After the wine was dispersed, Ning Hao returned to the boys' dormitory to find the script of "Big Diamond", and handed it to Zhang Ran downstairs. His original intention was to let Zhang Ran take it back and read it slowly, and when he finished reading it, he had time to tell himself where to ask about the script.

But he didn't want Zhang Ran to take the script and flipped it twice, beckoned with his right hand, and said "Follow me", and he immediately followed. In the past, when he was in the crew, Zhang Ran often pulled the people from the director team to read the script, and he was used to it.

Zhang Ran's bedroom was messy, with papers on the floor, on the table, and on the bed. Ning Hao bent down and picked up a few and looked at them, there was a script and a sub-shot. I am even more determined in my heart, this person is not only talented, but also very hard-working, no wonder he can make such a good movie!

Zhang Ranzhi didn't feel embarrassed, it was normal for the male teacher's bedroom to be chaotic, he stretched out his hand and pointed to the corner: "There are drinks there, take what you want to drink, I'm more chaotic here, you can sit casually." I'll take a look at your script first, and we'll talk after reading it!"

"It's okay, I'll take a look at the storyboard you drawn. Ning Hao knew that Zhang Ran was a straightforward person, but he didn't be polite to him, took a bottle of Coke, and read the storyboard drawn by Zhang Ran while drinking.

Zhang Ran's storyboard is drawn very seriously, and his drawing skills are also very good. Ning Hao was born in fine arts, but his painting skills are much worse than Zhang Ran. Zhang Ran's storyboard is relatively scattered, one in the east and one in the west, Ning Hao can't see what the story is about, it seems to be a story about an airplane.

What shocked Ning Hao was that some of them were obviously the same content but painted more than ten different sub-shot shots, of course, some of these shots were extremely excellent, and some were relatively average. However, it is possible to design more than a dozen different ways of storyboarding for a scene. That's amazing!

At the same time, Zhang Ran was also reading Ning Hao's script. Ning Hao's script is called "Big Diamond". In fact, it is the story of "Crazy Stone", but the whole story is not very mature. The rhythm is not well grasped and seems to be scattered.

After reading the script quickly, Zhang Ran put it on the table, looked at Ning Hao and said, "Do you know? If your script is sent to the film company in Hollywood, you won't be able to pass the first hurdle!"

Ning Hao's face turned pale, he was quite confident in his story, but he didn't expect to get this kind of evaluation: "Teacher Zhang, is it really that bad, what's the problem?"

"Do you know what the first level of Hollywood script review is? It's a few shows! Somebody is responsible for calculating the drama in the script. Only scripts that reach 45-60 scenes can be expected to pass to avoid the film being too dull and lengthy. There are more than 70 scenes in your book, which is quite lengthy, and there must be a problem with the pacing! Actually, your story itself is quite well written and very interesting, but as a commercial film, your structural problems are very serious!"

"Structure?"

"Hollywood commercial films are basically three-act structures, generally following a suspense every ten minutes or so, and the opening thirty minutes or so is usually the beginning of a story. If a movie is counted as 120 minutes, then the structure is 3:6:3. Most of the blockbuster Hollywood movies don't have much of a different narrative rhythm than before and after this model, and your structure is too big at both ends, so you have to streamline the two ends and add content in the middle.

The three-stage structure is easy to understand. What is going to be talked about below may be a bit complicated, and what should appear when a Hollywood movie script is written is fixed. This thing is called a plot point. At the end of the first act, there is a plot point. It's woven into the story. And turn the story in the other direction, and at the end of the second act, there must also be a plot point. Bring the story to the end. There are about fifteen such plot points......"

In the process of Zhang Ran's narration, he was involved in photography, composition, performance, and even a large number of new technologies, which opened Ning Hao's eyes.

It was the first time that Ning Hao came into contact with this Hollywood method of analyzing scripts, and he was quite shocked. He carefully thought back to the several Hollywood movies he had made pull films, and they all seemed to meet this rule.

After Zhang Ran finished talking about these plot points, Ning Hao seemed a little unsatisfied, and raised his own questions: "But my "Big Diamond" is a multi-clue, intersecting and parallel narrative, can it also be analyzed according to this?"

"Of course, any story has a beginning, a development, and an end. This kind of script with multiple stories and multiple clues, as a screenwriter, you must strengthen the rhythm of the story, otherwise it is easy to get out of control. This technique is sometimes referred to as a surreal technique in Hollywood, and it can bring a powerful impact to a film, which is why group stories are so powerful. In fact, there are basically plot points in your script, but the timing of the plot points is wrong, so the rhythm is not good. ”

"There are too many characters in the script, and the relationship between people is too difficult to sort out. Ning Hao shook his head, looking helpless. He wanted to write a story like "Two Smoking Guns", but the pacing was far from Guy Ritchie.

"You don't care about the relationship between the characters, this is really difficult to deal with, let's find out the plot points of "Big Diamond" first, as long as this framework is right, the movie will not deviate. The first is the connection point between Act I and Act II, and this plot point is to prepare for a diamond exhibition. Zhang Ran picked up a blank piece of paper, wrote it down on the paper, and put it on the ground.

"The connection point between the second act and the third act, as soon as this plot point comes out, the story begins to come to an end, in "Big Diamond", this plot point is that Bao Shihong catches the thief!"

"Let's say your script is 100 minutes long, and at the 50th minute there is a plot point called the midpoint. This point is important, either the protagonist reaches the peak on the surface, or slides to the lowest trough. The middle point of the script is that Bao Shihong discovers that the diamond has been stolen, and here the story begins to take a sharp turn......"

Ning Hao was dumbfounded, Zhang Ran analyzed the plot points of his script completely at his fingertips, as if he had read the script countless times, and he couldn't be more familiar with the plot in it.

However, I obviously gave him the script, and he read it for the first time today, how could he be so familiar with the whole script?

This is the legendary genius, it's really amazing!

Zhang Ran explained seriously, not paying attention to Ning Hao's adoring eyes next to him. He is too familiar with "Crazy Stone", he has done script analysis before, and he has just read the script again, and it doesn't take much effort to find out these plot points.

Soon, Zhang Ran found the fifteen plot points of "Big Diamond" and lined them up neatly on the ground.

"Let's say the length of "Big Diamond" is 100 minutes, and the first plot point is the first minute!" Zhang Ran picked up a red marker and marked it on the first piece of white paper.

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Ran marked the time of the second plot point on the second plot point, then the third plot point, and the fourth plot point......

Zhang Ran finished marking the time of the fifteen plot points, handed the script of "Big Diamond" to Ning Hao, pointed to the fifteen blank pieces of paper on the ground, and said, "Now take apart your script and put the content of the script in the corresponding position according to the plot points." ”

Ning Hao did not hesitate, directly dismantled his script, put the content of the first plot point on the first blank paper marked by Zhang Ran, and then put the content of the second plot point on the second blank paper.

When the third plot point was placed, Ning Hao began to think thoughtfully, and when he put the fourth plot point, his head began to sweat, and after the fifth plot point was in the corresponding position, he looked at it in a daze for a few seconds, and suddenly shouted excitedly: "I understand, I understand, I know what the problem is, I know!"

"What's the name of the ghost in the middle of the night, and you don't let people sleep?" I don't know which one was woken up by Ning Hao, and let out an angry roar.

Zhang Ran glanced at the time, it was only twelve o'clock, it was still very early, and he lowered his voice and said, "Be quiet, don't affect the rest of the others!"

Ning Hao smiled embarrassedly: "Teacher Zhang, I'm so excited! What you said opened a window for me to see a world that I had never seen before. It's great to see what's the problem, what's going on, it's great!

Zhang Ran smiled: "You want to come to our class to listen to the class, you can come, I am in an acting class." ”

Ning Hao was stunned, Zhang Ran spoke so well that he forgot that Zhang Ran was the teacher of the acting department, and sighed and said: "The school is really inexplicable, your director level is so high, but you let you teach the acting department!"

Zhang Ran smiled and nodded: "The school is really inexplicable, you are obviously very talented as a director, but you let you enter the photography department! Okay, don't talk about these useless things! Continue to divide your script!"

Ning Hao nodded, picked up the script in his hand, continued to distribute it to the ground, and quickly finished breaking down the manuscript paper in his hand, and all the contents were lined up in front of him.

At this moment, comparing the content of the manuscript paper with Zhang Ran's annotation, the problem is very clear. Ning Hao's script Zhang Ran listed all the plot points, but most of the time they are wrong. For example, the fourth plot point is about two minutes, but Ning Hao's script has five scenes, which cannot be completed in two minutes, at least three or four minutes. In this way, it will inevitably slow down the pace of the whole movie!

Zhang Ran said: "Ning Hao, now you follow this standard time to sort out the events of the script, delete what should be deleted, and add what should be added." ”

After an hour of struggle and selection, Ning Hao took out thirteen scenes, and the number of scenes in the entire script became 60. The overall pacing seems to be fine, but the story becomes fragmented again. Ning Hao stared at the manuscript on the ground, frowning: "There are many places that can't be connected, and there are too many places where the script needs to be revised!"

Zhang Ran smiled and comforted: "Do you know how long it takes on average for a Hollywood script to go from the first draft to the start of filming? It takes five years! This process is called planning purgatory, and all the scripts that can be filmed are out of purgatory." Don't be in a hurry, polish slowly!" (To be continued......)

PS: Thanks to "Fingertip Mosquito Coils, I Just Want to Talk", Not a Crazy Maniac, yyaJy2304, Jing Φ Jing" Reward!