Categories of "Ticking Clock" Pressure - Hard to describe sorry

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prexdealer

Well-known member
Hi,

Helping out with a script. A rom com.

What is missing is a pressing need/urgency/motivation to move the movie along. Is there a book or resource that sort of lays out the general themes that fit this category?

Here would be some examples:

1) Person leaving - Nottinghill - Julia Roberts character is about to leave and Hugh Grant and the gang go through hoops to get there. Love Actually - little kid races through airport to tell the girl how he feels.
2) Forced departure - The Proposal - Sandra Bullock's character was going to be deported/ Green Card - same idea
3) Death and Destruction is Coming - Any of those asteroid movies, etc. Something bad will happen if they don't act
4) Ex is about to get married still have feelings and need to stop the wedding
5) Wrongly Accused/Seeking Justice - Shawshank Redemption
6) Bad Guys Must Be Stopped - Any Bruce Willis Movie - lol ok not any - I am a fan, just joking
7) Someone got pregnant


I am not the most articulate and having a hard time grouping the samples above into more logical categories.

Just hoping someone might be able to direct me to a guide. The movie needs something to make the characters move with some purpose.

Thanks.
 
prexdealer said:
Hi,

Helping out with a script. A rom com.

...
I am not the most articulate and having a hard time grouping the samples above into more logical categories.

Just hoping someone might be able to direct me to a guide. The movie needs something to make the characters move with some purpose.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

There are many 'ticking clock' mechanisms seen in movies. Some of the types you use are not 'rom com'... unless its a rom com involving blowing things up, or breaking out of jail...

What is the purpose of the ticking clock... to force action, and perhaps allow for 'mistakes' such that the pressure increases... 'clip the blue wire... oh... damn now the clock is ticking faster'...

I don't know that enumerating and then 'classifying' is all that important, as just structurally finding something that 'works', perhaps with an eye for some novel 'clock'.

How about 'waiting for the DNA tests to come back... damn Mr. Loverboy is not the father... double damn, the lab screwed up... they marry eventually because True Love(tm) conquers all, and we all know True Love(tm) is only found with marriage as the ultimate goal'...
 
Derek Chingwell said:
Perhaps an indication of the storyline/theme or the characters would help... it's literally a blank canvas at the moment.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely right. I have not said much.

It is just one of those two friends (man and woman) who live together as roommates. They also work together, she goes out with someone else and of course he has to tell her how much she loves him, etc. That alone doesn't seem to create enough urgency.

Maybe a corporate takeover is happening and they are losing their jobs and only the women is offered a job.

It just seems like often this external pressure falls into just a few categories. I am not asking for something super original because you should save it for your film, but was hoping for any ideas.

Thanks.
 
There is a term for that (we used to call it 'race against time') but I don't know how exactly it's called.

Good example within this context might be cancer situation with Mr. White in Breaking Bad. That's a kind of ticking clock you're asking for... something that will influence the life/situation of a protagonist and mess his/her goal, making him act with urgency.

In rom coms usually (this particular situation) one of them is offered to get married... we've all seen it a lot of times. Or, in two week woman and her partner will move to New Zeland and never come back. Or, the male roommate has his dream job come true but he needs to move to Alaska forever. Stuff like that, something that will separate them for good.

I'm shooting in the dark, but I guess you should start from your characters. Who are they, what do they really want, what could be this huge thing that will change their life forever? It needs to be something epic, something once-in-a-lifetime. It's a rom com, so make sure it's also something positive and inspirational. I'd say, if you start from there, a lot of new ideas will come to mind. Good luck!
 
"it's literally a blank canvas at the moment."

I just literally barfed all over my keyboard.

Anyway--

This reducing drama to some pat devices one can steal and plug in from other places sort of makes the whole thing not worth doing. Is there any particular motivation why you need to put some arbitrary ticking clock into your story?

Unmotivated choices are the main reason that 95% of what's shat out of Hollywood is unwatchable dreck. What kind of deadlines would your characters actually face if they were living people?
 
theres nothing wrong with wanting to add a ticking clock if your story naturally suggests one, just dont bend your story out of shape to force one on it. Think of these types of techniques as "things that might make the work better", not rules. Every good script breaks a few "rules".

Also, originality comes from depth of character, not from plot, so why not use one of the simple ones that you already mentioned? Shes headed toward marraige, etc would work fine, no need to reinvent the plot wheel. Again, your originailty can come from your sepcial treatment of the characters, focus on making them not-stereotypes, complex and real poeple, and keep the plot simple

mail4joeg is spot on , btw, and is kind of saying the same thing- let the plot emerge organically (and simply) from the characters and their backgrounds, and dont pretzel-engineer the plot just to apply some structural tip.
 
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Though I have a book, Secrets Of Action Screenwriting, with a chapter on ticking clocks... I don't think that's the problem, here.

As others have said: you can't just force some device onto two people to create a story, that device has to be the logical part of the story... and it sounds as if you don't have a story, just two characters and a genre.

At the core of romcoms is an element that brings the characters together and pulls them apart at the same time, novelist James M. Cain called this the "Love Rack". So SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is all about how communications have made us all closer no matter how far we live from each other. So a woman in Maryland can hear a man in Seattle on a live radio shop and they can begin a long distance relationship... though they have been brought together by the ability to communicate cross country, what pulls them apart is that cross country part. NOTTING HILL has a bookish man who doesn't care about celebrity meeting and falling in love with a celebrity who is trouble finding love due to her fame. Celebrity brings them together and that is also what pulls them apart. In WHEN HARRY MET SALLY friendship brings them together and friendship is what pulls them apart as lovers. You need to figure it is that brings the two together but also pushes them apart... and the best place to start with that is the characters. What is it that brings them together? Why do they fall in love? What is each's personal issue that may be what pulls them apart?

After that, check out this on endings...
http://www.scriptsecrets.net/tips/tip233.htm

Bill
 
Love concurs all. Any obstacle in the way of fate could be nailbiter, a race to the clock if you will.
 
I've got it:

Her date with someone else goes south in a major way. Turns out, the guy's a serial kidnapper from São Paulo, he mistakes the roommate for her legitimate S.O., and chops off one of her ears and sends it to the guy for ransom, threatening to chop off another appendage for every day that the payment is delayed.

As the days go by and he frantically searches for ways to get the money, the various pieces of his would-be lover start to pile up in their apartment, and the "ticking clock" is that with every passing day, there is literally less of her for him to love. So he starts to mail pieces of himself to the kidnapper in return.

A brilliant story filled with hilarious hijinks, the script will have you laughing 'till you cry.
 
The 'race against time' element usually comes in at the midpoint. Another related midpoint cliche is "sex at [page] 60." If your romantic comedy involves the love interests battling some external problem, they might team up at the midpoint. If the whole conflict is their relationship, the midpoint would not involve them getting together but the introduction of the time element. Since this can be quite literally anything, how about you think of your own personal life? What are some obstacles that have kept you away from a person?
 
prexdealer said:
Hi,

Helping out with a script. A rom com.

What is missing is a pressing need/urgency/motivation to move the movie along. Is there a book or resource that sort of lays out the general themes that fit this category?

Here would be some examples:

1) Person leaving - Nottinghill - Julia Roberts character is about to leave and Hugh Grant and the gang go through hoops to get there. Love Actually - little kid races through airport to tell the girl how he feels.
2) Forced departure - The Proposal - Sandra Bullock's character was going to be deported/ Green Card - same idea
3) Death and Destruction is Coming - Any of those asteroid movies, etc. Something bad will happen if they don't act
4) Ex is about to get married still have feelings and need to stop the wedding
5) Wrongly Accused/Seeking Justice - Shawshank Redemption
6) Bad Guys Must Be Stopped - Any Bruce Willis Movie - lol ok not any - I am a fan, just joking
7) Someone got pregnant


I am not the most articulate and having a hard time grouping the samples above into more logical categories.

Just hoping someone might be able to direct me to a guide. The movie needs something to make the characters move with some purpose.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'd go through a bunch of movies and list them all. It's not that hard.
 
prexdealer—

This is a toughie. You're not looking for a "ticking clock," but rather a vehicle to get your people moving. Look for something to de-stabalize your characters world. Perhaps someone announces they're pregnant, and the partner has no job—or no prospects. That would add urgency to anyone's life. Look at the Michael Douglas movie "Wonder Boys" for an example of that. What if one of the partners was offered a new job and had to decide by next Saturday—or the position will be snatched up by a coworker!

Maybe the partner is kidnapped—and it's an action movie you want to write. Check out "Breakdown" with Kurt Russel.

Anything that will radically upset the balance of your people's life.
 
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