Many screenwriters don't think about how their story will impact an audience on a scene-by-scene basis. Listen to this podcast to understand how to bring your scenes to life.
For more information on Lovinder Gill's best-selling book "Scriptcake Secrets" or his public speaking schedule, please check out www.lovinder.com.
Speaker 1:
We are so excited that you were here to listen to the script, take podcast, go ahead. Make my day. We want to help you develop your idea into a great screenplay. Who knows? Maybe you'll write the next big blockbuster. So you're telling me there's a chance. Yeah, well, there's always a chance, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Are you ready to learn about screenwriting? Yes. All right. Then let's get started. Enjoy
Speaker 2:
One of the fundamental things that Novi screenwriters don't realize is that it is actually your job to manipulate your audience. You need to know when they're gonna laugh when they're gonna cry, when they're gonna smile, when they're gonna smirk and you design that into your script. So as you're writing your scenes, you're really need to pay attention to what is the audience feeling at this moment? Because at the end of the day, if you can control what the audience is feeling, you can make them have an amazing experience. Think about, you know, going on a rollercoaster when it's clicking at the beginning and slowly rising and rising and rising, it's building anticipation within the person who's sitting in the rollercoaster, okay, they're getting anticipated, they're getting tense, they're getting excited, they're getting energized. And then when they crest over the very top and go down a hundred miles an hour, they release all that with a scream, they build it up within them. They release it. And that model happens multiple times during a rollercoaster. And the more extreme those reactions are, the better they will perceive their experience. The exact same thing is true for a screenplay. Okay? If you can get your audience, who's watching this movie that you wrote to have this incredible tension build within them and then release it and then build within them and then release it. They're having a visceral experience. They're having physical reactions to something that you wrote that is your job. One of the things that I teach, uh, in my class is something called an emotional slide. And what that basically means is the magic of an experience of watching a movie is when an audience member goes from one extreme to another, or they're super excited, they're super happy. And then as writers, we kick the carpet out from under'em and we slam'em to the ground and they freak out and they're like, oh my God, what's gonna happen. Oh no, no, no, no. And then we give them hope and we give'em a hand and we help'em back up. And then we knock'em down again. And then, and then we give them help. And you do these in various levels of extremes, obviously at act breaks. The beginning of the movie at the end of the movie, you want your biggest emotional impact to hit the audience. You really want to just clock'em, whether it's something positive or something negative. And then the rest of the movie in between, you know, you have smaller versions of that. Think of it like a heartbeat. Your script actually will have a heartbeat. It will go from making the audience feel positive to making'em feel positive, making'em feel negative. Okay. And on the act breaks, you can decide if that's a super positive or a super negative that is up to you. But at the end of the day, if you want to be a successful screenwriter, you have to take the audience on a ride. And so what I would recommend that you do is to go back and look at the last thing you wrote. What is the emotional ride that you're taking your audience on? If it's little tiny bumps, or if it's kind of just generically flat and non-emotional for the audience the entire way, that's a flat line. That's dead. Your script is dead. Go back, analyze it, build that heartbeat throughout your script, make it come to life until next time.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to the script cake podcast. If you have any questions on screenwriting, please feel free to reach out to us@infoatscriptcake.com. Also, please like our social media pages. We're on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and, uh, check out our website, script cake.com until next time.