The Screenwriters Taxonomy

In The Screenwriters Taxonomy, award-winning screenwriter and educator Eric R. Williams offers a new collaborative approach for creative storytellers to recognize, discuss and reinvent storytelling paradigms. Williams presents seven different aspects of storytelling that can be applied to any fi ctional narrative fi lm—from supergenre, macrogenre and microgenre to voice and point of view—allowing writers to analyze existing fi lms and innovate on these structures in their own stories. Moving beyond fi lm theory, Williams describes how this roadmap for creative decision making can relate to classics like Sunset Boulevard , The Wizard of Oz and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as well as such diverse modern favorites like 12 Years a Slave , Anomalisa and Shrek .

Eric R. Williams has written professionally for American Movie Classics, Universal Studios, Grateful Films and Fox Interactive. His screenplays have been workshopped at the Film Independent Producers Lab in Los Angeles, and have won three prestigious awards: Best New Work from the Writers Guild of America, Award for Individual Excellence in Screenwriting from the Ohio Arts Council and an Emmy Award for Interactive Media. Eric is also an award-winning educator and the inaugural director of the MFA in Communication Media Arts program at Ohio University, where he teaches screenwriting and virtual-reality production. Eric earned his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in Chicago and his MFA at Columbia University in New York City. He is also the author of another book by Rout- ledge, Screen Adaptation: Beyond the Basics (2017).

You can learn more by visiting his website: www.WilliamsOnStory.com. Author Eric Williams, honored ﬁ nalist of the Ohio University Presidential Teacher Award in 2014 Routledge Studies in Media Theory & Practice

1 Semiotics and Title Sequences Text-Image Composites in Motion Graphics Michael Betancourt

2 Synchronization and Title Sequences Audio-Visual Semiosis in Motion Graphics Michael Betancourt

3 The Screenwriters Taxonomy A Roadmap to Collaborative Storytelling Eric R. Williams

The Screenwriters Taxonomy A Roadmap to Collaborative Storytelling

Eric R. Williams First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Eric R. Williams The right of Eric R. Williams to be identiﬁ ed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identiﬁ cation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-09039-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-10864-3 (ebk)

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Petra, you are the love of my life. Thank you for listening to all of my crazy ideas throughout the years, and for sharing your own. Funny how so many of them come true.

C o n t e n t s

List of Figures x List of Tables xi Acknowledgments xiv Preface xv

Introduction 1 1 The Need for a Road Map 3

PART I Deﬁ ning the Film 13 2 Movie Types and Supergenres 15 3 Macrogenres and Microgenres 47 4 Genre Case Studies 88

PART II Reﬁ ning the Film 99 5 Voice 101 6 Pathway 126 7 Point of View 143 8 Case Studies 158

Index 167 Figures

1.1 The Screenwriters Taxonomy 6 1.2 Taxonomy of All Living Things 7

Tables

Chapter 2 10 Brands of Drama 15 12 Brands of Comedy 17 Screenwriters Taxonomy: Supergenres 21 Action Supergenre Examples 22 Action Supergenre Specifi cs 23 Crime Supergenre Examples 24 Crime Supergenre Specifi cs 25 Fantasy Supergenre Examples 26 Fantasy Supergenre Specifi cs 27 Horror Supergenre Examples 28 Horror Supergenre Specifi cs 29 Life Supergenre Examples 30 Life Supergenre Specifi cs 31 Romance Supergenre Examples 33 Romance Supergenre Specifi cs 34 Science Fiction Supergenre Examples 35 Science Fiction Supergenre Specifi cs 36 Sports Supergenre Examples 38 Sports Supergenre Specifi cs 39 Thriller Supergenre Examples 40 Thriller Supergenre Specifi cs 41 War Supergenre Examples 42 War Supergenre Specifi cs 43 Western Supergenre Examples 45 Western Supergenre Specifi cs 46 xii Tables Chapter 3 Time Travel Macro Paired with Supergenres 48 Mystery Macro Paired with Supergenres 48 Fifty Macrogenres 49 Crime Supergenre Pairings A 50 Crime Supergenre Pairings B 50 Crime Supergenre Pairings With Two Macros 51 Classic Genre Combinations for the Action Supergenre 51 Classic Genre Combinations for the Crime Supergenre 52 Classic Genre Combinations for the Fantasy Supergenre 52 Classic Genre Combinations for the Horror Supergenre 53 Classic Genre Combinations for the Life Supergenre 54 Classic Genre Combinations for the Romance Supergenre 55 Classic Genre Combinations for the Science Fiction Supergenre 55 Classic Genre Combinations for the Sports Supergenre 56 Classic Genre Combinations for the Thriller Supergenre 57 Classic Genre Combinations for the War Supergenre 58 Classic Genre Combinations for the Western Supergenre 58 Supergenre as Macrogenre Example 59 Addiction Microgenre Story Examples 60 Addiction Micro Example A 60 Addiction Micro Example B 61 Addiction Micro Example C 61 Addiction Macro With New Supergenre 61 Owning Mahowny 6 2 Drugstore Cowboy 6 2 Permanent Midnight 6 2 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (A) 63 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (B) 64 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (D) 65 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (E) 67 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (F) 68 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (G) 68 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (H) 70 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (I) 71 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (K) 72 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (L) 72 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (M) 74 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (P) 78 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (R) 80 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (S) 81 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (T) 86 The Fifty Macrogenres and Their 200+ Microgenres (W) 87 Tables xiii Chapter 4 Genre Breakdown of The Shawshank Redemption 8 8 Genre Breakdown of Twelve Monkeys 9 0 Genre Breakdown of 12 Years a Slave 9 4

Chapter 5 Films That Use Nonlinear Voices 103 Films That Mix Black and White with Color Footage 106 Films That Subvert Conventions in Editing and Sound Design 107 Voice Content Continuum 108 Different Audience Voices Applied to Similar Subject Matter 110 Voice for Nonlive Action, Nonhuman Characters 114 Films with Little or No Dialogue 117 Films with Extensive Internal Monologues 119 Films That Break the Fourth Wall 120 Mockumentary Voice Used for Different Platforms 124

Chapter 6 20 Pathways 127 Supergenre—Pathway Combinations 128 Pathway #1: The Defeated Underdogs 129 Pathway #2: Defeated Underdog + Subverted Journeys 131 Pathway #3: Subverted Journeys 132 Pathway #4: Multiple Protagonists 133 Pathway #5: Multiple Protagonists + Unknowing Audience 136 Pathway #6: All-Knowing Audience 138 Pathway #7: Noncharacter Antagonists 140

Chapter 8 Comparison of 12 Years a Slave and Argo 159 Comparison of Shrek and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 160 Comparison of The Imitation Game and Casablanca 161 Comparison of The Godfather and The Godfather II 162 Taxonomy for Stabbed in the Heart 163 Taxonomy for RoBot SiX + Joules-01 164 Taxonomy for Blood Trail 165 A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

If you are lucky, then you will ﬁ nd at least one special teacher in your life. Thank you, Paul Hammock. You have shown me how to hang doors while others are busy building walls.

Preface

Bob Mondello and Salvador Dali saved me from drowning one day in the high desert of Arizona. On days that I write, without fail, at three o’clock in the afternoon, my dog, Kit, takes me out for a walk. Whether I need it or not. It helps me clear my head and iron out my thoughts. Last November was no different. I’d been thinking about this idea of a screenwriters taxonomy for more than twenty years and seriously tinkering with it for almost ten. It’s a tug of war for me. As a screenwriter, my creative impulses have been shaped by conversations with producers, directors and other screenwriters. In any given meeting when I received notes on a project, it would not be unusual for me to be told to make it “funnier,” “more serious,” “less of a thriller,” “more action oriented,” “for kids” and “what if we started the movie with the fi nal scene?” These conversations happen all of the time, with half a dozen people throwing out suggestions and leaving it to The Writer to make sense of it all. Which is why I need to clear my head each day at three p.m. This is also why, years ago, the Screenwriters Taxonomy was birthed: as a way for me to sort through the chaos and fi nd order—a way to mold these different voices into a cohesive whole (aka: a good script). Like a man overboard in a sea of opinionated creative types, if I see a rope—I grab it. In my thirties, I began to teach. That’s where I found the other end of the rope, and the tug-of-war began. As a professor, I found myself telling students to make it “funnier,” “more serious,” “less of a thriller,” “more action oriented” and “for kids” and asking, “What if you started the movie with the fi nal scene?” And I began to see the looks of confusion on the students’ faces. That same look that my creative counterparts must have seen on my face when I was the writer. But there was a difference. As an educator, I was forced to explain where these questions come from and why. I was forced to justify and legitimize these seemingly off-kilter and often contradictory suggestions. xvi Preface Of course, for years, I was just treading water in the sea. Holding onto two ends of the same useless rope. I didn’t really know what I was talking about. I mean, yes, these ideas fi t together in some chaotic way inside my own head. But not in a way that I could legitimately describe to others. It’s more like the logic that exists in a dream in which the sandwich you are eating becomes Salvador Dali’s foot, your tongue is a scorpion and it tickles his toes like spicy mustard. You ask, legitimately: why isn’t Salvador wearing any socks and is that elephant really on stilts? Then, suddenly, it was three o’clock in the afternoon on November 18, 2016. I had been seriously working on this book for about a year—much different than thinking about or tinkering with it. Now I had deadlines. People— myself included—were expecting me to make sense of it all. So I tied one end of the rope around my waist, looped the rope over a passing elephant and grabbed the other end tightly with both hands. Then I pulled. And pulled. And pulled. And slowly, this strange tug-of-war managed to raise me to higher, drier ground. Unfortunately, I found myself on a very lonely island. Deserted. The elephant disappearing off into Dalian dreams. And I began to wonder if maybe I weren’t spending all of this time and thought explaining something that wasn’t really necessary at all. And I thought maybe I should just cut the rope, jump back into the sea and be done with it all. Nobody else is having these problems. Drink hemlock or go into exile , I thought. That is, until Bob Mondello came by in a boat. I was hiking in the high desert of Arizona with Kit, listening to All Things Considered on National Public Radio. And at three o’clock in the afternoon on November 18, 2016, Bob Mondello gave his critique of the fi lm Red Turtle :

Red Turtle blends elements of several styles of animation —charcoal- drawn backgrounds, digitally animated action—to make a tale of trauma and transformation as ﬂ at-out gorgeous as it is wordless . Deliberate and painterly, it’s unlikely to hold the interest of children, but it will qualify as a Zen-like treat for us older folks. A survival story that centers on family, with tsunamis and sunsets, glorious blues, greens and grays and that remarkable red turtle, a fantastic beast if ever there was one.

My god, I thought! Bob understands that a movie isn’t just an animated movie or a silent movie. It’s not just a survival story or a tale of trauma and transformation or even just a movie for the older folks. It’s all of these Preface xvii things, intricately woven together and enjoyed like a multicourse meal fed to a man alone on an island. And in that single minute, Bob Mondello taught me that we all have these struggles of identifying and talking about the creative process of fi lmmaking. I realized that I was developing a creative handbook for the fi lmmaking community. A handbook that we could use to get on the same creative page. The writing got much easier after that. Perhaps now, thanks to Bob Mon- dello, Kit and Dali, we can all come together to have a more meaningful dis- cussion on the creative process of fi lmmaking. Pass the mustard, Salvador! Eric R. Williams Screenwriter and Professor Summer, 2017

Introduction

1 The Need for a Road Map

Imagine: Your agent calls to tell you that a producer recently purchased the rights to a book. She’s taking pitches from screenwriters looking to adapt the material. The basic premise is this: A man, falsely imprisoned, falls victim to the very worst in human behavior before ﬁ nding his way to freedom and putting his life back together. Your agent asks, “Is this a genre that interests you?” Of course, you say, “Yes.” You want the work. But think about the question: “Is this a genre that interests you? ” If you get the job, you’ll be spending a year on this story. It will consume you. So consider the question carefully. You think about it, then you call your agent:

WRITER: Book the meeting. I love the genre. AGENT: Really? I didn’t know comedy was your thing. WRITER: What? Who said this was a comedy? AGENT: Uhm . . . Most rom-coms are comedies. WRITER: This is a romantic comedy? AGENT: Uhm . . . what genre did you think it was? WRITER: Prison break. AGENT: It is. It’s kind of a swashbuckling prison break rom-com that takes place on the high seas . . . WRITER: You mean it’s a pirate movie? AGENT: And the prison’s an island inhabited by singing cannibals. WRITER: Great. (sigh) Book the meeting. I love that genre. 4 Introduction This sort of disconnect happens all the time. You thought you were writing an escape movie. Your agent thinks it’s a comedy. The producer wants pirates. So, what happened? I’ll tell you in one word: genre. This word causes more problems for screenwriters than it should. If you asked any random person to list ten movie genres off the top of their head, you’d get something like this:

1. Action Adventure 2. Comedy 3. Drama 4. Kids’ Movie 5. Musical 6. Road Movie 7. Romantic Comedy 8. Sci-Fi 9. Western 10. Zombie

This is how the general public defi nes genre: with a list. If you go to IMDB or Netfl ix, you’ll fi nd these categories there too because, if you are searching for something, these categories can help. If you want a movie for kids, then search for a “kids’” movie; if you want to fi nd movies to make you laugh, then search in “comedy.” These are great categories for fi nding something. But these categories are not very helpful for writing something—or discussing that thing that you’re writing. It’s like going to the car dealership and telling the salesperson you want something that’s “red” and “fast.” You don’t know if you’re going to get a Ferrari or a fi re truck. But what if we developed a more “scientifi c” approach? If we, as creative storytellers, could establish a way to identify key audience expectations for specifi c kinds of stories, then we would have some sort of creative roadmap from which to discuss, shape and write our screenplays. If you go to the car lot and ask to see 2017 off-road 4 × 4 Jeep Wranglers, you’ll fi nd what you are looking for. Then you can search for the fast red one on your own. Biologists have used this approach for centuries, creating a layered classifi cation system—a taxonomy—that describes all living things by categorizing their commonalities (Dunn, 2010). On the most basic level, their taxonomy classifi es all living things into two kingdoms:

1. Animal 2. Plant The Need for a Road Map 5 Within each kingdom, there is a category called a phylum, based on body and appendage shape. Some examples in the animal kingdom:

• Chordata: Animals with a backbone • Arthropod: Animals with an exoskeleton and jointed legs • Cnidarian: Jelly-like animals with tentacles • Mollusk: Soft-bodied animals with a “foot”

Within the chordata phylum, there are subphylum categories that further delineate animals into invertebrates and vertebrates. Vertebrate animals have backbones made of cartilage or bone, and they have a brain that is encased in a protective skull. Beneath the subphylum vertebrata , we ﬁ nd different “classes.” This is where ﬁ sh, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are further sorted out. For instance, a turtle is:

• An animal (kingdom) • With a backbone (phylum) • And a tale that extends below its anus (phylum) • The backbone is made from bone or cartilage (subphylum) • It also has a skull (subphylum) • And is cold blooded (class) • With scales instead of hair or feathers (class).

See how these descriptions helps biologists more accurately communicate? When analyzing this animal, you have a clear roadmap of what it is you are talking about. Compare this system to our current state of movie genres: “We want you to write a comedy. Go!” That’s kind of like saying, “We’d like you to draw an animal. Go.” Vague, to say the least. Now, instead, think back to Bob Mondello’s description of The Red Turtle from the preface. He describes the ﬁ lm as:

• A tale of trauma • A tale of transformation • A survival story • Animation • Wordless • For older folks • One that centers on family.

Now we’re getting somewhere. These aren’t genres. These are descriptors. Mondello is breaking the movie down into comprehendible units that work 6 Introduction together. Now I can see the skull, the backbone and the scales. I can see The Red Turtle more clearly through this sort of lens. Screenwriters need this sort of precision to discuss and consider the stories we are trying to tell. It would help to communicate to producers. It would help to collaborate with other writers. And it would help when trying to describe and analyze the story to a general audience and to ourselves. The Screenwriters Taxonomy encourages writers to think creatively, yet communicate professionally. My approach is not a scholarly approach. It’s a creative approach. Rest assured, there are well known scholars who will deﬁ ne these content areas differently than I do (especially “genre”). That’s okay. I’m not saying that they are wrong. What I’m saying is that this approach is a more speciﬁ c way of thinking about storytelling—a way that can help us all communicate better.

Figure 1.1 The Screenwriters Taxonomy Illustration by Tyler Ayres The Need for a Road Map 7

Figure 1.2 Taxonomy of All Living Things Illustration by Tyler Ayres

The Screenwriters Taxonomy Versus the Roadmap Metaphor At fi rst blush, a taxonomy might feel too scientifi c to a screenwriter. Too prescriptive. Paint by numbers. Yet in practice, it’s anything but. Think of the seemingly infi nite living things on this planet, both present and past. The Taxonomy of All Living Things doesn’t limit Mother Nature’s imagination any more than the Screenwriters Taxonomy should limit yours. Further, I’m not suggesting that you have to follow the expectations outlined in the taxonomy, simply that we should be able to identify and discuss them. These ideas defi ne the audience’s expectation, not ours. Yet it’s only through understanding and discussing the audience’s expectations that we can subvert, enhance, reinvent or redirect them to craft our own unique stories. Still, some people shy away from a descriptive approach. I understand your reluctance. But let me try to explain the approach in a different way. Let me explain the process through the metaphor of a road trip. This road trip is 8 Introduction your script—your story idea—and each layer of the taxonomy is a decision that you will make along that trip. No preconceived ideas, just possible options to consider. You are completely in charge.

Movie Type and Supergenre Broadly put, all fi lms are either some form of drama or comedy. This is similar to all living things being either a plant or an animal. Instead of kingdom (which differentiates animal from plant), I label the distinction between Comedy and Drama the fi lm’s Type. Instead of phylum, I believe we can categorize all fi lms into eleven supergenres. Supergenres broadly defi ne the audience expectations for Character, Story and Atmosphere. For example, “Crime” is one of these supergenres. Going to see a crime movie, audiences already know that:

• There will be criminals going up against The Law. • The story will end with the criminal being convicted or escaping conviction. • We’ll visit the scene of the crime, the criminal’s lair and legal inner workings.

These are some of the broad strokes of the crime supergenre. Returning to the road trip as metaphor: let’s imagine that your road trip starts in Columbia, Missouri—a city roughly in the middle of the United States. Now imagine a road trip from Columbia Missouri to any other city in the Americas. Each road trip will represent a speciﬁ c movie script that you have in mind. Columbia to Toronto, Canada = Script A. Columbia to Guadalajara, Mexico = Script B; Columbia to Denver, Colorado = Script C. And so on. There are hundreds of thousands of cities you could travel to (and scripts that you can write) and very few limiting factors on how your trip will go. Yet there are decisions that you have to make. The ﬁ rst choice on any given road trip is which direction to drive. I’ll give you two choices: east or west. I know, the contrarian in you points out that you could drive due north or due south. But eventually you will be driving either easterly or westerly. And besides, it’s a metaphor. Go with it. East versus West is analogous to the movie type. Either you’re going to start by driving east or you are going to start by driving west. You are going to decide to write either a comedy or a drama. Now, since you are driving , you’ll eventually have to drive through Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma, or Ten- nessee on your trip. No way around it. You can’t leave Missouri by car without traveling through one of these eight states. Imagine those states as The Need for a Road Map 9 your supergenres. You’re going to have to drive through one of them to tell your story. Right? But no one’s trying to tell you how to drive, what kind of car (or truck or motorcycle or lawnmower) you should use or whether to take the highway, byway or dirt roads. It also doesn’t matter which direction you travel in to reach your destination. If you want to drive to Canada by driving southwest out of Missouri into Oklahoma—that’s great. Be original.

Macrogenres and Microgenres Macro- and microgenres provide the details that some of you were so des- perately looking for earlier. For instance, within the crime supergenre, you can choose macrogenres like:

• Gangster • Mystery/detective • Superhero • Criminal biography • Political crime • Crimes of addiction

These are similar to the cities that you can visit in each state that you drive through. If you’re driving through Oklahoma, where are you going to stop for lunch?

• Oklahoma City? • Tulsa? • Lawton? • Ardmore? • Enid?

The choice is up to you. There’s plenty to choose from. For instance, there are at least ﬁ fty different macrogenres that can be paired with any supergenre. Further, each macrogenre has its own microgenres. For example, the superhero macro has at least three micros, including:

• Superhero’s Origin Story • Superhero ﬁ ghting Personal Battles • Superhero Saving the World .

Microgenres are like restaurants, peppering the towns inside the states that you are driving through. You don’t have to stop for lunch if you don’t want to, but if you do . . . you have options. 10 Introduction Voice The Voice you create is analogous to the car you drive on your journey. You may be traveling from Columbia, Missouri, to Atlanta, Georgia, by way of Indianapolis, Indiana, and Nashville, Tennessee, but are you driving a pick-up truck, a convertible or a motorcycle? The traditional mode of travel might be a two-door sedan with a sunroof, bucket seats, cruise control and a nice stereo system that takes unleaded gasoline. But those are not your only choices. Similarly, to establish a Voice, screenwriters should ask themselves:

1. Will the story be told linearly? 2. Am I writing this for kids? Adults? 3. Animated, live action, puppets or other? 4. Is it a musical? Silent?

The answers to these questions and others deﬁ ne your storytelling vehicle. You choose the color, make and model of your “car.” On top of which, who even says it needs to be a car?

Pathway If voice is your vehicle, then the pathway is your road choice. Your pathway is how you choose to lead your audience through the story. Regardless of genre, each story sends its protagonist(s) along a speciﬁ c trajectory (or pathway). This pathway becomes a subconscious roadmap for the audience—a tool to guide them through the story. Again, more questions and decisions:

1. Do you plan to have a single protagonist? 2. Will your story follow the Hero’s Journey? 3. Will the audience and protagonist travel together? 4. Is the antagonist another human being? 5. In the end, is your hero victorious?

Most Hollywood ﬁ lms choose the highway. This is how people expect you to travel. But consider taking the back roads, side streets and blue highways. Take the scenic route in your jeep, or drive on the berm in a lawnmower for all I care!

Point of View The screenplay’s Point of View (POV) is a critical decision point. Personally, I like to think about POV as a decision tree with three central questions. The Need for a Road Map 11 • Limited or omniscient? • Primary or secondary? • Objective or subjective?

Metaphorically speaking, it’s really a question of who’s driving the car. Is it on autopilot, are you driving or did you pick up some crazy hitchhiker and let them drive for awhile? This is the ﬁ nal and perhaps the most important layer of the taxonomy.

Infi nite Choices To demonstrate how this collaborative tool might work for creating new screenplays, let’s use the taxonomy to expand and defi ne an ambiguous idea. Just as an exercise, imagine that you are fascinated by the story of Romeo and Juliet . Since it is in the public domain, you decide that you might want to adapt it. Imagine that you are working with your producer and a cowriter. How would you proceed? Using the Screenwriters Taxonomy, a creative conversation might follow this sort of logic: Your producer wants a modern version of the Bard’s classic. She proposes a contemporary whodunit. You and your writing partner suggest starting the screenplay with the discovery of three dead teenagers, Romeo, Juliet and Paris, in an urban cemetery. With these fi rst ideas, the three of you have already decided upon the movie type (Drama) and the supergenre (Crime). By making it a whodunit, you’ve nar- rowed in on one macrogenre (Mystery) and a microgenre (Whodunit). These decisions tell us a lot and suggest even more. If the audience knows from the beginning that Romeo and Juliet will die by the end, then the story’s central theme will be less about love itself and more about the tragic decisions made in the name of love. And rather than telling this story from a teenager’s point of view (since your central characters are dead), the story will most likely be told from an adult POV—perhaps a modern rendition of Friar Lawrence (now a “detective”)? It also means that the story will have some sort of nonlinear aspect to it, since you are starting your screenplay at the end of the original story. One way to unravel the mystery of these deaths in a modern-day whodunit might be to place some of the story inside of a courtroom, allowing detective (or lawyer) Lawrence a chance to explain the events of the crime to the jury (and the audience). This not only begins to focus the story on the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, but it also starts to put Detective Lawrence more on center stage. What is his character like? Perhaps this tragic tale has broken him, or perhaps he has been broken already, and this case pulls him deeper into despair. Sounds like a neo-noir story to me—one in which the detective refl ects back on events through voice-over, told from a primary omniscient point of view. 12 Introduction Now you have a fairly well defi ned roadmap, at least enough to get you started:

• Type: Drama (tragedy) • Supergenre: Crime • Macrogenre 1: Mystery • Microgenre 1: Whodunit • Macrogenre 2: Legal • Microgenre 2: Courtroom • Voice: Nonlinear, live action, breaking the fourth wall • Pathway Noir • POV Primary omniscient

Consider how much information this simple process gives you and your part- ners to work with. You have a construct for your story. You know its general shape. You know, from the point of view, what sort of scenes you’ll need and which can be discarded. You have a theme and a general tone for the story, and you now know how this version will differ from Shakespeare’s. You also have a pretty good idea of where central secondary characters will come into play (as cops, witnesses, defense attorneys, suspicious family members and the like). Seven different layers each thought through and connected by the story, provide you with a creative roadmap to let your imagination start working on dialogue and scenes, characters and action. I can tell you from experience, this approach saves a tremendous amount of time by clearly defi ning expectations and creative ideas between team members. The producer knows what she’s getting, and the writers can collaborate much more effectively because the roadmap defi nes the trip. We’ll revisit this idea of adapting Romeo and Juliet in the fi nal chapter. But between now and then, I hope that you can start to conceptualize how the Screenwriters Taxonomy can be used to collaborate on original screenplay ideas. With all the different options to choose from, there are more than 200 million unique combinations, providing you with some specifi c questions to ask the next time your agent or producer calls and asks: “Is this a genre that interests you? ”

References Dunn, Rob. Every Living Thing: Man’s Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nano- bacteria to New Monkeys . London: Harper Perennial, 2010. Mondello, Bob. “‘Fantastic Beasts’ and ‘The Red Turtle’ Bring Magic to the Screen.” National Public Radio, November 18, 2016. www.npr.org/2016/11/18/502616387/ fantastic-beasts-and-the-red-turtle-bring-magic-to-the-screen The Need for a Road Map Dunn, Rob . Every Living Thing: Manâs Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nano- bacteria to New Monkeys. London: Harper Perennial, 2010. Mondello, Bob . ââFantastic Beastsâ and âThe Red Turtleâ Bring Magic to the Screen.â National Public Radio, November 18, 2016. www.npr.org/2016/11/18/502616387/fantastic-beasts-and-the-red-turtle-bring- magic-to-the-screen

Genre Case Studies 12 Years a Slave. Directed by Steve McQueen . Written by John Ridley . United Kingdom and United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures and Lionsgate, 2013. Darabont, Frank . âRita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption.â Film script. Third draft, February 22, 1993. Peoples, David and Janet Peoples . âTwelve Monkeys.â Film script. Production draft, June 27, 1994. Ridley, John . â12 Years a Slave.â Film script. Shooting script, January 24, 2013. University of California Television (UCTV) . â12 Years a SlaveâScript to Screen.â Shot: April 2014. YouTube video, Duration: 58:52. Posted: April 25, 2014. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp5fv5-6as0

Voice Broyles, William Jr. and Jeffrey Kluger . âApollo 13.â Film script. Fourth revised draft, August 6, 1994. Dancyger, Ken and Jeff Rush . Alternative Scriptwriting: Writing Beyond the Rules. Waltham, MA: Focal Press, 2001. Harron, Mary and Guinevere Turner . âAmerican Psycho.â Film script. Fourth draft, November, 1998. ââIt Could Only be Charlieâ: A Conversation with âAnomalisaâ Directors Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson.â Film Blogging the Reel World. Posted: Thursday, January 14, 2016. www.slashfilm.com/anomalisa-interview-charlie-kaufman-duke-johnson/ 125 Kaufman, Charlie and Donald Kaufman . âAdaptation.â Film script. Second draft, September 24, 1999. Langley, Noel , Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allen Woolf . âThe Wizard of Oz.â Film script. Shooting script, 1939. Lee, Spike . âSheâs Gotta Have It.â Film script. Book insert, October 15, 1987. Lee, Spike . Spike Leeâs Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking. New York: Fireside Books (Simon & Schuster), 1987. Lovell, Jim . Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994.

Pathway Brody, Richard . ââFilm Noirâ: The Elusive Genre.â The New Yorker, July 23, 2014. Point of View Abrahams, Jim , David Zucker and Jerry Zucker . âAirplane!â Film script. Shooting script, June 15, 1979. Ball, Alan . âAmerican Beauty.â Film script. Final Draft, Undated. Brock, Ellen . ââThe Difference Between Omniscient POV and Headhopping.â Ellen Brock Editing, December 1, 2016. https://ellenbrockediting.com/tag/point-of-view/ Broyles, William Jr. and Jeffrey Kluger . âApollo 13.â Film script. Fourth revised draft, August 6, 1994. Coen, Joel and Ethan Coen . âNo Country for Old Men.â Film script. Final draft, Undated. 157 Coen, Joel , Ethan Coen and Sam Raimi . âThe Hudsucker Proxy.â Film script. Draft, September, 1992. Darabont, Frank . âRita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption.â Film script. First draft, Undated. Darabont, Frank . âRita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption.â Film script. Third draft, February 22, 1993. Goldsman, Akiva . âA Beautiful Mind.â Film script. Revised draft, August 11, 2000. Harwood, Ronald . âThe Diving Bell and the Butterfly.â Film script. Draft, Undated. Johnson, Mike and Anthony Peckham . âSherlock Holmes.â Film script. First draft revisions by Anthony Peckham , March 14, 2008. Kubrick, Stanley . âA Clockwork Orange.â Film script. Shooting script, September, 1970. Nolan, Christopher . âMemento.â Film script. Shooting script, green revisions, October 4, 1999. Tuggle, Richard . âEscape from Alcatraz.â Film script. Draft, 1978.