sw-korean-french-screenwriting

Korean and French Screenwriting Practice (韩国/法国编剧方法)

Output language = question language; terminology is always anchored back to the original word, see sw-workflow/terms.md, do not invent translated names.

Source: three of the first four lectures in Story Creation Masterclass · International Volume: Oh Seung-uk (Korea, Christmas in August, Green Fish, The Shameless), Choi Seok-hwan (Korea, The King and the Clown, Lost in Hong Kong), and Frédéric Auburtin (France, Paris, je t'aime, The Envoy, Pont des Arts). Japan's Haruhiko Arai and ten Japanese directors see sw-japanese-screenwriting; the four Hollywood lectures see sw-american-case-studies and sw-industry-business。

The three share a common foundation:research first, then write; read the script aloud to harsh listeners; toward the producers, "if you can persuade them, persuade them; if you can't, accept it and grit your teeth and do it". Differences: Oh Seung-uk emphasizes emotion and space, Choi Seok-hwan emphasizes genre contract and the double helix of desire/crisis, Auburtin emphasizes writing dialogue last and participating throughout post-production.

1. Oh Seung-uk: Screenwriting is a profession that requires endurance

Depict the emotion

Christmas in August was criticized as "a beginner with no commercial appeal": using short-story sentences to write action routes (washing hands: red basin, crisp sound, raindrops as black dots on a white shirt), originating from Lee Chang-dong's "1990s Korean cinema lacks an emotion most of all." Self-reflection: too many adjectives and adverbs blur the focus; too much objectivity makes producers and audiences find it dull.
Anti-traditional date scene ("come chase me") → Hur Jin-ho suggested the male lead tell a ghost story, accurately expressing warmth.
A terminal-illness film that does not cry, announcing early that time is short rather than earning tears after falling in love: "Since there are already so many tragedies in the world, don't exploit them for commercial profit; that's not very moral."
For Christmas in August, visited terminal-illness patients: cooking ramen at midnight, cycling for a walk, eating watermelon and roughhousing with a younger sister, crying under the covers—"being able to manage one's own life well does not mean being constantly depressed" → washing pens, writing a video camera manual for Dad.

Research first, then write

Park Kwang-su personally went to a remote island before shooting to see the soil color, the look of the trees, and residents' conflicts before writing; Lee Chang-dong walked to gather material (dam flooding displaced residents → farmers who lost their land and sell chicken soup; "if you drive, you're not like a writer").
Undercover-style research: sent a young handsome guy into a homicide unit for a week to make detailed records of arrests; worked as a secretary for gangsters, carrying bags and cleaning (what he saw was arguing over tribute money, "like teenagers in a childish standoff"); interviewed nightclub girls about what makeup they wore, their tone, the origin of cigarette burns on their hands; interviewing male customers at nightclubs was more valuable than directly seeking hostesses (a novel perspective); "if the interviewee resists the screenwriter identity, entrust it to someone else or claim to be a production crew gofer or apprentice; if the interviewee feels superior, they will boast and talk freely"; "Korean screenwriters refuse all interviews that reveal their identity, disguising themselves to get close."
Imagination alone cannot create characters(The Shameless female lead): the second interview yielded two phenomena (renting luxury clothes, personally collecting debts) → "a nightclub girl going to the company to demand payment from the boss is a brilliant confrontation," then imagine the male lead following along.
A liar who tells the truth: Lee Chang-dong described his own experiences objectively in a perfect third person; for things hard to speak of, stand in a third-party position and be a perfect liar. "Conveying truth through lies is the screenwriter's ultimate goal."

Structure and space

Act One and the Last Act Come First: You can only work once you've designed the first act and the last act; 《The Twin Cop and Thief》 began with the image of a Gangwon Province snow scene—"a dying man lying there, another kneeling before him without a word"—and then the earlier parts were pieced together; in 《The Shameless》 the final scene is "from afar, a loving embrace; up close, a woman stabbing a man with a knife"; an investor demanded an opening with a rainy day, an old van, and a body being dumped, and the director agonized for three months without being able to make it work.
Write 60 of 120 Scenes First, Leave the Rest Blank, driving around aimlessly with the art director through old residential districts of Incheon, improvising imaginings like "a woman walks out of that apartment building—she's the target we're tailing."
Space as the Backbone of the Entire Film: the female lead moves three times (a high-end white-collar apartment while waiting for her lover → driven out by pursuit → a completely fallen slum on the outskirts, "the floors get higher and higher and more and more broken"); the slaughterhouse dormitory has partition boards like a wasp nest, and over twenty pairs of shoes at the entrance.
The three acts are divided by emotional ups and downs rather than evenly (《Christmas in August》 has about 30 scenes each in acts one and two, and 10 scenes in act three); while watching a movie he keeps checking his watch; he likes it when the audience thinks it's over but the story continues (in 《The Shameless》, after being caught, continuing to search for the female lead is the third act).
Transition Point Fatigue: in a 90-minute film the audience checks their watch at 60 minutes, in a 120-minute film at 70 minutes, and in a 120-scene film at scene 70; "the most boring stage of a film is the transition point," and masterpieces make brilliant use of the characters' emotional conflicts exactly where the audience first begins to feel bored; many directors force in unsuitable scenes or lift passages from others.
The Climax Is the Hardest to Write: the point in act two where the emotion reaches its climactic explosion (the male lead decides to betray the female lead and thoroughly use her to kill the criminal) is still two or three transitional scenes away from the climax.
Scene transitions should have impact: while writing one scene, the next scene surfaces in his mind (a strong wind behind, a full moon); at the start of 《The Shameless》, one minute of a back view → a frontal face emerging in the mirror.
The undercover setup: every word the male lead says is a lie, while the female lead is someone who does not lie—the nightclub madam says, "The only counterattack we can make is to tell the truth in every word."

Find the Angle You Like

The first principle is logical plausibility, the second is being interesting (being interesting is not objective; he insists on persuading the audience to accept his own feelings); "only Oh Seung-wook can write an Oh-style screenplay."
He learned fresh entry points from 《Water Margin》 (the perspectives of Li Kui and Wu Dalang) and Zhang Che's 《The Happy Forest》 (Wu Song as a murderous villain); the character detail in 《The Great Assassin》 that Nie Zheng "must repay a mediocre man who appreciated him"; inspired by a supporting character in 《Water Margin》, he made the entire film revolve around just two people: the detective and the criminal's lover.
Breaking the tough-guy formula: the male lead is androgynous, even feminine in quality, and listless at the opening; a large number of back-view close-ups drew investors' complaints of "why are there so few shots of his face"—"with superb acting, even the way he walks is the character."
He pays more attention to the villain than the protagonist, adding in the most vicious things he himself has done and the bad things others have done to him; when observing relatives and friends, he has to write around the point, otherwise "you won't have a single friend left."
"If one day I admit my films are art films, I should retire"—he wholeheartedly provides the audience with a perfect product.

With Producers and Directors

Read the Script Aloud to Harsh People: find five or six people who understand screenwriting and hold grudges because you've criticized them, and have them listen to the reading from morning to night; when a bare-back bathhouse scene expressing exhaustion was cursed as "crazy in the head," he worked hard to lay foreshadowing; for the romance line, he had those present take separate roles to simulate and rehearse it.
"Take my name off" is the final weapon; multiple investors each make demands, and the lead actor repeatedly does too; persuade the director to restore the first draft and then go find actors (the tacit understanding of eating watermelon and spitting out the seeds) → investors come in one after another.
Favorite scenes all cut: put beloved scenes into key moments (the French priest having the little girl stand on his feet to waltz was moved to the most urgent point when the city is surrounded) "becoming an indispensable part"; the one or two cut scenes represent the work's imagery, find a way to rescue and integrate them into the whole.
Darkest hour: the director was initially overjoyed, then after several meetings with the producer and investors made a 180-degree turn, the new script "has no soul"; revising the script "stay true to the original intention, try to persuade them to change as little as possible, the probability of the producers offering good ideas is very low."
After submitting the draft the gates of hell open: the small company "turns all the protagonists into rich people and moves them to Jiangnan to shoot a glittering, extravagant life"—"I have never experienced the life of the rich and cannot write a single word"; the boss's hotel joke flashes into the opening with three people staring at one another; accept the compromise of adding criminal scenes; at the ending they are asked to add martial arts "the director shot it so insincerely."
On-set script changes: the scene of the man and woman meeting for the first time was left as on-set homework and could not be written, so it was changed to persuading the actors to assure the director "I will act it well," "thankful for that day's air and breeze"—the script is only a skeleton.
The biggest motivation is the deadline (with a three-week limit, spend the first two weeks enjoying life, then cry while writing in the last few days); "writing a script is like staying up all night writing a love letter to someone you deeply love, then tearing it up in shame the next day."
Lee Chang-dong repeatedly asks every day "does this scene have use, interest, and existential value," and even after seven or eight times still reluctantly says "let's just leave it like this."
"The Shameless" was revised for ten years, rejected by six production companies, and declined by seven or eight top actors—"endurance is the key word."

II. Choi Seok-hwan: How Genre Films Tell Stories

Industry and the Three-Person Model

History of Korean cinema: translating Japanese novels → local novels → 1980s adult films (for every four films made, one import quota was exchanged) → 1990s new genres → 2006 fully opened yet still good films every year; "globally only China, Korea, and India have local industries that can compete."
As close as family: the producer stands entirely on the audience's side; the director is a vampire addicted to content; the screenwriter is "like a prostitute" and must cater to the producer; the three eat, live, and brainstorm together—"a characteristic of Korean cinema, the secret to beating Hollywood."
The best liar: "lies must be told vividly and interestingly"; the one who comes back empty-handed from the primordial cave performs wrestling a bear; tricking mom out of money for reference books and donating it to a beggar makes her moved to tears, "the level has to be high." The three acts are "the highest truth for screenwriters."
Building a house and choosing a location: Wanda Plaza type (starting at 100 million USD) vs department store; the author chooses the family-friendly type; "if you are a lucky one, get the script off your hands and sell it as soon as possible, then go write something better."

Fidelity to genre is a promise to the audience

Structure has no effect on the audience but is important to the screenwriter (the safety of a building); genre plays by the rules like the floors of a department store;comedy cannot have a break in laughs from beginning to end (even if the tragic male lead must die at the end, there still must be laughs); no matter how many laughs a mystery has, do not forget its essence; elements are rich but there is a main axis; "genre is an agreement made from buying a ticket based on the poster, you cannot deceive, at most 5–10% minor innovation"; mixing must have "every genre at 100 points, expressed with a unified tone." Truby's "twist the beat on the premise of hitting every beat" is retained alongside this, see sw-genre-anatomy II.
Details are like interior decoration—do not build a golden hall for a pure gold toilet; if the whole is good, do not worry about flawed details, revise slowly.

Make the audience wait, feel joy, and savor

A long, boring first section is normal; it is enough if the middle and end are interesting; the opposite is doomed to fail.
Grandmother's fairy tale(the tiger and the rice cake) breakdown: a few strokes of introduction → an sudden event →qualitative change rather than quantitative change(The pastry is an offering → the mother becomes the second offering; "a million-strong army after a ten-million-strong army" is merely a quantitative change) → tension and speed → resolution requires a reversal (a rope from the heavens) →Another rope falls, the second reversal—"One reversal is not enough; squeeze out every ounce of imagination to make the ending into two reversals" →bittersweet(add beauty when sad, add sadness when it's a happy reunion); reversals must not be too forced by ulterior purpose; "a fairy-tale rope from the heavens is a fairy tale, but a film can't do that."

Collision with the World

The prototype of Lost in Hong Kong (a father with three months to live helping his family fulfill their dreams) was questioned in China, so Xu Zheng made it more comedic. "The more you break boundaries and touch desire, the stronger the pull on the audience"—what is not allowed in reality is allowed in film.
Ask yourself: what makes me tense/happy/angry/reflective/ashamed, what past is interrogating the present. There are only two kinds of good scripts: a new subject no one has ever written; a retelling of an existing story.
If your life has no entanglements or conflicts, you cannot be a good screenwriter; male screenwriters write father-child stories, female screenwriters write mother-daughter stories; write the field you love rather than catering to others; subjects that provoke anger have a high success rate; for historical drama ask "why this story, what does it enlighten today."

Desire and Crisis

The story's environmental crisis gradually deepens, the protagonist's desire continuously intensifies; the protagonist's motivation is clear while also having a persistent point of fear; the audience does not want a perfect protagonist, nor do they want to see their own double—they want the exotic; the pursuit process is intense and fast-paced.
The richest man example: external deterioration + deepening desire make him inhuman, and a supporting character's line "Does your family want you to earn money like this?" is enough for the audience to feel the emotion of loving family.
The protagonist must undergo a qualitative change even if only one night passes(like someone who returns after five years of traveling the world).
Supporting characters are not born for the protagonist; in their own lives they are the absolute protagonists, and the most core values can be conveyed through supporting characters; a short person who is petty can be defined by goals and anger points (gets angry when mocked for being short vs. only turns and walks away when mocked for being short).
Ask "what price does the protagonist pay, what does he give up"—having 10 billion and earning another 100 million is not exciting; risking the loss of 10 billion to earn 100 million is exciting; a person who keeps a Persian cat collapses when the cat disappears.
Not deciding the ending in advance is absolutely unacceptable: "you can go to Beijing or you can go to Tianjin"; resolving at the climax does not mean it is over; only when the psychology at the climax differs from the ending can there be a second climax; avoid having the protagonist speak the theme, use images instead (jumping off a train heading toward glory and running toward the lover).
"If a story is written well, no one asks about the theme"—being asked "what do you want to express" shows low completion; use explanatory voice-over sparingly, the worst is the protagonist drinking coffee the next day and narrating the previous plot; if explanation is necessary, let characters argue to carry it; TV dramas can have plain chatting, films need gorgeous conflict.
Two elements of a successful crime film: a strong criminal motive that does not exist in reality is performed to attract; what could happen in reality is portrayed well. "What is written by hand ranks second, what is written by foot ranks above." Tsui Hark: "As long as there is one good screenwriter in the world, even if he is in hell I will grab him."

III. Aubiantan: The Creative Mode of Serving as Both Screenwriter and Director

The French System

The auteur film tradition (Carné and Prévert; after the New Wave the director became the author, with final cut in the director's hands); the National Center for Cinema returns a percentage of box office to authors (even Hollywood films released there have a percentage taken to support domestic production); almost every film signs a distribution contract with a TV station, and television's pursuit of mass content "harms free creation"; what can escape this is literary adaptation.
Blasz (Polanski's and Arnaud's go-to) shut himself in and wouldn't go out, cat on the bed, TV silent—"a screenwriter can even not go out; imagination is what matters most"; "thoughts must keep boiling like water on a rolling boil."
The structure for a theatrical adaptation is ready-made, but don't film it as a recorded play; unhesitatingly cut characters and plot from the original and add new ones; increase the sense of three-dimensional space; after each full emotional beat, let the audience rest.

Write dialogue last

Many French scripts go into production before they are fully written and are bound to fail; "all the conception is completed in the mind; writing is only the final step"; for a young screenwriter to start with "interior, time, location" and then go straight into dialogue is a major mistake.
Rappeneau (Cyrano de Bergerac, script doctor, office covered wall-to-wall with sticky notes) procedure: first draft → structure → put in the lines last; with every scene you write, ask why it is handled this way and what is necessary about it.
The most important thing in comedy is rhythm: the effect of Wilder's Some Like It Hot comes from the protagonist getting out of difficulties through situations rather than through language; a successful comedy makes the whole audience laugh at the first shot; "watched it three hundred times and still laugh" is the standard.
Create disasters for the characters: "pain and misfortune are the source of comedy," "happy people have no stories"; Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! creates comic situations at the tragic moment of the Nazi occupation. Veber's script for Les Compères, 13 pages, tiny handwriting, even the punctuation chosen;Read the script aloud(read it to an assistant, a spouse, or a goldfish); each reading is a filter, like rainwater seeping through to become groundwater.
Only 12 lines of dialogue, not even 13(Eastwood to a new screenwriter): silence is more powerful than speech, a pause is more powerful than a note; good dialogue has subtext beneath the surface information that "opens another door"; work on character biographies before writing dialogue (Latin Quarter: "Sorry I'm late" = "I didn't want to come, so I deliberately made you wait"; "You look pretty good" = "I won't say unpleasant things to your face; I have breeding"—like boxers trading punches back and forth);Show what you can see, and if it can be expressed in images, never use dialogue (television talks all the time).

Point of view and hidden information

The setup of a situation must contain hidden information—the audience knows what the characters on screen do not (the man doing the beating is having an affair with the beaten man's wife), or the characters know more than the audience; be your own first reader and examine it from the god's-eye view of the author/director, the audience's point of view, and the protagonist's point of view; "believe in the audience and you can create complex plots"; film thinks the audience is smart, television thinks the audience is stupid.
Reality is funnier than imagination: Truffaut clipped newspapers every day and put tabloid news into his scripts; journalist-screenwriters provide professional authenticity.
Give characters dignity: do not handle the fate of immoral people by humiliating them (Chaplin kicks the policeman's backside and then straightens his torn clothes); the famous screenwriter of The Bridge of Sighs' Hollywood-style ending faithful to the original (the wife jumps off the bridge, the husband rescues her, fireworks fill the sky) was shot and cut because "the style is completely wrong," and changed to "you go this way, I'll go that way," leaving gently with dignity—the style of the ending must be consistent with the whole film。

The screenwriter participates throughout

Four stages (writing/preparation/shooting/post-production); "I have never seen a script that could be shot as soon as it was picked up"; all scripts are too long, and "it can be cut in post" in reality cannot be cut—reading aloud reveals where to trim; on set the screenwriter answers more than 100 questions a day ("why wear this tie"); "we'll solve it in the editing stage" is wrong; the screenwriter must anticipate in advance; the jazz metaphor is at least a trio playing together.
Italian-style table read: First list the scenes and write down each scene step; only when the story is thoroughly familiar can the order be adjusted freely; for the read-through, over 2–3 days the actors read everything aloud, including the title, notes, time, and scene, without getting into character, while the sound recorder notes it scene by scene; before shooting, listen to the recording so that the entire structure and even the score take shape in your mind.
Let the producer and actors read the script as late as possible (first impressions are hard to change); do not let unfamiliar professionals see it early; friends and peers carry two risks (they do not want to hurt you and say it is good / they are candid and you argue) — find someone to co-write with or write together with the director.
"The hard indicator of whether a script is worth shooting is the time spent on it; a short cycle does not produce good work"; start from being a director's assistant buying coffee to understand every craft; the screenwriter is like a composer writing a score, and the director is like a conductor.

Custom Films and Collective Creation

"United Passions"(FIFA centenary custom project, 18 months, amid scandal): the first draft was rejected as "overly flattering"; FIFA held review authority over the entire film —there is always a clever way to protect creativity: Blatter sought advice from his predecessor and used Godfather-style Corleone visual symbols, a huge Swiss flag behind the boat, and a long take, refusing to cut "this tiny bit of power"; the African representative receives an envelope (the audience naturally thinks of cash) → in the next scene he holds the envelope to the camera and says, "Thank you for giving me this final ticket"; the Adidas president's suitcase → in the next scene it is opened to reveal an empty case with only design drawings. "When you encounter obstacles, do not give up easily."
"The Envoy": two frontline journalists hide in the home of a Paris imam friend and create a clamor so listeners think they have reached Iraq; the second-act climax fakes a hostage video; after watching many real throat-cutting videos, they question the ethical bottom line, "comedy rejects mediocrity and needs extreme scenes, but one must not recklessly express cruel truths."
"Paris, je t'aime": 20 directors for 20 arrondissements, each with two days and no more than 5 minutes; he was responsible for the transitions; each director brought a new story that destroyed the structure (the total length would reach 4 hours, and story logic barely existed); test screening: too long, does not connect, cannot see Paris, the theme drifts → with the editor, distill an "emotional throughline" and build three acts (curiosity and humor / death, drifting, loneliness / sublimation and resolution); rearrange back and forth 82 versions, disregarding logic and respecting only emotion(the clown couple was moved from beginning and end to the middle, followed by the mother who lost her child and then the child with the backpack — the Kuleshov effect); character images pieced together into a mosaic, "all Parisians have one shared story"; "you must be confident and never stop experimenting"; "everything has rules, but there are always exceptions."
Depardieu: "find someone to share the anxiety with," and "anxiety is necessary for an artist"; Woody Allen and Kubrick dared to reshoot and replace actors; under normal circumstances, the screenwriter should ask questions early to avoid reshoots.

IV. Directly Executable Rules

Visit first, then write: go to the shooting location to see the soil, trees, and residents; during interviews, disguise your identity or send someone to infiltrate; "a script written with your feet is superior."
Depict emotions (down to the color of the water basin, the black dots of raindrops), but beware that too many adjectives and adverbs blur the focus; use visual collisions for transitions.
Design the first act and the last act first (or have the ending image first); for 120 scenes, write 60 first and leave blanks; use space (a house moved into three times) as the skeleton.
Divide the three acts by emotion rather than evenly; keep looking at your watch while watching a film; use the characters' emotional conflicts to get through the "transition point" at 60/70 minutes.
After finishing the first draft, read it aloud to a harsh nemesis, or have people play the roles in a simulated rehearsal; reading aloud is one filter after another; the Italian-style read-through.
Put the scenes you like into the key moments so they won't be cut; when revising the script, do not forget your original intention, "the probability that the producers have a good idea is low," persuade them if you can, and if you cannot persuade them, accept it.
A screenwriter is a liar who tells the truth: write your own experiences in the perfect third person.
Genre is a promise to the audience (comedy keeps the laughs coming, mystery never forgets its essence), keep the main axis unified, innovate 5–10%; in a mashup, every genre must be 100 percent.
The crisis gradually deepens + desire continuously intensifies; the protagonist has a clear motive and a persistent point of fear; the price paid must be greater than what is gained; the protagonist must undergo a qualitative change even in a single night; determine the climax and resolution first; the ending has two reversals, bittersweet.
Theme is shown through presentation, not stated by the screenwriter; expository information is carried by arguments, avoid conversations at coffee tables and in cars.
Write dialogue last, first the draft, then structure, then lines; for each scene ask "why handle it this way"; only after writing character biographies and then writing lines can there be subtext; silence is more powerful than lines (12 lines of dialogue); if it can be shown visually, never use dialogue.
Perspective game: the audience knows but the characters do not, or the characters know but the audience does not; be your own first reader from the three perspectives of God/audience/protagonist.
Pain and misfortune are the source of comedy, create disasters for the characters; comedy relies on situation and rhythm, not language.
The screenwriter participates in the entire process of preparation, shooting, and post-production, predicting 100 on-set problems in advance; let the producer and actors read the script a little later; find a co-writer rather than friends to evaluate it.
Custom-made film/collective creation: there are always exceptions to the rules; when censored, use visual symbols and the "reasonable explanation" of the surrounding scenes to protect your intention; editing can completely rearrange according to emotion.
Let characters have dignity, do not handle the fate of immoral people by humiliation; the style of the ending must be consistent with the whole film.