Fade in...

A visit to your local cineplex these days is the entertainment equivalent of either dining from a sumptuous smorgasbord, or making due with something from the food court at the mall.

Whether you're in the mood for mall food or brain food, you certainly have plenty of choices. Hollywood is turning out more product than ever before. And theater owners have responded by building complexes filled with closet-sized screening rooms that ensure that if you show up, you'll buy a ticket — even if it's to your second or third choice.

But no matter which darkened theater you end up occupying, one thing remains unchanged from the days long before Al Jolson first broke the sound barrier in 1927 in The Jazz Singer: The structure of the basic screenplay.

Yes, while technology has made it possible to use computers to fabricate the stunts that Harold Lloyd used to do for real (and without a net, mind you), sound now comes at patrons from all angles, and we've gotten real loose with language and clothing, it's still the same formula.

Screenplays consist of anywhere from about 90 to 120 pages, there are three acts (with major plot twists at the end of acts one and two), and above all, you have to grab the audience's attention by page 10, which is about 10 minutes in. By this point in the story, you've had a little exposition, and the protagonist has begun his or her “journey” that will constitute the rest of the picture. If you don't have an interested audience by about page 10, you never will.

What does this junior college level treatise on the art of the screenplay have to do with corporate communication challenges? Plenty.

Your readers, viewers, or listeners approach whatever you have to say with the same mindset they do when they go to the cinema: Get me interested quickly, or I'm going face down in my Milk Duds. How can you effectively follow the “page 10 rule” when not everything you have to say has the pizzazz of the latest Vin Diesel epic?

• Don't report. Tell a story. When your focus is on getting the product out the door, it's easy to fall into a rut and produce communication that just recites facts. But your audience wants to read stories about interesting people, thrilling triumphs, painful tragedies, overcoming odds and such. Not only is such work more engaging to read, it's also more enjoyable to create.


• Provide your key “plot point” early, then support it. Movies have 10 minutes to grab viewers for the rest of the ride. You have no more than a handful of sentences. Create the necessary context, then reveal the key plot point that tells your audience whether the rest is worth their time. Doing so ensures that even those who choose to move on have gotten the key info.



• Put your characters to work. Make your quoted sources more than just talking heads whose words help to prove your point. Instead, use their comments to tell key parts of the story. It'll give your message more credibility when it's coming out of the mouth of a real person, instead of simply being written by the author.

The message? Make your key point clearly and early, tell a good story, give your characters something to say, and you can count on rave reviews — and plenty of readers.