Why The Biggest Ideas Don't Make The Best Movies - Naomi Beaty
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
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Naomi Beaty is a writer, screenwriting teacher, consultant and owner of WRITE+CO., along with the author of LOGLINE SHORTCUTS: Unlock Your Story And Pitch Your Screenplay In One Simple Sentence and THE SCREENPLAY OUTLINE WORKBOOK: A step-by-step guide to brainstorm ideas, structure your story, and prepare to write your best screenplay.
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Simple plot, complex characters.
100000000
You're profile pic tells me u have good taste
Exactly. The latest example that comes to mind is Top Gun: Maverick. The plot is pretty straightforward, it's nothing groundbreaking or anything but it's the characters, both legacy and new ones, that draw you in and make you root for them.
Speed is a good one.
Sometimes I really want a complex plot with characters that competently try to solve the puzzle instead of crying all the time.
Exactly. Nowadays it's like everyone is trying to out-do the biggest twist by having a twist within a twist that twists after the twist 🤣
A simple story can be told a thousand different ways. And with the art of filmmaking and the techniques at your disposal, a thousand ways more on top of that.
😂😂😂 factss!!!
You can have a simple story that explores complex themes without the need for any grand twists. It all comes down to the complexity of the characters being dragged through that simple story.
Very true. When my hero has a clear goal and my story has a simple structure I find I can be so much more creative with how the story is told.
As a movie viewer I don't mind a simple story. I just want something to stand out among all the others.
lol a more complicated story is what makes it stand out.
@@bigredeyesproductions9274 True. Can't have a story be too simple. Then it'll get buried by the more popular stories. You can embrace a genre without it being generic or a self-aware comedy. All stories start with a simple idea but the writer makes sure to try and stand-out from a bunch of people with similar ideas. Look at monster movies there's so many movies where a small rural town is plagued by a monster in the "middle of nowhere."
As a movie viewer, I'm sick to death of lowest common denominator "it's the same thing again but this time it's [different backdrop]!" movies.
Stephen King often takes simple, almost silly premises and executed them very well due to his characterization (barring some endings).
Especially for a 90 minute format. Three act structure is fine.
As complex as Momento is, the story itself is actually pretty simple. It's about a guy trying to avenge his wife's murder with a two additional key players and one big final twist mixed in.
True. Top gun 2 perfect example.
Lord of the ring - road trip to destroy a ring. Simple but it's then packed with juicy goodness n character
Naomi is so full of knowledge
Love our interview with Naomi, much more to share!
Ms. Karen 🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿
👍 A guy travels the world to sample different types of chewing gum and meets interesting people along the way. Simple, and fun to write. (This idea is inspired by this interview.)
Why does he travel the world for chewing gums though? Is he a gum professional? Is he passionate by gum? Why? What motivates him enough about gum that he MUST find the best chewing gum in the world? And what defines the best chewing gum: is it subjective taste? Or does he have precise detailed criteria such as taste accuracy, colour, texture, how long the taste lasts on the tongue, how long it takes to fade off the mouth etc.
@@purrgundy Great questions! 😀These are the questions that are answered in the movie. If the movie was about a parent who needs to rescue their child, there is no need to watch that film as it is obvious that a parent needs, and has an obligation to rescue their child if the child is in danger. But this gum guy. Why? Why bother traveling the world to try different types of gum? It doesn’t make sense to the outsider who has not seen the film. It is a puzzle that draws viewers in because it does not present an easy cookie cutter answer in the synopsis or in the film trailer. Thank you very much for your questions. They are sincerely appreciated. 😊👍
The actor is the ultimate special effect, what do we remember obout our favorite movies? Not the truck flipping, Heath’s performance. Not the even the beautiful cinematography, but That Daniel Plainview character. Not The recreated New Jersey but Al Pacino’s incredible performance as Lefty the failed mobster. The actor is everything, if you cast it wrong you never actually made your movie. So in making a simple movie you can absolutely obliterate the big fast hard movie blockbuster with just one human beings skills.so let’s find the talent, Phuck getting name actors, let’s find the next name actors.
I think both aren't opposites; in fact, I'd say they go hand-in-hand. You can give Meryl Streep an awful script and she couldn't make it work. But if you have a good story well told, then you make it easier for the actor to fully give themselves to the material you're providing. They bounce off the story just as much as the story bounces off them: that's why most (if not all) scripts end up modified on set by actors themselves who, most often than not, extract the essence of their lines and make it their own for a smoother, more natural feel, sometimes even improvising some more lines that may or may not take the story to a more interesting direction, depending on the original work. As long as their character is clearly defined, anything is possible- within budget of course.
@@purrgundy true, if there was a fixed recipe for a classic everyone could make one, it's kind of a magic trick that takes a lot of time, great artists and technicians and money . Love it
Totally agree!
I appreciate this video. Some of my favorite films like A Few Good Men are actually pretty simple stories.
There's an immediacy with which audiences can latch on to a simple story so to have a further readiness to join the journey of complex characters. That said, simple does not mean uninteresting; great characters and/or clever symbolism can pull people in and hold them.
I love this channel for bringing honest opinions that are based on tried and true methods of film making and storytelling, it exists in stark contrast to the modern hogwash parade.
I like to keep things simple, unless it is a series with a long plot.
"Boring but practical"
Not only the movie is easy to make but also the simple story is better stick with the audience
Simple ideas or complex ideas, the art of storytelling coupled with an interesting idea.
Star Wars has some simple ideas combined together with some great storytelling. Old fashioned good vs evil, story of the underdog, and the story of the unexpected or reluctant hero.
The Usual Suspects, also Seven, I would call complex ideas that had great storytelling.
Just saw The Batman last night I was impressed with it. Still say Robert Pattison wasn't a good cast, but the movie was written and played out so well that it really didn't matter. Colin Farrell and Zoe Kravitz were really good in it.
And there were some great cinematography and stunt coordinating ideas in it.
Most of the best flicks are very simple. For the love of god “show don’t tell”
I recently described the script that I'm currently writing to a friend saying "Someone who is angry at another character decides to threaten them by pointing a gun filled with blanks at them but when he isn't looking a third character who wants revenge on him switched the blanks for real bullets hoping to get the guy into trouble. After that set-up things start getting complicated..."
@@bigredeyesproductions9274 LMAO!!
I like the plot.
That sounds cool.
You call that simple?
If you want to break the "rules" of filmaking in a good way, you have to know them really well.
Excellent point. Simple is better than complex. This also applies to long-form fiction too.
Example. (Spoiler Alert)... Season 1 of the Netflix series *Stranger Things* tells a simple horror/ science fiction/ superhero story set in a Reagan-era Indiana town. The story traces the lives upended when a young, sensitive nerd disappears. It's creepy, but you immediately connect with the plucky young cast of characters.
Season 2 is okay. It's still focused on the small town, but it loses focus when a major character (the superhero) pulls an adolescent angst thing and moves to Chicago for a spell to hook-up with another superhero. Only to reappear, dues en machina, to save the plucky normies, whom we all love thanks to season 1.
And then in seasons 3 and 4, the writers bring in... the Soviets and an insanely large laboratory complex below a mall in Indiana? And kill off major characters... only to bring them back to life? And set entire parts... in a Russian gulag? All to reunite the original band?
Really? Was any of that necessary? I don't think so. It smacks of creating "creative" things just to create "creative" things.
There's a saying in writing that's super relevant: "kill your children." Or, put more gently, remember that most of what you write stinks, so it's wise to edit them out. Otherwise, you'll end up with fluff. Entertaining fluff, as in *Stranger Things,* but fluff all the same.
This incredible fear of manual gearboxes... seems it will never end. Like shifting and driving are two different things !
Well... any decent driver knows shifting is one of the many aspects of driving, such as accelerating, braking, turning, anticipating, controling, etc.
I think simplicity is almost a characteristic of a movie as a media. If you need to go highly complex, you might need to switch to miniseries, full on series etc format. A movie has a very TIGHT time constraint, and with making a movie, if you want something complex in it; it must come at the cost of simplifying other things. My favourite example of this is Mad Max Fury Road; a movie that deals with highly complex subjects of society, civilisation, humanity, leadership, environment, survial, trust, kindness, religious fanaticism etc; yes - but to compensate for that has the simplest plot imaginable - "they go forward, turn left; and then come back the same way".
I think one of the BIGGEST downfalls of today's blockbusters is shoving what is material for 3-4 movies into a single movie.
(Lack of) Complexity of a story isn't important. Films, just like books, stand and fall on the strength of the characters, their relationships and their development (journey).
Compelling book or film will always draw in the audience.
I don't think "Films, just like books" is a sentence one SHOULD pronounce in a serious technical conversation. The matter in quesstion here is the form, not the substance. The problem is that "a compelling movie will much more easily LOSE the audience if the storytelling isn't extremely tight and fitting everyhting that's necessary into the run time and other constraints specific to the movie as media".
Take JK Rowling the writer vs JK Rowling the screenwriter for a good example of how books and movies HUGELY differ in this area. The "Fantastic Beasts" franchise has some very strong characters, very interesting relationships and an insanely interesting journies. We have a couple in love not allowed to get married, we have a person incapable of doing magic set to cope among magic users, we have a protagonist and a villain in love with each other, we have a socially awkward hero set in a position of leadership... truly curious stuss, isn't it?
Yes but it's all buried by such needlessly complicated, convoluted and messed up storytelling it's all over and around terrible. Now a BOOK could get away with this because 3 volumes of a book could go much deeper into everything. But a movie has it's constraints which force down a KISS principle.
I think a simple and relatable GOAL is important, but achieving that goal can be complicated.
I don’t think I share the same definition of “simplicity” as other people, but I totally understand this video.
That being said, here’s the simplest thing I could possibly imagine:
A combination of Treasure Planet and The Iron Giant, where the protagonist still lives with his single mother, but otherwise there’s still plenty of sci-fi cartoon goodness going on.
Since I haven't seen Treasure Planet and have totally forgot The Iron Giant, I've no idea what you're talking about.
But it seems to me like you're describing a picture, not a movie. Movies being treated as literal "motion pictures" with "sci-fi cartoon goodness going on" replacing character driven storytelling is basically THE thing that destroyed Holywood.
Now, one of the best movies I've ever seen, is "Buried". A man buried in a grave with a cell phone needs to lead his rescuers to find him. The whole movie is filmed JUST from within his casket. Check it out.
@@codinghusky5196 Don’t ruin my favorite movies for me, and I HATE movies like Buried.
Keep it simple , it goes a long way.
The best movie ever made had a simple framework. A man stuck in a meaningless existence runs into an ex-girlfriend who inspires him to pick himself up, dust himself off, and return to the career that made him feel alive. Written with pacing, verve, and sparkling dialog, there's a reason why Casablanca is a classic.
Halloween 1978 simple but extremely affective.
I’m currently writhing one script, I have several more blueprints or treatments that I’m writing and world building a novel series idea. I really wanted to punish myself.
Compare the original Jurassic Park to the latest Jurassic World Dominion. One is a simple movie with an interesting premise with a few characters on an island. The other is a huge convoluted mess with too many characters and too many subplots.
No wonder shows like The Bear are so entertaining.
I completely disagree. Simple characters in complex circumstances. The Terminator is a prime example.
Sarah Connor a waitress (simple character).
Is hunted by a cybernetic orgasm sent from the future to kill her so she can’t conceive her unborn son. (Complex plot).
But by the end Sarah has transformed in to that tough soldier when she crushes the Terminator. Even when she attempts to pick Reese up from the factory floor “Move it Reese!” That’s a complex transformation - naive, scared, disbelieving to the opposite.
@@southlondon86 that ain’t so simple.
A simple character becomes complex when they have a journey of growth.
@@npcimknot958 👍
@eugene you’re confusing back story with plot drive. What is the drive of the story? It’s very simple: Women named Sarah Connor are hunted and killed by unstoppable force. Therefore the last remaining Sarah has to fight to survive (aided by a mentor). Most of what you mention is conveyed in the opening text and a brief exposition dump in the middle, but it doesn’t change her goal (to survive) and doesn’t complicate the simple structure (on the run action movie).
I had my mind blown by a film I saw just 2 years ago. It had one of the simplest premises imaginable: A young man on his honeymoon falls in love with another woman. I went into it expecting nothing more than a breezy little feature-length sitcom episode, and came out of it having experienced one of the greatest and darkest comedies ever made. That film was The Heartbreak Kid (1972), and apparently, it's Jerry Seinfeld's all time favorite comedy movie.
the matrix was not a simple movie, and it probably beats every other movie after it
Yea, I don’t think any screenwriter should be emulating Crash. That movie was a hot mess and got way more hype than it deserved.
Danger of an invitation to writers who have nothing to offer but cliches. This means no stupid plot twists, I hope. These twists are the escape routes of studio committees, who rewrite original ideas for box office draw, or bad writers that trap themselves in half formed ideas.
Ring- 7 days lol
Gather Leonora Dompor data and make a film out of it but do not use the name Leonora, make another name instead of Leonora****
no one wants to do the next Crash...
Yeah, but avatar sucks!