Day 2: Story Design — the Logline Filter and the 90/10 Rule, Harmon's Story Circle, the Five-Step Scene Formula ('No Scene That Doesn't Turn'), and the Script Page

Loglines 'convey the entire story in one or two sentences, but I also leverage them to decide if the story I'm thinking about outlining is compelling enough' - a one-sentence, dense statement of the conflict; the bar is 'compelling to you.' Fill the fields (character, want, obstacles) as best you can; a hero can lack internal conflict and bulldoze (Bond, Die Hard); the premise need not sound genius ('Titanic - boat sinks'). Then: '90% of your time should be spent developing the outline; only 10% in the scriptwriting software, because once you're in there it's really hard to make meaningful changes.' Going straight from idea to software is 'shooting yourself in the foot.' Test: mute the film - it must still make sense. Dialogue is downstream of beats.

Created by Dan Harmon from Joseph Campbell's comparative mythology - 'humans throughout all time created narratives that follow basically the exact same patterns', the collective unconscious of Campbell and Jung. Eight stages: comfort zone; wants something; enters an unfamiliar situation; adapts; gets what they wanted; pays a heavy price; returns to the familiar; having changed. Upper hemisphere = ordinary world (reactive); lower = special world (taking control). Bilbo: the Shire -> adventure -> leaves with the dwarves (and Gandalf) -> monsters, the ring -> the battle, Thorin and Kili die -> home ransacked, 'he died and returned a new man.' The 30-second version: stink face, inspect the can, find poison, choke, die. Apply: name protagonist and opening value, confirm the antagonism truly opposes the want, plot the eight stages. 'It's not a law of physics. It's a tool.'

A beat is 'an action taken by the protagonist and a reaction from the world' - easiest action first, the world 'responds more powerfully than expected', a gap opens, medium action, then high. Step 1: phrase the conflict as an uninflected verb (to get approval, to prepare) and check the forces of antagonism are in direct opposition - if not, fix it. Step 2: name the value at stake (life, wealth, health) and its charge (Johnny: wealth, negative). Step 3: break into beats; each has a surface action and a subtextual 'active gerund phrase' (pleading, offering, berating). Step 4: closing value - if it equals the opening, 'that's not a scene... its only purpose is to be exposition.' Step 5: trace rising willpower to the turning point where the value flips on the final beat; 'if there are beats after the value flip, cut them.' Exposition rule: never a scene for it; inject only what is necessary and hide it in an argument.

Logline: a cash-strapped e-sports coach who wants a scandal-free victory must get away with bodily insurance fraud to save his team - creditors, unpaid staff, no travel. Story Circle: value wealth (negative); antagonists Heather ('stop Johnny's insane plan') and a paparazzo ('expose Johnny'); crossing the threshold is Heather avoiding smashing his hand; the price is 'he's a pro gamer, so they need their hands.' Beats: convincing/questioning -> seducing -> emotional stabbing ('you should be grateful Greenberg destroyed my life') -> Heather exposing him -> 'fine, give me the hammer' -> he puts her back in the car and slips his hand in the door as the paparazzo photographs it; value flips positive. Exposition (insured hands) delivered inside the argument. Script: JOHNNY 'a good looking dude, dressed nice like he could be an actor... a star through his eyebrow'; HEATHER 'early 20s, taking a selfie'; 'What the hell is wrong with you?' / 'I need you to break my hand really quick' / 'Okay crazy.' Written and shot in a week, festival-selected.

Five components: slug line (INT/EXT, location, time of day - for production's locations, scheduling, lighting), action (present tense, only what is on screen), CHARACTER NAME (caps on first appearance), dialogue, parenthetical. Character options: O.S. (present, off screen), V.O. (not present), CONT'D across interruptions; avoid names starting with the same letter. Parentheticals under the name, two or three per page at most, carrying inflection (singing, deadpanned) or a pause - never repeating the gerund work. Introductions: major characters physical + emotional in one or two sentences (Johnny 'moves and talks so directly it's hard to tell if he's talking to you or himself'); minor ones almost nothing. Subtext is inevitable: 'the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.' Highland 2: free tier, ~$30 paid, better than Final Draft; built-in Pomodoro (25/5 x4, then 30).