were without significant character emotional development. “Although he slams into stationary objects with his customary zeal, Tom Cruise [in Mission: Impossible III] is off his game here, sabotaged by a misguided attempt to shade his character with gray.” Manohla Dargis, NEW YORK TIMES Storytelling involves more than lining up the action pieces, arranging them in a logical order and then drawing conclusions. Yes, dramatic action pulls moviegoers to the edge of their seats. And yes, conflict, tension, suspense and curiosity hook moviegoers. Yet, no matter how exciting the action, the character's emotional development provides the real fascination. Any presentation without a strong human element increases the chances of losing audience interest. “The Da Vinci Code...a couple of crashing boors...” Amy Biancolli, HOUSTON CHRONICLE In many cases, movies rely on star power alone without taking the time to develop the characters in the story itself. Moviegoers may feel an emotional attachment to the star. Ultimately, however, unless they emotionally identify with the main character as a character, moviegoers will detach from the film. Plot Is More than Dramatic Action Plot is made up of three intertwining threads: 1.) Character emotional development 2.) Dramatic action 3.) Thematic significance In other words, the protagonist acts or reacts. In so doing, he or she is changed and something significant is learned. When Stories Get Stuck Stories get stuck because one or more of the three key elements has been ignored: 1.) Concentrating on action only, forgetting that character provides interest and is the primary reason people go to the movies and read books. "Without the first film’s textured relationships, [X-Men: The Last Stand] becomes just another episode..." Colin Covert, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE 2.) Organizing solely around the character and overlooking the fact that dramatic action provides the excitement every story needs. 3.) Forgetting to develop the overall meaning or the thematic significance of the story. When the dramatic action changes the character at depth over time, the story becomes thematically significant. “This second film [Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest] is pretty much all thrills, special effects and nonstop action -- but with virtually no cohesive or compelling story line.” Bill Zwecker, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES The Power of Character In a compelling story line, the characters grow and change step-by-step in reaction to the dramatic action. This growth is not meant to be merely on a physical level. Often, in their zeal of showing off high-tech special effects, moviemakers and screenwriters forget the power of character emotional development. The challenges the characters face must create emotional effects, the deeper the better. An effective way to keep track of these incremental steps is with the use of a Scene Tracker. A scene tracker asks you to fulfill seven essential elements in every single scene, with the biggest being on the character emotional development. Take, for instance, The Crisis. The crisis is an event written in scene that works like any crisis in real life. The crisis serves to shake things up in such a way that the protagonist has to act. The crisis takes on dramatic proportions when it serves as the highest point in the dramatic action plot line so far and, at the same time, forces the protagonist to rethink life as they have always thought it to be. This, in turns, changes their character emotional development at depth. When one scene has such a dramatic effect on both plotlines, the scene serves as a double whammy. This effect is best found toward the end of the Middle or nearly three quarters of the way through the project. If, however, the crisis involves only a high point in the dramatic action without something equal or comparable happening within the character, the story loses its heart. “Calling a summer movie 'action-packed' is supposed to be a compliment, but there's nothing so tedious as nonstop excitement.” Stephanie Zacharek, SALON.COM Sometimes, the crisis takes the form of two separate events written in two separate scenes. In this case, one scene hits the highest point so far in the story for the Dramatic Action plot line and another scene affects the character emotional development plot line separately. These two high points can either occur close together for maximum effect or further apart. Viewers expect and deserve the dramatic action and the character emotional development to build to a fevered pitch toward the end of the Middle. By then, they have been sitting for over an hour. Without some sort of release caused by this sort of big moment within the character, the story becomes just another action drama with explosions and chases and fights. The crisis can be written softly and quietly or as an all-out war. Either way, and whether it comes separately or together, the crisis involves the character on an emotional level in reaction to the dramatic action and ends the long haul of the Middle (a whopping 1/2 of the scene count of the entire project). “[Poseidon’s] intensity is strictly physical, the intended emotional impact submerged in a numbing onslaught of death, danger and derring-do as a bunch of mostly annoying, self-centered passengers fight their way to the surface." Sheri Linden, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Until this trend of ignoring the power of the character emotional development ceases, chances remain high that the movie box-office grosses will continue to dip even lower.Martha Alderson, M.A. is an international plot and story consultant for writers. Her clients include best-selling authors, writing teachers and fiction editors. As the author of BLOCKBUSTER PLOTS Pure & Simple, she created a unique line of plot tools for writers, including the Scene Tracker Kit, and the Plot Planner DVDs. She teaches plot workshops privately, through University of Santa Cruz, Learning Annex and writing conferences.

Monólogo Trânsito

Trânsito
Autor: Marcos Galinari

Cara, isso foi em pleno trânsito de São Paulo.
Não, imagina. Aquele monte de carro, tudo parado e de repente eu olho... ela. Bem ali do meu lado.
Tava com um espelhinho daqueles de maquiagem,
dando uns retoquesinhos. Como se precisasse né.
Na hora mesmo eu nem acreditei, olhei de novo...
Aí pensei... eu vou lá. O trânsito tá parado mesmo, dá tempo.
Mas desisti, era dar bobeira demais. Podia até pensar que era um assalto, hoje em dia sabe como é.
Melhor, eu vou dar uma buzinadinha.
É, mas aí o cara da frente podia pensar que era com
ele... Imagina o motorista saindo do carro, vindo tirar satisfação, ela ia ver...
Não. Buzinar não. Podia ser um tchauzinho...
Dar tchauzinho também é tão patético...
E se eu ligasse? Eu tenho o número dela...
Não, não. Acho que o número nem deve ser o mesmo.
Enquanto isso ela ainda estava lá, retocando a maquiagem.
Como o tempo é generoso com algumas pessoas...
O trânsito continuava parado, minha cabeça a mil é lógico e...
e de repente eu voltei no tempo. Parece que via tudo quadro
a quadro. Lembrei de cada ano, de cada coisa...
Nossa, e meus aniversários? Todo mundo lá. Cara não dá nem pra falar...
De repente ouço o som de uma buzina, era o carro de trás. O trânsito começou andar, eu olhei de lado e já não vi mais ninguém.
É, eu fiquei triste, claro. Podia ter feito de tudo. Buzinado, dado tchauzinho, ido até lá.
Mas faltou coragem. Também, eu nem saberia o que dizer mesmo.
Mas valeu. Nossa, se valeu.
Pelo menos por alguns instantes...
Ela, ela parecia estar muito bem. Um dia eu ainda tomo coragem e...
Eu saí de casa muito cedo, depois de uma discussão terrível. Isso já faz alguns anos.
Cara... como foi bom ver minha mãe de novo.

DAVID GOYER Screenwriting Lesson

How To Market Your Screenplayby

by Kathryn Knowlton
OK! You've got a terrific script! How do you get it read, and how do you sell it? The first step, of course, is to get good representation. One of the most important things to look for in your representative is whether or not s/he knows the marketplace. It is extremely important that your representative knows what the studios are looking for and the person at each studio who is looking for it. With the success of ‘American Beauty,’ many of the studios are looking for quirky, edgy, offbeat movies, which would have been very hard to sell a year ago. Several studios have asked me recently for thrillers. For the past several years, there have been so many thrillers in development that no one wanted to hear about them. This is what I mean by knowing what they want: Why burn out your script when, by waiting out the tide, you can catch a wave? I am also seeing that studios are looking more and more for genre films; i.e., horror, family or urban fare. Genre movies have a built-in audience. For example, even if a family movie grosses very little theatrically, they know they can make their money back in video sales. Another interesting trend is that quite a few musicals and riskier projects are in development now versus a year ago. Don't, however, forget that the core, repeat audience are 15 to 25-year-old males, the demographics the studios are willing to spend big money on. On the other hand, I would never encourage a writer to write towards the current trend because, by the time your screenplay is finished, the studios will have filled all of those slots. Trends come and go quickly, which is why it helps to have a representative who talks to all the studios on a weekly basis. Just to make it more confusing a studio may tell me that they want absolutely no CIA stories, but if I have a great CIA script and am armed with that knowledge, I can talk an executive into reading it, and if it's really good, probably buying it. If I was not armed with that knowledge, the script would just go to a reader, the executive would have no incentive to read it (after all, it's not what s/he has been asked to look for!) A representative with a personal relationship, however, can explain why this script is so good, and why s/he's willing to bet their reputation on someone spending time to read it. Trends come and go very quickly, and yes, you can get lucky and catch that wave. To seriously succeed as a writer, however, and make more than just one sale, the best advice I can give you is write what you know and find a unique voice. At CSS, we each read approximately 1,000 scripts a year. Yes, one thousand, some of us read even more. For a script to make a sale, it has to stand out. Some of the best scripts in town have yet to be produced, but have earned the writers years and years of work on other material. Stick to your guns, keep writing, and if you are a good writer and have solid representation, you will get your shot. The truth is that no one really knows anything, it is passion that sells material. So, keep writing, keep honing your skills and be comforted by the fact that many truly successful writers tell me that they are still terrified every time they look at the blank page or computer screen. These are people making close to or more than one million dollars a script.Kathryn Knowlton and Creative Script Services are dedicated to helping aspiring writers break down Hollywood's locked doors. CSS will read and, if viable, REPRESENT your material. ,See Web site thescript.com for more information.

Breaking the Screenwriting

by Howard Suber
Everybody in Hollywood knows the top three rules of screenwriting: 1. Write what you know. 2. Films must have a happy ending. 3. Films must have three acts. But few people know what these rules all have in common: They are all wrong. Rule #1: Write What You Know There is no writer alive who has not been advised, “Write what you know.” And there are few writers who have not, in the course of following this advice, spent months or years producing a personally cathartic but boringly predictable work. Too often, writers take “write what you know” to mean “write what you’ve lived.” Yet, few writers lead dramatic lives; if they did, they wouldn’t have much time or energy for writing. Writing what you know, therefore, can constrict a writer to a very narrow and uninteresting perspective. What you "know," if you have any creativity at all, is not just what you have experienced. Paul Schrader had no experience as a pimp or a taxi driver when he wrote the screenplay for Taxi Driver. He had studied to be a minister at Calvin College, a small fundamentalist school in Michigan, and earned his M.A. degree in academic film studies at UCLA writing about the spiritual dimensions of the work of the Danish director Carl Theodore Dryer. Mario Puzo wasn't a made man or even a member of a Mafia family, he was a novelist looking for a commercial hit, and what he knew about the Mafia when he wrote The Godfather came mostly from his research in the New York Public library. George Lucas grew up in rural Modesto, California, where there were no space ships, hyper-drives or even robots. What he knew about “The Force” he got largely from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero of a Thousand Faces and popular studies of comparative religions. If all that a writer “knows” is his own personal experience, it will never be broad enough to sustain him throughout a productive career. Experience, in itself, is never enough. The more one relies on it exclusively, the more one runs the risk of restricting one’s imagination, which is where most creativity originates. Rule #2: Films Must Have a Happy Ending Here are some memorable popular films that do not have a happy ending: Amadeus American Graffiti Annie Hall Apocalypse Now Bonnie and Clyde The Bridge on the River Kwai Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Casablanca Chinatown Citizen Kane A Clockwork Orange The Deer Hunter Doctor Zhivago Double Indemnity Dr. Strangelove E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial Easy Rider Frankenstein The French Connection From Here to Eternity The Godfather The Godfather: Part II Gone with the Wind The Grapes of Wrath High Noon King Kong Lawrence of Arabia The Maltese Falcon The Manchurian Candidate Midnight Cowboy Mutiny on the Bounty Network On the Waterfront One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Patton Platoon Psycho Pulp Fiction Raging Bull Rebel Without a Cause Schindler's List The Searchers Shane The Silence of the Lambs A Streetcar Named Desire Sunset Boulevard Taxi Driver To Kill a Mockingbird The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Unforgiven Vertigo The Wild Bunch The press, audiences, and people in the film industry itself all seem to believe that, to be a success, a Hollywood film must have a happy ending, but as this list demonstrates, this is not born out by the evidence. While comedies and musicals generally end happily, a very large proportion of the most memorable popular films (those that were popular in their own day and have remained popular) do not. The endings of the vast majority of memorable popular films consist of Pyrrhic victories, in which the central characters have gone through such trauma, loss, pain, sacrifice, and suffering that calling their final state “happy” would be a maddeningly insensitive joke. The Declaration of Independence and every politician who invokes it may speak of the “pursuit of happiness,” but happiness has nothing to do with being a hero; in fact, happiness is something heroes learn to live without. Rule #3: Films Must Have Three Acts What is the authority for this rule? Surely, not empirical observation, for the history of drama and film is filled with great dramatic and filmic works that cannot be said to have three acts. So, why in recent years have so many people tried to force films into this Procrustean bed? The authority most often cited for the “three act rule” is that oldest of dramatic theorists, Aristotle. In his other works, Aristotle often obsessively numbered things, so had he observed three acts in the works of the great Greek playwrights, surely he would have reported it. But none of the plays Aristotle was familiar with had acts in the modern sense of the term. Not surprisingly, therefore, Aristotle said absolutely nothing about an act structure — and certainly nothing about three acts. Aristotle said that drama has a beginning, middle, and end, but he did not make a big deal about it, which is a good thing because when one looks at the statement it is so self-evident that one has to wonder why such a great thinker bothered to make it or why his students thought it worthy of preserving for posterity. World War II, this article, and your last bowel movement all have a beginning, middle, and end. Everything that takes place in time or space has a beginning, middle, and end. But this is not the same thing as three acts. Some people suggest that an alternative to three acts is the five act structure they ascribe to Shakespeare. But a large proportion of Shakespeare’s works did not have such a structure - it wasn’t until nearly a hundred years after his death that a publisher decided to impose the five act structure on all of his plays. So, neither the three nor the five act structures came from the revered source so often claimed for them. The three act structure was invented two thousand years after Aristotle, when Ibsen and other nineteenth-century dramatists found that their audiences — unlike those in Periclean Athens — were unable to sit still for the entire duration of a full-length play. In Ibsen’s theater and most theatrical works since, the audience is aware of acts because the curtain comes down, the house lights come up, and they get a chance to go to the bathroom. In film, the curtains don’t come down, the houselights don’t come up, and anyone who goes to the bathroom has to miss whatever keeps running on the screen. No one in the audience knows about “acts.” Greek, Elizabethan, and contemporary film audiences have not needed and as far as we can tell have never cared about the act structure that so many people say the “rules” demand. It is useful, of course to remember the self-evident fact that things have a beginning, middle, and end, but is difficult to explain why so many people think this is the same as three acts, or why so many people make up rules about how long they should be and what should take place within them, especially when the results of such rule-making all too often resembles painting by the numbers. Rules and Writing What I have learned from more than forty years of teaching a continuous stream of students at UCLA who have gone on to be successful film and television makers is that film storytelling is one of the most difficult of all art forms, and that it usually takes years to become competent, let alone to master it. Such mastery comes not from slavishly following forms and formulas, but from learning the psychology of storytelling, which is ultimately the psychology of human beings.Howard Suber has taught thousands of aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters over more than 40 years on the faculty of UCLA’s film school. Recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award and a Life Achievement Award, Suber recently distilled his handouts from more than 65 different courses into his new book, The Power of Film.

The Essence of Story

by James Bonnet
What is the essence, or heart and soul, of a great story? There are seven critical elements: the change of fortune, the problem of the story, the complications, crisis, climax and resolution of the classical structure, and the threat, which is by far the most important. In this article, we will examine the threat and its relationship to the other six critical elements that constitute the very essence of story -- that without which there would be no story. The first element is the change of fortune. There is an entity (i.e. an individual, a family, a town, a country, the world, etc.) and that entity goes from a desirable to an undesirable state or condition or the reverse. Or as Aristotle put it: 'The proper magnitude (of a story) is comprised within such limits that the sequence of events, according to the laws of probability and necessity, will admit of a change from bad fortune to good or from good fortune to bad.' In 'The Exorcist,' a little girl is possessed by the Devil and a state of misfortune exists. Then, the principal action, casting out the Devil, brings about a state of good fortune. In stories that end unhappily, it's the reverse. In 'Othello,' a state of good fortune exists at the beginning. The principal action, perpetrated by Iago, destroys the Moor with jealousy and a state of tragic misfortune is the result. The second element, the problem, brings about these changes of fortune. This problem is a prerequisite in all stories. You have a problem and that problem is resolved. No matter how big or small the story, it will be focusing on, or related to, a problem. And everyone in that story will somehow be involved in that incident. And everything everyone does in that story will in some way affect the outcome of that incident. And revealing how that problem was created and how it can be resolved is at the very heart of a story. In 'Kiss The Girls' and 'The Silence Of The Lambs,' a serial killer is on the loose. That is the problem that brings about the change of fortune and that is the problem that has to be resolved. The solution to those problems will be the principal actions that give a unity of action to these stories. In 'Gladiator,' a tyrant has usurped the Roman Empire, preventing the restoration of the Republic. In 'The Sixth Sense,' there are two problems: a murdered child psychologist is stuck in limbo, and the spirits of dead people are haunting a little boy's mind. In 'Independence Day,' aliens have invaded the Earth. In 'Star Wars,' the Evil Empire has taken possession of the galaxy. In 'The Iliad,' the Greek army is being decimated because their best warrior has dropped out of the fight. In the legend of King Arthur, the kingdom is in a state of anarchy and has to be reunified. In 'Jaws,' it's a shark problem. In 'The Mummy,' it's a mummy problem. In 'The Perfect Storm,' it's a weather problem. In 'Traffic,' it's a drug problem. In 'Armageddon,' it's an asteroid problem. In 'Indecent Proposal,' it's a temptation problem. In 'Erin Brockovich,' it's an environmental problem. Each of these stories, and hundreds of others I could name, revolve around a problem that has to be resolved. Can any problem be a story? Technically, any problem can be a story if its solution contains a classical story structure -- i.e. complications, a crisis, a climax and a resolution. Generally speaking, however, an audience wouldn't be interested in a story about some minor problem, like finding your lost keys, unless something truly funny or horrendous like the end of the world would happen if you didn't find them. Story is especially interested in problem-solving actions that involve crises -- critical events that threaten life, health, wealth, freedom, love, security, happiness, etc. while testing the limits of human endurance and ingenuity. Story focuses on problems for the same reason the news only reports the bad things that are happening in the world -- and not the good -- because problems are where it's at. If everything is in perfect harmony, and there are no problems to worry about -- we're in Paradise. And that's one of the functions of story: to help guide us to higher, more desirable, less problematic states of being. One of the ways that a story does this is by revealing the truth and nature of problems and their solutions. Next, there's the super important element called the threat. The threat is the agent or perpetrator that creates the problem that brings about the negative state. In 'Kiss the Girls,' the serial killer is the threat, and the act of murder is the inciting action that creates the problem that brings about the change to a state of misfortune. Equally significant in a great story is the fact that this threat will become the source of resistance that opposes the action when someone tries to solve this problem and restore a state of good fortune. This resistance will create the classical structure that occurs when a problem-solving action encounters resistance. In 'Harry Potter,' Voldemort is the threat. His efforts in the seven books to take possession of the wizard world create the problem that brings about an undesirable state. And he will be the source of the resistance that creates the classical structure whenever Harry tries to solve these problems and restore a state of good fortune. In 'The Exorcist,' the Devil is the threat. He takes possession of a young girl and that is the inciting action that creates the problem and brings about the change of fortune. He is also the source of resistance that creates the complications, crisis, climax and resolution when the priest tries to solve that problem. In 'Ordinary People,' the mother is the cause of the problem that has brought about the negative state, and she will be the source of resistance when the psychiatrist, played by Judd Hirsch, and the boy's father, played by Donald Sutherland, attempt to solve the mystery of the boy's suicidal tendencies. In 'Jaws,' the shark is the threat that causes the problem. In 'Dracula,' it's the Count. In 'On the Waterfront,' it's Johnny Friendly. In 'Gladiator,' it's Commodus. In 'Braveheart,' it's the British. In 'The Iliad,' it is the Trojan, Paris. In the Egyptian myth of Osiris, it's Osiris' brother Set. In all of these cases, the threat performs the action that creates the problem that brings about the change of fortune. It also is the source of resistance that creates the classical structure when someone tries to solve the problem and reverse the state of misfortune. You can see this same pattern at work in real life as well. In World War II, Hitler was the threat, and his 'taking possession of Europe' created the problem and the state of misfortune. He was also the source of the resistance that created the complications, crisis, climaxes and resolutions of the classical structure when the Allies tried to solve this problem. In our latest war, this is also very evident. Osama Bin Laden, his Al Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban are the threat. Their attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon is the inciting action that created the problem that brought a very undesirable state of fear to the United States. And they will be the source of resistance that creates the classical structure as we try to solve this problem. In all of these examples, the threat is the cause of the problem that brings about a change of fortune and is the source of the resistance that creates the classical structure when the good guys try to solve the problem. The problem, change of fortune and components of the classical structure constitute the very essence of story -- that without which there would be no story. If you think about it, this is easy to see. Without a problem and change of fortune, there is no story. If the story ends in the same place it began, without some significant progress up or down, the audience will wonder what the point of it was. It will be a very unsatisfactory experience. Without complications and a crisis, there is no story. If Cinderella goes to the ball, falls in love with the prince and marries him without a single hitch, or if Indiana Jones goes after the Holy Grail and finds it without running into any difficulty whatsoever, there is no story. The audience is left muttering: So what? If there are complications and a crisis, but no climax and no resolution, you will have the same problem. You will leave your audience feeling completely unfulfilled. They will have the distinct feeling that the story was left unfinished. The threat, then, is not only the heart of the high concept great idea, (see our eZine article on the high concept dated July 21, 2001), it creates the problem that brings about the change of fortune and provides the resistance that creates the classical structure, all of which make up the very essence of story. An element that does all of that is an element worth thinking about and understanding. James Bonnet was elected twice to the Board of Directors of the Writer's Guild of America and has written or acted in more than 40 television shows and features. The radical new ideas about story in his book 'Stealing Fire from the Gods: A Dynamic New Story Model For Writers And Filmmakers' are having a major impact on writers in all media.

Guión y Planificación

Taxímetro

Eu peço sempre pra parar
um quarteirão depois.
É, e ainda fico de olho.
Pelo menos assim eu não dou tanta bandeira.
Ah, quer saber ?
Tanto faz também.
A cabeça fica às vezes
um pouco confusa é verdade ...
Dá um nó mesmo.
Um dia desses um cara me falou
por que eu insistia ?
Por que eu levava essa vida ?
Depois, me contou a vida inteira,
que era casado, que tinha filhos...
Me falou até da sogra dele.
Tem idiota que pensa que eu sou psicóloga,
terapeuta, sei lá o que.
Ficam pendindo conselho.
... se eu pudesse dar algum tipo de conselho...
No fundo mesmo, eu to é me lixando pra tudo isso.
Nem tudo é eterno mesmo. Nada dura pra sempre.
Eu dô risada desses idiotas. Me divirto com esses
babacas. É, eu sei.
A vida não ta fácil pra ninguém. Eu sei...
Mas que às vezes eu ganho fácil, eu ganho.
Já tive problemas também. Já levei na cara, amarrei
porrada mesmo. Tive até que correr, deixei tudo pra trás.
Mas no outro dia, eu tô aqui de novo.
Eu escolhi assim. Não, aqui não !
Tá vendo aquele carro ? É, vermelho.
Pára alí, depois daquela esquina.

Aniversário de casamento

É sempre assim
Todo ano acontece a mesma coisa
Eu me preparo sabe ... eu tento me preparar ...
Pelo menos tento.
Tento não ficar surpresa ...
Uma mulher da minha idade,
já se sente mais segura ...
afinal a vida cobra esta segurança, esta ...
há sei lá ...
Eu sou casada há cinco anos
Conheci o Sergio meu marido no trabalho.
Numa confraternização da empresa ...
estas festinhas de final de ano.
eu organizei o encontro ...
cuidei para que nenhum detalhe fosse esquecido, ninguém fosse esquecido ...
Foi um sorteio feito assim, meio na hora ...
amigo secreto.
No final, ... eu acabei tirando o Sérgio – e o Sérgio - acabou me tirando.
Eu tinha comprado uma agenda ... meio neutra sabe ... , afinal de contas eu não sabia quem eu iria tirar mesmo ...
O Sérgio gostou, disse que adorou,
que ficou surpreso ...
Eu também fiquei surpresa ...
ele não me deu nada ...
É ... não me deu nada !
50 convidados e eu fui a única a ficar sem nenhuma lembrancinha.
Pode ?
O que o Sérgio disse ? “Desculpe viu ... eu não entendi o convite - achei que ...”
Ah ... achei, achei, achei ...
esta sempre foi a resposta básica ou melhor a desculpa
clássica do Sérgio é sempre essa ...
Eu achei que ...
O Sérgio sempre teve uma coisa que me chamou a atenção.
Desde o início ...
A ingenuidade do Sérgio ...
é ... apesar de ficar irritada,
eu sei que ele não faz por mal. É o jeito dele mesmo ..
mas eu fico irritada !
Não ! Irritada é pouco.
Eu fico louca !!!
Hoje, 15 de agosto
é nosso aniversário de casamento ...
não, ele não esqueceu não ...
também, agora eu já aprendi.
Passo a semana toda deixando bilhetinhos,
recadinhos, passando
e-mail ... tudo isso pra ver se ele não esquece ...
é sempre assim ... no meu aniversário, faço a mesma coisa ...
só que começo uns 20 dias antes ...
... Se eu ainda gosto do Sérgio ?
(rs) Eu só tento não ficar mais surpresa ...