[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: How does a writer read their screenplay for conflict?
Paul Chitlik, Author/Screenwriter: A writer reads a screenplay for conflict by looking at the goal of a person and what are the barriers to that goal. If there are no barriers to that goal, they have to create a barrier to that goal and that creates the conflict.
Now the barrier could be:
-A person
-It can be an actual physical barrier
-It could be nature
–It could be the ocean
-It could be a relationship that’s going wrong
Whatever the barrier is to the goal, that person has to confront that barrier and that’s what creates the conflict.
Film Courage: We want to establish this fairly soon into the actual writing of the screenplay?
Paul: Right. It definitely has to be established by the end of the first act, what is the goal and what are the barriers to the goal?
We have to see the barriers in each scene as well. Even in the first part of the story we’re just establishing who the character is and what the situation is. We have to see barriers in every scene. The barrier can be like we were talking about earlier, riding a bicycle down the street it could be:
-Potholes
-It could be a pedestrian jumping in front of the the bicycle
-It could be somebody jumping onto the bicycle
-It could be a car hitting the bicycle
It doesn’t matter what the barrier is, it creates a conflict that your central character has to overcome. This happens throughout the film. Usually there’s a major barrier, a major antagonist that’s preventing your character from reaching his goal but it could be…(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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