Director's Thinking. Amaze or get out. Vol.2

I started working on the book about 15 years ago. Every day on the set, I saw young, energetic guys and girls coming up with brilliant ideas, and it seemed like no one could stop them from conquering the world with their talent. I was the same way. But at the film's premiere, those illusions were painfully shattered, and we saw something that had nothing to do with a great film. We saw yet another batch of weak, mediocre films with ideas no one could understand. And the mediocrity of the events evoked no emotion. Stories that were supposed to blow audiences away with a riot of emotion evoked nothing but confusion, why everything was so mundane and predictable. But the ideas didn't disappear; they were there. But they were hidden under tons of dusty, banal and boring solutions, and the audience couldn't get to them. And when I started working on my film, I started taking notes. I began writing down which techniques worked and which led to failure. I started watching countless top films and was surprised to discover that all the most powerful scenes were built on the same principles. The coincidences seemed incredible. I've analyzed hundreds of films in my theory, and I've never encountered a situation where a scene built without principles suddenly took off, while one built with principles flopped. Disney's 12 principles of animation are a law without which no studio will even begin making a film. I decided to create similar principles for the film. Ultimately, I ended up 61 golden principles of dramaturgy. Some, like conflict and suspense, are well-known, and I enhanced them. Others, like Anticipation, Breakdown, Unconventional Character Reactions, Maximization, the Theory of Total Dramatic Art, and the Theory of Thirteen Acts, I described for the first time. Knowing the principles, I can determine in a minutes why a scene works or not. By contrasting my theories with my intuition, I calculate scenes with engineering precision. And I always see when a scene is stalling. In my book I analyze 20 of the best films, breaking down each scene and pointing out the principle that makes a scene great. Syd Field, Blake Snyder, and Robert McKee brilliantly described structure, but they didn't answer the fundamental question: what exactly should action be? Without it, structure is just a set of formalities. This book answers that question. It provides an answer to the question of form. Otherwise, we'll endlessly decide what actions to take, without clear criteria for distinguishing the brilliant from the primitive in the frame. If I raise my hand now, is that action? What is compelling action? And what is a compelling story? What criteria must a story meet to be compelling? Good question, right?And in this book, I provide the answer. A compelling story has 61 principles that make it a masterpiece. When everyone asks where the character is going and how it advances the story, I ask what principle of playwriting is currently in effect? Cameron trades Rose's pinprick for a spit in the groom's face. A golden solution creates a masterpiece. Tarantino chooses a samurai sword for Butch. And Neo initially refuses to meet Morpheus. Bong Joon-ho in "Parasite" initially planned a simpler ending, but the Principle of Surprise demanded more interesting solutions, and he made the ending surprising. And in "Breaking Bad," Walter prevents his former boss from taking his first dollar. And Bruce Willis in "The Fifth Element" finds just one match to save the world. This is mathematics, and this is the genius of Cameron, Tarantino, the Coens, and McDonagh. The rest play the game of intuition, trying to express their ideas in the first forms that come to mind. And when you understand how everything works, you get the main thing. You gain the ability to control it. In thi book, you will learn to control your stories and make them amazing. And then the whole world will listen to you, even when you whisper. Art is war and I am giving you the best weapon.