LESSON 1: Getting Started With A Raw Idea
Jeff December 19, 2020
We begin your apprenticeship by building a complete original script from scratch in three months. We start with a one-sentence idea for a thriller and start building a story around it, focusing on trapping our protagonist between two equally unacceptable alternatives—a Dilemma. It’s important to bear in mind that I’ll be showing a thinking process that might be quite different from what you’re used to in building stories. We’ll use some unusual tools and do multiple passes through the emerging story, adding layers each time and expanding on them. Remember, the purpose of this first three months is to give you an overview of the entire process. Don’t feel compelled to learn the tools now. You have two years to master just seven tools and we’ll spend months on each one, so take it easy. Your primary job now is to observe the process, to get oriented, so that when you jump into the Course 2, you’ll know your way around and will be able to help us with the multiple scripts we’re building in our training workshop.
HINT FOR NAVIGATING THIS COURSE: When there is an assignment or exercise for you to do in one of the video classes, then you write it up and upload it in the box marked UPLOAD directly beneath the video screen. That advances you to the next topic. In Lesson 1, the topics that have assignments or exercises to submit are 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, and 1.7.
