Jacob Krueger（雅各布）影视剧作法授课活动圆满结束！
2018年9月8日、9日，美国编剧大师Jacob Krueger来到中国授课。两天的课程期间，与近五十位编剧、制作人、导演等影视从业者进行了深度的交流。
课程当中，老师不但分享了很多自己的真实经历，还将编剧的创作历程与人生哲学相结合，为同学们带来干货满满的课程的同时，也与大家探讨了人生的各种而可能性。
最具“深度”课程
“欲望是一层层剥离的，人们一开始很可能并不知道自己真正想要什么。”
“人们想要改变自我，但自我其实是抗拒改变的，所以我们会维持一些表面的和平。”
“人生和剧本一样，要做很多选择，只有在回头看时才能发现故事的发展脉络。”
——以上三点并不是摘自哲学书和辩论节目，而是来自Jacob Krueger课堂中的分享。在剧本创作中，他强调搭建结构与塑造角色的重要性。“编写有创意的剧情和经典的台词并不那么重要，更重要的是故事的结构和人物的走向。”
为了进一步阐释这个观点，他举出电影《美国丽人》（American beauty）的例子：在故事的最后一刻，主人公莱斯特可以因为任何原因而死，这不重要，他可以被邻居当作带坏儿子的同性恋者杀死、可以被自己老婆的情人杀死、甚至可以自杀。编剧可以自由地选择莱斯特的死法，但这部片子的结构就是主角对自己命运的选择，死亡只是成全这种变化的一种戏剧化方式。
图/影片《美国丽人》
“把最好的放在前面，而不是最后。”
在讲到电影《飞屋环游记》时，Jacob老师讲出了以上这句话。这令我想起韩国“DDANZI日报”社长金语俊的那段著名演讲——“当下就要幸福。”而Jacob老师想要表达的显然不止这些。他提到：电影飞屋环游记的前十五分钟已经足够撑起一整部电影，但导演偏偏只让它承担一个开头的分量，这不是浪费，因为故事接下来的部分显然有着更引人入胜的情节。
“很多电影把影片故事开始前的世界构想得太过乏味，那样会让观众、演员和制片人一上来就丧失兴趣。”而《飞屋环游记》通过在影片的前十五分钟展示了主人公Carl的一生，使得真正的故事开始在他的老年时期。这种结构完美地避开了乏味的可能，并且吊足了观众的胃口——感动之余，全都兴致满满地期待着观看主人公接下来的人生旅程。
标签化场景
在课堂中，Jacob老师多次提及vignette一词，即“（清晰展示人物特征、局势等的）短文、简介、花絮；（表演）片段，小品”，我们将它简化为一种标签化场景，就像话剧和戏曲这两种表演方式中的“亮相”那样，人物出场时要率先展示出自己最具性格特征的一面，影视作品中的人物角色也是一样。
比如电影《教父》中那一段长达25分钟的婚礼剧情一样，虽然那样长的时间里几乎无事发生，但这并不妨碍它成为电影史上如数家珍的经典镜头之一，因为那个段落就是一个标签化的场景，里面聚集主演和了众多小人物，每一个人的出场都颇具个人特色。
举这个例子的目的，是为了让大家明确塑造人物的重要性。人物的“脸谱”在创作开始前就要绘制清晰，这样后期人物在故事的进展中作出选择将会更容易。如果一开始对人物性格特征没有一个清晰的概念，在后续剧情发展中，剧作者往往会不知道角色的发展方向和所做的选择，因为这个角色从一开始就是模糊不清的。而且，观众和演员也是没有耐心的，观众看到这样混乱的人物不会有兴趣继续看下去，而演员在筛选剧本时也没有闲情逸致帮你理清人物的发展脉络。
目标拆分，以及为了实现目标所作的选择
为主角选择一个必须攻克的目标时，首先要从最小的目标开始。如果为主角怎样完成终极目标而苦恼，不妨从当下开始入手。即，主人公想要完成目标，首先要吃饭，要出门，要努力完善自己，那么在这个过程当中发生的故事，就可以推进整个剧情的发展，哪怕只是迈出了很小的一步，但只要让人物不断尝试新的选择，对错都不重要，重要的是让人物在短时间内发生变化，让人物“活”起来，而后自然而然地，你的故事中可能产生连你自己也意想不到的新灵感。
例如，在电影《灵异第六感》中，编剧M·奈特·沙马兰（M. Night Shyamalan）在将故事改到第十稿时，他突然发现，原来他的主角不知道自己已经死了。也就是说，编剧此时是跟角色站在同一个视角去推进故事的，只有在这种情况之下，剧情才有可能出现这种出人意料的惊喜，这也是让角色自然而然发展的产物，而不是用设计好的剧情推动他们去做选择的产物。
也就是说，主人公为了完成目标所做的选择，是无法被事先安排的，只有不断去尝试各种可能性，不断试错，才能得到最令自己和观众满意的结局。
师生访谈
在课程结束后，我们对Jacob老师及部分同学做了一下简短的访谈，以下是访谈：
附：中英文字版
Q:Could you please introduce yourself and what you taught?
可否请您介绍一下自己以及您的教学内容？
A:My name is Jacob Krueger,and I run a screenwriting school in NYC. I came here to teach Chinese writers how to build better characters ,how to build the structure of their screenplays and TV shows, how to create a journey for the characters, and also how to build their voices as an artist,then they could tell the most profound and unique stories that are inside them.
我是Jacob Krueger，在美国纽约运营一所编剧学校，此次来到中国是为了教授中国的编剧们如何在他们的剧本中和电视节目中更好地塑造角色与故事架构，怎样创作角色的成长历程，以及如何运用艺术家的语言进行创作，使得大家能够创作出内心深处最深刻的、最独一无二的故事。
Q:What do you think the most frequently questions ask by the Chinese audience,what are they and how did you answer them?
你听到的中国观众提得最多的问题是什么？你又是怎样回答他们的呢？
A:So we got a lot of questions about structure. One of the big things that we talk about,what's the difference between plots,the things that happen in your life,and structure the choices that characters make in relation to the plot.So we do a lot of work answer questions about how to build structure without getting lost in the plot of your story.We also have a lot of questions about formula,a lot of desire to build formulaic movie, to have some kind of formula that you could put your story into.So a big part of what we did was to demystify that idea and help writers understand instead of how to drive a movies,how to make a movie similar to what’s already come out,instead how to find an unique structure that fit only their film, the kind of structure that grows out of characters and theme so that everything in a movie full of unique and integrated.
大家有许多关于剧本架构的问题，其中很大一部分是在问故事情节与现实生活、以及角色根据情节所做的选择，这三者之间的不同。因此我花了大量时间来解答关于如何在不迷失于故事情节的条件下搭建剧本架构。
此外，我还听到了很多关于剧本写作公式的问题，大家很渴望用程式化的方式创作电影，渴望寻找一种能将故事代入进去的剧本格式。所以我做了很多努力来阐释我的观点，帮助编剧们明白不要机械地推进故事发展、不要去创作千篇一律的电影，而是怎样找到适合他们的电影的独一无二的架构，找到那种从角色和主题而来的架构，使得电影中的一切都独特且完整。
Q:So could you brief us a little bit on seven-act structure because it is so different from the three-act we usually hear.
七幕剧结构与传统三幕剧有很大的不同，因此可否请你对七幕剧结构做一个简短的概述呢？
A: When I first started as a screen writer,I did things everybody did.I read a book called screenplay by Syd Field and this is what the idea of three-act structure began. Three-act structure basically says that a movie has a beginning, a middle and an end.And if you have ever told a story,the idea of a beginning, a middle and an end is probably not very exciting to you. You probably already know that. The problem of the three-act structure is that when we are thinking about stories about begin in middle and end ,we are not actually thinking about the character. Because our character has no idea that it is beginning,our character has no idea that is middle,and our character has no idea that is the end.
在我刚刚开始编剧事业的时候，我也在和大家做同样的事情。我曾经读过一本叫做《screenplay》的书，作者是Syd Field，内容是关于三幕剧的最初构想。三幕剧基本阐释了电影由开端、发展和结局三个阶段组成。如果你曾尝试过创作故事，你一定对这个理论不陌生。三幕剧的问题在于，当我们构思一个故事的开端、发展和结局时，并没有真正地想过如何塑造角色，因为角色不知道什么是故事的开端、发展和结局，
The only person who knows this is the beginning the middle and end is the audience. And so when we think about structure in terms of the beginning the middle and end,we take ourselves out of the eyes of our character and start watching a movie instead as an observer from the outside. And this leads us to start manipulating our characters rather than experiencing life through them. It leads us to writing derivatives or cliches on original characters rather than writing unique characters that make unique choices.The other problem of the three-act structure is everybody who is ever try to use it get lost in the second act,because the second act of the structure is 60 pages long, and because they are thinking about plots and audience rather than the character's journey, the second act tends to go very wrong.
知道开端、发展和结局的人只有观众。所以当我们按照这三个阶段来构思剧本结构的时候，我们就已经脱离了角色的视角，转而成了置身事外的旁观者。这让我们开始操纵角色而不是体验他们的生活，因此我们开始在原本独一无二的角色身上添加一些缺乏创意的、陈词滥调的剧情，而无法创造出能够做出自主选择的出挑的角色。三幕剧的另一个问题是，每个试图运用它的人都会迷失在第二幕里，因为第二幕将近60页长，而且作者往往在意剧情和观众超过了角色的旅程，因此在第二幕就会趋向于迷失。
So the seven-act structure is a technique that I developed for myself early in my career. It allows me to focus on character rather than plot,they allows me to write my movies from the point of view of my characters rather than trying to manipulate my characters through a preexisting plot. Rather than thinking about the beginning the middle and the end,what I am thinking about are the things that characters desperately wants,the obstacles stand in their way,and the choices the characters need to made,because for me the foundation of structure is choice.So in learning seven-act structure what we really learning is how to build structure intuitively and organically,how to build structure out of our subconscious instincts,out of the images that come to us in our dreams, out of the motivations of our character's, out of psychology. We learning how to build a much more natural way. And we are breaking down structure into smaller chunks so that we have smaller movement we can do, so we can really track each step of the character during each change the character makes.
而七幕剧结构是我在我的职业生涯早期发展的一种技巧，它使得我更专注于角色而不是剧情，使得我从我的角色出发去写剧本，而不是通过一个已经存在的剧情去操纵他们，也不会过于关注故事的开端、发展和结局。我关注的是角色内心极度渴望的事、他实现目标途中的阻碍，和他需要做出的选择，因为对我来说这个结构的基础就是做选择。
因此在学习七幕剧的过程中，我们实际学习的是怎样依靠直觉顺其自然地搭建剧本结构，怎样依靠我们的本能和天性、依靠梦境中的画面、依靠角色的主观能动性、依靠心理学原理来创作剧情，去学习怎样创造一种更加自然的写作方式。我们将剧本架构打碎成一个个模块，使得我们可以采取更小的行动，可以沿着角色的变化轨迹不断向前推进。
Q:Last question,what do you think of the Chinese audience and what your impression of this trip to China?
最后一个问题，你对中国观众以及此次中国之旅的印象如何？
A:I get to travel a lot,this year I am going on spot in Grace,Hawaii,NYC and China,so I get to travel a lot one of the very exciting things about working with Chinese film community was getting to work with people who have different point of view and maybe have not been exposed to these ideas before.Part of the joy of teaching for me is helping students connect to their intuition and it seems like a lot of students here, most of their training was a very intellectual training. So whats exciting for me to work with the talented film makers and help them not let go of their intellect but instead start to integrate their intellect with the more intuitive and spiritual aspect of writing.
我经常旅行，今年我去了希腊、夏威夷、纽约和中国，其中一件很激动人心的事情是与中国的影视机构合作时，与持着不同观点的、以及未曾接触过这类观点的人们一起共事。一部分幸福感来源于我的教学旨在帮助学生抓住和运用直觉，这里的很多学生接受过非常系统化的训练，与这些有才华的电影人一起工作令我感到兴奋，我希望能够帮助他们不让自己的才华溜走，并且将自己的才华与写作的直觉、灵感结合到一起。
扩展阅读：24K纯干货
不同于传统三幕剧，七幕剧更像是一种更加精细的机械式表盘，将故事的走向不断细分，使得传统三幕剧的第二幕，即故事发展的部分变得不再那么冗长。
如果说三幕剧是一个剧本的基本骨架，那么七幕剧便为这副骨架添加了肌肉、神经和毛细血管。这种剧作方法给了编剧们一种全新的可能，而不是像往常那样在繁杂庞大的第二幕中迷失自己。
那么，七幕剧到底是什么？
以下内容摘自Jacob Krueger的网站
●THE STORY OF 7 ACT STRUCTURE：
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away,
a man named Syd Field wrote a book called Screenplay.
Syd took the world’s greatest screenplays, and broke them down into his now famous three-act structure, identifying the elements that made them work, and showing aspiring screenwriters a simple way to emulate those elements in their own scripts. Suddenly, every production executive, aspiring screenwriter, script consultant and screenwriting teacher had a magic formula for success. All they had to do was copy Syd Field’s magical three act formula and surely their movie would be as successful as the films that inspired it.
●七幕剧的故事：
很久以前，在一个遥远的星系里，一个叫谢·菲尔德的人写了一本叫做Screenplay的书。
他把世界上最伟大的剧本分解成如今著名的三幕剧结构，并找出了使这种结构发挥作用的因素，用一种简单的方法向有抱负的编剧们展示，让他们在自己的剧本中进行模仿。于是突然地，每一位制片主管、编剧、剧本顾问和剧本写作老师都像是拥有了一个通往成功的神奇公式。他们所要做的就是模仿谢·菲尔德神奇的的三幕剧公式，只要这样，他们的电影一定会像那些激发了谢·菲尔德创造出三幕剧结构的电影一样成功。
Three act structure broke screenwriting into three simple acts of creation:
ACT ONE: the beginning.
ACT TWO: the middle.
ACT THREE: the end.
三幕结构将剧本创作成拆分成三个单独的分幕：
第一幕：开端。
第二幕：发展。
第三幕：结局。
There was only one problem. It didn’t actually work.
As brilliant as three-act structure was for describing finished drafts, and as much valuable information as Screenplay contained, as a tool for developing new material, it was often disastrous. Writers using three-act structure tended to find themselves “lost in the second act,” wandering in a 60 page wasteland of plot, without the slightest sense of how it all related to their character’s journey. Producers imposing three-act structure in script development often landed their most promising material in “development hell“– the dreaded place where screenplays go to die once they’ve been “perfected” to a point where absolutely no one wants to make them.
但三幕剧结构存在一个问题，那就是它实际上根本不起作用。
像三幕这种完美地概括已完成的剧本、以及剧本所包含的有价值的信息的结构，如果将它作为创作新剧本的套路，结果常常是灾难性的。使用三幕结构的作家往往发现自己会迷失在剧本的第二幕，徘徊在60页荒原似的情节中，丝毫感觉不到这一切与他们的人物旅程有任何关系。
那些在剧本创作中深受三幕剧结构影响的制作人，常常把决定性因素放在这地狱般的第二幕里面——一个把原本完美的剧本搞成没人想要的剧本的可怕地方。
How is it possible that a structure based upon the most successful screenplays in history could prove so completely counterintuitive when it came to creating new work?
Simple. Syd Field’s approach to writing doesn’t work because nobody actually writes that way. Writing is a messy, complex, and intuitive process. A fascinating dance between the editing and creative parts of the writer’s mind. It doesn’t work in a straight line. It works in ever expanding circles. It’s one thing to look at a screenwriting masterpiece, identify the beginning, middle and end, and reverse engineer the structure that holds it all together. It’s quite another to start with the blank page, a rough draft, a great idea, or a compelling character and organically discover the great story that lies within.
从历史上最成功的剧本中提炼出的结构，怎么能使得人们在创作新作品时完全违背直觉呢？道理很简单，谢·菲尔德的写作方法是不起作用的，因为没有人真的会按照这种套路写作。写作是一个混乱、复杂、直观的过程，是一个在编辑、创造以及的作家大脑中最有创造力的部分之间舞蹈的过程。它不是一条直线，而是一个不断扩张的圆圈。
学习大师级的剧作、区分开端、发展和结局、并逆向推理出一种集大成的结构是一回事，而从一张白纸、一页草稿、一个好的想法，或者一个引人注目的角色开始，自然而然地发现其中的好故事，又完全是另外一回事了。
That’s why I developed Seven Act Structure.Seven Act Structure takes your focus off of rigid formulas and critical ideas, and puts it back where it belongs: on creating the most compelling journey for your main character. It breaks down the movement of your story into manageable chunks, so that you can wrap your head around the complexities of your character, and their journey, without feeling overwhelmed by all you’re trying to accomplish. And most importantly, Seven Act Structure honors the intuitive and mysterious nature of the writers craft, allowing you to develop your story organically, one step at a time, even when you don’t know exactly where it’s leading.
这就是我之所以开发七幕剧结构的原因。七幕结构使人们的注意力从僵化的公式和批判性的想法上移开，发挥它本来的作用——为主人公创作出最引人注目的故事旅程。七幕剧结构把故事情节分解成易于处理的模块，这样你就可以将头埋在人物的复杂性和他们的发展历程上，而不会感到被众多繁琐的事物淹没。
最重要的是，七幕结构尊重作者创作的直觉性和神秘性，允许你顺其自然地一步步地展开你的故事，即便你不知道故事的走向也完全可以。
Jacob Krueger老师北京授课活动已圆满结束，感谢老师、同学及各友好伙伴的大力支持！接下来为大家精心设置的是“救猫咪”电影、网剧、项目工作坊系列课程，详细内容请点击阅读以下链接：
电影剧作法、网剧大讲堂、项目工作坊，“救猫咪”系列编剧法10月20－28日北京授课！
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