Lessons From Sundance 2024, Part I

Jacob Krueger Studio faculty member Christian Lybrook and I attended Sundance 2024 together, leading to this new series of short videos about the films we saw there, and what screenwriters could learn from them. These videos were first released on our social media during the festival (follow @thejkstudio for future updates). The response was so strong, and the lessons so valuable that we’ve compiled them into a two part podcast series, built around common themes. Whether you’ve seen these films or not, there are so many lessons you can benefit from through these discussions, including how to lean into the emotional logic of your structure, how to control tone, how to surprise genre expectations, how to get the most out of your first image, how to build central metaphors and image systems, how to build mirrors for your main characters, how to write movies about profound socio-political issues, how to build structure through emotional needs and much more…In this episode, we’ll be looking at feature films Your Monster, Layla, A Different Man, and Reinas, as well as Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize winning documentary Porcelain War.  And for those of you listening rather than viewing… if you notice the sound is a little different in each of these podcasts, it’s because we’re trying to bring the Sundance Experience to you at home, by recording in lots of different locations– from the beloved Egyptian Theatre on main street to the Gondola at the Park City Mountain.The first film we’re going to be discussing is Your Monster, a sweet little Beauty and the Beast inspired– well let’s call it a “Romantic Comedy”-- with some other slightly less expected genre elements that we’re not going to give away. This is a film that moved, inspired, surprised and delighted us. And there’s so much you can learn from it as a screenwriter about leaning into the emotional (rather than the rational) logic of your screenplay, navigating toward the fun, establishing the tone of your screenplay, and squeezing out all the juice from a mash of different genre elements. It’s not yet in theatres, so we’re only going to talk about the opening sequence up to the inciting incident, so there will be minimal spoilers.  Your Monster written and directed by Caroline Lindy Jacob Krueger: Your Monster by Caroline Lindy is a relationship story about a girl and the monster who lives in her closet. One of the things that's really beautiful about this movie is it’s not just about her love story with a monster, it's really about a love story with herself. Christian Lybrook:  It's a “Beauty and the Beast” story. Caroline Lindy takes a story that we're all familiar with and she starts to spin it, looking at it from all different angles: You think it's going to go this way? I'm going to give you something else. And that's a great exercise for us to do as screenwriters.  Your Monster shows screenwriters the value of leaning into the emotional logic of the story, and navigating toward the fun, rather than getting caught up in the details. Jacob Krueger: The film primarily leans into the emotional logic of the relationship between the main character, Laura, and the monster in her closet, rather than getting caught up in the “logical logic.” It’s magical realism. There are a lot of elements in the film where, if you get into your logical brain, you could say, Well, hold on a second, how did she get into the theater? How did she get into the audition? How did these things happen?  And yet, as you're watching the film, you don't care at all.  Christian Lybrook: My analytical brain, it's loud in my head. And those moments, they did pop up. But the emotional storyline is so powerful that it just sort of dissipat...