Tarantino Unchained — Scene Build Clinic with Tom Benedek

I don’t know what spring cleaning means to you, but to Tom Benedek it means rewriting a script while using the muse of a certain writer-director whose initials are QT. This from Tom to explain:

I am doing a scene check on my new draft these days. I am looking at how I structured each scene. So far — in a few scenes there is no conflict — too much expository. Occasionally, there is an abrupt shift that is disconcerting. A few times, a montage ought to be replaced with an exchange of blatant exposition. On and on as I am tracking each of my main characters separately, examining their conflicts, internal and external. A lot of little things are missing. And there are some big gaps. I realize that I need some smaller scenes, meaningful transitions to pace the script and to present detail about certain characters. I also realize I’m not really telling any stories with some of my characters. By adding small doses of expository, there is story, interesting subplot that I will be able to spin in a few small scenes. Now I just have to write them!

Which brings me to Quentin Tarantino and my upcoming scene writing class. Oscar is not a fan of violent films. However, Quentin Tarantino took home his second career best screenplay Oscar last month. How many times must it be repeated? Tarantino is a filmmaker of great skill and audacity. He is also one of us — a wonderful screenwriter who beat the odds through his vision and skill as a storyteller, a writer of original screenplays of high calibre. A toast — to QT.

So — to do some Spring Cleaning of my own screenwriting apparatus and to take a Spring Break voyage into QT’s cinematic wonderland of characters and their thrills, I have decided to do a study of scene writing, exclusively using Tarantino’s recent scripts to define certain characteristics of scene structure — to celebrate, learn and re-learn a few things about writing scenes.

The one week class starts on Monday. We will be looking exclusively at QT’s uses of conflict, expository, flashback, indirection, subtext, all the rest of it. He speaks to the reader alot. HIs movies are sometimes violent but they are also highly emotional — romantic in the way that old Hollywood action movies often are. I think it is going to be a fun and instructive class. There will be four lectures. Class members can each post a scene for feedback and a quick revision perhaps. I hope class members will also present their favorite Tarantino scenes for discussion — so we can break them down and see how and why they tick so welll so often. We all may have a little bit of Tarantino in us to unchain as we write script pages.

Consider joining me for what should be a very interesting class. And wish me luck on my rewrite, please!

It’s a brand new Screenwriting Master Class course: Tarantino Unchained — Scene Build Clinic. And it starts next Monday, March 18. For more information, go here.