What Has To Happen In The First 10 Minutes Of A Horror Screenplay - Joston Ramon Theney
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2024
- Screenwriter, Author, Producer, Director Joston Ramon Theney grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. He is known for films such as Wanton Want (2021), Axeman at Cutters Creek (2020) and Jurassic Hunt (2021).
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![How To Make The Movies You Want To Make - Joston Ramon Theney [FULL INTERVIEW]](/img/n.gif)
I have a horror script that needs to be reworked, but listening to this interview makes me realize now what I have to do. Thank you so much!
Makes me appreciate even more the particular film-opening methods of Alfred Hitchcock for Psycho, John Boorman for Deliverance and Ridley Scott for Alien.
Filmmaking has drastically changed since as people's attention span has shortened. They need a hit of dopamine from time to time. It becomes hard to have a suspenseful horror that takes its time.
Wes Craven was probably my most satisfying filmmaker of the 70’s 80’s etc
I would say Carpentor had more hits.
Craven had some stinkers.
@@josephmayfield945 you're so right, I'm asleep, carpenter has an untouchable catalog of iconic movies,
Joston you are so right about the first 10 minutes!! I am a writer and I start with a gripping scene first, because I don't get how movies take so long to get to the grit, the hook is so important!!! Thank you for being so honest and frank about this.
Rosemary's Baby is a classic. The videography absolutely made it. Loved Mia Farrow too.
Joston continues to be my favorite guest here. His love and passion and general great advice are top notch. He's a real treat to listen to.
The best horror movies from the 80s were actually horror comedies like The return of the living dead, Fright Night and Lost Boys. The 70s had better horror movies like the Exorcist, the Omen, Halloween, Burnt offerings! Alien and The Thing were more horror scifi.
There were serious horror films in the 80’s that were really good as well.
Helpful thank you!
Thanks for watching Raz!
This guy's got Mahershala Ali facial expression.
By the way, the first 10 minutes talk made me think of The Batman first minutes.
1966 Batman?
@@ScaryStoriesNYC Reeves' Batman.
In a good or bad way?
All valid points. I miss this style of horror movies. But the drama that ari aster created with horror via hereditary and midsommar I love. Hopefully his new movie surpasses both.
Him and Robert Edgers, are the only strong horror film makers in America right now.
Everyone else are cowards.
The makers of Halloween Ends did not see this video.
All movies are Predictable and its all because of the midpoint. The all hope is lost moment. I know whatever the hero wants will appear to be lost in the middle of the film. In pixar its always 2 character fight then seperate then 5 minutes later they come back together. They should get rid of the midpoint.
Simple. There should be a lot of blood...Blood?...Blood..blood...blood and bits of sick.
and stabbity
That's not scary
And egg in soup. With a pork pie.
That's a slasher.
Gina's eyes popped out of what was left of her back, why or why did she open that tomb. The sand turned red. This is because she was bleeding on it. Blood blood. Ruby red blood. Her blood. And piss and shit. This was the worst day of her life
He has good insight..
I agree with him on the first ten minutes thing and movies like audition is a master piece for breaking that rule.
Please interview pro's on the topic "what is a story" (not about the structure, plot points etc. Just the raw story). if we understand that everything else will fall into place. I really thank film courage for this wonderful service.
But that is what a story is.
Narrative is a structure built by those very things.
@@josephmayfield945 whats the definition of a story?
@@sivabalamanigandansivbaals6634
That's not as simple a question as it sounds.
And it's late here in Britain, and I'm old and sleepy, but here goes.
In its simplest form a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Things happen. Some good, some bad. There are people, or animals or both.
It might be set in the past, the present or future. There might be a song, heard or imagined.
Of course the main reason we crave stories IS the structure, because life - as we live it - has no structure at all; we don't remember the start, we don't know where the middle is because we don't know how long our own story will be, and the end is so very final it terrifies us.
Humans crave structure and answers.
Stories have an end, but life goes on.
You can tell the story of a nation or an individual.
Movie audiences prefer the latter. Ideally someone they'd like to be or like to know.
Richard Attenborough's Ghandi is the story of three nations, disguised as a story of one man.
The simplest, most popular story can be summarised thus:
Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy finds girl again.
Fleshing out some details:
Ideally the central character goes on a journey, physically or emotionally, (ideally both for cinematic purposes) and learns something to their - and ultimately our - advantage. It's another reason why we love story: we learn things without having to suffer ourselves.
Most great stories have suffering at their core:
The Grapes of Wrath.
Finding Nemo.
For a story to appeal to a modern audience it needs to NOT be predictable, or be told in a completely unique way: increasingly difficult to do on film.
You can tell a very simple story, which has little or no structure, character development, or even an obvious point, yet evokes a deep feeling that remains with the reader. I read a folk tale about a girl who was abandoned by her mother in the woods; the girl finds a wide, sunlit meadow in the tall straight trees, lays down, and turns into a lake.
It made me cry when I was age 11. I still find it moving now. I don't know why exactly. It would make a terrible film.
A painting can tell a story. Most of the great masters do: it's often hidden and may require some study to tease out. Gainsborough's Mr & Mrs Robert Andrews is not just a painting of Mr & Mrs Robert Andrews. Again, it would make a terrible film.
Either D.W.Griffith or Jean Luc Goddard said, "Give me a girl, two men, and a gun. I can make you a movie."
In summation:
The written word is the best place to tell a story.
Film is the best place to tell a story and have it reach the widest audience.
This may be a story, depending on how patient, empathic or insightful the reader.
It had a beginning, a middle and an end.
What it says about you and I, that's between you and you.
And that, I'd say, is a story.
Sleep well.
@@davidmansfield9167 True... but i believe its essential to have an understanding on this
Or guys please refer me books on "whats a story is".
Things were more serious with film because film costs money!
As a horror movie fan, it's hard to say that the modern horror genre is boring, predictive, unnecessary jump scares, out of scripts. Very sad to witness these
Exactly, Alien is a great example of what a real horror movie needs to be!
Horror is unwatchable now.
Really depressing.
@@josephmayfield945 yea, alien is an amazing horror franchise and such and I know rn sigony wever (can't spell it) is directing the last alien movie! That's coming out in a few years or so
Hmph! When does the first scary thing happen in Psycho? Alien? The most vital thing to establish in the first ten to thirty minutes of a horror film is characters, setting, inciting incident(s) and mood, same as for any film. Tell a good story first, a good horror story second.
Italian horror films from the late 70s and 80s are what you want to watch.
I wish this guy had been better prepped.
I feel he had things to say but hadn't clarified his own thoughts.
Horror as a genre has more finely nuanced examples than any other genre: not least because you can split up what people think of as HORROR into very specific categories, and within those categories find more variation in tone, making a picture appeal (or not) to very different audiences.
As a rule I don't like gore, and I especially don't like 'torture porn' horror, yet I love Alien, Seven and Final Destination. Alien is both gory and violent - Bishop's attack on Ripley still leaves me deeply unsettled, but because it's science fiction I can't help but be drawn in every time. I think because Seven is essentially classic noir, (which I also love) I can forgive the unpleasant imagery, whilst Final Destination is like a graphic novel/comic, with its saturated colours and big action set pieces.
I took a friend who likes horror, and haunted house movies especially, to see THE SIXTH SENSE.
He hated it. He couldn't tie down why exactly until we saw THE OTHERS, which he also hated. His final analysis: they were too clever. He wanted more jump scares and fewer plot points to be thinking about.
He still doesn't understand why everyone likes THE SHINING. He thinks it's over lit for a haunted house movie.
As for movie openings, the only rule is GENERATE QUESTIONS we're desperate for the answers to.
Why did the nice lady just throw a key into the undergrowth of the isolated house?
And who is it banging on the attic door as she drives away, the sun setting behind her?
I don't believe a film should begin by showing you a menu.
A film should be like dropping by a good friends and finding them cooking dinner.
Well said 👏
When someone asks me "how does this end?" as they are leaving mid show, I always say "everyone dies". Doesn't matter if it is a horror, scifi or rom-com. That's my way of saying watch it or not, I am not Clif Notes. Too many newer films try to depend on CGI, it is the scripts & acting ! With lots of takes and angles, the edit can save a film, but the takes have to be good. Also stop trying to copy a formula, it just leaves the "I have seen this before" feeling.
And here’s a technical piece of advice, you’re making a Horror? Open with a practice effect, an in camera, latex/silicone (latex for the horror purist) blood pumps, NO CGI blood splatters or monsters. Grab them with skill
GOT IT ✨✨👍😆
👍
Sure, I will trust the guy who made Axeman and Jurassic Hunt. Some people are truly blessed with immunity to shame🙄
Harsh but lol at your name!
lmao.......savage
if the movie has...zero explosion...in the first 5 mins...[it leads to me] going like this for 3 hours..."ok...but is this movie shit or is it going to end great...ok but is this movie shit, or is it going to end great"...extremely rapidly back & forth and without the ability to think about something else...
What has to happen in the first 10 minutes of a horror screenplay?
Foreshadowing. The film Horse Girl is expert at this.
We need to know what we’re up against. You and the hero are on the same ride and up against the monster together, so we need to see evidence right away of the danger ahead. In Body Parts, first scene and the prisoner is dismembered. Great opening.
Something needs to be capital-W Wrong; overt, such as establishing a threat (as in Halloween), or just conversation taking a disturbing twist, or things in the setting not feeling right... the Shining made a conversation in a car set your teeth on edge, even when it was pretty positive on the surface.
I think the more you can get a sense of what sort of wrong you're in for, the better for serving the audience; again contrasting Halloween where we see something baffling and evil play out, and know it's now entered into our heroine's world at the edges, with the Shining, where we know something is going to be wrong with the people, Jack Torrence especially, but also how on edge Wendy is, and how sweet but... just a bit odd Danny is... this is a family where when things go wrong, it's not going to be simple, but might be all the uglier for that.
I want to at least know that something's wrong. I don't need to know exactly who or what it is but I have to know something is wrong. It Follows was great, and Halloween was great as well. They're both movies that I'd watch again and still feel some sort of suspense even though I know what's going to happen.
@@ssatva For me it's right at the beginning of _No Country for Old Men._ After Chigur strangles the cop, the camera goes down and lingers on the feet; the linoleum floor is covered in skid marks from where the cop was struggling.
That's the moment I knew the film was gonna hit different. There's a _specificity_ to the brutality, and everything that happens has an immediate and lasting effect on the world it happens to. No matter how senseless, things may not happen for a reason but they certainly leave consequences. Ergo, every mistake you're about to see is going to become super important and deadly if unmitigated.
I like this a lot but I highly disagree with him on showing it in the first episode. I love slow burn movies and shows. Guess he can’t appreciate True Detective or The Wire. Shows like that demands your attention.
The idea that you have to write a perfect script is BS. so many movies get made with subpar scripts.
Cabin in the woods was great, and it breaks this rule completely.
Well I kinda would follow the audition movie tropes, basically would make them wait for 1 hour until the plot twist happens.
The audition movie initially starts off as a wholesome romantic movie, but the movie then takes a U turn with the female lead torture the male lead and his son in brutal ways.