Producing : 12 Years of Silence: Why I am finally stepping out of the Vault. by Artashes Yeremyan

Greetings. Welcome to the S32 Club! Looks like you have a lot of experience, more than me! So yeah, get your name and credited work out there.

"Narrative Physics" is a good-sounding term. I haven't used it specifically, but felt what it describes.

Michael, I appreciate the warm welcome.

To your point on credits—for 12 years, I’ve found that in high-stakes development, discretion is a far more valuable currency than public visibility. Writers chase credits; I solve for Structural Integrity. One is about the name on the screen; the other is about the capital behind it.

Regarding 'Narrative Physics'—it's the simple acknowledgment that a story isn't a poem, it’s a technical blueprint. Just as a building must obey gravity, a narrative must obey the laws of tension and dopamine gaps. If the protagonist is static, the ROI collapses. It's not about 'good writing,' it's about unbreakable engineering.

Jings.

Precision can be unsettling. But in a market of managed losses, it is the only survival mechanism. Cheers, David.

Hi, Artashes Yeremyan. Welcome to the community. I’m a Stage 32 Lounge Moderator. I wanted to let you know that I moved your post from the Screenwriting Lounge to the Producing Lounge since you're asking producers a question. Let me know if you have any questions.

Stage 32 has a blog that'll help you navigate the platform and connect with creatives and industry professionals all over the world. www.stage32.com/blog/how-to-successfully-navigate-the-stage-32-platform-...

Stage 32 had its monthly Community Open House last week. It'll also help you navigate the platform and make connections. You can watch the free recording here: www.stage32.com/education/products/stage-32s-january-2026-community-open...

Appreciate the shift, Maurice. Structural diagnostics and narrative de-risking are ultimately executive priorities, so the Producing Lounge is exactly where this surgical conversation belongs. Thanks for the guidance.

You're welcome, Artashes Yeremyan. Great question! I'm looking forward to all the answers!

Artashes Yeremyan Can you please explain the difference between "good writing" and "structural integrity" ? And can you please relate your idea of "narrative physics" as opposed to act structure which most good writers understand?

Shadow Dragu-Mihai , excellent questions. Let's delineate:

'Good writing' is the flesh and the makeup—the prose, the clever dialogue, the atmosphere. Most scripts are 'well-written' but structurally bankrupt.

'Structural Integrity' is the skeleton. If the bones are fractured, the most beautiful makeup can't make the body walk.

'Narrative Physics' vs. 'Act Structure': Standard act structure tells you where the beats should go. Narrative Physics tells you why they stay there. It's the governing law of information gaps and character agency. If a character acts without an 'Inverse Drive' or if a scene doesn't flip the emotional polarity, you have Narrative Leakage. Standard acts provide the frame; Physics provide the gravity that ensures audience obsession. Without gravity, the structure floats and eventually dissipates.

So, put plainly, without the AI polish, Narrative Physics is Causality and Inevitability; Inverse Drive is Want vs Fear or a push-pull motivation; Emotional Polarity is scene value shift; Narrative Leakage means loss of tension; Structural Integrity is the Story spine.

E Langley Precisely. Translation is the bridge to understanding, but diagnostic precision is the bridge to ROI.

You are correct—the concepts of causality, motivation, and value shifts are the classical vocabulary of the craft. However, 'Narrative Physics' isn't about redefining the vocabulary; it’s about the clinical engineering of those elements to prevent the 'Narrative Leakage' that costs producers millions.

Most projects I audit fail precisely because these 'plain' elements were treated as creative choices rather than structural requirements. A 'Story Spine' is a biological fact, but identifying a micro-fracture within it before the cameras roll is the difference between a high-stakes asset and a beautifully lit liability. Terminology is secondary; structural integrity is final.

Artashes Yeremyan So if I follow you, you are saying that by deconstructing every nuance of a script, whether technical or psychological or mythical, and approaching writing as assembling all the pieces first, that the derived from such a script will be successful, even in isolation of the influences of budget, producers, marketing budget and activities, whether it gets a theatrical release or not and where, cultural sensibilities, or whether the subject matter is overdone or not. Do I understand that correctly? I am not being flip, I just don't understand how deconstruction is useful to a writer who has a story to tell.

Shadow Dragu-Mihai , you've touched upon the exact friction point between 'Authorship' and 'Asset Management.'

To clarify: Structural integrity does not exist in isolation from market forces; it is engineered specifically to survive them. A skyscraper isn’t designed to 'ignore' wind or gravity—it’s designed to leverage its own architecture so those forces don't collapse it. In the same way, Narrative Architecture isn’t about ignoring marketing or cultural sensibilities; it is about building a foundation strong enough to carry their weight.

Budget and Marketing are multipliers. If your narrative's structural value is 0, no matter how much you multiply it with a $100M marketing budget, the final ROI remains 0. Deconstruction is useful to the writer who 'has a story to tell' because it removes the element of 'hope' and replaces it with 'engineering certainty.'

It’s not about assembling pieces to find a story; it’s about verifying that the story you have has the 'Narrative Physics' to hold an audience’s obsession across borders and budgets. Without that verification, you aren't producing art—you are subsidizing a high-stakes gamble.

Artashes Yeremyan "...it is engineered specifically to survive them." This cannot be done. However, again, I don't see how this kind of deconstruction is useful to a writer. I see it is a fun academic exercise but beyond that, what can it accomplish? Also, I would disagree with your last statement. The concept of verification is something that art or artists need never pay attention to. Propaganda needs verification. The assertion that without such you are subsidizing a high-stakes gamble implies you have a long experience in producing, as opposed to writing per se. Do you?

Shadow Dragu-Mihai , 'cannot be done' is the default verdict in an industry that often prioritizes creative luck over structural engineering. But Narrative Physics aren't optional; they are the governing laws of human attention.

To clarify your points:

1. Art vs. Assets: Expression is the writer's goal. Intellectual Property (IP) is the market's asset. I am dealing with the latter. Verification isn't 'propaganda'; it is structural insurance. If your 'Art' can't hold its own weight under market physics, it remains a beautifully lit liability.

2. Producing vs. Writing: At the $100M horizon, these roles merge at the foundation. My 12 years as an invisible hand involved ensuring the writer's vision didn't collapse the producer's capital. I don't separate them; I architect the point where they successfully intersect.

Deconstruction isn't an academic exercise; it’s narrative triage. We identify the micro-fractures on paper so the ROI doesn't bleed out on screen. If the bone is sound, the art is safe.

Artashes Yeremyan I have 35 years in the industry, both mainstream and independent, from writer to executive producer. When I say it cannot be done, it's not by default; it's specific judgement of what you seem to be saying you can do. You cannot control your market fully, or it's reaction to your work. I have to question your hands on knowledge when you talk about $100m budgets and an industry that "prioritizes luck" in the same post - the major studios haven't maintained a lock on the industry for 80 years by prioritizing luck. I have to disagree - deconstruction is absolutely an academic exercise, especially when you begin to pretend micro-pieces can be programmed into the process and apply to writers in general. In all your dialog so far, you haven't even addressed directorial control, which is a fact in feature film, or producer's control, which is a fact in television and much of streaming, or the very many agendas and inputs of creative people and myriad other factors outside anyone's control, in a months or years long process, all of which can affect market success. In other words, much if not most of the time, it has nothing to do with script.

Just happened to see the discussion after a long day! It is of important and significant criteria to contemplate! I'll hold my comments in reserve for now!

Most narrative breakdowns originate in a misalignment between the story’s pressure ecology and its causality lattice.

A script can demonstrate clear intent, legible stakes, and sequential escalation while still exhibiting a non-propagating momentum profile. This occurs when narrative load is introduced at the beat level but fails to translate across the structural membrane of the piece. Energy circulates locally without generating systemic propulsion.

The protagonist’s objective may appear active, and antagonistic resistance may register, yet their interaction does not meaningfully reconfigure the story’s pressure geometry. As a result, scenes register as dynamically occupied but directionally neutral.

This condition is often misread as pacing fatigue or tonal drift, when it is actually a failure in narrative vector alignment. The story advances in time but not in force.

Without evaluating how narrative pressure is conserved, redirected, and amplified across the entire frame, these structural inefficiencies remain invisible to standard development metrics and only manifest as late-stage engagement erosion.

E Langley , your deconstruction of the 'momentum profile' is clinically sound.

A 'directionally neutral' scene is effectively an invisible financial leak. This failure in 'narrative vector alignment'—where a story advances in time but stalls in force—is precisely the 'Narrative Debt' I specialty in auditing.

Standard development metrics fail because they look at the 'Atmosphere' (pacing/tone), but ignore the 'Pressure Geometry' of the causality lattice. When narrative energy fails to generate systemic propulsion, you don't have a draft—you have late-stage engagement erosion masquerading as a movie. Identifying these ghost-leaks on paper is the only way to protect the integrity of the capital. Accurate diagnostics.

Eon C. Rambally , architectural precision requires exactly that—careful contemplation before intervention. When the conversation shifts from 'intuition' to 'geometry,' the outcomes become repeatable rather than accidental. I’ll look forward to when you choose to release your comments from reserve.

Shadow Dragu-Mihai , 35 years of experience is a formidable asset, and I respect the weight of that history. However, your conclusion that 'market success often has nothing to do with the script' is precisely why Narrative Architecture became a requirement at the $100M horizon.

To address your points with surgical precision:

1. The Illusion of Control: You're right—we cannot control the market fully. But we can engineer a project’s Integrity Profile. Directorial and producer control are multipliers—they can amplify the signal, but they cannot create sound resonance from a structurally bankrupt source. Putting a great director on a fractured script is just a high-budget exercise in managing a sinking ship.

2. Studio Legacy: Major studios didn't stay on top for 80 years by prioritizing 'intuition.' They stayed on top by Standardizing Risk. They built systems to ensure that regardless of individual creative agendas, the narrative physics would hold the audience’s attention. My work as a ghost-architect was exactly that—protecting the capital from 'creative noise' that lacks structural logic.

3. Academic vs. Operative: Deconstruction isn't 'academic' when you’re facing a $30,000-per-day production burn rate. At that level, a passive protagonist isn't a theoretical debate; it's a quantifiable narrative leak.

Capital doesn't invest in 'luck' anymore, Shadow. It invests in auditable architecture. I prioritize the skeletal system specifically because everything else—the direction, the acting, the myriad factors you mentioned—relies on it to stand. If the bone is soft, the movie doesn't walk. Period.

This rhetorical discussion reminds me of this historical moment in technical explanation.

https://youtu.be/Ac7G7xOG2Ag?si=MxpsdoSkGONdhHGZ

Glad you found it helpful, Artashes Yeremyan.

I prompted GPT with "make up a ridiculous response that sounds real and convincing in convoluted double-talk" in response to language that sounds like the discovery of a secret branch of narrative science that in regards a writer's script can be revealed for a fee.

Entertaining reference, Mike Boas . Jargon is indeed the first refuge of a pretender. However, the difference between technobabble and actual engineering is measured by the bank statement: a structure that holds or an ROI that survives. I’ll keep focusing on the latter while the forum enjoys the levity.

A clever exercise in prompting, E Langley . It perfectly illustrates why the industry is currently in crisis: many can mimic the vocabulary of an expert, but very few can perform the actual surgery.

Whether narrative structural logic sounds like 'science' to the writer or 'double-talk' to the critic is irrelevant. What matters is whether the IP’s foundation holds its weight under market friction or bleeds capital. For those who prioritize rhetoric, the discussion is over. For those who prioritize structural integrity, the diagnostic link is in my bio.

Disengaging now to focus on my current production audits. Best of luck.

I think pressure ecology-causality lattice alignment should be made a standard check box for script competition checklists.

Yes, very clever. And swallowed whole.

It also illustrates those who regularly pass through here to grab cash. That's another reason the industry is in crisis. Through eroding trust and preying on the hopeful. Thankfully, the ilk are like a 4th of July bottle rocket that makes a show when it launches, produces a tiny pop and is gone.

There's nothing here an experienced reader can't provide a writer ... in easy to understand language.

Good luck.

Artashes Yeremyan Seriously, when is a script finished? At no time until final exhibition is the script finished, though the writer, official or ghost writer, is out of it when the script is delivered to production. The writer writes it, the director translates it with or without any reference at all to the writer - official or ghost writer - the actors put their own spin on it without reference to the writer's intent, the producers walk onto set and want a change that just crossed their minds, without reference to any writer's intent, the DP decides their angle and much of the pacing, both of which impact character, the editors and director decide to change it up and from this point no writer is consulted at all, then they do a reshoot which will change it again, then the distributor wants it cut short for time slot issues, then the MPA decides they want the filmmaker to change something for a target rating, then scenes are cut because sales agents perceive issues with certain markets, then each platform has it's own issues related to running time, then territorial content rules force specific edits for specific markets. To say nothing of the fact that there may be no marketing dollars spent in any particular market, or at all, or there was a similar movie on the screen at the same time which had more marketing dollars spent.... none of which has anything to do with the writer, and none of which is impacted one way or another by a micro-nuance in a script.

Artashes Yeremyan, your welcome! I’m curious to see some editing towards this commentary!

So much discussed depends on independent research and significantly embodies the general structure of the post/thread.

Yet to be defined in my bio: If this impresses, I grew up in a home learning and taught about the industry by both parents, particularly my farther, then continued officially into adulthood. Therefore, welcome to at least 40 years of knowledge, including extensive research, of the entertainment industry!

A little synopsis: Back home, a twin island state, we were once known and nicknamed, the little LA and Hollywood” by some, but concerns of moral constraints as one of criteria and subjects led to a replace with “Public Relations”, with appeal to the field of “Psychology” and “Culture”. However together with “Religious Beliefs” over the years attributed to a more careful approach to international image.

Such impressive, defined comments and “The Writer’s Perspective”, is well noted!

Definitively, with the relative changing landscape of industrial deals, partnerships, including the world of AI and Vertical Media comes into perspective, as to what “direction” general matters have now impacted the industry, where also besides mentioned “psychology” and “direction” the term “trajectory” defines part of undeniable factors.

Therefore, mindful of the fractal essence, even Divinity and what collectively implicates!

Significantly, in comments concerning mentioned “direction” and “trajectory”, I have not noticed mention of the ultimate field of.....

“Anthropology”!

Q: Indicatively, then what are the general opinions, implications and applications that can be assessed and anticipated, towards relative futuristic field of aspects?

Artashes Yeremyan boy I am out really of the shallows now, I am excited to learn more about this.

Nailed it E Langley Nailed it.

Shadow Dragu-Mihai , you have masterfully described a Narrative Pathology—the cycle of unmanaged risk that leads to industry instability. If the script is 'never finished' and anyone can derail the vision, it’s not because the process is complex; it's because the foundation was never engineered to hold its weight.

Major studios don't stay at the top for 80 years by allowing chaos to dictate their $200M slates. They survive by establishing Narrative Physics that are unbreakable even after the director, the actors, and the market have had their say. If 'micro-nuances' don't matter, then consistency is an accident and ROI is just a lottery. Architecture isn't about control—it's about structural integrity that outlasts the noise. Precision pays; hope leaks capital.

Eon C. Rambally , anthropology and the trajectory of collective narratives are vital, but at the board level, we prioritize the Operative over the Speculative. Structural logic is what allows meaning to become a scalable asset. Looking forward to where the data meets the divinity. Stay in sync.

Glad you’ve reached deeper waters, Darrell Pennington . True narrative engineering is far more transparent than the industry likes to admit. The transition from vibes to structure is the only way to build a legacy that lasts.

Thanks, David Taylor. The equivalent of the Prince who emails to send money to them so they can regain their fortune." Then again I don't have, "For over 12 years, I have served as the invisible hand behind screens across the US, Europe, and Asia." Bold but no proof — according to imdb.

Better get a time machine to sign up and toss away your hard-earned cash, "Current Status: Accepting selective Q1-Q2 2024 briefs." So much for precision.

Put simply, William Goldman said, "“Nobody knows anything...... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.”

This nonsense is touted as a bogus film industry 'Moneyball'. if “unbreakable Narrative Physics” were real, $200M studio failures wouldn’t exist.

In a zeitgeist with rapidly changing tastes, studios don’t survive due to perfect story architecture. They survive because of IP libraries, distribution power, market reach, and the ability to absorb losses across a slate.

What gets called “precision” is usually committees, test screenings, reshoots, and editorial course correction funded by scale. ROI isn’t protected by narrative elegance, it’s protected by cushioning.

Studios live on because they can afford for story to fail and still live with it.

E Langley The guy doesn't understand irony, or writing, apparently.

Artashes Yeremyan With years as "the invisible hand," you've never noticed that film is a collaborative art form? Collaboration is not pathology. Film is not a writer's medium - novels are. My suggestion is that you market your ideas to novel writers - they can get the narrative nuances in concrete and reap the amazing financial rewards when readers are wowed.

Artashes Yeremyan It’s (Anthropology) a much underestimated field according to a past Stage 32 AMA and world renown sought after, top Anthropologists. That AMA was done on this platform about 3 years ago and there were considerable planned futuristic, focus on the field. As to “significance”, it’s noted what you’ve mentioned and iterated. However, many reasons I asked about general anticipations.

Recollectively according to that AMA this field “Anthropology” is scheduled to be considerably and importantly engaged with the subject you’ve mentioned, to have exceptional skills to connect with our audiences, including “layman issues”….

“the underlying engineering that governs whether an audience stays obsessed or walks away”.

From an investment and advisory perspective therefore, with concerns of risk management for certainty in clarity, this is seriously concerning!

My hope and concerns given the present lounge this discussion was transferred to, is that not only myself is “in sync” with the before mentioned “significance” issue.

Concerning Divinity and “The Writer’s Perspectives”, well again according to Stage 32’s AMAs there is much increased prompt, encouragement and attention on “Faith Based” genres, where the now world recognized “Angel Studios" (also mentioned in stage 32 posts & AMAs) is making serious head waves in the industry. Altogether includes what writers are paying full attention to!

Concerning ROI and "good writing", I realized the mentioned situation and criteria at a much younger age!... Approximately 35 yrs. ago!

Strong post, Artashes Yeremyan, and respect for stepping out after that long operating behind the curtain. That kind of work only stays invisible if it’s doing its job.

I think a lot of producers realize “good writing isn’t enough” the moment a project looks great on paper and still fails to hold attention once momentum matters, whether that’s during development, packaging, or early audience response. The cracks usually show up when pacing stalls, when the protagonist stops driving the story, or when the conflict doesn’t compound the way, the budget assumes it will.

What you’re calling Narrative Physics really does feel like the missing layer in a lot of projects — especially now, when audiences are quicker to disengage and competition for attention is brutal. Visual polish can’t compensate for a weak structural spine anymore, and ROI feels increasingly tied to whether the story moves with intent.

Curious to hear how producers here identify those fracture points early enough to course-correct, because by the time they’re obvious on screen, it’s usually too late.

Wow, I guess they were wrong when they said "hey, it isn't rocket science!" But then y'all rewrote the book.

I'll work some alchemy and distill it to three words by Elia Kazan: "Unity to Climax."

Good writing tells the story that should be told. Everything else takes care of itself