Blueprints: Post-Oscar Stat Madness!

Here we are. The Oscars are over. After six months (this was a long season!) of never ending think pieces, desperate For Your Consideration ads, and prediction anxiety, we can finally take a breather.

So, before we’re ready to start doing it all over again (because, let’s be honest, despite everything, we love this), let’s decompress a little. And if you’re like me, there’s nothing better than a good list of stats and numbers to clear your mind.

As a pallet cleanser, and as a farewell to Oscar season for now, here’s are some statistics and data about the screenplay categories. Where we were before Sunday, where we are now. And how far we have yet to go.

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Blueprints: "Lady Bird"

Jorge's screenplay column hits its last Oscar mark for the season.

Lady Bird is less of a through-line narrative, as it is a collection of moments; a montage through the senior year of Christine “Lady bird” McPherson, and the small days and in-betweens that made it memorable. Through this collage, we are able to grasp at thematic links that run in her life, at the emotional truths she has to learn, and at the pain of watching her leave the nest.

No thread runs harder through the film than Lady Bird’s contentious relationship with her mother Marion. It’s no coincidence that the very first sequence of the film revolves around their dynamic. So let’s see how Greta Gerwig managed to infuse the emotional thesis of her film, as well as display years’ worth of a relationship in barely the first three pages of the script...

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Blueprints: "I, Tonya"

Jorge continuing to look at the screenplays of this year's Oscar crop... 

All through this year’s awards campaign, the team behind I, Tonya has repeatedly stated that the movie came to be because of screenwriter Steven Roger’s interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly, in which he realized that they both had widely different recollections of their relationship.

The movie that came out of those interviews decided to play with perspective, memory, and point of view to give an unreliable retelling of this story, and playing with biopic tropes. Let’s take a look at how Rogers used various formal devices in the script to convey that we all remember things differently...

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Blueprints: "The Disaster Artist"

Jorge Molina continues with the 2017 Oscar nominated screenplays...

One of the most overused film tropes out there is the big pep talk that a leader gives his or her team before they get into some sort of defining battle. It’s meant to inspire, motivate, eliminate any form of self-doubt, and give them the necessary strength to embark on their journey. 

But what if the task at hand is the production of what would become one of the canonically worst films of all time? And what if its leader is a proto-European actor with a lot of heart and devotion, but almost no social skills? Let’s take a look at how the writers for The Disaster Artist managed to inject these doomed elements with sincerity...

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Blueprints: "Ingrid Goes West"

In the latest installment of our screenplay column, Jorge takes a look at the tricky task of making a phone screen visually engaging.

As technology becomes more efficient and finds new ways to make our lives easier, it’s making the job of screenwriting more difficult. It’s now nearly impossible to not be able to reach a person in some way (once a common source of screen conflict) and, worse for the visual montony, most of our day-to-day activities include staring at some kind of screen.

Ingrid Goes West didn't just incorporate how we relate to technology today, but made it its central theme. Let’s look at the underrated gem to see how the use of technology is captured in its pages, and how the writers made it as emotionally thrilling as any action movie car chase...

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