StoryAlity #53 – The StoryAlity High-RoI Film Story and Screenplay Checklist

The StoryAlity High-RoI Film Story & Screenplay Checklist

In 1995, while at film school, I read all the books on screenwriting that existed. I then summarized them into this book, which has over a million downloads.

The Feature Film Screenwriters Workbook (JT Velikovsky 1995, & 2011 Revised & Updated Edition)

I then worked as a TV screenwriter (my first TV writing credit was in: 1993), a movie screenwriter, game writer and designer, for 20 years. I also worked as a script reader for major film studios and many independent production companies for 20 years.

Over that 20 years I realized a lot of the screenwriting guidelines were not correct.

So then I did a 5-year fulltime PhD study on High-RoI Movie Screenwriting. You can read the full 450-page PhD thesis, here. (And you definitely should, if you are a screenwriter or a screen reader).

7 in 10 movies lose money, and 98% of screenplays go unmade. That’s a deadly-serious real-world problem if you are in the screen industry. My 2017 PhD solves it.

I’m now also: a high-RoI movie Consultant.

(A PhD is the world expert on their research topic. Nobody else has ever researched this area before, and not in this way. – After publishing the “Screenwriting Wisdom Summary” book, above in 1995 (and – noticing all the flaws and contradictions in the Script Gurus’ “research”) – I actually waited for 20 years (while being a professional screenwriter), for someone else to twig to it, and to do it, and then finally realized – after 20 years of waiting – I would have to do it myself, as apparently, nobody else had the time to do it (it was actually a shocking amount of work, for 5 years fulltime), nor, did many people in the screen industry I spoke to over 20 years [producers, directors] seem to understand: Why scientific research on high-RoI story characteristics  actually matters. Some people are under the impression you cannot do scientific research on the Arts. If so see the following…)

Empirical Studies of The Arts – Journal

And see this amazing book:

Great Flicks: Scientific Studies of Cinematic Creativity and Aesthetics (DK Simonton 2011)

And this one:

The Screenplay Business: Managing Creativity and Script Development in the Film Industry (Bloore 2012)

So – if you are fine with all your screenplays not getting made, and with your movie losing money when it does get made – then, you too, can safely: ignore all of this! 🙂

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The following is a super-brief Summary, derived from my 2012-17 doctoral research study of Movie RoI.

See also: StoryAlity #54 – StoryAlity Screenwriting Guidelines – for any aspiring Writer of High-RoI Films

The StoryAlity Syntagm (Velikovsky 2012)

The following Checklist provides a useful practical tool for the empirical analysis of any film story/screenplay in terms of the expected/probable RoI (Return on Investment). The checklist aims to avoid the “single-cause theory” that many can apply to movie success… Movies are not ever successful for one single reason alone: there are many things they “do right” and likewise – many things that they “do wrong” that, they tend to avoid…

See The Anna Karenina Principle. (Or even better – read my PhD – for the full story)

The Checklist is recommended for use, by: Screenwriters, Filmmakers, Screenplay Development Executives, Professional Script Readers / Story Analysts, Directors, Actors, Producers, and any and all film industry Creatives.

Also, even more importantly: Film Financiers, Investors and Marketers can also use this Checklist as an analytical Story/Screenplay tool – to assess, given probability, the RoI potential of any movie project.

The key data-set of the research is – The Top 20 RoI Movies of the last 70 Years:

The Top 20 Audience Reach/Budget Films of the Last 70 Years. Data Source: The-Numbers.com. Analysis: JT Velikovsky

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The Top 20 RoI Movies

GENRE BREAKDOWN – The Top 20 RoI Movies:

Top 20 RoI Movies – Genres – List

Top 20 RoI Movies by Genre – (Side Note: there are no Dramas in the top 20 RoI movies)

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THE STORYALITY HIGH-RoI MOVIE CHECKLIST

Please also note, these StoryAlity Theory Guidelines (The Checklist) are: a probability calculus.

If any writer/filmmaker desires, they can certainly choose not to use, all x 30 of these StoryAlity Theory Guidelines… They may of course choose to use (say) only 29 out of the 30 guidelines, (or indeed, use none of the guidelines at all.) For example, a writer/filmmaker may choose to create/use their own film Story Structure, rather than the StoryAlity story structure (i.e. the Fibonacci sequence…). That is entirely their own choice, given the workings of Agency (choices) and Structure (guidelines)…!

The second column below, “IDEAL/HIGH-RoI TARGET” is the recommended selection – as per overwhelming evidence, resulting from the (2017) empirical and scientific movie RoI doctoral research study.

CRITERIA	THE IDEAL /HIGH-ROITARGET	The Top 20 ROIFilms: Average	The Top 20 ROIFilms: Median	THE RANGE (Top 20 ROI Films)	Your Screenplay: (Y/N ?)
Genre	Horror Comedy Sci-Fi Sports Nostalgia Musical Gangster	Horror(mode / most frequently occurring)	Horror	Horror Comedy Sci-Fi Sports Nostalgia Musical Gangster
Number of Main Characters	4 (3 good guys, 1 villain)	4.4	4	2 – 9
Occupations of the Main Character/s	Working class &/or students	Working class / students(both = mode)	Working class / students(both = mode)	See Table on “The Character Occupations in Top 20 ROI Films”
Character Arc/s” in a high ROI film Story	None	None	None	None
Number of Story `Acts’	10	10	10	10 – 10
Story Structure	See The STORYALITY™ Syntagm	See The STORYALITY™ Syntagm	See The STORYALITY™ Syntagm	See The STORYALITY™ Syntagm
Screenplay / Film Length	90 pages exactly	92 pages /92 minutes	88 pages /88 minutes	77 -121 pages/mins
# of Scenes	122 scenes	119 scenes	124 scenes	71-189 scenes
Scene Lengths	1 min/1 page	49 seconds	1 min 12 secs	1 sec – 14mins 25 s
Ratio of Ext/Int scenes	44% Ext / 56% Int	44% Ext / 56% Int	53 Ext scenes/64 Int scenes	(3 – 95) Ext(25 – 121) Int
Number of Locations	28	29	27	2-73
Types of Main Locations/Settings	House/Apartment	Domestic / urban	See: Types of Top 20 ROI Main Locations	See: Types of Top 20 ROI Main Locations
Time period / Temporal Setting	Present	Present	Present	Past, Present, Future
Story Ending	Villain Triumphant	Villain Triumphant	Villain Triumphant	Villain Triumphant
Theme	Survival, Reproduction, Revenge	Survival, Reproduction, Revenge	Survival, Reproduction, Revenge	Survival, Reproduction, Revenge
Sex scenes	N	40 %	40 %	8/20 films
Chase scenes	Y	85 %	85 %	17/20 films
Shootouts	N	45 %	45 %	9/20 films
Fist-Fights	Y	75 %	75 %	15/20 films
Montage/s	Y	11/20 films	11/20 films	11/20 films
Expected Reviews/Critics Ratings?	73%	73%	81	46%-94%
Expected Oscars™	None	<3% chance	<3% chance	1/20 films
Expected MPAA Rating	R	R	R	PG – UnR
Length of Shoot	7 – 31 days	34 days	28 days	7 – 80 days
“Look” of the film	Color & digital	Color	Color	Color/ B&W35mm, 16mm, digital

This checklist can be used to analyze your own screenplay / movie story, for the various Characteristics, shared by all 20 of the Top 20 RoI movies.

Next up: Top 10 Screenwriting Guidelines – for any aspiring Writer of High-RoI (Return On Investment) Films…

I think I went to Elementary school with this guy…?! And you know what – he hasn’t changed a bit…

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JT Velikovsky PhD

High-RoI Story/Screenplay/Movie & Transmedia / Multi-platform Media Researcher

The above is (mostly) an adapted excerpt, from my doctoral thesis: “Communication, Creativity and Consilience in Cinema”. It is presented here for the benefit of fellow screenwriting, filmmaking and creativity researchers. 

For more, see https://aftrs.academia.edu/JTVelikovsky

JT Velikovsky is also a produced feature film screenwriter and million-selling transmedia writer-director-producer. He has been a professional story analyst for major film studios, film funding organizations, and for the national writer’s guild.

For more see: http://on-writering.blogspot.com/

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