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Once again, the Scriptwriters Network was treated to a presentation by David S. Freeman at our February E-track meeting. David teaches the popular screenwriting seminar, BEYOND STRUCTURE. For the past four years, he has been our February E-track guest speaker, giving a detailed analysis of specific films, based on the techniques revealed in Beyond Structure. The past films have included Jerry Maguire, As Good As It Gets, American Beauty and Erin Brockovich. This year he chose to review the multiple-Emmy-winning TV series, The West Wing. As a student of screenwriting, David heard all too often that for this or that aspect of writing (e.g.: well-written dialogue) you were either born with the ability, or if you practiced over and over for years it would finally come to you. This wasn't good enough for him. So he began to "reverse engineer" the creative process. The creative artists of every field must first learn the specific techniques of that medium. The painter must study composition, perspective, color, hue, shading, the effects of brush strokes, etc. Why should it be different for the screenwriter? The result of David's study is a series of literally hundreds techniques, grouped into 10 categories, to handle almost any aspect of screenwriting. Once you have mastered the basics of structure, there are two directions that can enrich your writing ญญ by (1) making the various aspects of your scripts (characters, relationships, dialogue, scenes, plots more interesting, and (2) making these components more emotionally layered and poignant, or, as David likes to say, "deeper." As David took us through a "West Wing" episode, scene by scene, he pointed out all the writing techniques Aaron Sorkin uses to create a complex emotional impact. While it would be impossible to even begin to enumerate all the techniques David pointed out, here's one: David calls this technique "Layer Cakes." You have a Character "A" feel different layers of emotion toward Character "B." Then you reveal these different layers, sometimes by showing them in separate scenes, or sometimes by showing several layers in the same scene. In "The West Wing," President Bartlet feels the following layers toward those on his staff around him:
This is but one of the many, many techniques David illustrated out during his presentation. Among the others: how the poignant moments in the episode became emotionally heightened by being interspersed with moments of levity. He calls this technique, "Crossing the Dramedy Line." When done within a scene, it gives that scene emotional depth and power and is thus one of about 60 identified "Scene Deepening Techniques." In his talk, David proved his point: "Masterful writing is the artful application of exact techniques." David has always claimed, and from my personal experience I agree, that 'Beyond Structure' will knock five years off a writer's learning curve. David's "technique-based" approach to writing has certainly caught on; he's become the most popular screenwriting teacher in the country, with 220 people showing up to the "Beyond Structure" workshop that he offered in Los Angeles on March 16-17. The fact that he has always offered a money-back that his course will significantly improve your writing (in your own estimation) is a measure of his integrity and commitment to writers. I highly recommend that you call and get on David S. Freeman's mailing list. You can do so by signing up on the website at: http://www.beyondstructure.com ญญ or by calling the workshop hotline at: (310) 394-6556.
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