Is Your Structure Oscar Worthy? 

By Jacob Krueger

[divider type=”thin” full_width=”no” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”]

As writers, we all fantasize about writing an Academy Award Winning screenplay.  We all have visions of ourselves walking that red carpet, holding that gold statue, thanking the people who inspired and believed in us.

Watching movies like the ones nominated for this year’s Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, it’s easy to get excited.  After years in the wasteland of the remake after remake, it seems like the door may once again be opening for writers of truly original work.

We’re seeing producers seeking out, and putting real money behind, ground breaking original scripts that don’t even pretend to follow the rules.  And those producers are being rewarded in huge ways, not only with Oscar Nominations, but also with box office success.

Yeah, it’s a pretty good time to be a writer.

And at the same time, for all the excitement, as you compare your writing to that of the great writers you admire, it’s easy to feel dwarfed by their accomplishments. Can you write something as truthful as Dallas Buyers Club?  As well observed as Nebraska? As elegant as Her?  As emotionally gripping as Blue Jasmine?  Or as downright hilarious as American Hustle? Are there some writers for whom the rules just don’t apply, and others for whom they do?  Do you have to wait till you’re Woody Allen or David O. Russell to write the movie that’s really in your heart? Or could your screenplay be the next Dallas Buyers Club, an Academy Award nominated script written by two unknown writers?

Despite their vastly different genres, their formula defying approach, their risk-taking style and non-traditional subject matter, all five of these Oscar Nominees have one thing in common:  rock solid structure, that pulls an audience into the world of their characters, and absolutely refuses to let them go. I’m not saying that understanding that structure is going to turn you into Spike Jonze or Bob Nelson overnight.  But what it will do is set you free to write a screenplay that captures your own voice, and lets you make your own boldest choices, in a way that pulls your audience in, rather than pushing them away.

Print

What is structure anyway?

If you’ve read more than one book on screenwriting, you’re probably pretty confused about structure.  Every screenwriting guru seems to have a different formula, or different set of rules they’re peddling.  And none of them make a heck of a lot of sense when you start to think about truly great movies. That’s because structure isn’t a formula you can write down or mimic.  It’s not your plot or what happens to your character.  And it’s not something you put into your screenplay.

Structure is a way of thinking about your character, about their journey, and about the choices that make them who they are. It’s a tool you use to organize your movie in your own mind, so that each moment lands with its full power:  a way of distilling the essence of what you’re trying to say down to the story of a single human being.

Print

Structure isn’t something you plan.  It’s something you discover.

Look at an early draft of any of these Academy Award winning films, and you’d probably be pretty shocked at what you saw. Not the polished, Oscar worthy perfection of a “great” writer, but a hot mess of powerfully inspired, but deeply problematic material.  In short, something that looks a lot more like your own first draft. Because so many screenwriting teachers have never actually worked as screenwriters, even the biggest and most famous tend to make the same mistake.

Rather than thinking like artists, they think like critics, looking at the final product and trying to reverse engineer what made them great, rather than trying to understand the messy, instinctive and ultimately inspiring process that lead to greatness in the first place. Just like you, these Academy Award nominated writers had to go on a journey to reach their destination.  And that didn’t mean figuring it out in advance, and painting by numbers their way through some kind of rigid outline.  It meant discovering their story, and their structure, in the only way that writers can:  by actually writing it.

Print

What makes us connect to a character?

No matter how much effort you put into constructing the plot of your movie, at the end of the day, if your focus is on plot alone, your movie is going to be dead boring.   Read the summary of your favorite movie on imdb.com, and you’ll see what I mean.

Most of us will never get caught up in a hustle with the FBI, the mob, the only honest politician in New Jersey, our girlfriend and our crazy wife. So as much fun as the hustle in American Hustle may be, that’s just the plot of the piece.  It’s not the thing that allows us to connect with the character, laugh at the insanity of his every day life, root for him to get out of all this alive, or connect with his predicament. That emotional connection comes from something far deeper, to which everyone can connect to no matter how outrageous the plot—the character’s journey from hustling everyone, to learning what it means to actually care about someone and do the right thing for the first time in his life.

The outrageous plot of American Hustle is just the delivery mechanism for that structure.   But it’s not the structure itself. That structure is built upon the character’s reactions to that plot: the life changing choices he makes in relation to the things he most wants, and how those choices change him forever.

That’s what makes the structure universal.  Not that it follows some formulaic model, but that it ties into feelings we have all experienced, and our shared desires to come to grips with those feelings, that allow us to see ourselves in characters who are so different than us.  You may not be a hustler, but you know what it’s like to be selfish, to feel trapped in your own lies, to realize you have hurt someone you actually care about, and to finally find the courage to do the right thing, even if it costs you your friendship.

Print

Plot is Just the Delivery Mechanism For Structure

Look at the four other Oscar nominees and you’ll see the same phenomena: wildly different plots, and tones and characters, but the same deeply rooted universal experiences.

We may not have ever had a dementia-suffering father who thinks he’s won the lottery like the main character in Nebraska, but we know what it’s like to be trapped by an environment and a family that can never give us what we need.  And we’ve all longed to make the choices that would actually make us feel like we mattered.We may never have been a homophobic sex addict, stricken with the AIDS virus, or teamed up with a transgendered drug addict to sell treatments to fellow patients.  But we can all be inspired and moved by the relationship between Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto’s characters in Dallas Buyers Club, and they come to care for one another, and “ride the bull” in the face of a devastating illness.

We may have never been married to a billionaire husband, lost everything when he went to prison, or forced to depend on our struggling younger sister for support.  But we know what it’s like to want so desperately to be bigger than we are, like Cate Blanchett’s character in Blue Jasmine, that we end up costing ourselves everything we get caught up in our own lies.

And none of us have ever fallen in love with a computer (hopefully), even if she does have Scarlett Johansson’s mellifluous voice.  But we know what it’s like to open ourselves to a forbidden relationship like Joaquin Phoenix’s character in Her, the pain of feeling like the person we most love has moved beyond us, and the strange way the same things that hurt us can ultimately heal us.

Print

Oscar Worthy Structure

Understanding structure begins with understanding character, letting go of your obsession with plot, and instead connecting to your characters emotional needs, and the life changing choices they make as they pursue the things they want most. It means choosing the right delivery mechanism for your story.  Rather than the right delivery mechanism for any story. And it means allowing your structure to grow organically from your character’s journey, building around your instincts as a writer, rather than your intellectual plans for your script, and the life changing choices your character makes in each scene, rather than where you’re trying to get them in the end.

So instead of simply predicting this year’s Oscar Winners, like everyone else is doing, think instead about what you can learn from each of the Academy Award nominated scripts. How did each of these writers build an organic structure for their screenplay, so inherently tied to their character and their voice as a writer that it seems like the movie was born with it? How did they shape that structure around each choice the character makes, allowing every plot point to have the most powerful implications possible in relation to the character’s journey. How did they allow their characters to drive each scene, seeking a powerful need at every moment, and making the life changing choices that allow us to connect to them? And most importantly, how did they follow their own instincts as writers, rather than the genre conventions and expectations of the industry, in order to shape the screenplay that only they could write from the first moment their character appeared on the page.

Then, join me on March 19th, when I’ll be breaking down the structure of this year’s Oscar Winning Best Original Screenplay, HER, showing you not only how Spike Jonze organically builds his structure from the very first scene, but also how you can start to discover your own organic structure, shaping the raw creativity and your voice as a writer into a script that demands the attention of your audience and will not let them go.

 

Share this...
guest

8 Comments
Newest
Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

COURSE PARTICIPANT AGREEMENT

Participant Agreement

By registering for the course, you are agreeing to the following terms, which form a legal contract between you and Jacob Krueger Studio, LLC (“Company”) and govern your attendance at and/or participation in Company’s course (the “Course”). 

  1. Course Participation.
    1. Admittance.  Your registration entitles you to admittance to the Course.  Any and all other costs associated with your attendance (including, without limitation, any travel or accommodation expenses) shall be borne solely by you and Company shall not be liable for any such costs.
    2. Media.  For good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, you grant Company the right to record, film, photograph or capture your likeness in connection with the Course, in any media now available and hereafter developed (“Course Footage”).  You further grant to Company in perpetuity the rights to use, license, edit, copy, distribute, publicly display and make derivative works of the Course Footage, including exploitation for marketing, advertising or merchandising related to the Course, throughout the universe.  You hereby waive any and all approval rights you may have over Company’s use of the Course Footage and acknowledge these rights are granted without any payment, including royalties or residuals, to you.
    3. Conduct.  You acknowledge that Company reserves the right to request your removal from the Course if Company, in its sole discretion, considers your presence or behavior to create a disruption or to hinder the Course or the enjoyment of the Course by other attendees or speakers.
  2. Fee(s).
    • Payment.  The payment of the applicable fee(s) for the Course is due upon registration or per your payment plan.  If such payment is insufficient or declined for any reason, you acknowledge that Company has the right and sole discretion to refuse your admission to the Course.
    •  
    • Taxes. The fee(s) may be subject sales tax, value added tax, or any other taxes and duties which, if applicable, will be charged to you in addition to the fee(s).
  3. Intellectual Property. All intellectual property rights, including trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and patents, in and to the Course, the Course content and all materials distributed at or in connection with the Course (the “Course Materials”) are owned by Company. You may not use, license, copy, display, or make derivative works of the Course Materials without the prior written permission of Company.  For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this agreement shall be deemed to vest in you any legal or beneficial right in or to any trademarks or other intellectual property rights owned or used under license by Company or grant to you any right or license to any other intellectual property rights of Company, all of which shall at all times remain the exclusive property of Company.
  4. Warranties; Limitation of Liability.
    • Other than to the extent required as a matter of law: (i) neither Company nor its employees, agents or affiliates (“Company Parties”) shall be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential costs, damages or losses arising directly or indirectly from the Course or other aspect related thereto or in connection with this agreement.  The maximum aggregate liability of Company Parties for any claim in any way connected with therewith or this agreement whether in contract, tort or otherwise (including any negligent act or omission) shall be limited to the amount paid by you to Company under this agreement to attend the Course.
    • You represent and warrant that you have the full right and authority to grant Company the rights provided in this agreement and that you have made no commitments which conflict with this agreement or the rights granted herein.  You agree that your participation in the Course is entirely at your own risk and accept full responsibility for your decision to participate in the Course.  In no event shall you have the right to enjoin the development, production, exploitation or use of the Course and/or your Contributions to it. 
  5. Governing Law and Venue.  This agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of New York without regard to its conflict of laws provisions.  The parties hereto agree to submit to personal and subject matter jurisdiction in the federal or state courts located in the City and State of New York, United States of America.
  6. Dispute Resolution.  All claims and disputes arising under or relating to this agreement are to be settled by binding arbitration in the state of New York or another location mutually agreeable to the parties.  The arbitration shall be conducted on a confidential basis pursuant to the Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association.  Any decision or award as a result of any such arbitration proceeding shall be in writing and shall provide an explanation for all conclusions of law and fact and shall include the assessment of costs, expenses, and reasonable attorneys’ fees by the winner against the loser.  Any such arbitration shall include a written record of the arbitration hearing.  An award of arbitration may be confirmed in a court of competent jurisdiction.
  7. Miscellaneous.  Company may transfer and assign this agreement or all or any of its rights or privileges hereunder to any entity or individual without restriction.  This agreement shall be binding on all of your successors-in-interest, heirs and assigns.  This agreement sets forth the entire agreement between you and the Company in relation to the Course, and you acknowledge that in entering into it, you are not relying upon any promises or statements made by anyone about the nature of the Course or your Contributions or the identity of any other participants or persons involved with the Course.  This agreement may not be altered or amended except in writing signed by both parties.
  8. Prevention of “Zoom-Bomber” Disruptions; Unauthorized Publication of Class Videos. Company will record each class session, including your participation in the session, entitled “The Videos”. To prevent disruptions by “zoom-bombers” and provide Company and

    participants the legal standing to remove unauthorized content from platforms such as YouTube and social media sites, you agree that

    (1) you are prohibited from recording any portion of the Course;

    (2) in exchange for the opportunity to participate in the Course, you assign to Company your verbal contributions to the session discussions.

    To be clear, you assign to Company only your oral statements during recorded Course sessions. You retain all copyright to any and all written materials you submit to the class and the right to use them in any way you choose without permission from or compensation to the Company.

Welcom Back!

Log in to access your account

Our website uses cookies to provide a better user experience. By using our site, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn more about cookies and how you can refuse them.

We will see you this Thursday!

7pm ET / 4pm PT

Check Your Email For The Link

(Don’t see it? Check your spam folder)

Donate To Our Scholarship Fund

We match every donation we receive dollar for dollar, and use the funds to offset the cost of our programs for students who otherwise could not afford to attend.

We have given away over 140,000 of scholarships in the past year.

Thank you for your support!

Other Amount? CONTACT US

Get Your Video Seminar

myth-three-act-structure-jacob-krueger-studio-free-seminar

Where should we send it?

"*" indicates required fields

Name*
Would You Like More Information About Our Classes?
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Need A Payment Plan?

We like working with artists and strive not to leave writers behind over money.

If you need a payment plan or another arrangement to participate in our programs, we are happy to help.

Chat us or give us a call at 917-464-3594 and we will figure out a plan that fits your budget.

Join the waitlist!

Fill in the form below to be placed on the waitlist. We'll let you know once a slot opens up!