Spirits of American screenwriting gurus in Morocco

By Ali Karama
Rabat-Salé

The spirit of Syd Field and other screenwriting gurus have been present in Mekness, a town near Rabat.The teaching is made by Allal El Alaoui who seems more convincing to give lessons on three act structure , themes , loglines and characters .

Actions and reactions are also tackled before academic teachers coming from education .The debate goes so far as the students mention reactions of charcters in movies .From this context ,Allal  refers to Robert McKee’s statement that says ‘: "In story, as in life, the number of different events that can happen to a human being is limited. You win or lose; you fall in love or out; you suffer injustice or get revenge; you become a better person or worse, you live or you die. The list of actions that might impact a character's life is long... but finite. Reactions, however, are infinite. Ideally, every character is a unique, a one-of-a-kind combination of genes and experience. Therefore, how a particular character reacts to the events of his or her life is unique to him or her. Because reactions are character-specific, their possibilities are endless. More than any other aspect of storytelling, how you handle your characters' reactions spells the difference between originality and cliche, between good writing and great. Fill your story with beautifully told events, then put your energies, imaginings, and improvisations into reactions that are true only for your characters and no one else."

Characters should have values either protagonists and antigonists .Usually at the end of the movie , protagonist is influenced by several values of  antigonist and verse versa  .So,values are important to shape and form characters .The debate goes on talking about structure;  the spine of any scripts .Before you write, think of your ending of the story and do not write dialogue until you finish your script .

اللحظات القوية التي مرت في مدينة مكناس حيث قدمت دروسا حول السيناريو انطلاقا من نظرية سيد فيلد ومرورا من خلال نظرية أخرى مغايرة لروبرت ماكي وليندا سيكير كما قامت الأكاديمية التعليمية الجهوية بمكناس باستدعائي للمشاركة كعضو للجنة التحكيم والتي تضم محمد شرف رئيسا وعلال العلاوي عضوا ونادية التازي عضوا وأخيرا هشام الممثل المتألق

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• Imane Mansri, Fatima Zehra Rhomri, Mohamed El Hafi et 24 autres personnesaiment ça.
• 

  Aziz Baaka vraiment tu etais a la hauteur cher ami,kijawk tssawere

  il y a 14 heures · J’aime
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  Larbi Benshili ALLAL le réalisateur et le scénariste professionnel

  il y a 13 heures · J’aime
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  Mustapha Jakak

  لاقضرخ ثف لاخىىث ؤخىفهىعضفهخى

  il y a 13 heures · J’aime · 1
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  Mustapha Jakak bravo et bonne continuation ...

  il y a 13 heures · J’aime
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  Allal El Alaoui merci cher Realisateur Mustapha

  il y a 12 heures · J’aime
• 

  Hamid Azizi heureux de vous rencontrer cher allal

  il y a 12 heures · J’aime
• 

  Mostafa Jerari

  الشكر موصول لك اخي الكريم عرفنا فيك تواضع اخلاقك مع المخرجين الشباب ، وحسن الاستماع لقضاياهم ،فطينة من هؤلاء المخرجين قلما وجدوا تشكراتنا الحارة ومتمنياتنا لك بالتالق في قادم اعمالك

  11 h · J’aime · 1
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  Allal El Alaoui

  شكرا أخي مصطفى ونتمنى لك النجاح في أعمالك

  11 h · J’aime
• 

  Fatima Iouiri

  حفظك الله استاذي ورعاك ودمت متالقا متواضعا و ناجحا كالعادة

  11 h · J’aime
• 

  Allal El Alaoui

  شكرا أختنا الشاعرة المتألقة فاطمة

  11 h · J’aime · 1
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  Khali Akali Bravo Mon Ami....

  11 h · J’aime
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  Fatima Zehra Rhomri Dommage que je n.ai pas pu assister 

  9 min · J’aime

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Wadjda by Haifaa al-Mansour

By Allal El Alaoui

Rabat - Salé

Wadjda becomes an international film that still is circulating and  watched by millions around the world .Wadjda is a Saudi Arabian–German film, written and directed by Haifaa al-Mansour.I admit that i have not seen the film ;though this movie has come right next door in my home town called Salé in Morocco. I was busy then shooting my shortfilm called Pants of Blood .

Yet, as i said before i admit the script has grabbed my attention while i was reading it . I found great pleasure to follow events through the will of a little girl who defies everthing to have a bicycle . i immediately fell in love with the script and its writer, Haifaa .

 I also admit that this is  the first script written in English that i have read , though i am myself a screenwriter and i am still reading scripts written in Arabic because it is my native language . Wajda is full of visuals and has good structure . I like its description and careful dialogue. 

Wajda is a girl who dreams to pedal a bicycle knowing that in Saudia – Arabia women can not pedal  bicycles nor driving cars . I also like its reference to the relatioship between female and male and the fact that male is totally absent because he is busy to watch television or else .

Yes ,it is true that the film is written by a female and some critics would  conclude that females make men funny and drole ‘ French word ‘ . in Haifaa movie,the woman is omnipresent and she is the one who takes decisions ; alhtough saudia is prevailed by men. I also like references of taboos and its relatiohsip with the sacred  and profane .

  Wadjda Screenplay by allal

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Inciting incident in movies

When To Start Your Story: When Should the Inciting Incident Happen in a Screenplay?

Usually, movies start with a little getting to know you with the main character. We learn what her issue is, her personality flaw, the thing on the inside of her that is the main obstacle to a more perfect life. It’s the thing that establishes the need for change. We also learn about the central character’s milieu: her working life, her home life, her social life. Generally, there’s a problem with it, but we don’t, nor does the character, see the compelling need for change until the inciting incident.

The inciting incident is when the story starts. The rest is prelude to the story. So when should the story start?

Again, as in most screenwriting, there is no hard and fast rule. But there is a soft and slow rule. Don’t do it that way. Get to the story as soon as reasonably possible. On the other hand, we want to care about the protagonist, and, to do that, we need to know her before the shit hits the fan.

So that leaves us with nothing firm to shoot at. Most movies place their inciting incident at around fifteen minutes, give or take a few. The tendency in screenwriting courses it to get to it by page 10-12. I disagree with that, though I tell my students anywhere from 13-18 is okay. Why so much time? Because we want to be fully invested in the character before we run her up a tree and start throwing stones at her.

Would we care about Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in Twelve Years a Slave if we hadn’t seen his life before his abduction? Would we care about Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) in Gravity if we hadn’t seen her joking around with the George Clooney character before the disaster? Would we care about what happened to Cate Blanchett’s character in Blue Jasmine if we didn’t know her before bad things happened to her? Okay, bad example, because I still didn’t care about her. But you get the idea. Some time must be taken to learn about our characters. To either get to like them or be fascinated by them as we were with Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) in Dallas Buyers Club takes time.

Again. How much time? That’s up to you, but in my mind, the better we know the characters – liking them or not – the more interested we will be in their journey.

There are exceptions, of course. There always are. The easiest one to cite is the James Bond franchise, where the first five to ten minutes really has nothing to do with the story, tells us nothing new about the character, reveals no major personality issues (unless you consider killing for a living a personality issue). The opening scenes of a James Bond movie are strictly to pull the audience into that crazy world where the only thing that counts is action. Laws, human life, sometimes even gravity, are ignored in a villain’s pursuit of Bond or in his pursuit of a villain. I’m sure you could cite other examples, but let’s just agree that there is no law in this, just conventions.

Paul Chitlik’s feature directing debut “The Wedding Dress” from his own script, is in post-production. For more information on script writing, read his book, Rewrite:  A Step-by-Step to Strengthen Structure, Character, and Conflict in Your Screenplay, second edition published by Michael Wiese Productions.

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Allal El Alaoui ,president of the Tetuan educational shortfilm festival 2014

Allal is honored by Ahmed Housni president of  Tetuan International Festival for Mediterranean Cinema  that will begin on the 29th  til to 5 of March .This festival has reached now its 20th of its edition and it has become one of the most important film festival in Morocco .


Because education shortfilms have become so much asked in this festival around Tetuan district ,Khalid Akali spearheadinf culture and litarature in this festval, has called for a team that will shape the offcial  jury :

1 - Allal El Alaoui president 
2-Soleiman AL Hikioui :film critic 
3-Miss Soad Anakar , weblogger and musilogue 

السيّد علاّل العلاّوي، مخرج سينمائي وتلفزيوني_رئيسا.
السيّد سليمان الحقّيوي، ناقد سينمائي_عضوا
الآنسة سعاد أنقّار، أستاذة باحثة ومؤلّفة موسيقية _

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