UK FILM COURSES

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Raising The Stakes

The Script Factory

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Address:

Pushkin House
5a Bloomsbury Square WC1A 2TA

London Short Course

One-day course on creating and managing dramatic conflict in a feature film. Whether you are a writer, director, producer or script editor, this programme offers you practical new tools to understand story structure and sustain the tension from the first sequence to the last.

The most frequently asked question in the development process is ‘what’s at stake?’.

This one-day workshop offers a concentrated examination of how to maximise the stakes across every element of your screenplay. Even if your story is not literally a matter of life and death, learning how to frame your characters’ stakes as critical is the foundation to shaping a story that audiences can emotionally invest in.

We will explore how to elevate the stakes within your premise, interrogate the dramatic tension within your scenes and sequences, and sharpen the motivations of your characters.

Workshop Content

1. A Reason to Watch

This session will examine how to identify the most compelling stakes within a film idea and ensure that the story you develop lives up to the full potential within the premise. Does the conflict demand an urgent response? Is the character grappling with a challenge or dilemma that is universal to the human experience? Is the story dealing with an age-old conflict but in a fascinating new world? Or shedding light on a familiar story in an original way?

2. And Reasons To Keep Watching

Is your protagonist’s problem hard enough to solve that it genuinely takes ninety minutes of screen time for them to do so? This session explores how you ensure that your character’s predicament is embedded with enough layers of conflict to sustain tension, deliver satisfying turning points, and keep the audience hooked for the length of a feature film.

3. The Dramatic Question

The single most important ‘key’ to unlocking your story structure is knowing what dramatic question is driving your narrative. What precisely are we watching to find out? This session illustrates how to organize your story around a clear dramatic question: how to pose it at the end of your first act, restate it throughout, and finally answer it with an ending that has real impact and meaning.

Start date:
Sat. 5th Oct 2024

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