[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: You say every movie has four main stories?
Paul Chitlik, Author/Writer: I would say so. First of all there’s what we call the plot. That is your central character going after a goal.
Then there’s the story of your central character dealing with whatever issues, personal issues, their flaws, how to overcome their greed or their selfishness or whatever it is. Their fears, whatever it is that’s inside of themselves that’s preventing them from living the best life that they could. That’s how many thought we got there already. That’s two.
The third one is the central emotional relationship story. There always has to be a relationship that your central character has to either create or mend. That could be between friends, it could be a father and a daughter, it could be a mother and her father, it could be a mother and her daughter, it could be cousins, it could be just classmates, it could be just new people that you meet. Whatever it is, there’s a relationship that has to be created or mended. Let’s say there were two brothers that had a fight early on. In their world now for some reason they’re going to have to mend that relationship in order to reach the goal, whatever the goal is. That’s three stories.
The fourth story is the story of the antagonist. We can’t eliminate the antagonist from this picture. They can’t…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
Paul Chitlik has written for all the major networks and studios in English and in Spanish. He was story editor for MGM/UA’S “The New Twilight Zone,” and staff writer for Showtime’s sitcom “Brothers.” He has written features for Rysher Entertainment, NuImage, Promark, Mainline Releasing, and others. He has directed episodes and been coordinating producer for “Real Stories of the Highway Patrol” and “U.S. Customs Classified.” He wrote and produced “Alien Abduction,” the first network movie shot on digital video for UPN. He wrote, produced, and directed “Ringling Brothers Revealed” a special for The Travel Channel. (He had been a roustabout for Circus Vargas years earlier.) Most recently he wrote, produced and directed “The Wedding Dress,” for Amazon Prime. He received a Writers Guild of America award nomination for his work on “The Twilight Zone” and a GLAAD Media Award nomination for “Los Beltrán,” a Telemundo show. He won a Genesis Award for a Showtime Family movie. He has taught in the MFA programs of UCLA, the University of Barcelona’s film school ESCAC, Cuba’s film school EICTV, Chile’s film school UNIACC, The University of Zulia in Venezuela, The Panamerican University in Mexico City, The Story Academy of Sweden and as a clinical associate professor at Loyola Marymount University. Now writing full time again and living near his grandson in Chapel Hill, NC, with wife, Beth McCauley.
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