Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction, or, Should I Save the Cat and Send the Hero on His Journey? -- Chapter 1 The Science of Information Flow, or, I Say Schema, You Say Schemata: Top-Down versus Bottom-Up -- Top-Down and Bottom-Up -- I Say Schema, You Say Schemata -- Frame versus Scene -- Your Schema Is Not My Schemata -- The Elusive 100 Percent Foolproof Movie Formula -- What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the Above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures, a Summary of So -- Screenwriting Explorations: Clues and Constructivism at Work -- Perceptual Prompts-Perspectives on Where Reality Is -- Chapter 2 The Science of Connecting to the Main Character, or, Why Do I Worry That a Meth Dealer Might Get Caught? -- What Life's All About -- Aristotle and Fear and Pity and Pfaff -- Introduction of the Main Character: First Impressions Count -- Introducing Jaak Panksepp -- The Nonhero's Journey -- Learning from Others: Character Arc -- The Science of Character Arc -- What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the Above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures, a Summary of So -- Screenwriting Explorations: Empathy -- Perceptual Prompts-Who Is the Bad Guy? -- Chapter 3 The Science of Contrast, or, Why Did the Big Huge Spaceship Follow the Little Tiny Spaceship in the Opening of Star -- A Little Science -- Directing Attention -- Aural Contrast -- Narrative Contrast: Tension and Release -- How Science Sees It, or, How to Avoid Narrative Exhaustion -- Getting Emotional, or, How to Use the Word Valence in a Sentence about Screenwriting -- The Return of Top-Down -- What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures -- a Summary of So -- Screenwriting Explorations: Contrast and Atmosphere.

Perceptual Prompts-Simultaneous Contrast -- Chapter 4 The Science of Exposition, or, What's Wrong with an Information Dump? -- Constructivist Psychology to the Rescue -- Ninotchka (1939) -- Can I Become a Crafty Screenwriter Too? -- The Science behind Otherworldly Worlds -- What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the Above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures, a Summary of So -- Screenwriting Explorations: Exposition as a Game with the Audience -- Perceptual Prompts-Where Is That Noise Coming from? -- Chapter 5 The Science of Cause and Effect, or, Did the Packers Really Lose Because I Didn't Wear My Cheesehead Hat? -- The Science -- Rewind: But The Social Network Is Told Out of Order -- Causes with a Delayed Effect -- The Science -- What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the Above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures, a Summary of So -- Screenwriting Explorations: Cause and Effect -- Perceptual Prompts-Being Closer Causes Being Bigger -- Chapter 6 The Science of Shared Attention, or, If I Write a Screenplay in Which a Tree Falls in the Forest, and the Reader Fall -- The Science -- Studies of Who's Looking Where -- How Filmmakers Handle Attention -- The Role of Memory -- The Challenge of Short Films -- The Challenge of Virtual Reality -- What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the Above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures, a Summary of Sort -- Screenwriting Explorations: Resetting Attention -- Perceptual Prompts-Shared Attention Depends on How Well You Know the Speaker -- Chapter 7 The Science of Conflict, or, What's Wrong with Watching Two Hours of People Just Getting Along and Helping Each Other -- The Science of Conflict -- Conflict Deep within Us -- The Emotional Roller-Coaster -- Verbal Conflict -- Conflicted Human Nature -- Dialogue: On the Nose and off the Rails.

What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the Above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures, a Summary of So -- Screenwriting Explorations: Conflict on the Scene Level -- Perceptual Prompts-Brain on Conflict, or the Missing Phoneme Effect -- Chapter 8 The Science of Imagination: Temporal Lobes, How to Think Creatively, Stages of Mind, or, Your Dope-Fueled Imaginings -- Preparation -- Incubation -- Aha! Moment -- What You Just Learned (or, Our Attempt to Load the Above Information into Your Brain's Experience Structures, a Summary of So -- Screenwriting Explorations: There's No Such Thing as Writer's Block -- Chapter 9 The Structure Question, or, How Many Acts Does It Take to Sell a Script? -- Digging Deeper -- Breaking Those Rules -- Chapter 10 Star Wars, or, How George Did It -- The Opening Crawl -- Used Android Salesmen -- The Main Character Appears -- Connecting to Luke -- The (Sand) People versus Ben Kenobi -- Mos Eisley -- The Journey -- Out of the Millennium Falcon and into the Garbage Room -- Escape from the Garbage Room -- Contrivance: A Digression -- Escape from the Death Star -- Getting Ready -- The Battle -- Chapter 11 Epilogue, or, Go Forth and Create -- Reference -- Index.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2020. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.