Gerard Lee Thesis

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SWELL:

A feature-length screenplay set in the world of Australian surfing, and an accompanying exegesis on three-act structure.

By Gerard Lee B.A. (University of Queensland), Dip T. (North Brisbane College of Advanced Education), Writing Certificate (Australian Film and Television School).

Submitted to Faculty of Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology

Presented for the Master of Arts Degree (by Research)

2003

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Keywords: Screenplay, surfing, Australian cinema, international cinema, three-act structure in screenplay, one-act structure, post- modern cinema, Field, Aronson, McKee, Dancyger and Rush

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Abstract:

Despite many arguments to the contrary, the three-act story structure, as propounded and refined by Hollywood continues to dominate the blockbuster and independent film markets. Recent successes in post- modern cinema could indicate new directions and opportunities for low-budget national cinemas.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Swell, a feature length screenplay…………… 1

Exegesis……………………………………… 118

Introduction………………………………….. 119

The National Cinema………………………… 122

Structure in the Screenplay…………………... 127

The Structure of Swell………………………... 133

Act I…………………………………………... 137

Act II………………………………………….. 140

Act III…………………………………………. 147

Coda…………………………………………... 149

List of Films Cited…………………………….. 155

List of Works Cited……………………………. 157

(The pages of the screenplay—page 1A to page 117—are exempted from inclusion in the Australian Digital Thesis collection for commercial-in-confidence reasons)

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Authorship:

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other institution. The thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signed:………………..

Dated:………………..

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SWELL

(The pages of the screenplay—page 1A to page 117— are exempted from inclusion in the Australian Digital Thesis collection for commercial-in-confidence reasons)

Copyright: Gerard Lee. 2003. Queensland University of Technology, Gardens Point. Creative Industries.

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Exegesis

Swell: An account of the use of the three act structure within

the low-budget Australian surfing film

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Introduction

In the early 1980s, a number of film-makers at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (including myself)—some of whom were to go on to become significant figures nationally and internationally: Jane Campion, Chris

Noonan, P. J. Hogan, Alex Proyas, Rolfe de Heer, Marc Rosenberg, Jocelyn

Moorhouse—would meet regularly to discuss our scripts and ideas for stories.

At these meetings there was intense discussion around what kind of films we wanted to make. The debates were chaotic—more passionate than scholarly— but they were to inform the work of this emerging generation of practitioners and, to a degree, the direction of the national cinema.

Debate centred around a series of trip-wire binaries: art versus commerce, national versus international cinema, low-budget versus big-budget, high art versus popular culture, feminist cyclical narrative versus male, patriarchal, linear, ‘military-industrial state’ narrative. For some of us, art movies were written from the heart, or the soul, from an original inspiration and designed to challenge the emotional and intellectual status quo while commercial movies were written from a formula, designed to make money.

For me, the intervention that changed the terms of this debate was the publication in 1981 of Syd Field’s The Screenwriter’s Workbook. A script reader for the big Hollywood studios, Field introduced a structural approach to screenwriting. He explained some of the qualities I admired in popular

American film: the satisfactions of story, the dynamics of character, and the

120 focus on theme. I became a rabid ‘structuralist’. My colleagues, at the time, resisted the implications of structuralism but over the subsequent decade all of them have embraced, to differing degrees, the structure-based approach.

The objection many writers made to the early description of the three act structure was that it was formulaic. They were affronted that their own personal visions of character and ideology could be subjugated to a series of thirty pre-ordained steps. They resisted what they saw as Hollywood's coercion of their originality into a 'commercial' package. My view and practice was that the three act structure was not so much a prescription as a tool for putting forward personal vision. What it requires of the creative writer is to use it in a fresh way.

This exegesis seeks to reframe structuralist thinking, not as a formula but as a series of opportunities. I will do this as I account for the accompanying screenplay, Swell, in relation to two factors. First, I want to historicise this screenplay within my other work and the national cinema: to place it, by exploring each phase of concept, realisation and execution, within national debates and the international pressures and opportunities. What I’ll argue is that contemporary Australian films can succeed here and in the international market if they display the structural discipline evident in successful American independent films. And that American independent film, particularly recent post-modernist productions which I'll discuss later, provides a potential template for low-budget film-making in Australia. Second, I want to examine the structure of Swell as it relates to the similar models outlined by Robert

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McKee, Christopher Vogler, Linda Seger and Linda Aronson. I will comment on how successful this 'modelling' has been and then, using the work of Ken

Dancyger and Jeff Rush as well as Robert Stam, indicate future directions for screenplay models, beyond the three acts.

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The National Cinema

In 1970s and 1980s Australian film makers were often torn by divergent cultural and financial imperatives. Australian cinema at the time was involved in a cultural project of national identity-making and a process of historical recovery and revision. As Dermody and Jacka state:

The 'second world' we inhabit is bound to reproduce the first world

(UK and the USA), but needs to assert a measure of independence, of

product differentiation, to market or circulate our reproductions…

Second world countries like Canada and Australia are riddled with

post-colonial ambiguity and anxieties. […] For where do we end and

'the other' begin? Who is the other by which we define our difference,

ensuring ‘us’? Britain? America? […] Our film industry proclaims its

central role in revealing an identity we don't know we have until we

recognise it. (1988a:20)

One of my generation’s aims was to tell contemporary stories with political or social significance relating to our national identity. (This was reinforced by the policies of the AFC.)

The national cinema has been defined in different ways, each of them shedding some light on an unstable and dynamic field. But all of them share the same concern. Where does our national cinema fit into the international scene? Tom O’Regan in Australian National Cinema argues:

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national cinemas are simultaneously an aesthetic and production

movement, a critical technology, a civic project of state, an industrial

strategy and as international project formed in response to the

dominant international cinemas. (45)

His research teases out the complex nature of the economic and cultural relationships between the various kinds of national cinemas operating in a global marketplace. He cites the need for Australian films to both “imitate and oppose” Hollywood. He quotes Phillip Adams describing as “doomed” a cinema based on national identity (132). Dermody and Jacka lament the

“drastically unequal” nature of our relationship to the other English-speaking cinemas and describe ways various film-makers have tried to deal with our difference without which we “shrivel in self-esteem” and “inhabit a place-less, story-less limbo” (1987b:11). There’s Ross Gibson’s “feral” vision in

O’Regan (108)—introduced ideas and cultural artefacts going wild on our soil, and Bertrand and Routt’s “islander” view (4).

Despite the orientation of the national cinema to the international market, only a proportion of films achieve an international release. The Adventures of Barry

Mackenzie, Crocodile Dundee, Gallipoli, Breaker Morant, The Piano, Babe and They’re a Weird Mob are films which have proved their dual national and international appeal and have done so by employing a variety of strategies.

O’Regan cites Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee and Careful He Might Hear You as films which imitate American form but substitute Australian content (49).

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There are other ‘Australian’ films which are American in both form and content, infamously Richard Franklin’s Roadgames. During the 1970s

Australian audiences were exposed to European cinema—Italian, French,

Swedish, German and Spanish—to an unprecedented degree. O’Regan notes that between 1973 and 1978 only 41 per cent of films released in Australia were English language (78). While English language films dominated the box office, this exposure to non-English-language cinemas helped couple our emerging notion of a national independent cinema with the idea of the writer/director—the auteur. Paul Cox, Jane Campion, Jocelyn Moorhouse, P.J.

Hogan and I modelled ourselves on this idea.

The 1970s had seen a string of films exploring national identity through our past: Gallipoli, Breaker Morant, The Getting of Wisdom, Picnic at Hanging

Rock were also predicated on notions of high art. The films were adapted from novels and exhibited the hallmarks of European art movies. But they were also part of an overt nation-making project that did not translate to the international box office.

My generation’s emergence from this background in European art cinema continued a bias against mainstream American features and commercial cinema in general. Unlike the generation of film-makers before us, we wanted to find our own voice but through contemporary dramas. This led to an intractable problem: how to make Australian cultural property attractive to at least part of the American market without surrendering our cultural integrity.

O’Regan encapsulates the conflicting elements prevalent at the time:

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By definition a minority product, national cinemas emerge from

cultural policy needing at some level to enact a high/low culture divide

while, at the same time, registering the contingency of what is art and

what is not. (132).

Partly, the international potential of Australian films was imperilled by primitive film-making. Many art films of the 1970s failed to live up to the highest artistic standards set by such successes as Antonioni’s Blowup (1969),

Fellini’s oeuvre and the American examples: Five Easy Pieces and Easy

Rider. Many were boring and pretentious: Last Year at Marienbad (1961),

Celine and Julie Go Boating, the legendary nine-hour Jaguar and the interminable Andy Warhol pieces. They lacked discipline and audience awareness. Accompanying these films was a whole raft of non-narrative experimental cinema; plot and character were totally disposed of. These films, as one patron at the Melbourne Film-makers’ Co-operative, one weekend in

1973, stated: “work best when you’re stoned off your face”. This wasn’t the kind of cinema that would cement our place on the world stage.

As film-makers, we faced myriad problems: how to make contemporary

Australian reality entertaining; how to convince the Australian Film

Commission (AFC) our ideas were worthy of government/taxpayer funding

(as opposed to someone else’s ideas); and, most importantly, how to bring art movie techniques into contemporary stories.

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Structure in the Screenplay

And then, along came Syd Field, unconcerned with national identity or history. For him, there was only structure:

Structure is the most important element in a screenplay. It is the force

that holds everything together; it is the skeleton, the spine, the

foundation. Without structure, you have no story; without story you

have no screenplay. (17).

Unlike Christopher Vogler, Field’s basic structural analysis was innocent of the parallel discourse instigated by Vladimir Propp and Levi-Strauss inside the academy. Evacuated of its surface political concerns, Field saw structural analysis as a tool of the content creator (writer/producer), not as a tool of anthropology or cultural studies. Field’s goal was to describe the structure of a successful film as confirmed by its box-office takings.

With one idea, he deftly side-stepped all the issues of art and commerce. He wasn’t there to tell you ‘what to write’—that was up to your own political, social and emotional choices—but he could tell you ‘how to write it’. In a somewhat unclear phraseology, Field—who read most of his scripts in the spa—forsook ideological questions (including his own) and drove straight in to the heart of story. He clumsily outlined what made a story commercially successful and his examples proved the case. If Syd Field had not come on the

128 scene, someone else would have had to appear, to reign in the free-wheeling stories of the 1960s.

For Australian screenwriters struggling to produce commercially-viable art- house cinema, his insights were more than useful. Most of his observations on structure could be applied to successful European art movies: Diva, La Dolce

Vita, and Un Coeur en Hiver among others. This promised an applicability to the paradigm of low-budget Australian film-making.

Since Field, the bookshops have bristled with volumes of 'how-to' books, some better than others. Promotion, perhaps, hit rock bottom with the optimistically- titled How to Write a Movie in 21 Days: the Inner Movie Method and 500

Ways to Beat the Hollywood Scriptreader.

Even so, the more developed theories are useful models for film analysis and development. Here I will make reference to: Story by Robert McKee; How to

Make a Good Script Great and Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda

Seger; Alternative Scriptwriting by Dancyger and Rush; Scriptwriting

Updated by Linda Aronson and an unpublished manuscript The Second Act

Story, by Lynda Heys. These texts make strong arguments for their structural analysis, backing it up with many examples. They also tend to take a more broad-minded approach to the writing process, being less prescriptive than some of the more commercially-oriented analysts.

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As these books reflect, the three-act structure is the predominant story form for national and international cinema. Its simple presentation of an argument— thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis—make it an integral part of almost every sophisticated story form. In ensemble pieces, or multi-plot narratives, three-act structure, at the very least, informs the progress of the story and character. At the same time new and emerging forms make for an exciting time, particularly for non-mainstream writers.

In the forty years from the 1920s to the 1960s, the studio system in Hollywood turned story into a product and, like any factory, sought to hone down its raw material and forge it into an efficient economic unit (Bordwell, Staiger and

Thompson 320-327). As Robert McKee argues in his lectures, there was no need for how-to books; the knowledge was passed down from one generation of writers to the next in the writing rooms on the studio lots. This process broke down in the 1960s as technological advances (in camera and sound equipment) and ideological change, meant the studios lost some of their control.

It is important to realise here that three-act structure is not an American invention. Stories with beginnings, middles and ends are ancient forms.

Aristotle's Poetics for instance, outlines the structure, but as Hollywood commodified storytelling, 'beginning, middle and end' has become synonymous with capitalism and exploitation. As Routt observes:

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In the writing on film which has gone on since May 1968 there has

been a great deal of anti-American sentiment masquerading as

reasoned politics. […] The ideas that ‘classic narrative’ is somehow

linked in some fundamental fashion to Hollywood and thus to

capitalism (and that the bourgeois art cinema of Europe and Japan

offers a politically palatable alternative) seem specious on the face of

it, but they are what everyone knows these days. (218).

This is aptly put. The hot-house of Hollywood has refined and experimented with classic narrative. While for millennia stage dramas have been built around structural assumptions and conventions, the screen industry places story structure at the centre of the writing process and constructs 'story' not as personal or national expression but as product. Screenplays are routinely referred to as 'properties'; writers are 'owned'; ideas are 'developed through investment' not through an urgent inner need to create, play and express.

Critics of Hollywood, however, have a point. If the 'three-act structure' or

‘classic narrative’ is interpreted as a ‘hero’s journey’, it can easily be freighted with many of the ‘despised’ values of America: capitalism, commerce, individualism, greed, revenge, romantic love. Dancyger and Rush in their introduction to Alternative Scriptwriting think so:

The premise of most restorative three-act stories is that crime doesn’t

pay, that good will triumph over evil, and that there is no confusion

over which is which. But suppose this simple morality is foreign to us?

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Suppose the world we know is more likely to be marked by small

missteps, unexpected tenderness, and, most of all, a lack of overriding

predetermined purpose or clarity? […] Suppose we find ourselves

asking questions like - Why do our lives seem to slip by in a succession

of little details that appear so unimportant? (27)

Their critique questions the value of the hero’s journey, placing representations of moral complexity and oppositional politics at the centre of the writers’ task. This can introduce us into a more complex world such as in

Magnolia and Angela’s Ashes—both of which are, arguably, one-act dramas.

But Dancyger and Rush’s critique can be questioned for two reasons. First, they seem to deny the potential of the three-act story to dramatise a morally complex world, or to contest mainstream American politics. Films such as

The Ice Storm, Six Degrees of Separation and Drugstore Cowboy—indeed many independent American films—show it is possible to dramatize a morally complex world peopled with anti-heroes, within the three-act structure. Ice

Storm is the story of dysfunctional families during the time of a dysfunctional president. The 'hero' of Drugstore Cowboy is the leader of a gang of drug addicts. Six Degrees of Separation again, explores a dysfunctional relationship, focuses on the divide between the haves and the have-nots and questions the myth of rages to riches in American society—all of them, neatly- defined three-act dramas. Second, moral complexity does not always follow from breaking with traditional form. Go, Pulp Fiction, Run, Lola, Run, Snatch, and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels—arguably all one act dramas—

132 create worlds of minimal moral complexity (at times, amoral domains), where characters are driven by primitive rather than heroic instincts. The characters face challenges but the dramas do not focus on the moral conflicts.

Structurally, their storyline follows the most basic form: set-up, confrontation, climax.

My own film All Men Are Liars based on the romantic comedy genre (Some

Like It Hot and Tootsie) is firmly planted in the Hollywood tradition but its content is almost completely Australian except for the satirical use of the Elvis impersonator. With Swell I wanted to follow the same pattern. I was confident that local content of a hard-edge Australian surfing world would create national and international appeal.

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The Structure of Swell

Surfing and film-making in Australia have had a long intertwined but low- profile history. Surfing documentaries and surf-related feature titles occupy three pages of index in Albie Thoms’ book surfmovies Although some of the feature films have had success—Puberty Blues, The Coolangatta Gold,

Summer City and The Empty Beach, they fail to register as part of the national cinema. Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka mention only the interesting experimental Palm Beach in their overview, The Screening of Australia. The marriage of Australian surfing and film-making is yet to produce a golden child.

Surfing is one of Australia's international icons. The country is well- represented year after year in the Top 44 (the international surfing circuit) and has had four world champions since the competition began—one of them

Mark Richards, holding the title four years running. Four Australian surf-wear companies are represented in the top five surf-wear companies, globally. The sport encompasses not only vivid, likeable personalities such as Tom Carroll and Mark Occilupo, it occurs in some of our best locations. Surf magazines and videos are a local industry. There are seven million surfers worldwide and

Australia is a regular destination. A well-crafted Australian surf movie, if one could ever be made, is a sitting duck to gain national and international sales.

A regular criticism has been that writers have failed to come up with a storyline which knits surfing into character: the hero’s journey. This was the

134 brief I set for myself in the conception of Swell. With market and genre considerations in mind, I chose to construct my screenplay as a traditional linear narrative. Linear narrative, regarded as a masculine form, linked to heterosexist romance, ideologies of nationhood and socioeconomic privilege

(Bordwell and Thompson 82) suited my mostly male audience (probably 13 to

22 year-old boys), but the flavour of epic journey (surfing safari) also suggested a linear treatment. Other aspects of the story, transcendental themes—synchronicity, the unconscious and death—which could suggest flashbacks and flash forwards are subjugated within the framework of a traditional form. These themes operate as an undercurrent to the urgent

'present': the earthy, apparently mundane situations the boys find themselves in. I felt this was a suitable and effective treatment for these themes. Bringing them to the fore—as happens in the horror genre or science fiction—would have meant a closer examination, necessitating a logical progression, thereby robbing them of their mystery and power.

In writing the script, I followed Linda Aronson’s format for act one. She provides a more detailed breakdown than Syd Field or Robert McKee. Her stages are: normality, disturbance, protagonist, plan, surprise, obstacle.

Aronson suggests writing a story sentence as a way of maintaining focus during writing. My story sentence is:

Two very different brothers find common ground and reconnect

following a vision of a perfect wave.

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Before coming to the above story line, I gathered the elements from disparate sources. Aronson describes the process under the heading, Assembling the

Fragments:

stories present in fragments – a character, a scene, a climax - and the

writer’s job is to find, or impose some kind of order on them without

pre-empting the creative process. (43)

An early idea was to do a story about twins partly inspired by articles I read in the newspaper in the late 1990s. They threw new light on human behaviour based on the study of twins reared separately. I was fascinated by the story of twin brothers separated at birth who upon meeting at the age of twenty-five, bought the same gift for each other, a matching shirt and tie set, from the same shop. They had each chosen the same career and dated similar girlfriends. This and other evidence indicated a stronger genetic influence on behaviour than had previously been believed. I found it mystical and inspiring that such things can be coded into the body.

A related idea was a comedy version of the phenomenon of twins. Mark

Twain had written a dark but hilarious story Those Extraordinary Twins about two Italian Siamese twins who are heralded into a small American riverside village. One is noble and sober, the other raucous and base. The townsfolk divide, the brothers cannot. An update of this story, I felt, could generate interesting insights into identity and interior conflict. One brother’s outrageous behaviour has a bodily hold over the other, in this case literally. At that time, a

136 similar script was circulating through the LA studios with Vincent Ward (Map of the Human Heart, What Dreams May Come) attached as director. It was deemed to be too confronting.

Next, the world of surfing had been of interest to me since I was a young man, particularly the mystical/anarchic/romantic figure of the lone surfer—man and sea. Judith Wright had written an inspiring poem, The Surfer. The problem was there is only one dramatic question inherent in surfing: if I catch this wave will I be able to ride it, or will it kill me? This is related to the idea of death, a young man's idea of death as the ultimate authority, or limit. Or is it? Is there life beyond death? Is it possible to cross over and come back? This concept of death and separation tied in to the idea of the twins. Where are the boundaries between people?

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Act One

Aronson recommends making a structure chart. I made a number of these for

Swell before settling on one for the first draft. Then I wrote a brief outline.

Following is the outline for Act I:

Twenty-one year-old Tom is helping out at his dad’s landscaping

business one last long weekend before he begins his new job at a law

firm. The pair have battled through thick and thin after Lorraine

(Mick’s wife) died, nineteen months earlier, and wayward son Rory

(aged 23) took off, apparently to surf.

Rory, in fact, surfed for a while but was apprehended by police trying to steal a grower’s marijuana crop. He’s spent six months in jail, but now, as our film begins, has organised weekend leave with his mate Harvey—during which they are required to report to a police station every evening at 6pm until their return. Rory and Harvey have no intention of keeping those appointments.

Following an intense recurring dream of Rory’s, they are heading for a secret surf break off the coast where they know (from the dream) a perfect set of waves is due to appear. There are ominous signs that these waves could be killers—but without the strong prospect of his own death, Rory wouldn’t be interested anyway. Tom has had the same dream but not being such a keen surfer and more interested in safety and duty, he stays home to help dad. Then, there’s a call on his mobile. Pete, a Christian surfer and friend of both the brothers, rings to say he’s seen Rory and warns that he’s on some kind of hare-

138 brained mission. Tom, against his father’s wishes, downs tools and heads off in search of his wayward brother.

On reaching the surf camp at the back of the beach, Tom discovers Rory trying to steal a car. Reluctantly but in an effort to hold on, Tom joins him and begins a journey of emotional and physical mayhem that tests him to the limit. (End of Act I)

Interestingly, Ms Aronson does not mention synopsis, a step in the process recommended by almost every other screenwriting workbook. She outlines a nine-step three-act structure. Six of these are in Act I. Her steps are similar to

Christopher Vogler’s twelve step structure (The Writer’s Journey) six of which also are in Act I. Act I is important in setting up the characters, the premise and the world of the film. To take her first six steps:

1. Normality. McKee and Vogler refer to this stage as the Ordinary

World. In the case of Swell, this is Tom’s home world: life with his

father, the house they live in, the awkward nature of the meals they

share, the work, the loss of the mother and brother (loss of family) and

his goal to be a lawyer.

2. Disturbance: The initial disturbance is Tom’s dream of big surf in

which he recognises his brother. This is reiterated later in the morning

when Pete, the Christian, rings to tell him of Rory’s whereabouts.

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3. Protagonist: Tom, the younger brother is the protagonist. We

favour his movement through the story. He is the one who is going to

be tested most sorely, the one required to change the most.

4. Plan: Tom’s plan is to find Rory and bring him back home. He

wants to re-create the safety of the family circle.

5. Surprise: Tom is surprised on meeting his brother. There’s an

attitude in his behaviour he can’t understand. He’s bamboozled by

Rory’s cool response on seeing him again.

6. Obstacle: Tom realises Rory will not return home with him. He’s

lucky to get even a civil welcome.

Aronson seems to place less importance than many other analysts on the main character’s decision at the end of Act I. Many others, including Field, McKee and Vogler, put great emphasis on the character's turning point at the end of

Act I. The character is faced with a block (obstacle) to achieving their solution

(plan) to the problem (disturbance) they’ve been faced with. They then make a decision to try a solution which has already been presented. Usually, this is a choice that will jeopardise them. It is in making this decision that an ordinary human character (we’ve spent twenty-five minutes of screen time establishing how ordinary they are) begins a hero’s journey: that complex process through the trials of Act II.

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Act II

Act II, particularly the second half of Act II, has been described as ‘the belly of the screenplay’. Many screenplays lose suspense at this point. Attacking the problem of Act II in the mid-1990s while at the American Film Institute and while working as a reader for Paramount, Australian writer/director Lynda

Heys (Kick) developed what was to become a highly-respected model for the second act. Heys put forward the notion that successful second acts actually contain a hidden three-act structure. Heys studied more than twenty films and explicated a disturbance, a plan, a surprise, an obstacle, two turning points (at the end of the first and second acts) and a ‘character climax’ within Act II.

These steps furthered the main character’s pursuit of their external goal but this was less important than their character journey: a building up of strength or an un-shielding of self, leading to the character climax which forges the hero, in readiness for the final external climactic confrontation in Act III. So,

Act II is the playing out of a dual system: a three-act structure with every step reflecting simultaneously an internal and external aspect of the protagonist.

When this is done well, Act II runs with a double meaning, a tension which gives the drama irony, comedy, suspense and mystery. The crucial factor is a sleight of hand in which the main character sub-consciously creates an external goal in an effort to avoid facing or overcoming their inner need.

Tootsie is a good example of this. Michael (Dustin Hoffman) decides to succeed he must become a woman rather than facing his character flaw that he is an unco-operative control freak. His decision is doomed and we are aware of this from the moment we see him walking down the street, tripping on his

141 high heels. His decision adds a layer of irony to every scene in Act II. We know he is going to fail. For the writer, a clear understanding of the character’s inner need and character flaw is essential to fully exploit the dramatic potential of their story.

In my experience, Heys is the only structural analyst who points this out clearly. I used her model for Tom, my character in Swell. Tom's inner need is to recreate the safety of the family he once knew. To do that, he's prepared to risk his legal career and make the doomed choice to go with his brother. Heys shows that once the protagonist moves into the second act, there is a new period of orientation in which the new world is set up. This corresponds to

Aronson’s normality. In Swell this is the beginning of the road trip. Tom’s first few minutes in the car set the scene. The driving will be dangerous: he’ll be in the hands of his lunatic brother, crushed up against an uncomfortably desirable young woman, with a drug taker in the backseat—all of them, except him, looking for the elusive perfect wave. Once Tom decides to get into that car he has moved into Heys’ Extraordinary World, or according to Vogler, Crossed the First Threshold.

Heys’ next step is a test of the hero’s inner flaw, or using Aronson, a disturbance. For Tom, whose flaw is fear, the discovery that the car is stolen, threatens his external goal—to get Rory safely home—and his inner self: his fear of going beyond the bounds of convention.

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Aronson’s third step, establishing a protagonist, is fulfilled. Even though we, through Tom, have encountered the strong, charismatic figure of Rory the focus of the story must remain with the main character. Rory’s stealing of the car is not a dramatic moment for him: he’s done it before; his pulse doesn’t even increase a beat. But for Tom, this is a lifting of the stakes and our focus tends toward him as the character with the most emotional energy, the one in the most jeopardy.

The plan has already been established in Act I. Here, Tom is brought up to speed. They’re on their way to catch some waves Rory has seen in a dream.

Again, this reflects on Tom’s inner life. He hears enough detail to know he’s had the same dream—a threatening situation because it ties him in psychically with his crazy brother.

The visit to The Ego is a step Aronson does not seem to recognise while

McKee, Heys and Vogler mention mentors and gatekeepers. These characters add drama and information. They may represent Aronson’s obstacle or surprise but in this case The Ego is used to reiterate the idea of death, to warn.

The next step of the story is what Heys calls the climax of failing. By the time the car pulls into the service station, Tom has almost had enough: Harvey is trying to sell drugs to a dread-locked guy in a Kombi; Rory has told Tom he must pay for petrol and food, and Kate has teased him once too often. This is the final straw, or the obstacle. Tom grabs his stuff, walks across the highway and begins to hitch-hike home. Heys describes this period of the screenplay

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(first half of Act II) as failing tests. This does not mean Tom hasn’t passed some tests, but that he failing more often than he is succeeding.

A romance sub-plot runs in parallel to the main plot throughout Act II. This is a love-triangle, partly set-up in Act I with meaningful eye contact between

Rory and Kate from the moment they meet. This establishes normality. Rory likes Kate; Kate likes Rory. But once Tom comes on the scene, Kate also seems to pay attention to him—we have disturbance. We can’t tell which one of them she likes the most and nor can the boys. Perhaps she can’t either. This affects Tom (protagonist) more than the others. He’s obviously an innocent in this world. Rory has the plan. He wants Tom to do something about Kate. He doesn’t want to see her ‘go to waste’. He tries to goad Tom into action—a reflection of what he’ll do later in the surf.

To return to the main plot: the combination of action line and inner journey.

We are at the structuralist’s mid-point. This is a feature pointed out by Heys,

McKee and Field but not Aronson or Seger. Vogler’s eighth step, the supreme ordeal is the action movie’s equivalent. I’m convinced it is a crucial moment in a successful story structure. It is particularly effective in Hamlet and

Macbeth, in stories with a high level of action, in detective stories and in romantic comedies. It has even more significance in two-act structures such as

Sean Penn’s She’s So Lovely and Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh's

Anniversary Party.

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In a typical mid-point, the hunted hero turns and begins to hunt the villain; there's a power shift. In Swell, Tom is standing on the side of the highway trying to hitch a lift back home. Rory approaches. They fight and Rory gives in, or appears to give in. He tells Tom he wants him to come along, to share the world of surfing. He apologises for his behaviour and eventually wins Tom over by agreeing to return with him—but only once they’ve found the break and surfed it. Tom takes control. He throws the marijuana in the bin. He drives. He starts to pass some tests (Heys, Aronson, McKee). On the action level he appears to be doing well, but this section of the screenplay, between the mid-point and the end of Act II, is a period in which the inner journey takes even more precedence over the external goal. It is a dive into the psyche of the character. We tend to see them alone and inactive, at crucial moments.

Heys denotes two key scenes: a moment in which the hero’s real fear is exposed and a later moment in which the hero realises what his life will be like without overcoming that fear. Tom twice exposes his fears to Rory: on the waves and in the pub. Rory attacks him both times and sarcastically shows a blatant disregard for any caution. But Tom is rising in power. He’s starting to shed his shield—through catching waves and his developing relationship with

Kate. In this he is aided by her surfing lessons and later when he inadvertently eats magic mushrooms.

This burgeoning risk-taking continues at a dance at the pub and later during a midnight swim; he and Rory reach a zenith of closeness. Heys describes this moment as the first inkling the hero has of his own possibilities. But there’s a crash (Heys). The period of awareness is interrupted by outside events. Tom’s

145 finding out that Rory has escaped from jail and has jeopardised his whole legal career, is this point in Swell. This is actually the end of the second act within the inner journey or the character story.

As with the conclusion of any second act, it presents as closure. But we have a third act within the character story. With Rory’s help and encouragement, Tom rallies. He goes one step further, crosses another boundary by deciding to accompany everyone else in the dinghy out to the break. This represents act three of the inner journey. The time on the boat with his brother presents as a short period of togetherness, on an adventure. But, the external plot takes over.

The surf is not right, it doesn't live up to the dream and furthermore, the brothers' relationship breaks down completely. Here on the beach, Tom and

Rory have what Heys calls the character climax. There's a showdown. Rory has to admit his deception and his obsession. He breaks the deal they made at the mid-point and Tom’s goal, to bring him home, is destroyed. He calls the police on his own brother (end of Act II).

Again, this presents as a possible closure. To summarise, they go to the headland; the surf is bad; Rory breaks his promise; Tom calls the police. The main character does not achieve his goal. The brothers again go their separate ways. This is tragic closure.

The typical Hollywood ‘happy-ending’ embodies a tragedy at the end of Act

II. This is reversed by John Ridley in U-turn, in which the end of Act II is positive. Sean Penn, the main character, has passed through his tests and

146 ordeals, he’s redeemed the car, he’s grabbed the money, and he’s escaped with the girl, only to have everything tragically taken away in Act III.

With Swell, I opted for the traditional structure. During the ‘crash’ at the end of Act II, the three sub-plots of the film also go through the same paradigm.

Mick (the father) has caught up with his boys but he and Rory refuse to speak.

Tom and Kate are no longer close and Doggy’s crew have unwillingly helped bring Rory down. The stories move into a low-point, slowly evolving into Act

III.

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Act III

Act III contains all the elements of every other act: a set-up, disturbance, problem, warnings, surprise and finally, a reluctant decision to once again go beyond the normal boundaries to confront the antagonistic force at the climax.

These steps in Act III typically occur at great speed, each one bringing with it all the relevant information and emotional messages built up in the two earlier acts. With some qualifications, Act III is a re-enactment in short powerful steps of the same central question which has occupied us from Act I. Many screenplays end Act II with the frustration of the main character’s external goal. For example, he doesn’t get the money; she doesn’t get the man. Act III then sets up a new external goal.

In the case of Swell the same external goal is maintained. What has changed, through the intercession of Kate, is that Tom now understands the idea of letting go. It’s the solution to the problem Rory presents and also the problem of riding the approaching wave. By setting Rory free, Tom not only jeopardises his own career, he knows he’ll probably never recreate the safe family he had. He knows his brother will be in jail or a fugitive. But, Tom goes beyond his boundaries one more time and enters the world of the third act which meshes the normal and the extraordinary worlds. The climax of the film comes with the appearance of the dream wave. This is the nemesis and redemption Tom has feared since before our story began. At their best, the climax embodies a twist. My twist is to have Tom ride the wave instead of his brother and then for Rory to disappear when we believe he’ll give himself up.

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The epilogue is Rory and Kate’s escape into the wide blue yonder with Rory’s partial, bittersweet reconciliation with his father.

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Coda

I chose to execute Swell in a traditional format (classical Hollywood structure with Australian characters) because I believed at the time, it best suited the market. Upon reflection, at the end of the process, this may not be the case.

The success of a number of structurally innovative new films, including Lock,

Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Sliding Doors, Pulp Fiction, Memento, Being

John Malkovitch, and Run Lola Run suggest that moving beyond the three act structure (rather than conforming to it) might be a more fruitful direction for

Australian writers. Given the size of our budgets, the availability of actors and the limitations of location, the screenplay is one area we can, through innovation and experiment, maximise our chances of commercial success.

The level of observance or avoidance of three act structure by Australian film makers is unclear. Obviously a number of Australian films, including films from the 1970s revival, have experimented with non-three act forms. Picnic at

Hanging Rock offered audiences a new and mysterious experience. It has a unique structural framework, an ensemble piece with little character development, no climax or resolution. At the end, the mystery is still 'hanging'.

Breaker Morant and Shine, both from South Australia, also display noteworthy structure, in their, not ground-breaking, but unusually sophisticated use of flashback. My guess is that this propelled their acceptance in the world marketplace. Lastly, My Brilliant Career, again, not a vastly innovative story structurally, risks an ending in which the woman does not get

150 her man, or more exactly, she doesn’t even want her man. This was the film many viewers seemed to be waiting for; the risk paid off.

Whether these films were structurally innovative or structurally naïve is unclear. But it is interesting to compare their success with the market failure of Strange Plane: a Melbourne production with plenty of charm and plotting clever enough to raise a wry smile. In each case it may be that structural questions and features were not paramount in the audience experience of the film. Jane Campion, with whom I collaborated on Sweetie, was insistent on this point. We found our greatest point of differences in my fascination and respect for the Hollywood story form and her disdain for it. She did concede to allowing the Syd Field-like first turning point (when Kay and Louis discover

Sweetie has broken into the house). The second turning point, when Sweetie falls out of the tree house was reached without any disagreement, but the climax, in my view, is weakened by a failure to clearly solve the lovers’ initial disturbance: what happened to the passion?

This lack of structural clarity has been read by some as ‘artistic subtlety’ as it shies away from a full-frontal happy Hollywood ending. A more conclusive ending, in which the two lovers meet, face to face, tease out their final differences, embrace and make love, may on the face of it sound corny and obvious but it would have provided a warmth and close-ness, qualities sadly missing from this example of ‘alienated’ cinema.

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Despite these mixed signals, there are, however, a number of observable trends in international screen writing that seem pertinent. The wholesale take- up of structure-based approaches to screenwriting within Western cinema over the past twenty years, and its close analysis by fugues such as Field, Aronson, and McKee, has allowed a deeper understanding of the building blocks of story.

This has led to a seemingly unending diversity in three act variations, often with subtle interplays of structure and content. For example, the ironic attitude to structure exemplified by the work of Mike Meyers (Wayne’s World,

Goldmember) and outlined in Alternative Scriptwriting (Dancyger and Rush,

1991) must and does, affect content. Meyers seeks to send up the false passion, the artificially created turning point, the convenient reversal and the happy ending. Doctor Evil’s plotline in Goldmember is a good example. The relationship movements between the three generations of the Dr Evil clan are so thoroughly over-acted and clichéd structurally, they draw our attention to cynical production decisions in the American blockbuster, thereby undermining the pre-dominant form.

Unlike Campion’s films, produced out of a self-claimed structural naivety, other writers are actively moving beyond the three act structure by self- consciously toying with it. As in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, writers, in a post-structuralist turn, have been freed up to make bold moves in story design.

Magnolia, Go, Run Lola Run, Memento, Sliding Doors, and Adaptation as

152 well as Mike Meyers' films, can be read as reactions to the imposed authority of the traditional form.

Often the interplay of form and content is clear. In Scriptwriting Updated,

Linda Aronson says good writing is a marriage of two kinds of thinking. She quotes Edward de Bono’s lateral and vertical thinking models and suggests a gripping story requires a balance of these two:

Good writing happens when craft (provided by vertical thinking) and

the writer’s unique view of the world (provided by lateral thinking) are

inextricably mixed to produce a work of striking originality. (2)

And just as lateral and vertical thinking struggle against each other, so do form and content. In Memento, the backward/forward movement of the story is intimately connected to the character’s faulty memory. It would be interesting to ask Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, the writers, which came first, character or form. (Sliding Doors makes less effective use of character and structure, as the two are not as interdependent.) Here it is the interplay of form and content, which gives each story its flavour and finds its best result when the struggle between these two ultimately irresolvable domains has been pursued as far as possible.

In a contraindication to this complexity, it could be argued that, in other films story structure has been reduced to its simplest form. Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, as well as Tarantino’s oeuvre, are cases in point.

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They exhibit a strong sense of economy, and have the feel of free-form, transcending the traditional structures. There’s a sense of speed, confusion and suspense, maintained through the use of the simplest story form—a one-act story—set-up, confrontation, climax. Characters do not develop but rather

'reveal' more about themselves as they progress toward a violent climax. There are no moments of quiet introspection. As Robert Stam states in Film Theory:

In a certain sense recent developments in commercial film relativize

both cognitive and classical semiotic approaches, revealing them as

relevant only to classical forms of cinema. Lately, we find a slackening

of narrative time, a kind of post-modern picaresque stringing of

narrative non-events. Here, a critique of linear narrative, exploitative

spectacle, and the dominating gaze becomes irrelevant. […] In the

post-modern cinema of Tarantino, causality and motivation are

trivialized […] characters kill not out of any ‘project’ but rather

through accident (Pulp Fiction) or due to a fleeting impulse or

momentary irritation (Jackie Brown). (318)

This reduction of complexity in character and theme is reflected in the blockbuster productions, the recent Spiderman being a case in point:

A new blockbuster cinema, made possible by huge budgets, sound

innovations, and digital technologies, favour(s) a sound and light show

cinema of sensation [...] (and) fosters a fluid , euphoric montage of

images and sounds reminiscent less of classical Hollywood than of

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video games, music video, and amusement park rides […] sensation

predominates over narrative, sound over image […] verisimilitude is

no longer a goal; rather, it is the technology dependent production of

vertiginous, prosthetic delirium. (Stam 317)

In re-considering Swell a central question will be whether it is too conventional for this liminal moment in film structure and for the youthful surfing fraternity. Perhaps the new breed of cinemate surfie is ready for the

Tarantino treatment of the waves. By this I mean, less character development, more violence and confrontation and an amoral universe. Unfortunately this was not the kind of film I set out to write.

These new directions in screen structures do not necessarily spell the death of the traditional three-act structure. The screenplay of Swell has been optioned by a Melbourne production company, Faraway Films. The company’s principals see the script as fulfilling all the dramatic requirements of the three- act structure. They aim to interest American studios to invest in the production. The swirling meteor of story will eventually curl back on itself, pick up something old and something new and re-do it with all the verve and panache we've come to expect from the wonderful world of film.

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List of Films Cited

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (Bruce Beresford, 1972) All Men are Liars (Gerard Lee, 1995) Angela’s Ashes (Alan Parker, 1999) Anne dernière à Marienbad, L' (Alain Resnais, 1961) Babe (Chris Noonan, 1995) Blowup (Michaelangelo Antoniono, 1966) Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980) Careful He Might Hear You (Carl Shultz, 1983) Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Jacques Rivette, 1974) Coolangatta Gold (Igor Auzins, 1984) Crocodile Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986) Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Sant, 1989) Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) Empty Beach (Chris Thomson, 1985) Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970) Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981) The Getting of Wisdom (Bruce Beresford, 1977) Go (Doug Liman, 1999) Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997) In God’s Hands (Zalman King, 1998) Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997) Jaguar (Jean Rouch, 1967) Kick (Linda Heys, 2000) La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998) Mad Max (George Miller, 1979) Magnolia (PT Anderson, 1999) Map of the Human Heart (Vincent Ward, 1992) Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) Palm Beach (Albie Thoms, 1979) The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993)

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Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) Puberty Blues (Bruce Beresford, 1981) Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) Roadgames (Richard Franklin, 1981) Run Lola Run (Tom Twyker, 1998) She’s So Lovely (Nick Cassavetes, 1997) Six Degrees of Separation (Fred Schepisi, 1993) Sliding Doors (Peter Howitt, 1998) Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000) Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) Spider-man (Sam Raimi, 2002) Summer City (Christopher Fraser, 1977) Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989) They’re a Weird Mob (Michael Powell, 1966) Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982) U-Turn (Oliver Stone, 1997) Un Coeur en Hiver (Claude Sautet, 1992) What Dreams May Come (Vincent Ward, 1998)

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List of Works Cited

Aronson, Linda. Scriptwriting Updated: New and Conventional Ways of Writing for the Screen. Sydney: AFTRS, 2000. David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson. The classical Hollywood cinema: film style & mode of production to 1960. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: an introduction. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. Australian Film Commission. Get the Picture. Sydney: AFTRS, 4th edition, 1996. Australian Film Commission. Get the Picture. Sydney: AFTRS, 6th edition, 2000. Bertrand, Ina and William Routt. “The Big Bad Combine: Some Aspects of National Aspirations and International Constraints in the National Cinema, 1896-1929.” The Australia Screen. Eds. A. Moran and T.O’Regan, Ringwood; Penguin, 1989, 23-27. Dalton, Kim. Development Practice in the Australian Film Industry. Proc. National Screenwriters’ Conference. 2000. Dancyger, Ken and Jeff Rush. Alternative Scriptwriting. Boston: Focal Press, 1995. Dermody, Susan and Elizabeth Jacka. The Screening of Australia. 2 Vol, Sydney: Currency Press, 1987-1988. Field, Syd. The Screenwriter’s Workbook. New York: Dell, 1984. Field, Syd. Screenplay: the foundations of Screenwriting. New York: Dell, 1994. Heys, Lynda. The Second Act Story. (Unpublished Manuscript) King, Viki. How to Write a Movie in 21 Days: The Inner Movie Method. New York: Harper Collins, 1988.How to Write Lerch, Jennifer. 500 Ways to Beat the Hollywood Script Reader: Writing the Screenplay the Reader Will Recommend New York: Simon & Schuster 1999.

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McKee, Robert. Story: substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting London: Methuen, 1998. O’Regan, Tom. Australian National Cinema. London: Routledge, 1996. Routt, William. “Are you a Fish? Are you a Snake?: An obvious lecture and some notes on The Last Wave” Continuum 8 (1994): 215-231. Seger, Linda. Making a Good Script Great. New York: Samuel French,1994. Seger, Linda. Creating Unforgettable Characters. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Stam, Robert. Film Theory: An Introduction. Mass: Blackwell, 2000. Thoms, Albi. Surfmovies: the history of the surf film in Australia. Noosa Heads: Shore Thing, 2000. Twain, Mark. “The Comedy of Those Extraordinary Twins”: The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and The Comedy of Those Extraordinary Twins. Hartford: Amer. Pub Co., 1900. Vogler, Christopher. The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structures for Storytellers and Screenwriters London: Pan, 1998.