by Salva Rubio
TWO-HANDER
A movie where we follow two characters, each has an arc, and each grows because of the other, e.g., Before Sunrise. Three-hander – A movie where we follow three stories, each with its own arc of growth, most often a love triangle. Four-hander – a movie where we follow four stories, most often a two-couple love story like Closer and We Don’t Live Here Anymore.
UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD
Once your protagonist enters Act Two, he steps into an upside-down version of life as he knew it. It’s a mirror reflection of Act One, an antithesis. Things might be the opposite of before, but his problems still follow him. Because of this, it forces the hero to confront new challenges head-on and to grow.
WHIFF OF DEATH
The added extra bonus found in the All Is Lost beat of a well-structured screenplay is that very special moment where something dies — actually or metaphorically. The All Is Lost point is rife with the whiff of death because it marks the end of the world as is and the beginning of a new world the hero will create from this seeming end.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Salva Rubio, born in Madrid, Spain in 1978, is a screenwriter and “The Indie Analyst.”
For 10 years he worked for Spain’s foremost independent distribution, exhibition and production company, Alta Films. There, he analyzed scripts by Eric Rohmer, Gus Van Sant, Walter Salles, Jane Campion, the Coen Brothers, Christopher Hampton, Amos Gitai, John Turturro, Marjane Satrapi, Larry Clark and David Cronenberg, among others. He has also analyzed scripts for Spain’s Ministry of Culture (ICAA), Instituto Cervantes, Fundación Carolina and Casa de América.
He is a professional writer, working in several media. As a feature film screenwriter, he co-wrote the animated movie Deep (2017) and has been hired to work on three more feature films plus several animated series and shorts.
As a graphic novel writer, he works in the French-Belgian market (Le Lombard Editeur), having published such projects as Monet, Nomad of Light and the novel Zíngara: Searching for Jim Morrison, and is currently writing the novelization of the successful Spanish TV series El Príncipe.
He is a Licenciado in Arts History (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and has a Master’s Degree in Film and TV Screenwriting (Universiddad Carlos III de Madrid). He teaches screenwriting and narrative in a few selected schools.
He also likes to draw, paint, play guitar and recently has somehow found time to take up the trumpet.
Check him out at
www.salvarubio.info
and contact him at
[email protected]