Lukas Agelastos film blog

Structuring a Social Realism screenplay  by Lukas Agelastos In this article, I am looking at a concentration of the ideas and thoughts I drew from experts and professionals on screenplay structure. I am attempting to offset the lack of texts on Social Realism screenplay structure by discussing some concepts that seem to be relevant to the sub-genre. I will discuss how structure applies to "art cinema" and Social Realism. “Structure is the prime element of a film or television script. But while the importance of structure is clear, the interpretation is often less so” (Miller 1984). According to McKee (2014), the purpose of structure is to yield progressively building pressures that compel characters into more and more difficult dilemmas where they must make more and more difficult risk-taking actions and choices, slowly revealing their true natures, even down to the unconscious self. "It is because narrative structures bend time to human will that we delight in th...

Where do I start?  By Lukas Agelastos Before I start writing a screenplay, I need to come up with an idea first. Inspiration, research, and coming up with a premise are part of that. Collaborative writing with a screenwriter can also help in instances when I want to come up with new angles for a project, a completely fresh idea, or when I simply need the feelings of team play and accountability to bring a project forward. This post is from the perspective of writing a screenplay in the genre of Social Realism. While I mention Mike Leigh in this article, he isn't a great example of a screenwriter since most of his films are developed through months of improvisations with his actors rather than based on a script. But that's the topic of another article on this blog.