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Jurassic Park (1993)

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DZ-96: Ensembles 1 - What do we mean by an ensemble?

How can the same story feel different when you have more characters?

In the first part of our series on ensembles, Chas, Stu and Mel start by laying the groundwork for our future episodes. And we begin by asking the seemingly innocuous question: What do we mean by calling a story an ensemble?… →

⏱ 1h 16m

Character · Structure · Theme | 31 JAN 2023

Listen if you're working on a story with multiple protagonists and want to understand what makes an ensemble different from a single-protagonist narrative

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Films: Jurassic Park (1993) , Alien (1979) , Heat (1995) , Top Gun: Maverick (2022) , Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Character: Ensembles , Character Function

Structure: Dual Protoganist , Plotting

Theme: Narrative Aesthetics

DZ-37: Excelling at Exposition (Part 1)

How can you successfully integrate exposition into your story?

In Draft Zero’s first two part episode, Stu & Chas take an in-depth look at one of screenwriting’s most common challenges: EXPOSITION. For many stories there are pre-existing facts that need to be communicated to the audience — whether those facts be about the rules of the world, the nature of a location, character motivations, character backstories or just character names. So how have great writers made exposition move the story forward, rather than stopping it to tell the audience stuff they need to know… →

⏱ 1h 46m

Words · Scenes · Character | 23 NOV 2016

Listen if your exposition scenes feel like information dumps disguised as dialogue.

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Films: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) , Short Term 12 (2013) , Inside Out (2015) , The World's End (2013) , The Big Short (2015) , It Follows (2015) , Jurassic Park (1993) , Jurassic World (2015)

Words: Exposition , Dialogue

Scenes: Scene Structure

Character: Character Motivation

DZ-15: World Building Rules, Okay?

How does setting up rules help you build a world?

In our most epic/longest episode yet, Chas and Stu tackle world building in films. Specifically, how the rules make something a world and not just a setting. Starting with world-centric genres like sci-fi and fantasy, we also cover horror, crime drama and - er - “other”. We discuss a variety of techniques for setting up the rules of the world, including cold opens, voiceover, title cards and outsider characters! We’ve limited ourselves to the opening 3-5 pages… mostly… because (so the theory goes) they’re the pages that teach the audience how to read/watch your story/film… →

⏱ 2h 0m

Structure · Words · Tone | 4 NOV 2014

Listen when your opening pages feel like exposition dumps (which is bad, okay?)

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Films: The Matrix (1999) , Inception (2010) , The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) , Jurassic Park (1993) , Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Structure: World Building , Cold Open , Openings

Words: Exposition , Voiceover

Tone: Establishing Tone

Referenced In

DZ-15

World Building Rules, Okay?

⏱ 2h 0m

NOV 2014

DZ-96

Ensembles 1 - What do we mean by an ensemble?

⏱ 1h 16m

JAN 2023