@mytechtoday/augment-extensions 0.7.0 → 1.2.0

package/augment-extensions/writing-standards/screenplay/genres/rules/biographical.md

@@ -1,293 +1,293 @@
-# Biographical Genre
-
-**Category**: Screenplay Genre  
-**Type**: Primary  
-**Complexity**: High
-
-## Overview
-
-Biographical films (biopics) dramatize the lives of real people, focusing on significant periods, achievements, or struggles. The genre emphasizes character transformation, historical context, and finding universal themes in individual lives.
-
-## Core Concept
-
-Biographical screenplays transform real lives into compelling drama by selecting specific periods or themes rather than attempting comprehensive life stories. Success depends on finding the dramatic arc within a real life, balancing factual accuracy with narrative structure, and revealing universal human truths through specific individual experiences. Great biopics make audiences care about the person, not just their achievements.
-
-## Core Rules
-
-### Rule 1: Find the Dramatic Arc
-
-**Description**: Don't try to tell an entire life. Focus on a specific period, conflict, or transformation that has clear dramatic structure.
-
-**Why It Matters**: Lives don't naturally follow three-act structure. You must find or create the arc.
-
-**Examples**:
-- ✅ **Good**: Focus on specific period (Lincoln's final months, Jobs creating iPod)
-- ❌ **Bad**: Birth-to-death chronology with no clear dramatic focus
-
-**Film Reference**: The Social Network (2010) - Focuses on Facebook's founding, not Zuckerberg's entire life.
-
----
-
-### Rule 2: Show the Person, Not the Icon
-
-**Description**: Humanize the subject. Show flaws, contradictions, and private moments, not just public achievements.
-
-**Why It Matters**: Icons are distant; humans are relatable. Complexity creates compelling drama.
-
-**Examples**:
-- ✅ **Good**: Subject shown with flaws, failures, and personal struggles
-- ❌ **Bad**: Hagiography that worships subject without complexity
-
-**Film Reference**: Raging Bull (1980) - Jake LaMotta shown as brilliant boxer and deeply flawed human.
-
----
-
-### Rule 3: Use Supporting Characters Actively
-
-**Description**: People around the subject should be fully realized characters with their own arcs, not just witnesses to greatness.
-
-**Why It Matters**: Supporting characters provide perspective, conflict, and emotional depth.
-
-**Examples**:
-- ✅ **Good**: Family, rivals, and colleagues with their own motivations and development
-- ❌ **Bad**: Cardboard cutouts who exist only to react to protagonist
-
-**Film Reference**: The Theory of Everything (2014) - Jane Hawking's perspective and arc as important as Stephen's.
-
----
-
-### Rule 4: Thematic Truth Over Literal Truth
-
-**Description**: Capture the essence and meaning of the person's life, even if specific details are compressed or dramatized.
-
-**Why It Matters**: Dramatic truth serves the story; literal accuracy can be dramatically inert.
-
-**Examples**:
-- ✅ **Good**: Composite characters or compressed timeline that serves emotional truth
-- ❌ **Bad**: Inventing major events that contradict known facts or character
-
-**Film Reference**: Amadeus (1984) - Historically inaccurate but captures truth about genius and envy.
-
----
-
-### Rule 5: Make It Universal
-
-**Description**: The specific life should illuminate universal human experiences - ambition, love, failure, redemption.
-
-**Why It Matters**: Audiences connect through shared humanity, not just admiration for achievements.
-
-**Examples**:
-- ✅ **Good**: Specific story that resonates with universal themes
-- ❌ **Bad**: "Greatest hits" of achievements with no emotional core
-
-**Film Reference**: Milk (2008) - Harvey Milk's specific struggle illuminates universal fight for equality.
-
----
-
-## Guidelines
-
-### Structure
-
-- **Act I**: Introduce subject in their world, establish what they want or what drives them, inciting incident that launches main conflict
-- **Act II**: Pursuit of goal, obstacles and setbacks, relationships tested, character transformation begins
-- **Act III**: Climax of main conflict, resolution (triumph, tragedy, or both), epilogue showing legacy or outcome
-
-### Pacing
-
-- Start in medias res or at crucial moment, not necessarily birth
-- Use flashbacks sparingly and purposefully
-- Montages for passage of time or achievements
-- Focus on key moments that reveal character
-- Epilogue can provide historical context or outcome
-
-### Character Archetypes
-
-- **Protagonist**: The biographical subject with clear wants and flaws
-- **Antagonist**: Rival, system, or internal demons opposing protagonist
-- **Supporting**: Family, mentors, collaborators, witnesses - all fully realized
-
-### Tone and Atmosphere
-
-- Varies by subject (inspirational, tragic, complex)
-- Intimate even when depicting public figures
-- Emotional authenticity over reverence
-- Can be celebratory or critical
-- Often reflective on legacy and meaning
-
-### Visual Style
-
-- Period-appropriate production design
-- Visual motifs reflecting subject's work or life
-- Intimate cinematography for personal moments
-- Can use stylistic choices to reflect subject's art or perspective
-- Archival footage or photos in epilogue
-
-### Dialogue
-
-- Research subject's actual speech patterns and vocabulary
-- Balance authenticity with accessibility
-- Key quotes from real life can be powerful
-- Avoid over-explaining achievements - show don't tell
-- Subtext in personal relationships
-
-## Common Pitfalls
-
-### Pitfall 1: Cradle-to-Grave Structure
-
-**Problem**: Trying to cover entire life results in superficial greatest-hits montage.
-
-**Solution**: Focus on specific period or theme with clear dramatic arc.
-
-**Example**: Steve Jobs (2015) - Three product launches, not entire life.
-
----
-
-### Pitfall 2: Hagiography
-
-**Problem**: Worshipful portrayal that ignores flaws or complexity.
-
-**Solution**: Show subject as fully human - flawed, contradictory, complex.
-
-**Example**: Walk the Line (2005) - Johnny Cash's addiction and failures alongside his talent.
-
----
-
-### Pitfall 3: Explaining Instead of Showing
-
-**Problem**: Characters explaining subject's importance or achievements instead of dramatizing them.
-
-**Solution**: Show the work, the struggle, the impact through action and consequence.
-
-**Example**: Whiplash (2014) - Shows the brutal pursuit of musical excellence, doesn't explain it.
-
----
-
-## Film Examples
-
-### Example 1: Raging Bull (1980)
-
-**Director**: Martin Scorsese
-
-**Why It Works**: Brutal, unflinching portrait of boxer Jake LaMotta. Genius and self-destruction intertwined.
-
-**Key Scenes**:
-- **Sugar Ray Robinson Fight**: Stylized violence as character expression
-- **"You never got me down, Ray"**: Pride and delusion
-- **"I'm not an animal"**: Broken man confronting his nature
-
-**Techniques Used**:
-- Black and white cinematography
-- Expressionistic fight sequences
-- Unflinching portrayal of protagonist's flaws
-- Character study over achievement celebration
-
----
-
-### Example 2: The Social Network (2010)
-
-**Director**: David Fincher
-
-**Why It Works**: Facebook's founding as character study of ambition, betrayal, and loneliness.
-
-**Key Scenes**:
-- **Opening Breakup**: Establishes Zuckerberg's social dysfunction
-- **Depositions**: Multiple perspectives on events
-- **"You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be"**: Lonely at the top
-
-**Techniques Used**:
-- Dual timeline (flashbacks and depositions)
-- Fast-paced dialogue (Aaron Sorkin)
-- Multiple perspectives on same events
-- Recent history treated as drama
-
----
-
-### Example 3: Milk (2008)
-
-**Director**: Gus Van Sant
-
-**Why It Works**: Harvey Milk's activism and assassination. Personal and political intertwined.
-
-**Key Scenes**:
-- **Castro Street**: Building community and movement
-- **Prop 6 Campaign**: Political struggle with personal stakes
-- **Assassination**: Tragic culmination of political and personal threats
-
-**Techniques Used**:
-- Archival footage integrated with drama
-- Political struggle as personal journey
-- Supporting characters fully realized
-- Tragic ending with hopeful legacy
-
----
-
-### Example 4: I, Tonya (2017)
-
-**Director**: Craig Gillespie
-
-**Why It Works**: Tonya Harding's story through multiple unreliable perspectives. Darkly comic and tragic.
-
-**Key Scenes**:
-- **Breaking Fourth Wall**: Characters directly address camera
-- **"America's Sweetheart"**: Class and image in figure skating
-- **The Incident**: Multiple contradictory versions of same event
-
-**Techniques Used**:
-- Unreliable narrators with conflicting accounts
-- Dark comedy mixed with tragedy
-- Class commentary through sports
-- Sympathy for controversial figure
-
----
-
-## Integration with Other Features
-
-### Compatible Themes
-
-- **Ambition and Success**: Drive to achieve greatness
-- **Genius and Madness**: Talent and its costs
-- **Redemption**: Overcoming past or finding meaning
-- **Legacy**: What we leave behind
-- **Individual vs. System**: Fighting institutions or norms
-
-### Compatible Styles
-
-- **Traditional Biopic**: Straightforward life story (The King's Speech, The Theory of Everything)
-- **Stylized Biopic**: Artistic interpretation (Raging Bull, I'm Not There)
-- **Ensemble Biopic**: Multiple perspectives (The Social Network, I, Tonya)
-- **Musical Biopic**: Musicians' lives (Walk the Line, Bohemian Rhapsody)
-
-### Hybrid Combinations
-
-- **Biopic + Drama**: Character-driven life stories (Capote, The Aviator)
-- **Biopic + Thriller**: Dangerous lives (Catch Me If You Can, American Gangster)
-- **Biopic + Musical**: Musicians and performers (Ray, Rocketman)
-- **Biopic + Historical**: Historical figures (Lincoln, Gandhi)
-
-## Best Practices
-
-1. **Find the Arc**: Specific period or theme, not entire life
-2. **Humanize the Subject**: Flaws and complexity, not worship
-3. **Thematic Focus**: What is this life really about?
-4. **Active Supporting Cast**: Fully realized characters around subject
-5. **Show the Work**: Dramatize achievements, don't explain them
-6. **Emotional Truth**: Essence over literal accuracy
-7. **Universal Themes**: Specific life illuminating shared humanity
-8. **Avoid Greatest Hits**: Select moments that reveal character
-9. **Research Deeply**: Know the subject intimately
-10. **Respect Complexity**: Real people are contradictory
-
-## Resources
-
-- "The Art of Adaptation" by Linda Seger - Includes biopic structure
-- "Raging Bull" screenplay by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin
-- "The Social Network" screenplay by Aaron Sorkin - Modern biopic masterclass
-- "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer - Biographical narrative structure
-- "Steve Jobs" screenplay by Aaron Sorkin - Three-act structure in real-time
-
----
-
-**Depth Coverage**: 85%
-**Last Updated**: 2026-01-31
-**Version**: 1.0.0
-
+# Biographical Genre
+
+**Category**: Screenplay Genre  
+**Type**: Primary  
+**Complexity**: High
+
+## Overview
+
+Biographical films (biopics) dramatize the lives of real people, focusing on significant periods, achievements, or struggles. The genre emphasizes character transformation, historical context, and finding universal themes in individual lives.
+
+## Core Concept
+
+Biographical screenplays transform real lives into compelling drama by selecting specific periods or themes rather than attempting comprehensive life stories. Success depends on finding the dramatic arc within a real life, balancing factual accuracy with narrative structure, and revealing universal human truths through specific individual experiences. Great biopics make audiences care about the person, not just their achievements.
+
+## Core Rules
+
+### Rule 1: Find the Dramatic Arc
+
+**Description**: Don't try to tell an entire life. Focus on a specific period, conflict, or transformation that has clear dramatic structure.
+
+**Why It Matters**: Lives don't naturally follow three-act structure. You must find or create the arc.
+
+**Examples**:
+- ✅ **Good**: Focus on specific period (Lincoln's final months, Jobs creating iPod)
+- ❌ **Bad**: Birth-to-death chronology with no clear dramatic focus
+
+**Film Reference**: The Social Network (2010) - Focuses on Facebook's founding, not Zuckerberg's entire life.
+
+---
+
+### Rule 2: Show the Person, Not the Icon
+
+**Description**: Humanize the subject. Show flaws, contradictions, and private moments, not just public achievements.
+
+**Why It Matters**: Icons are distant; humans are relatable. Complexity creates compelling drama.
+
+**Examples**:
+- ✅ **Good**: Subject shown with flaws, failures, and personal struggles
+- ❌ **Bad**: Hagiography that worships subject without complexity
+
+**Film Reference**: Raging Bull (1980) - Jake LaMotta shown as brilliant boxer and deeply flawed human.
+
+---
+
+### Rule 3: Use Supporting Characters Actively
+
+**Description**: People around the subject should be fully realized characters with their own arcs, not just witnesses to greatness.
+
+**Why It Matters**: Supporting characters provide perspective, conflict, and emotional depth.
+
+**Examples**:
+- ✅ **Good**: Family, rivals, and colleagues with their own motivations and development
+- ❌ **Bad**: Cardboard cutouts who exist only to react to protagonist
+
+**Film Reference**: The Theory of Everything (2014) - Jane Hawking's perspective and arc as important as Stephen's.
+
+---
+
+### Rule 4: Thematic Truth Over Literal Truth
+
+**Description**: Capture the essence and meaning of the person's life, even if specific details are compressed or dramatized.
+
+**Why It Matters**: Dramatic truth serves the story; literal accuracy can be dramatically inert.
+
+**Examples**:
+- ✅ **Good**: Composite characters or compressed timeline that serves emotional truth
+- ❌ **Bad**: Inventing major events that contradict known facts or character
+
+**Film Reference**: Amadeus (1984) - Historically inaccurate but captures truth about genius and envy.
+
+---
+
+### Rule 5: Make It Universal
+
+**Description**: The specific life should illuminate universal human experiences - ambition, love, failure, redemption.
+
+**Why It Matters**: Audiences connect through shared humanity, not just admiration for achievements.
+
+**Examples**:
+- ✅ **Good**: Specific story that resonates with universal themes
+- ❌ **Bad**: "Greatest hits" of achievements with no emotional core
+
+**Film Reference**: Milk (2008) - Harvey Milk's specific struggle illuminates universal fight for equality.
+
+---
+
+## Guidelines
+
+### Structure
+
+- **Act I**: Introduce subject in their world, establish what they want or what drives them, inciting incident that launches main conflict
+- **Act II**: Pursuit of goal, obstacles and setbacks, relationships tested, character transformation begins
+- **Act III**: Climax of main conflict, resolution (triumph, tragedy, or both), epilogue showing legacy or outcome
+
+### Pacing
+
+- Start in medias res or at crucial moment, not necessarily birth
+- Use flashbacks sparingly and purposefully
+- Montages for passage of time or achievements
+- Focus on key moments that reveal character
+- Epilogue can provide historical context or outcome
+
+### Character Archetypes
+
+- **Protagonist**: The biographical subject with clear wants and flaws
+- **Antagonist**: Rival, system, or internal demons opposing protagonist
+- **Supporting**: Family, mentors, collaborators, witnesses - all fully realized
+
+### Tone and Atmosphere
+
+- Varies by subject (inspirational, tragic, complex)
+- Intimate even when depicting public figures
+- Emotional authenticity over reverence
+- Can be celebratory or critical
+- Often reflective on legacy and meaning
+
+### Visual Style
+
+- Period-appropriate production design
+- Visual motifs reflecting subject's work or life
+- Intimate cinematography for personal moments
+- Can use stylistic choices to reflect subject's art or perspective
+- Archival footage or photos in epilogue
+
+### Dialogue
+
+- Research subject's actual speech patterns and vocabulary
+- Balance authenticity with accessibility
+- Key quotes from real life can be powerful
+- Avoid over-explaining achievements - show don't tell
+- Subtext in personal relationships
+
+## Common Pitfalls
+
+### Pitfall 1: Cradle-to-Grave Structure
+
+**Problem**: Trying to cover entire life results in superficial greatest-hits montage.
+
+**Solution**: Focus on specific period or theme with clear dramatic arc.
+
+**Example**: Steve Jobs (2015) - Three product launches, not entire life.
+
+---
+
+### Pitfall 2: Hagiography
+
+**Problem**: Worshipful portrayal that ignores flaws or complexity.
+
+**Solution**: Show subject as fully human - flawed, contradictory, complex.
+
+**Example**: Walk the Line (2005) - Johnny Cash's addiction and failures alongside his talent.
+
+---
+
+### Pitfall 3: Explaining Instead of Showing
+
+**Problem**: Characters explaining subject's importance or achievements instead of dramatizing them.
+
+**Solution**: Show the work, the struggle, the impact through action and consequence.
+
+**Example**: Whiplash (2014) - Shows the brutal pursuit of musical excellence, doesn't explain it.
+
+---
+
+## Film Examples
+
+### Example 1: Raging Bull (1980)
+
+**Director**: Martin Scorsese
+
+**Why It Works**: Brutal, unflinching portrait of boxer Jake LaMotta. Genius and self-destruction intertwined.
+
+**Key Scenes**:
+- **Sugar Ray Robinson Fight**: Stylized violence as character expression
+- **"You never got me down, Ray"**: Pride and delusion
+- **"I'm not an animal"**: Broken man confronting his nature
+
+**Techniques Used**:
+- Black and white cinematography
+- Expressionistic fight sequences
+- Unflinching portrayal of protagonist's flaws
+- Character study over achievement celebration
+
+---
+
+### Example 2: The Social Network (2010)
+
+**Director**: David Fincher
+
+**Why It Works**: Facebook's founding as character study of ambition, betrayal, and loneliness.
+
+**Key Scenes**:
+- **Opening Breakup**: Establishes Zuckerberg's social dysfunction
+- **Depositions**: Multiple perspectives on events
+- **"You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be"**: Lonely at the top
+
+**Techniques Used**:
+- Dual timeline (flashbacks and depositions)
+- Fast-paced dialogue (Aaron Sorkin)
+- Multiple perspectives on same events
+- Recent history treated as drama
+
+---
+
+### Example 3: Milk (2008)
+
+**Director**: Gus Van Sant
+
+**Why It Works**: Harvey Milk's activism and assassination. Personal and political intertwined.
+
+**Key Scenes**:
+- **Castro Street**: Building community and movement
+- **Prop 6 Campaign**: Political struggle with personal stakes
+- **Assassination**: Tragic culmination of political and personal threats
+
+**Techniques Used**:
+- Archival footage integrated with drama
+- Political struggle as personal journey
+- Supporting characters fully realized
+- Tragic ending with hopeful legacy
+
+---
+
+### Example 4: I, Tonya (2017)
+
+**Director**: Craig Gillespie
+
+**Why It Works**: Tonya Harding's story through multiple unreliable perspectives. Darkly comic and tragic.
+
+**Key Scenes**:
+- **Breaking Fourth Wall**: Characters directly address camera
+- **"America's Sweetheart"**: Class and image in figure skating
+- **The Incident**: Multiple contradictory versions of same event
+
+**Techniques Used**:
+- Unreliable narrators with conflicting accounts
+- Dark comedy mixed with tragedy
+- Class commentary through sports
+- Sympathy for controversial figure
+
+---
+
+## Integration with Other Features
+
+### Compatible Themes
+
+- **Ambition and Success**: Drive to achieve greatness
+- **Genius and Madness**: Talent and its costs
+- **Redemption**: Overcoming past or finding meaning
+- **Legacy**: What we leave behind
+- **Individual vs. System**: Fighting institutions or norms
+
+### Compatible Styles
+
+- **Traditional Biopic**: Straightforward life story (The King's Speech, The Theory of Everything)
+- **Stylized Biopic**: Artistic interpretation (Raging Bull, I'm Not There)
+- **Ensemble Biopic**: Multiple perspectives (The Social Network, I, Tonya)
+- **Musical Biopic**: Musicians' lives (Walk the Line, Bohemian Rhapsody)
+
+### Hybrid Combinations
+
+- **Biopic + Drama**: Character-driven life stories (Capote, The Aviator)
+- **Biopic + Thriller**: Dangerous lives (Catch Me If You Can, American Gangster)
+- **Biopic + Musical**: Musicians and performers (Ray, Rocketman)
+- **Biopic + Historical**: Historical figures (Lincoln, Gandhi)
+
+## Best Practices
+
+1. **Find the Arc**: Specific period or theme, not entire life
+2. **Humanize the Subject**: Flaws and complexity, not worship
+3. **Thematic Focus**: What is this life really about?
+4. **Active Supporting Cast**: Fully realized characters around subject
+5. **Show the Work**: Dramatize achievements, don't explain them
+6. **Emotional Truth**: Essence over literal accuracy
+7. **Universal Themes**: Specific life illuminating shared humanity
+8. **Avoid Greatest Hits**: Select moments that reveal character
+9. **Research Deeply**: Know the subject intimately
+10. **Respect Complexity**: Real people are contradictory
+
+## Resources
+
+- "The Art of Adaptation" by Linda Seger - Includes biopic structure
+- "Raging Bull" screenplay by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin
+- "The Social Network" screenplay by Aaron Sorkin - Modern biopic masterclass
+- "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer - Biographical narrative structure
+- "Steve Jobs" screenplay by Aaron Sorkin - Three-act structure in real-time
+
+---
+
+**Depth Coverage**: 85%
+**Last Updated**: 2026-01-31
+**Version**: 1.0.0
+