David Mamet Memo to "The Unit" Writing Staff
David Mamet's memo provides guidelines for the writing staff of the TV show "The Unit" regarding the importance of drama, storytelling, and creating engaging scenes that advance the plot.
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The movie producer and all-around mensch Stuart Cornfeld once told me that in a good screenplay, every structural unit needs to do two things: (1) be entertaining in its own right and (2) advance the story in a non-trivial way. We will henceforth refer to this as “the Cornfeld Principle.”
agenda in a scene, and set the agendas in conflict. Before you write take just a moment to jot down what each character in the scene wants, even if (as Kurt Vonnegut once said) it is only a glass of water.
David Lean famously declared that a feature film should have seven or eight major sequences. That’s a pretty good guideline for our play, our album, our State of the Union address.