2.Main Content
Training
Alternative Narrative Structure
Alternative narrative structure in 21 Grams
Tuesday 27 October, 10am - 5pm
Soho Theatre, Dean Street, London W1
In recent years, a number of successful films have experimented with different forms of storytelling. Single stories have been told backwards, or in seemingly random, fragmented form. Multiple stories have been told in parallel or using a variety of flashback structures. While telling a story backwards is unlikely to become a habit, the impulse to explore different forms of story design is a natural ambition for each generation of screenwriters. This new one-day training course explores the challenges of finding new ways to tell old stories and give form and meaning to new ones.
The Same Old Story
Conventional 3 Act structure makes a drama out of a crisis by developing a conflict to a climax. Is it possible to write a full length feature film where conflict, crisis, catastrophe and climax aren’t the essential engine of the narrative?
Flashbacks in MilkStories within Stories
A practical exercise in structuring material using different organizing principles: time, place and theme. Is Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche an inspiration to us all or an experiment gone wrong?
And They All Lived Happily Ever After
Television routinely presents multi-stranded narratives that take many hours to resolve and conclude. How do you explore the fortunes and destinies of a range of different characters in a feature film without the result looking like soap opera?
Puzzles and Loops 
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The success of films like 21 Grams and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has triggered a wave of scripts that abandon linear narrative in favour of puzzling, fragmented designs. Do such structures serve the meaning of the story or are they simply exercises in style?
Course Tutor
The workshop is taught by Rob Ritchie an experienced screenwriting tutor, writer and script consultant.
Friendly Producers
Writers who complete this course will also be invited to apply to our scheme. Applicants will have approximately one month to submit a 2 page treatment and the first ten pages of a screenplay. We will then select writers from this and the other participating programmes who will benefit from the chance to discuss their film idea at a one-to-one meeting with a prominent UK producer.
Booking Information
Attendance on this workshop costs £120 + VAT (£138 total). Script Factory Members are entitled to a 10% discount, making the fee £108 + VAT (£124.20). if you'd like to find out more about Membership.
To make your booking please call us on weekdays between 10am-6pm on 020 7851 4890 with your credit or debit card details.
Non-linear narrative in Pulp FictionPreparatory viewing
The sessions will refer to a number of films to illustrate narrative structures that play with time, multiple viewpoints and looping forms – from Pulp Fiction to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Prior to attending, participants are specifically asked to view:
Crash (2004, Writer/Director - Paul Haggis)
21 Grams (2003, Director - Alejandro González Iñárritu)
The Prestige (2006, Director - Christopher Nolan)