Screenwriting Master Class with Guillermo Arriaga (notes)

My former screenwriting teacher forwarded this to me a while back.

This summer I was privileged enough to spend a weekend in New York taking a screenwriting Masterclass from

Guillermo Arigga.

Here are the notes I sent to my friend from the course. If you have any questions, or want to elaborate on

anything, let me know.

Cheers,

Jamie

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Guillermo isn't interested in having his characters be likeable, rather he'd prefer them to be

"interesting". In Amores Perros, in the first story, the protagonist falls in love his brother's pregnant

wife, has his brother beat up, enters the family dog in a dog-fighting ring and he kills his best friend.

He doesn't know how a story will end when he begins writing it. He doesn't do any research, and won't

write a character bio. He writes from life experiences and then crafts a story around that.

His stories are all written in a non linear fashion because he believes that it's more organic that way. He

would argue that if you ask someone to tell you about the most important moments of their lives, they

won't start at their birth and then progress chronologically, but rather the stories will leap around.

21 Grams was inspired after he was diagnosed with a heart problem. He imagined someone dying and

how their life would flash before their eyes. It would come randomly, disjointed and would not be told

in a linear fashion. In fact, he was "hurt" when critics praised the "great editing" because it was filmed

exactly as he wrote it.

The concept of Amores Perros is that the story is broken into three parts; Before the Accident, During

the Accident, and Afterwards. The dogs in the film represent the characters and the movie was originally

called "Black Dog, White Dog, Black Dog"

He begins his scripts by describing the story in one word: In Three Burials for the word was

"Friendship"... for Amores Perros it's "Love"... All of his scenes will carry this theme throughout.

Next he thinks of a concept: For Babel it's "What is the moment that will forever change someone's life?

The film was originally called "The Last Day" and each story was about "Dignity", "Life", etc.

In "The Burning Plain" the stories are broken up into 4 concepts -- The Elements (Earth, Wind, Water and

Fire) and the theme is "Redemption".

When re-writing a script, he usually writes ten pages and then shows them to trusted friends. They're

BRUTAL. If anything is predictable or if they're bored he writes it again. He will also try switching a

character's sex and writing the script again to see if it changes anything. He says that he will try to

exhaust all possibilities with his characters before he settles on a final draft. Each one of his scripts takes

2-3 years to write.

He argues that everything is about "the dramatic question" and that audiences will accept anything if

there's a DQ. When he screened Amores Perros in Washington, the projectionist mixed up the reels (the

credits ran in the middle of the film), but no one cared because each section has a clear DQ.

A trick he used in 21 Grams is to make one of the stories linear. Benicio Del Toro's story is told (more or

less) linearly.

Do we describe is as being rain, or is it raining? It's a point of view.

One of his pet peeves is how people don't balance light an dark and interior and exterior scenes. What

are you trying to say to the audience?

In Amores Perros the first story is very open. It takes place outside, racing cars... etc...

The second story is claustrophobic (dog gets lost in the floorboards), and the third is a combination of

the two.

In 21 Grams the story starts off in light (everything is positive... all good things) then it goes to night...

things are dark... finally the third act is a combination (at dawn or dusk) because the question is

ambivalent. Will the characters choose light, or will they be consumed with dark?

He prefers "expectation" to "surprise"... in one of his shorts, there is a story about a child who falls into

a well in the middle of the desert. His grandfather can't rescue him and finally walks back to the farm

and gets a gun. He prefers to have the audience anguish about what the grandfather will have to do and

to follow him as he walks back to the well, than to have him suddenly pull out a pistol and shoot the

boy, shocking the audience. He feels the expectation is more powerful.

In Babel, the first story ends with a gunshot and screams on the bus. He then leaves the story because it

creates a dramatic question "What happens"?

For him the ending of a story is not when the story is over, but rather when the dramatic question has

been answered.

The human psyche uses cliches to save mental energy. Avoid them.

The POV is very important. Who is telling the story? What is their dramatic question?

Scenario: A guy walks into a room and shoots a man. Do we focus on the man groaning on the floor, or is

it more effective to focus on the shooter as her stares impassionately at the man on the floor for a few

beats and then turns and leaves. Which is more interesting?

Closeness between characters creates tension. Hamlet's uncle kills his father and marries his mother.

Likewise if a sister hands her brother a gun it's more dramatic than if a stranger hands him a gun. Having

an enemy is a problem, but when the problem is your father, the tension rises exponentially. It's one of

Shakespeare's best tricks.

Physical proximity creates tension. Making love to your best friend's wife is risky, but it's even riskier

when he's making dinner in the next room!

If a scene isn't working, try bringing them closer together.

Guillermo is obsessed with the positions of a character's hands and eyes.

Removing a word can create tension -- In Ernest Hemingway's short story "White Elephants", the whole

story revolves around dilemma between two lovers, but the word "abortion" is never uttered. In

"Amores Perros" a well dressed man and a lesser dressed man make a business arrangement, but at not

time is the word "murder" ever used.

Babel's theme is "miscommunication"

Making a character lie creates tension -- In Babel, a dead woman's mute daughter tells a policeman that

her mother wasn't murdered by her father, but rather jumped to her death from a balcony. Later we

learn from the father that the mother slashed her wrists in the bathtub. No the audience begins to

question why the daughter lied.

Adding a disability to a character will help bring out their characteristics.

The Dramatic Objective MUST be transformed into action. It can't be something like "She wants to be

free" or "He needs to find himself"...

Ask yourself what the 10 most defining moments are in your life. This is something we should be asking

about our characters in relation to the story and then say "Well, what are we going to see?"

By leaving out details, we're forcing the audience to create a story in their hair... For instance "A man

picks up a phone and says "I have to see you". The two men meet in a bar and one of the man passes

the other a gun. The man with the gun leaves and when he gets home he takes the gun and shoots

himself in the head." Now we wonder what the man said when he passed the other man the gun. This is

the dramatic question.

Clothing has an emotional weight. Clothes can convey our deepest desire. How much time do we spend

shopping for clothes. Clothes are a disguise. It's how we want people to view us. In "The Three Burials of

Melquiades Estrada" Tommy Lee Jones forces Barry Pepper to take off his border guard's outfit and to

wear the work-clothes of the man he accidentally murdered.

When having problems with a scene, try doing something with a character's clothes -- A man is having

an affair with another man's wife, but when he leaves it's raining out and so she hands him her

husband's jacket. What does that say?!

Photographs can replace dialogue. A photograph captures a moment in time that is lost forever. They

convey loss -- A mother who abandons her child looks at a photograph of it twenty years later and we

know that those years can never be recaptured without a single word ever being said.

Personality is the probable way a character will behave until tested.

Their character is revealed out of necessity. Only during a critical time in life are we really tested. We are

pushed to make a radical decision... to do something we never were expected to do (Sophie's Choice).

Did we pass or did we fail? Either way we'll carry that moment with us forever (with pride or with

shame).

He tells the story of a small blonde student of his whose books were covered in "Hello Kitty" stickers and

who wrote in coloured pens. Her world is shattered when her brother's best friend is murdered in a case

of road rage. Later her boyfriend is brutally mugged at an ATM. She becomes afraid to go out and one

day while walking to her car in the middle of the afternoon she is attacked by a large man with a knife.

He orders her to get into the car. Instead she lashes and hits him. He punches her and knocks some

teeth out and she responds by leaping onto him and literally bites his ear off (Mexicans refer to these

people as "teacups").

Her character was tested and it's not what we'd expect from her personality. That's the difference!!

Create circumstances that will reveal character.