EMOTIONAL STRUCTURE
Creating the Story Beneath the Plot: A Guide for Screenwriters
Peter Dunne
Quill Driver Books

This is potentially one of the most important books on screenwriting you can get your hands on. It’s not flawless, but it focuses on the character development side of screenwriting in an unprecedented way. Dunne basically distinguishes between plot (the actions of the screenplay) and story (the emotional evolution of the characters), and he stresses that both aspects must support and feed off each other in order to create a great script.

In his structural model (which is an adaptation of the three-act structure), the second act focuses on the story, while acts one and three respectively set up and resolve the plot. He uses WITNESS as an example, and the same narrative method is at work in SOME LIKE IT HOT as well. Dunne also provides a great technique to use with index cards.

Dunne can be somewhat verbose and too prescriptive, and the script he develops in the book is unfortunately not very good. But the core content and the practical way in which emotional development is integrated with the narrative structure makes it a book every new screenwriter should read.

THE ANATOMY OF STORY
22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
John Truby
Faber & Faber

With this release, we finally get the screenwriting model of the last remaining big-name guru in print. John Truby has previously taught his method through classes and through the Blockbuster story development software, but getting this material in book form means that it can now reach a far wider audience.

Truby’s approach is explicitly anti-‘three act structure,’ but his criticism is frankly wrong. He proposes an alternative method which will develop the script organically, but ironically it seems far more complex than most other approaches to screenwriting out there (with the exception of Dramatica). His 22 Steps combine backstory, characters, and narrative events, which I feel insufficiently helps writers shape their story.

On the plus side, though, the material on using the story world, creating character webs to people your script in the most efficient way and effectively using symbolism on several narrative levels is very good and deep.

For more advanced students of screenwriting the book has some very good material to offer, though it is an unnecessarily textbook-like read. But new writers should start off with more accessible and immediately practical approaches.

THE SHUT UP AND SHOOT DOCUMENTARY GUIDE
Any Budget. Any Camera. Any Time.
Anthony Q. Artis
Focal Press

Anyone who wants to get started in documentaries must read this book—and apply the lessons contained within. Immensely practical, it’s a veritable encyclopaedia of all the elements you will have to deal with when starting on your documentary career: from developing the idea of your film right through to post-production and getting it shown at film festivals.

Artis wants this book to be as practical as possible, and therefore includes interviews with well-known documentary filmmakers, discussions about the technical material that is available, and tips on everything from getting money for your project, looking after the well-being of your crew, to using stock music and footage.

Written in a colloquial, engaging style and lavishly illustrated (which comes in very handy in the chapters on lighting and frame, and shot composition), the book also comes with a “phat” DVD full of extra tutorials, forms and more.

Intended as the first of a series, we can only hope subsequent volumes (on narrative films, commercials, etc.) will be as excellent. Somehow, I have a feeling they will be.

THE WESTERN
David Carter
Kamera Books

Another volume in the Kamera Books line of introductory reference guides, The Western provides an overview of the entire genre, from its beginnings in the earliest days of the 20th century to the most recent attempts at reviving or reinventing the genre.

David Carter divides the genre into three main periods: The Silent Era, The Golden Years (from the late 1930s to the 1960s) and The Modern Era. The book takes an encyclopaedic approach, ordering its impressive amount of capsule reviews by the major directors who made contributions to the genre, and adding separate chapters for sub-genres (comedy western) or important films made by other directors who only occasionally visited The Wild West.

Most of the capsule reviews are very short, but Carter also supplies a number of essays which either provide background information on the genre and its evolution, or which look at a few films in greater depth.

There’s also a chapter on spaghetti westerns, but it limits itself to the contributions of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci.

A good introduction to the genre, but unfortunately no extra DVD this time around. ■