Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Spoiler alert: this breakdown contains information about the plot of the film.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one of the best reboots of a franchise in the last ten years, and it’s mostly because of the fine work by the screenwriters, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Their story strategy is similar to that used by the writers of some of the other top reboots, like Casino Royale (The Bond series), The Bourne Identity, Batman Begins and Star Trek. In each case the writers went with the origin story, and they placed primary emphasis on character.

The origin story is almost always the most popular in a franchise, first because it allows the audience to share in the creation of the mythology, and second because it has a shape that later sequels often lack. Origin stories also give the author the chance to execute what may be the single most important element of good storytelling, to make plot come from character. This gives the audience a double pleasure. They get to see the hero succeed in the plot. And they get to see the hero undergo character change, to grow as a human being.

There are many ways that you make plot come from character. Perhaps the most important, and the main technique used in the successful reboots listed above, is to give the hero a weakness and need. To those of you who are familiar with my Anatomy of StoryMasterclass, this may seem obvious, since weakness-need is the first of the seven major story structure steps that are present in every great story. But until the last ten years, you simply didn’t give the main character of an action or myth movie a weakness-need of his own. Conventional wisdom said that for maximum box office the hero had to be completely heroic, without flaws of any kind. Of course, conventional wisdom was wrong.

It is precisely because Batman is the most seriously flawed of all superheroes that he is the best and most popular character. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the initial hero, scientific researcher Will Rodman, has a unique weakness, in that it comes from a strength. Because he cannot kill the baby ape, he brings the genetically altered animal home with him, and from that good intention he takes all of humanity with him on the road to hell. This good-heartedness, combined with an arrogance that is common in the master scientist, is a weakness-need the audience can easily relate to, and is the wellspring from which the entire plot flows.

Another key to the success of the script for Rise of the Planet of the Apes comes from how the writers played with their genre. Unlike the original Planet of the Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is not a science fiction story, though it has some important science fiction beats. It is a horror story, and it relies on techniques used in the first and greatest horror story of all time, Frankenstein.

In the Horror, Fantasy andScience Fiction Class, I talk a lot about how you transcend your genre form, since this is the single biggest factor in making your script stand above the crowd. One of these techniques in horror is to flip the hero and the opponent. Put another way, at some point in the story the monster becomes the hero. The ape, Caesar, in Rise of the Planet of the Apes is not the typical monster we see in the average horror story. But he is the Other, and horror stories are really about the inhuman, or non-human, entering the human world.

Frankenstein is a misunderstood masterpiece, primarily because of the powerful but highly simplified 1931 film version. Frankenstein is not about creating life. It is about creating a human being. Mary Shelley was writing “natural philosophy” in fictional form, and that meant among other things tracking in great detail the steps of a living but clean slate body becoming a fully feeling and thinking human being.

This is precisely what writers Jaffa and Silver do in the best section of the film. When Caesar is incarcerated in the ape refuge (prison), we watch as he moves up the ladder of understanding and uses his human-like knowledge and insight to become the ape leader and free himself and his fellow apes from human captivity.

The second major story element of Frankenstein is the betrayal by and rebellion against the father. This too is a key step in Caesar’s development. For a boy to become a man, and a unique individual, he must rebel against his father. Will pays the owner of the refuge so that Caesar can come home. But Caesar refuses; he already is home. This is not only the key step in the hero’s character change, it is the first step in the apes’ rebellion against humans.

One last technique that is crucial to the success of this script is a technique that James Cameron used in Titanic. The loss of over fifteen hundred people meant that Titanic would likely be a disaster film, a sub-form of the action genre. But disaster films are notorious for lack of character definition. Characters are simply fuel for the fire. And that means the audience doesn’t feel for the characters when they die. So Cameron made the first two thirds of the film a love story, the most intimate of all genres. Then when the disaster hit, the loss of the characters, and the love between them, was truly painful.

Similarly, most of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an intimate story of fathers and sons. Will uses the drug to save his father from the terrible decay of Alzheimer’s. He loves Caesar as a son, and will do anything to protect him. With these powerful personal bonds as a foundation, the final action sequence on the Golden Gate Bridge isn’t just one of a number of set pieces but the emotional climax of the story.

Few writers get to reboot a major Hollywood franchise. But everyone must face the daunting challenge of turning a winning premise into a well-executed script. If you focus on the seven major structure steps and master your genre form so well that you transcend it, you have the best chance of writing a script that has popular and critical success. 

10 Story Techniques You Must Use to Sell Your Script

The key question that all screenwriters should ask themselves is: how do I write a script that Hollywood wants to buy? Most writers mistakenly think that success is all about connections and star power. Not so. The real trick to writing a script that will sell is to know and use Hollywood’s central marketing strategy. And that can be summed up in one word: genres.

Former Universal Pictures chairman Marc Shmuger recently said, “There’s no doubt the star system is in transformation. Arguably the two biggest stars in the first half of 2009 were Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) and Liam Neeson (Taken)…That’s a significant shift in the meaning of star power and a shift to the premium that is being put on concept and genre.”

Shmuger is telling any screenwriter who is smart enough to listen the rule of the entertainment business worldwide: it buys and sells genres. Genres are story forms and each has from 8-15 special story beats (story events) that make up the form. The reason Hollywood marketing is based on genre is that executives are selling to a worldwide audience. And people the world over love particular types of stories that speak to their deepest desires. 1^st

I’d like to tell you 10 story techniques that must be in your script if you want the best chance of selling it in a genre-dominated business.

1. Know the 10 most popular genres.

Step 1 in writing a script Hollywood wants to buy is knowing the 10 most popular story forms. If you write a script that is not based on one or more of these genres, your chances of a sale plummet. They are Action, Comedy, Crime, Detective, Horror, Fantasy, Love, Myth, Science Fiction and Thriller.

2. Combine 2 or 3 genres.

In the genre-focused entertainment business, the most important story strategy today is to mix genres. 99% of films made, not just in Hollywood but worldwide, are some combination of the ten most popular genres. Why? It all goes back to that old rule of selling: give the customer 2 or 3 for the price of 1. This, in a nutshell, is how Hollywood works.

Let me give you some examples. The super-popular Bourne films are action + thriller. Knocked Up is comedy + love. Little Miss Sunshine is myth + comedy. Titanic, the most popular movie of all time, is love + disaster film + myth. The Dark Knight is crime + myth + fantasy. The Harry Potter stories, the most popular books of all time, are fantasy + myth + horror + coming of age drama. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are fantasy + action + horror + myth.

3. Find the right genre for the story idea.

The single biggest decision you make in the entire writing process occurs right at the beginning, when you are developing your premise, or story idea. The decision is: which genres should I use for this idea? Here’s a shocking but eye-opening fact: 99% of scripts fail at the premise. And why? It’s not because their original story ideas weren’t good. They fail because the writers didn’t know the best genres to use to go from a 1-line idea to 2-hour, 120-page script.

Each genre will take a story idea in radically different directions. So when writers choose the wrong genres to develop their idea, the result is not only a lot of bad scripts but also the waste of thousands of great story ideas. Given that you can use many genres to develop the same idea, the key question is: what are the right ones?

The secret to choosing the right genres is buried in the story idea itself. You need to dig into the premise and find the genres inherent to that idea. Instead of trying to copy a popular movie from the past, you need to find what is original, what is organic to your story. One of the powers of genre is that the right genres highlight the inherent strengths of the idea and hide the inherent weaknesses.

In my genre classes, I talk a lot about techniques for digging into your premise and finding the best genres for you. One of them is to focus on the desire line, one of the seven major story structure steps. It turns out that each genre has a unique, pre-determined desire line. For example, the Crime desire is to catch a criminal. Detective is to find the truth. Horror is to defeat a monster. For Love, it’s to find love. Myth is to go on a journey, ultimately leading to oneself. Figure out the goal of your hero and see if it matches the desire of any of the main genres.

4. Use myth as one of your genres.

Because Hollywood only wants scripts with blockbuster potential, your story must be popular in over 100 different cultures and nationalities.

That’s a lot of communication barriers to cross. Unfortunately, most writers don’t know which genres travel well and which don’t. For example, comedies based mostly on funny dialogue DON’T travel. Myth, on the other hand, loves to travel. That’s why myth is found in more blockbusters by far than any other form.

Myth is the oldest of the 10 most popular film genres, and is surprisingly complex, with 15 special story beats. But boy is it popular. Try adding up the box office of these myth-based films: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Shrek, Star Wars and The Lion King.

5. Combine myth with one or two other genres.

While myth is the foundation of more blockbusters than any other genre, it almost never stands alone. That’s not just because Hollywood wants to give people 2 or 3 genres for the price of one. It has to do with the deep weaknesses found in the form itself.

The myth form is thousands of years old. And it has a very episodic structure, so it can grow tiresome and decline in power through the middle of the story. Top professional screenwriters know this, which is why they always add 1 or 2 other genres to modernize the myth form and overcome its episodic quality.

6. Make one genre primary.

Screenwriters who are smart enough to study Hollywood as a business know that it’s all about combining genres. Where they sometimes go wrong is in execution. It’s one thing to say, “Take 2 or 3 story forms and put them together into a seamless whole.” It’s another thing to do it well.

Combining genres is more difficult than it looks, because of what it does to the story structure under the surface. Each genre has a pre-determined hero, opponent, desire line, thematic focus, and so on. Which is why most writers combining genres end up with a structural mess. They have too many heroes, desire lines, opponents, themes and story beats. Any one of these structural mistakes will kill a script, so imagine what happens if you make them all.

When mixing genres, the key is to make one form the primary one. This will give you your hero, a single desire line, a single story line and the most important unique story beats. Then put in other genre elements where they fit, so they amplify the primary form.

7. If you’re writing a screenplay for an indie film, write horror, thriller, or love.

One of the best ways to break in and separate yourself from the thousands of other screenwriters in the world is to write and make your own film. Of course, that requires keeping costs to a bare minimum. And the cheapest genres to shoot are horror, thriller and love. These genres require the fewest actors, sets and special effects. Of these, horror is the most popular worldwide. But the most important determinants of which genres you use for your indie film are which genres are best for your story idea and which genres are you best at writing.

8. Hit all the genre beats.

Writers of blockbuster movies always know their genres so well that they hit every one of the story beats unique to their form. In genre writing, this is known as “paying the dues.” And it’s absolutely essential or the audience feels cheated. Remember, they are there to see the story forms they love, so you have to know your genres better than anyone else and give the audience what they crave. And that means, knowing how your genres work under the surface, in the structure, where the real story work is done.

9. Be original, transcend the genre.

It may surprise you that the biggest reason a reader turns down a script is because it’s “derivative.” That’s a fancy way of saying that the writer hit all the beats of the genre, but nothing more. Readers have read scripts from every genre hundreds of times. So you can’t stand out from the crowd just by “paying the dues.”

That’s why professional screenwriters not only hit all the genre beats, they do the beats in an original way. This is known as transcending the genre. And you simply cannot succeed if you fail to transcend the genres you’re working in.

Unfortunately, there are no simple rules for how to do this for all genres. Transcending genre is different for each form. In the 1-day class I teach in each genre, I spend a great deal of time on exactly how to do this. Transcending depends on the story beats that are unique to your form. It also requires that you study the best films in your form so you know what has already been done.

10. Be honest with yourself, and specialize in the forms that are right for you.

Genres are extremely powerful structural tools for a screenwriter, and they are the key to your success in the entertainment business. But they are complex story systems. I don’t know a single professional screenwriter who has mastered more than 2 or 3 of them. That’s why it’s so important that you look honestly at yourself and assess your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Determine which genres highlight your strengths and express the themes you believe in. Then apply yourself with laser-like focus to mastering those forms.

When you let genres do the hard story work, and concentrate on writing them in an original way, you will be amazed at how good, and how successful, your scripts will be.

28 Days Later

Horror is consistently the most popular of all genres. And it is the cheapest type of film to make, so it is the form of choice for indie writers and directors. The problem is that horror is also the lowest form, typically devoid of story. So the question becomes: How do you write a horror script unique enough to sell that will also set you apart as a talented storyteller?

To answer that question I took a look at one of the best horror films of recent years, 28 Days Later. Writer Alex Garland succeeds by knowing the form so well he is able to twist some of the key beats to give the traditional zombie story new life.

Mastering the horror genre is more difficult than it appears. You may be surprised to learn that it has more specialized story beats than any other form. So while horror is usually done in the most simplistic way possible - as a killing machine on a rampage - it doesn't have to be.

Horror always shows people being reduced, to an animal or a machine, the lowest levels a person can become short of death. In effect, this genre shows us human devolution. Horror puts character under the most extreme pressure of any form. So it focuses totally on one emotion, fear.

Bad horror plays that one note of fear again and again, and the story is nothing more than permissible sadism. Good horror takes this reduction of characters and makes it positive. It asks: What is human? And can this human quality be maintained in a world where everyone is desperate and induced to be an animal, ie going beyond even immoral behavior to amoral behavior? In short, good horror creates a recognizable human world where people are morally tested in the extreme.

The writer of 28 Days Later understands the crucial requirements of good horror, and he executes them within the parameters of a low budget film. In the set-up, the hero, Jim, wakes up from a coma to find himself in an empty, trashed hospital. Outside, the streets of London are just as deserted. He's walking around in a giant ghost town (no extras to run up this budget).

After meeting up with a couple of other survivors, Jim learns the rules of this new world. Stating the rules of the world is one of the specialized story beats in horror, not only because it tells the hero how to survive in this unique horror world, but also because it suggests to the audience how humanity will be tested. Here, there are two rules: 1, never go anywhere alone and 2, only travel in daylight. One of the survivors, Selena, tells Jim, "Plans are pointless. Staying alive is as good as it gets." This is not only the key line in this film, it is the key line in any horror film. From now on, we will see if human behavior is possible or if base animal survival is all we really are.

Garland quickly gives his survivors a desire line, which is to reach a makeshift military outpost some miles away. The characters go on a journey where they defeat a number of attacking zombies. This is typical horror -- giving the audience a few terrifying fights -- and pays the dues of the form.

But then Garland kicks the story up to a higher level, and the film becomes much more interesting. The hero and his allies reach the outpost, a fortified English mansion, and apparent safety. But of course this is another of horror's unique story beats: the place of final refuge is actually the place of greatest horror (for a breakdown of all 15 story beats, see the Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction Class or the Blockbuster Horror Software). Our hero soon learns that the platoon plans to rape the women and when he protests, they take him off to be murdered.

Now Garland can compare two kinds of animal: the zombies may be rabid dogs but the soldiers are merciless pack animals who have chosen to discard their humanity in a totally rational, pre-meditated way. A storm hits and the mansion becomes a kind of haunted house where a battle rages between the hero, the soldiers and the zombies. And it becomes impossible to tell who is the most savage.

A lot of horror is laughably silly. But don't underestimate this form. It is the best strategy for writing a breakthrough script. And if you learn the genre well enough, you can write a horror picture that is a powerful, and respected, piece of storytelling.

Signs

M. Night Shyamalan has been a wildly successful writer in Hollywood, and it's almost all due to his ability with plot. Shyamalan is a master of the reveal, and in the blockbuster world of mainstream movies, that is the best talent to have.

Signs has nowhere near the quality of The Sixth Sense. But it does show some of the writer's techniques.

Plot comes from hidden opposition. One reason the plot in Signs is not as strong as the one in The Sixth Sense is that Shyamalan exposes the opposition fairly early. Partly that is because Signs is a horror film, a form that is based on the attack of the opponent. When a relentlessly attacking opponent drives your plot, you have a lot of problems hiding the opponent's power and setting up reveals.

Shyamalan tries to delay showing us the opponent as long as possible by tracking a series of signs that a possible opponent is attacking. But that gets old pretty fast.

To make up for a genre that tends to kill plot (along with everything else in the story), the writer sets up a number of traits and facts about the characters that will pay off in the plot at the end of the film. These traits and facts - like the son's asthma and the brother's ability as a home run hitter - are improbable enough that you can tell when you first see them they are set ups. You know they will be paid off, you just don't know how. Still, when they finally are paid off, it is pleasing to the audience. And Shyamalan's greatest strength as a writer is his ability to hold out as many plot payoffs as possible until the end of the story.

The other major technique that Shyamalan uses is connecting supernatural stories with realistic psychological weaknesses in his characters. This technique, pioneered by Stephen King, is difficult to do well because it is inherently ridiculous. Typically, a character that has undergone severe trauma in his personal life must then confront a number of sensational, otherworldly events.

In Signs, Shyamalan doesn't completely overcome the silliness of the technique. His hero, after all, is an ex-minister who finds his faith by defeating extra-terrestrials. True, I know a couple of ex-ministers who had this experience, but it is rare.

Shyamalan's main tool for taking the stink off is humor. By making fun of a lot of the conventions of the genre - like wearing aluminum foil caps so the aliens won't know what they're thinking - the writer makes it ok to accept the fundamental premise that aliens are attacking. He also alternates serious or scary moments with funny ones, a difficult flip in tone that, when done successfully, makes the characters seem more real.

What is most important to understand about this technique is that you can't be afraid to use it. Yes, it can seem stupid and contrived. In Jurassic Park, it made no sense that the lead character hated kids. Except that it gave him a character weakness he had to overcome by working through the plot. Audiences don't just want to see a plot played out, no matter how ingenious. They want to see a character deal with a personal weakness and come out better on the other side. Even a contrived character need is better than none at all.