How To Write A Great Scene - Shannan E. Johnson

In this Film Courage video interview, Screenwriter/Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson on How To Write A Great Scene.

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#writing #screenwriting #screenplay

[yappygm]

I just love hearing Shannan's perspective on writing.

[LadyOfTheEdits]

Every scene must have a goal. It could either develop a character or move the story forward; maybe even both.

[QualityEJC]

Every scene must move the story forward. So because of one scene, the next happened, and it's a chain-linked fence leading to the climax.

[NIKONGUY]

Before she starts talking I’ve already ‘liked’ the vid. No nonsense, no bullshit. Serve it up, SJ.

[j-ymoney]

Amazing how knowledgeable she sounds just from speaking about something she clearly loves

[kimatlastlooks]

More nuggets of wisdom from Shannan. I'm here for that - all day ever day.

[kittenlove]

Me again! I woke up to this video - as it’s night time here 🇬🇧. This really is going to be a game changer for me. Thank you so much! ❤️

[kristianpeterson]

As an actor, I am in awe of great screen writers.

[filmcourage]

What else can help you write a great scene?

[afrosymphony]

The stakes thing you casually mentioned here is the key thing that brings it all together. i was watching a french dark whodunnit movie on netflix and it checked off all the right boxes in terms of how each scene unfolded to the next thing and so on nd so forth but i still found it extraordinarily so uninteresting and bland even though the cinematography and sound were top notch. watching this i just realized why i didnt find it interesting, they didnt setup any stakes whatsoever, it had a cool setting though and interesting freaky kinda supernatural vibe going on but it was just a detective looking for a girl's killers and that was it. They didnt setup any stakes at all.
The social network is like the most well written of all time, imo and i use it as a standard for good screenplay and immediately they jump to the deposition scene that is the stake right there. letting the story unfold in a linear way without that deposition scene in act 1 would have dropped the quality by a long shot.
another one of my faves is django nd hateful 8. in django its a slave movie, from the first scene of christoph freeing a blackman i mean the stakes are already pretty fucking high, locked and loaded. hateful 8 is kind of the same way. Tarantino's magic is that he knows how to use environment to create high stakes, he puts his characters in a high stakes environment from the get go. plus he is a MASTER at intro's, i mean absolute fucking beast that man. his intro's are mostly all about setting up the STAKES!

[kfauzi]

I think one thing a lot of great writers fail to mention is the tension of the scene.
You wanna hang the end result of your scene in front of the audience like a carrot at the end of a stick.
I notice I'm most engaged with a scene when it revels in the suspense or make me work for it's conclusion.
Breaking Bad does this a lot.

[shantanaditya]

i think filmaking in general is like a living experience. you gotta indulge iin the story fell evry single word that you are writting on the paper. when you are able to do that. scenes would come out as perfect as it could be.

[spencespace]

Just writing yet another comment where I repeat what Shannon said so it makes me sound like I’m a smart writer.

[acceptfilms]

4 words outcome proactive reality pursuit in any order cheers

[derrionbrown]

Better than any book in under 3 minutes

[films]

Literally, the first 20 seconds of this video helped me out real good😂

[rishikamath]

Subversion of expectation is the best part of a scene for me. It doesn't have to be a big plot point like "Oh my god she's not the killer he's the killer" but something tiny like a high schooler ranting against her teacher and her mom says let's go break that bitch's taillight.

[dominickrouser]

I have a unique problem.. In my screenplay I want to write an Exterior shot as a colorful shot and an interior shot as a dull shot like how videos say expectations vs. reality. How can I encorperate that into a movie script that will not only hook producers looking for pitches but also engage with producers as they read more and more?

[finallyanime]

“But & therefore” essentially it sounds like

[wattpadusergeek]

What else can help write a good scene? Maybe using BMOC method and suspense tools in each scene as they reach for the goal. Don’t make it too easy to get to the goal of the scene.