Dan Harmon's Story Circle

My current obsession with Community has inevitably led me to discover the creator Dan Harmon. His story circle maps out the basic structure to satisfying stories, especially those that grace our screens. Sure it's a very simplified approach but it's also a massive help, a loose guide to the beats your main character is going to hit, the change they will experience, and where they'll end up.

Using Dan Harmon's story circle I thought I'd analyse an episode of Community to see how it fits with the creator's outline, coz I'm super-cool like that and totally didn't cry myself to sleep last night. Beginner Pottery is the 19th episode of the first season and sees Jeff enter the ultimate blow-off class - this is a very literal manifestation of the 'unfamiliar situation', however character-wise, the real unfamiliar situation comes from within the pottery class, when Jeff is upstaged by Rich. The episode deals with Jeff's obsession with being the best at everything, and his realisation that there are some things he's just mediocre at, and that's okay.

A character is in a zone of comfort: Jeff is in the study group room discussing the ultimate blow-off class - Beginner Pottery. He's content in his familiar role as cool guy leader of the group.

But they want something: Jeff wants an easy credit.

They enter an unfamiliar situation: So he attends the Beginners Pottery class for the first time. Although this is unfamiliar territory externally, the real unfamiliar territory is internal and comes when Jeff is upstaged by Rich, who is naturally gifted at pottery and creates an impressive vase.

Adapt to it: A very jealous Jeff stays behind to try and create a piece of pottery to rival Rich's, but his efforts are in vain. The next day, Rich notices Jeff's injured his finger and informs Jeff he's a doctor but Jeff doesn't believe him, instead he thinks Rich is a con-man, a pro at pottery who signs up to novice classes to bag girls.

Get what they wanted: When Jeff notices Rich's car plates are from Santa Fe, New Mexico, he stays up all night researching the area and concludes that anyone born in the region would naturally learn pottery. Jeff thinks he's got the information he needs to expose Rich as a charlatan.

Pay a heavy price for it: When Jeff confronts Rich in pottery class, he tries to copy Rich's technique but violates the professor's 'No Ghosting' rule and is chucked out of the class.

Then return to their familiar situation: Jeff finds Pierce and opens up to him about the difficulty of failure and realising you're not good at something. Failing to produce a good pot in the class made Jeff question himself.

Having changed: Jeff returns to pottery class, apologises to Rich for his crazy behaviour and finally accepts he can't be the best at everything and makes peace with being terrible at pottery.  

Anchorman - Plot Point Breakdown

Anchorman's (2004) one of the most quotable comedies ever, ridiculous and silly but so fun with a cast that crackle and fizz off one another effortlessly. Anchorman 2 (2013) tried to recreate the magic, and for the first 10 minutes it did, but the remaining 130 minutes failed hard. The structure aped the original to the beat and they tried to hit the same comedy high-notes but it felt flat and contrived. However, the original is something special and despite the actors riffing off-script to their heart's content, it still adheres to a pretty traditional story structure.

Inciting Incident - Ron Burgundy is San Diego's number one anchorman but when Veronica Corningstone joins the Channel 4 news team Ron's title is under threat, his position in the top perch is rocked and he's forced to reassess the misogynistic culture he's become so comfortable with. (14 minutes)

Lock In - After taking Veronica out for a night on the town, during which both share their ambition to be a network news anchor, the two hop on the good foot, do the bad thing, falling madly in love with each other. (33 minutes)

Midpoint - When Ron misses his slot reporting the news because he's stuck in a glass cage of emotion after the man punted Baxter, Veronica fills in as head anchor and reports Ron's news. This leads to her getting a promotion as co-anchor, but Ron feels betrayed and their romantic relationship falls apart. (49 minutes)

Climax - Veronica sabotages the teleprompter, from which Ron will read anything, making Ron sign off with, "Go fuck yourself, San Diego." This results in Ron being fired from the Channel 4 news team and becoming a dishevelled, wallowing milk-drunk. (64 minutes)

Resolution - When Veronica disappears in the midst of the biggest story of the year, Ron gets his chance at redemption - to report the news again. But on arriving at the zoo he sees Veronica trapped in the bear pit and chooses to save the life of the woman he loves, over reporting the news. (78 minutes)

Tony Gilroy on Screenwriting

Tony Gilroy, American screenwriter and filmmaker, wrote the screenplays for the Bourne series and directed the fourth installment with Jeremy Renner. He sat down for a chinwag with the Empire Podcast team to talk about screenwriting, the state of movie making today, and George Clooney.

Robert McKee - Big Think Interview

This in-depth interview with Robert McKee, one of the original screenwriting gurus, covers a lot of subjects, from the importance of mastering the craft of exposition, to whether the best screenwriting opportunities are in television. In regards to the latter he says, "television without question, is the most creative medium to write in today."

It's also encouraging when he discusses the benefits of failing, about how you have to write a bunch of unproduced screenplays because it's all practice, practice of the craft, as well as practice of life, and building up material and ideas. So we shouldn't get disheartened if we're not that 23 year old writer who got their first screenplay made, because when you finally do get something produced it'll be of real quality.

The Hero's Journey - The Monomyth

Nothing's original, everything's been done already. As Barthes stated in Death of the Author, 'The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.' This also holds true when that text is celluloid. All the stories you've seen are the same. Well, that's a huge generalisation but many of them do follow a familiar path.

Continuing on from Joseph Campbell's work, Christopher Vogler talks about the Hero's Journey - a structure and range of characters that protagonists are likely to meet in films and other stories that dates back to ancient Greek mythology and Germanic folklore. Because everything's a remix, innit.