[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: What is a scene?
Steve Harper, Screenwriter/Writing Coach/Podcaster/Youtuber: I would say a scene is an encounter between a character and a circumstance in a prescribed moment in time. So character enters and encounters something and there’s some change or exchange and then the scene ends.
I think a lot about Robert McKee. He talks about energy and polarity changing in a scene that ideally if you have a character who comes in the scene super happy then it’s a great opportunity for the character to leave the scene in a different state. Now that doesn’t always happen, it doesn’t always happen as mechanically as that but I do feel like the notion of witnessing change is what scenes are supposed to be about. Change new information, something has to flip and morph for the scene to be I think most useful in moving a story ahead.
Now that’s not to say, I mean certainly in the world of TV and film we often have clips of action or things that things where moments, where one might say nothing happens, somebody’s walking down the street or there’s a pan of the sky or a bird goes by or whatever. We do have those sort of atmospheric things but I think we are at our best as writers when we’re motivating the story forward, where even even in a small symbolic way things happen.
I think of that scene in I think it’s Tootsie where, which is one of my favorite movies, where Dustin Hoffman is walking by and there’s the…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
STEVE HARPER’s TV writing includes Co-Executive Producer duties on Tracker and D.C.’s Stargirl and wrote episodes of God Friended Me, Tell Me Your Secrets, American Crime and Covert Affairs. His web series SEND ME earned a 2016 Emmy Nomination for series lead Tracie Thoms. Through his company Your Creative Life he coaches writers, posts advice on YouTube and co-hosts The Secret Writer Podcast – heard in 21 countries. He graduated from Yale, the A.R.T. Institute at Harvard and the Juilliard playwriting program.
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