I studied over five hundred hours of #film to see if stories are about cognitive dissonance. I also used over a thousand scripts to learn how to write virtually anything that could possibly be written in a #screenplay. And, I watched another five hundred hours of #movies to compile my own beat sheet. The Plot Researcher is about that part. I'm De Jarous Bell, and I’m going to write and sell an original #moviescript.
Fellow #screenwriter, Universes, Gods, Luchorpans. Welcome to The Plot Researcher blog where the film speaks for itself. The first thing I want to do is put you into the mindset of a researcher.
Imagine that you’re a doctor's with your own practice, and every now and then a solicitor drops by. Most of the time, the solicitors don't have what they say they do and there are usually hidden ‘ouches’ in their service contracts. You know, like predatory practices. Worse, sometimes you don't realize this until it’s too late.
Question: How would you determine the value of the offers presented to you?
This question is actually kind of a big deal to being a plot researcher. It's possibly the most important and first lesson of film study. As a plot researcher, you must be conscious to determine what persuades a character. You shouldn’t be persuaded at all. You have to know when a character is giving an honest view of their world, and you have to know when that honest view is accurate. This is necessary to assist in reverse engineering story – to see right through the screen and into the mind of the writer. That’s how you learn from the best writers. And, you can’t just be a fan, because you have to first get through the writer’s characters, their plot, and their story in order to get through the screen and into their mind.
This is how I get through the screen and into the mind of the writer so that I can study them and ultimately the craft: First, I get the honesty question out of the way by asking myself: is this character acting and speaking in 'good faith'? That’s how I determine if a character is giving an honest view of their world. Once I know if they are trustworthy or not, the second step is to ask myself: what’s this character’s motivation, or what’s persuading them right now. This, of course, is how I determine the validity of the character’s view.
Fortunately, psychology has already given us a great way to view motivation in an objective way – Central Route Persuasion and Peripheral Route Persuasion (Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, & Nisbett, 2016, p. 269). Characters using the Central Route to Persuasion (responding to the content of another character’s dialogue) are usually the writer speaking directly to the audience and, researchers. That’s a great way to tell the thesis, antithesis, philosophy, or any other point to be made. At the same time, writers aren’t allowed to lie to the audience, directly. But, characters can. So, when characters are persuaded by peripheral cues (i.e. personal biases regardless of what another character is saying), they are usually not the writer speaking directly to the audience.
In film research, it's important to understand humans, objectively. Your brain has to be powered on and aware of all minds within range, including your own. And, it takes a cast of characters to tell the story of a single protagonist. That’s a lot of simultaneous profiling. You must learn to use the plot, the story, and the cast to break down the four walls of the story so that you can find what makes it tick.
It’s also important to use more than just screenwriting books to study film. I use psychology above all; but I also use occult information, mythology, esoterism, and history to learn the craft of storytelling. I’ve compiled all of the resources that I use in a living bibliography. You can find it at theplotresearcher.com/bibliography. I reviewed the screenwriting books that I learned the most from in A 5-Book Course in Screenwriting. Screenwriting language just doesn’t communicate to me with relevancy or help me translate what’s actually happening on the screen though. The books are not useless by far, they’re just limited. Psychology, mythology, esoterism, even metaphysics, history, and occult information extend past story structure and literary devices, and into that part of story crafting that’s elusive and remains unnamed. That eagerness, to go beyond screenwriting books, birthed The Plot Researcher.
If you want to know a little more about me and get the supplemental information for this post, read the full blog post at www.theplotresearcher.com/introduction and at www.steemit.com/@dejarousbell.
If you want to follow up on any of my references, you can find them at www.theplotresearcher.com/bibliography.
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Also, you can email me with anything, even if it's flawed. You ready? The@plotresearcher.com.
If you dare to, grab your lab coat. We're about to enter the jaws of Hades and recover the pearl from the ravenous dragon.
Supplemental
A few things about me
Why am I on #Steemit?
I just so happened to be starting this blog and came upon Steemit watching a favorite YouTuber of mine @JerryBanfield. I intend to use Steemit's social platform as a means to make my #screenwriting research a learning well for myself and, hopefully, others. In the past, I've done my best learning academically. And, since I decided not to enroll in a film school, I have to create my own. I'll do my best to make this a worthy endeavor. And, I'd like to earn some crypto for the 90% of my work that no one else would otherwise see.
I study film and aspire to sell an original #screenplay.
I'm usually reading, writing, or both. Sometimes I'm writing and get bogged down because I'm trying to read it at the same time.
I live in Hollywood,.............................................FL.
I can play Stairway To Heaven on my Fender.
I write and record hip-hop music.
I prefer the pool over the rest of the gym.
I have favorite things
My nieces and nephews are my favorites. DJ love’s the kids. Aside from them:
Favorite films - If all other films on the earth were banned and I had only one to choose for my own at the risk of being put to death by way of the nine tortures, I would risk it to watch Dirty Dancing. I would not risk it for the following films; however, I would mourn my loss of them: Titanic, Casablanca “I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.”, Platoon, Coming To America, Conan, Rocky I, II, III, and IV only, and A Nightmare on Elm Street Parts 1 – 1, 423.
Favorite Songs - Stairway To Heaven (Led Zeppelin), God is Dead (Black Sabbath), Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd), Cupid (Sam Cooke), War Pigs and Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath), I Will Always Love You (Whitney Houston), Smile (Scarface Ft. Tupac), Welcome to the Black Parade (My Chemical Romance), Ironic (Alanis Morrissette), (I've Had) The Time Of My Life (Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes), Raining Blood (Slayer), and the harmony solo in the song Master of Puppets (Metallica).
Artists - Sam Cooke and Black Sabbath.
Food - Rice. Prime Rib. Chilean Seabass.
Books - Tarot: Mirror of the Soul: Handbook for the Aleister Crowley Tarot by Gerd Ziegler, The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford, Essential of Screenwriting by Richard Walter, On Writing by Stephen King, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, Social Psychology 4th by Gilovich and Keltner, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
Interests: Music, Movies, Writing, Mythology, Occult, Psychology, eCommerce, learning on my Fender, and Blogs/Blogging.
Anime - Bleach, Soul Eater, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Death Note.