You have the technical skills to create a short film, but are trying to get your head around telling and structuring your story? Thinking about how to write a short film?
Learn how successful short films and even most of today’s feature films structure their story, to keep the audience interested.
It’s all about Storytelling
Almost all Films are based on a storytelling technique, that was first introduced by Aristotle (The Three Act Structure) and later revised by Joseph Campell.
Campbell’s theory can be split up into 9 main parts, that you can use as a short film structure template to base your own story on:
- Introduction
The main character is introduced. He is spending an ordinary time with nothing noteworthy happening. - Building Empathy
The main character has a flaw. He is not perfect. The audience emphasizes with the character. The flaw also makes him more believable. This flaw can be anything; a physical imperfection, mental imperfection, habits (good or bad), weakness, desires, you name it. - Turn of Events
Something unpredictable happens, that disturbs the character’s ordinary life. - Call to Action
This Event calls the character to action. He has to do something to react to this event. In this stage, the character often seeks help from mentors or friends, to gather advice. - The Quest
The character now has a goal, and he is pursuing it. During the quest, he is challenged in several ways. The goal is more difficult to reach than estimated. - The Crisis
The character is at his lowest moment and one step from giving up. - Personal Growth
The character learns a lesson. Often, the character’s flaw now actually helps him in achieving the goal. - Showdown
The character faces one final opponent/challenge. - The Resolution
In a happy story, this is the part where we all celebrate
If the story is a comedy, the character will fail in the (6) Quests challenges, if it is a tragedy, he will succeed in the challenges.
Short Film Story Structure
Let’s make an example.
- Introduction
Our main character is a Knight. He lives an ordinary life. - Building Empathy
He has a flaw: he likes flowers, sets off every morning to pick some, and braids them into his horse’s mane. - Turn of Events
The princess is kidnapped from her tower! - Call to Action
The Knight is summoned by the King who tells him that the Princess was kidnapped by a dragon and that he should rescue her. - The Quest
The Knight rides off and faces several challenges. He climbs mountains and crosses deep rivers, battles thieves, and fights bears.
But nobody believes in him, because he rides a horse that looks like a flowerpot! Everywhere he goes, he is laughed at. - The Crisis
The Knight is in crisis. He is hurt by the people’s stares and starts doubting his skills. He is at the lowest point in the story. - Personal Growth
On a sunny afternoon, he camps at a flowery lake where little lizards are sunbathing. As he approaches them, the lizards flee, interestingly not away from him, but towards him, keeping clear of the flowery patches. As he trips over a stone and while falling down sees the patches of flowers, he realizes why the lizards fled towards him. He has an idea. - Showdown
He faces the dragon. He does not defeat him with a sword, but with a bag full of flowers. As it turns out, the dragon is allergic
- The Resolution
The princess is rescued. The Knights flaw saved her. We all celebrate.
The next time you watch a movie, analyze it and fit it into this commonly used structure. You will be surprised at how many movies and short films use it.
Of course, this is only a basic setup to get you started. Adapt it to best fit your own story, shuffle parts around, add new parts or omit some. You are the Storyteller.
Here are some great short films I keep coming back to, that have great storytelling and utilize some of what we learned in this post about story structure:
I can highly recommend the following Books and Sites for more in-depth information on this subject:
- Ideas for the Animated Short: Finding and Building Stories
- How to write a great Script – Scriptshadow blog
- Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques
That was my rather short introduction to Storytelling in Short Films. Let us know your ideas in the comments!
Flee – to run away from. One cannot “flee toward” is it would mean “run away from toward”
Habit has one B.
Your hypothetical story would be more believable if the lizards run toward him (for any reason), but once they get close to his horse they start sneezing because of the flowers. The idea in his head “lizards sneeze at daffodils in his horse’s mane. If all lizards are allergic to them, then maybe the dragon is, too.” Made better if the flower of choice is rare and his knowledge of flowers shows he’s an expert…a knight who is an expert botanist. Perhaps the lizards are large enough to be dangerous and take down a horse?
Now we play up the flaw…he’s always wanted to be a botanist, but being in the knight class he has no choice. He secretly studies books on flowers. He rides into towns and is mocked by the local knights. When he tries to defend himself, his knowledge of botany comes out and makes things worse.
Wonderful blog!
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Thanks, but that ‘recipe’ doesn’t cover all short film structures – far from this, since it doesn’t cover several script ideas I have.
I think pre-cooked structures do more harm than good, to the creative mind, as they disable the creative process that would think of an awesome novel structure and they do more harm to the viewers too, as they have to watch hundreds of movies with the exact same supposedly successful ‘recipe’.
Instead of learning a common structure, the filmmaker should learn how to innovate and produce his own novel structures at will. That would be creative and mind-refreshing for everybody.
You need to know where the road is to walk it. This is just something to start from.