I had known about the script for years. As a matter of fact, when I did an interview with Cameron for my book Four Screenplays, about the making of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, he mentioned the only reason he consented to doing an interview with me was because after he read my book Screenplay, he knew he could write a screenplay. Screenplay showed him what a screenplay was, that it was a craft that could be learned, just the way he learned how a camera worked.

It was during this interview that he mentioned that he wanted to write a sci-fi screenplay called Avatar but at that moment, it was still in the thinking stage. This was many, many years ago, back in the late 90’s. A few years later, he went on to make Titanic, then spent several years doing his underwater documentaries about the Titanic. When he wanted to go back to making movies, he knew it was a time when he could create the software for the special effects that would make Avatar such an extraordinary cinematic experience.

Because that’s what James Cameron does – he makes extraordinary movies that are a totally engaging movie experience. People talk about his screenplays as being more on the romantic/melodramatic side, but that’s not what Cameron is about: it’s about an extraordinary cinematic experience. That’s why Titanic was most financially successful film in history, until it was recently surpassed by Avatar.

So, on a rainy afternoon, a few days after it opened, I went to a screening of Avatar in 3-D. As I expected, I was totally engaged in the story and cinematic effects that were so phenomenal.

It took me a few minutes to adjust to the 3D glasses, but grabbed my attention immediately was the fact that the main character, Jake Sully, has lost both his legs before the story began. How do you have a main character that has lost his legs? Wouldn’t that limit the action and his involvement so much that he would be a passive, reactive character?

That question was answered immediately, because there was so much exposition and background and visual imagery thrown at me I really didn’t have time to hold onto that thought. Needless to say, it didn’t matter.

It didn’t take long for me to settle down and drink in the story and become immersed in the extraordinary visual effects of the planet Pandora. I began noticing things: first, despite what many people were saying I found this to be a very personal film. That surprised me.  I’ve read any number of things about the political environment of the film and how “anti-American” it is. For me, nothing could be further from the truth. We can’t ignore our history where events like this have happened since the Spanish-American war. So, I don’t buy that – it just reflects where we are as a country now – and that it has parallels to our invasion of Iraq is obvious and totally coincidental.

Another thing I noticed: Cameron (at least in my interviews) had an awareness of trees (and the context of roots spreading across the landscape searching for water) that was insightful and engaging. Sure enough, the concept of Hometree spreading its roots across the entire planet of Pandora, brings together an intellectual unity of personal thought, feeling and emotion. All living things are connected, Cameron says – we are the many in the One. It is one of the unifying ideas that forcibly attract Jake Sully to the Na’vi. When tails entwine, a connection is made; a unity of Life. Nature and Being. If you think about it, we do the same thing, differing only in form, not in thought or idea or content: we shake hands, kiss cheeks, hug, embrace, gestures that are meant to connect the bridge between us all.

I was also impressed with his portrayal of women – Neytiri is a model of feminine strength, maturity and wisdom, ready and able to hold her own against any man or woman. She is free, spirited, a complete individual, something I think we all aspire to.

Many people have commented on the story – it’s not original in the sense of new ideas – but has its roots in films like The Last Samurai and Dances With Wolves. I noticed that immediately.

So what? These ideas of someone giving up his/her native culture to join another with cultural contexts that are more compatible with their own beliefs, has been part of humanity’s growth from the very beginning of recorded history. One of the key things about our “humanness” is our ability to adapt to various conditions for our survival.

And that certainly is the case with Avatar. This is a choice for Jake Sully, something he’s comfortable with, a way of life that is compatible to his own. And for me, that is what makes Avatar such an extraordinary film experience.

Read James Cameron interview Part 1

Read James Cameron interview Part 2

So, when I conducted my first four evening Course at the Writer’s Store at the end of September, Mastering the Craft of Screenwriting, I wasn’t sure what my reception would be. After all, I had been gone for more than four years, and I was slightly nervous. There are so many screenwriting courses out there would people still come to the course? Would they remember who I was? I’ve had more than a few people tell me that they knew my work, but when I talked with them I realized they didn’t know my books at all. All they were basing their opinion on what they had heard about Syd Field. And, not all of it was positive. So, I was double thinking everything. Especially, what I was going to be talking about.

I had developed these evening courses a few years ago during a trip to Brazil where I had been invited to conduct an evening on the art and craft of screenwriting.

At first, I didn’t know exactly what to do – answer questions about Hollywood and the peculiar trials of being a free-lance screenwriter? Talk about what it takes to write an effective screenplay? Or focus on the craft – necessary tools to create  better character, or what to  do so you can build a more effective story line, or writing sharper, more efficient dialogue. The more I thought about it, the more I began to see that if I focused on a subject/content line, like Setting Up Character & Story , then I could integrate the craft of screenwriting with visual clips of the material.

Did I do it? Check it out….

In and by itself, that’s not necessarily a “fault.” It really depends on what kind of story you’re writing. If it’s a romantic comedy like (500) Days of Summer, the action moves forward by dialogue, no matter how non-linear the story happens to be. In the case of Summer, the strong emotional through-line of the relationship anchors the story.  The story of the relationship is a linear story line, and it is simply told in a non-linear way. It works. Beautifully.

Today, changes are going on; stylistic changes. More and more the screenwriter is using many of the tools of the novelist: point of view, memory, subjective elements, voice over narration, flashbacks etc.. It has changed the look of the contemporary screenplay.

I was reminded of this a short time ago when I ran into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen for while. We went to the nearby Coffee Bean and over a flavorful ice-blended started catching up with our lives. He’d been writing several TV shows, his kids had grown, and he had a feature idea he was playing around with. He asked what I’ve been up to and I told him I’ve been traveling almost non-stop for the past two years, giving seminars and workshops on screenwriting.

He asked me if I had “noticed” any differences in screenwriting from country to country. I told him no, that international screenwriting had evolved to a point where it was just “screenwriting.” I’m finding that no matter where I am in the world, whether in Brazil, Cairo, Madrid, Manila, Mexico City, Bombay, Singapore or Vienna, independent what language is spoken, a screenplay is still a “story told with pictures.” For me, as I’m constantly stating, it’s the screenwriter’s job to remain true to the culture they’re a part of. So many writers around the world want to write “a Hollywood movie” instead of focusing on their own cultural heritage and issues.

What is have noticed, I told my friend, is that the screenplays are becoming more visual, more fragmentary, in terms of scope, form and execution. And, I shared an experience I had when I spent several weeks working with the writer and director as a script consultant on a film (to be released in 2010 by Fox) titled My Name is Khan. It didn’t matter that this was an Indian film, or that it was written by one of my students. Khan is really a story that impacts our humanity. It transcends language, country and culture. Since the story line was about a journey, with moments of flashbacks and memories, I suggested they use more voice over narration so we could gain more of an insight into the character. In that way, there didn’t have to be so much explantion. That meant that we had to re-structure most of the story line, especially in the beginning and I feel, gave it a stronger emotional impact. (When it’s released, we’ll see how accurate I am.)

I suggested using the voice over narration because there’s a simple rule in screenwriting – either the character drives the action, or the action drives the character. In this case the character drives the action (same as (500) Days of Summer, Shawshank Redemption or Juno,). An example of action driving the character would be Little Miss Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire or The Lookout.

From my vantage point, the craft of screenwriting today has evolved, and is continuously evolving into what I call a “revolutionary form.” Look at: Atonement, Vantage Point, Slumdog Millionaire or Inglorious Bastards. Almost every film being released today uses elements of voice over, sub-titles, flashpresent, interviews, or other elements of a multi-media presentation. To me, it is the mark of a new style of screenwriting.

Why is this happening? Well, I have a “theory” about that. I believe that this “new” style of screenwriting is evolving through the influence of technology. And it’s creating a “revolution” in the way we’re writing our screenplays.

Utilizing an analogy with texting, we’re using less words and more pictures to show/explain things. R u wi me? Today, we think in pictures, not words. As I always say, Film is Behavior. Because of this advance in technology, the world has become a smaller place and more information from anywhere in the world can be retrieved almost instantaneously.

So, you may be wondering: What is this Evolution/Revolution that’s going on?

I believe – and it’s my own personal theory, by the way, which is validated by many scientists – that this rise of technology is imprinting itself as an evolutionary form of behavior. We see, we don’t explain. In film, how a character acts or reacts to a specific incident or event illuminates their character, reflects their value systems and morality, and reveals who they are more by their actions, than their words. Because of this evolutionary process, things are changing;  we’re seeing the same things, we’re just seeing them differently.

Here’s how I look at it: the rise of digital technology. BD (before Digital) we had Analog Technology – meaning that all signals, or bytes of information, are singular and individual: sound is read as sound, music is read as music, picture is read as picture. And if you were building a “composite” movie track you would be pile each track layer upon layer – a layer of music, a layer of effects, a layer of dialogue, just like laying down sheets of pasta when you’re making lasagna.

But digital moved us to a different level. Digital technology is different:, all signals, or bites of information, are read as being the same – they are read, or interpreted as one component. So, all bytes of sound, picture and music are read as one unit of information.  Like making soup – you take all the ingredients, (the analog) then put them in the pot and when they all blend together, and you have soup (digital.) You can’t separate the ingredients because they’re now one.

We can do things technically in film today that we couldn’t do ten years ago. And more importantly, at least from my perspective, we can include bits and pieces of a character’s memory into the story line so it becomes an integral part of the action. Look at The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. We didn’t have that technology 20 years ago to incorporate a character’s past or memory fragments into a character’s behavior. Today, with digital technology, we’re able to utilize a character’s memory as part of their character development and incorporate it into the story line.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Look at a classic film like Casablanca. There’s a scene in the first act where the German, Major Strasser, invites Rick to join them at their table for a drink. He begins to ask Rick questions: What’s your “profession,” he asks? “Drunkard,” Nick replies. Already you hear his rebellious nature. Irritated, the German pulls out his little black book and begins to tell us all about Rick. It’s all expository dialogue designed to give us information about who Rick is, his past, where he came from, and it reveals to us why he might be a potential danger to the Nazi’s in Casablanca. It’s all words, talking heads. Yes, it still works, but it’s the old, classic way of giving us necessary information to move the story forward. You’ll see this style in The Hustler, The Apartment, and many other films.

But, here’s the new way of giving us the same character exposition for Rick. In the beginning of The Bourne Ultimatum, Jason Bourne is riding in a train and is reading a newspaper. He sees his name in the paper and as he reads the story, we cut into bits and pieces of Bourne’s visual memories. These visual fragments serve an expository function the same way that Major Strasser’s reading about Rick’s character in Casablanca does. If we’ve never seen any of the Bourne series we learn things about him that were in the previous two films. And, it’s done in a little more than a minute. All pictures, no words. In Casablanca the information is simply inserted into the story line, (like the love story told in flashback between Rick and Ilsa), whereas in the Bourne films, these bits and pieces of memory are integrated into the story line.

This is what I’m talking about in terms of the Evolution/Revolution of the modern screenplay. Take a look and check it out.

In terms of the contemporary screenplay, it seems like we want to get closer to the subjective reality of our characters. Take a look at Atonement, The Lookout, Babel, The Bourne Supremacy, Kill Bill I & II, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Memento, and many others.

This revolution/evolution in screenwriting seems to be based on the new visual awareness of how we see the world. We know the popularity of screenwriting and filmmaking is an integral part of our culture. If you look at MySpace and other sites, everybody is, or wants to be, a filmmaker. Write a script, get a digital tape recorder, film it, upload it onto your computer, edit it with IPro Edit, add some special CGI effects, lay in some music, and you have a film you can email to your friends and family. With the dramatic rise of wireless technology we have certainly evolved, and are continuing to evolve, in the way we see things.

If you look at the way the flashback was used in a film like Casablanca (Julius & Philip Epstein), measure it against the fragmented flashbacks in Ordinary People (Alvin Sargent) and then compare both of these films with the fragmented strands of memory integrated into The Bourne Supremacy or Atonement, you’ll see a visual evolution in terms of style and execution.

The flashbacks in Casablanca show that magical time in Paris when Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) met and fell in love. The flashback scenes showing them in Paris are simply a linear series of complete scenes inserted into the narrative flow of the storyline.

Comparing the cinematic language of The Bourne Supremacy, Ordinary People and Atonement is an interesting exercise. In cinematic terms, the visual attributes are impressive, and the way the action and the characters are expressed makes the films more of a subjective experience. As Tony Gilroy writes in The Bourne Supremacy, Bourne holds a gun to Nicky’s head “about to pull the trigger –SUDDENLY — FLASHBACK! a moment – a shard – A WOMAN’S FACE – backing away – begging – begging us – begging the camera – PLEADING FOR HER LIFE IN RUSSIAN – this awful blur of desperation and panic – fear – too fast – too panicked” and then we cut back to present time. This tone, this style, has become the new version of the modern screenplay. In Atonement, the flashback, or memory, is seen from two distinct points of view, the same thing Tarantino did in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill or Scott Frank did in The Lookout.

Which raises the question, when is it appropriate to use a flashback in the storyline? I hear this all the time in many of the workshops and seminars I conduct around the world. When does it work the best and when is it the most effective?

Flashbacks are a tool, a device, where the screenwriter provides the reader and audience with visual information that he or she cannot incorporate into the screenplay any other way. The purpose of the flashback is simple: it is a technique that bridges time, place and action to reveal information about the character, or move the story forward.

Many times, a writer throws a flashback into the screenplay because he or she doesn’t know how to move the story forward any other way. Sometimes, the screenwriter decides to show something about the main character that could be better stated in dialogue, and, in that case, the flashback only draws attention to itself and becomes intrusive. That doesn’t work.

Look at the flashback as a tool that could be used to reveal information about the character or story that you can’t reveal any other way. It can reveal emotional as well as physical information; it can reveal thoughts, memories or dreams, like what happened in Berlin that Jason Bourne is trying to remember, or the drowning incident in Ordinary People or the memories of the Paris love scenes in Casablanca.

Flashbacks are really a function of character, not story. Waldo Salt, great screenwriter of Coming Home and Midnight Cowboy, told me that he thought a flashback should be thought of as a “flashpresent,” because the visual image we’re seeing is what the character is thinking and feeling at that present moment, whether a memory, or fantasy, or event; a flashpresent, he remarked, is anything that illuminates a character’s point of view. Take a look at the hockey scene in the first Act of The Lookout. What we see in flashback is shown through the eyes of the character, so we’re seeing what he or she is seeing, thinking or feeling in present time, at this particular place or time. The flashpresent is anything we see the character thinking and feeling in the present moment, whether a thought, dream, memory, or fantasy, for time has no constraints or limits. In the mind of the main character there is no time and the flashpresent could be a particular moment in the past or present, perhaps even the future.

Which brings us back to the basic question: when is it appropriate to use a flashback? The purpose of flashback is to either move the story forward or reveal information about the character.

You can use flashbacks for any number of reasons but its primary purpose is to bridge time, place and action to reveal a past emotional event or physical conflict that affects the character. Sometimes, it gives insight and understanding into a character’s behavior or solves a past mystery as in The Lookout.

You can also use a flashback to reveal why an event happened, or how it happened, or possibly flashforward to an event that may or may not happen in the near future. These all are ways of incorporating the flashback into your screenplay and make it work effectively.

If you do decide to use a flashback, think in terms of the flashpresent; ask yourself what is your character thinking or feeling at the present moment? If you can get into your character’s head and find some thought, memory, or event which reflects on the present moment try to show how it affects your character.

In this way, you encourage a greater sense of character making your work deeper and more insightful.