You are a Screenwriting Analyst. Richard Curtis is a prominent figure in the world of screenplay writing, well-known for his unique techniques and narrative styles. Could you help us understand and analyze Curtis's approach to the screenwriting process, commonly used narrative structures, themes, and insights into his writing process? Please write in-depth, insightful, valuable and informative as much as possible. Quoting direct quotes straight from the video transcripts with quotation marks as examples and/or visuals of points made. Here are the video transcripts "Video: Richard Curtis - "I Rewrote 'Four Weddings' 19 Times!" | BAFTA Guru – YouTube 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3u9mR9qy_k&t=107s&ab_channel=BAFTAGuru 
Transcript:
“GETTING INTO THE FILM INDUSTRY
Question: How did you get started in the industry?
Richard Curtis: Actually in terms of getting into the industry at all my dad who was quite a serious man said that I had one year of fooling around and then I had to enter the marketing department at Unilever and in my first year I and I think 546 pounds or something like that but I then luckily got my first TV commission and that got me through the door as far as he was concerned and I got an agent actually by someone seeing me performing up in Edinburgh I got very lucky just that some lovely keen American woman who was living in London liked my jokes I got started in television by hanging onto the coattails of Rowan Atkinson who when he was 20 was a genius and it was obvious that he was going to be a TV star and I was his closest friend and wrote things for him and so we drifted in as comedians tend to by doing stage stuff of our own up in Edinburgh and then did a radio show which the traditional radio for which was pretty poor and then started writing sketches for a sketch show which became not the local news and then I wrote for that for for series so it was a very traditional route and then from a sketch show I went into a sitcom and then from a sitcom I went into films.
INFLUENCES
Question: What film or programme has influenced you the most?
Richard Curtis: John Cleese in many ways weirdly is the most influential person in my career because when I was young Monty Python was all there was 50% of your conversation with friends was just quoting Monty Python sketches so as it were like a generation before would have had the goons and the generation after might have had you know the young months as it were for me it was Monty Python and that's what made me interested in humor and started me writing sketches and then strangely the reason we wrote Blackadder was because Fawlty Towers have been so extraordinary that when I tried to write a modern sitcom it just looked so pathetic in comparison to 40 does that we only wrote historical one to avoid Fawlty Towers but the big influence on my films would probably have to be Woody Allen just because I so loved his films when I was young and he made films changed style and developed so quickly so you were always interested by what he was going to do next and he gave me the confidence to try different things and it was particularly for me had written silly sketches and a silly sitcom so Woody Allen did silly films when he started out at Scotland from sketches and ended up writing Annie Hall which was much closer to what I loved and the first film of his that I really loved so me then having the confidence to arrive for weddings may have been based on my passion for our confidence gained from Woody Allen.
ADVICE
Question: What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Richard Curtis: My obvious piece of advice is to make sure you write or do what you really like there was a bit of a pressure on me when I started they would say you know British rails funny or you know dreadful sandwiches that you buy and M&S a funny write joke about that and I think it's really important to do what you think is interesting not what other people tell you might be interesting for me writing to sort of get work because you know that sort of work is popular as a disaster so I would say right from the heart and hope that somebody likes it as a sort of person in films I suppose my obvious thing would be to take every stage of the process incredibly seriously and I would say to get very involved so I had a script editor who's also my girlfriend who made me rewrite “Four Weddings” 19 times so I didn't just handed something that I thought might be okay it would be ruthlessly dealt with I then worked with a director who was obsessed by casting and the casting process took forever so actually once the movie had been cast it was almost made and then I think the final thing is that when you're editing you can fix most films I mean at least three of my films have been when finished the first really careful cut of being spectacular disasters really really bad failed movies and we managed just by determination and thinking you know things through in a different way to make them eventually work by hook or by crook so those are some of my pieces of advice.”



Video: Script to Screen Red Carpet: LOVE ACTUALLY with Richard Curtis | Matt Ryan – YouTube
https://youtu.be/NbYecUZHgy4 
Transcript:
“Interviewer: I have question for you when you when you take something like “Love Actually” which i love dearly uh when you have like a multiple protagonist how do you balance like you know the screen time could you you have to cut some things you probably really cared about you know because you have multiple characters to explore.
Richard Curtis: Well “Love Actually” of all the films i've written is the one that turned out most wrong after we'd shot it so in fact i think it's very hard to judge what you've got to try and do is write good stuff for all of them and then actually remake the order and remake the dynamic of it once it's shot that's what we did on “Love Actually” the the script i wrote had all the same contents but in a completely different order to the finished film.
Interviewer: So something like “Notting Hill” was a little easier for you basically two characters
Richard Curtis: She walks into the room she kisses him she goes away but in this one it was like playing three-dimensional chess because after every scene you could put any scene from any of the other 10 stories.
Interviewer: So and maybe on uh when you do an ensemble piece and it's more the director on set which we directed of course has a lot more to do trying to rework the script at the same time
Richard Curtis: no no i think they've got a lot to do in the edit that would be what i have to say i think they've got a lot to do in the edit in some ways they're great fun to do because you only have to work for a week or two with each actor so they never see through you and realize what a bad director you are.”


Video: Richard Curtis On Creating A Classic Rom-Com | Fast Company - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FENpwVe14MA 
Transcript:
“INTRO:
(00:00) - Seeing as how love is quite a big subject. And I often think about serial killers. There've only been about eight of them. And yet, there are about 100 movies about them. And yet, every day a million people are in love, so I can't believe that romantic films won't, sort of, stay at the core of cinema, in one way or another.
(00:17) (cheerful music)
NOTTING HILL
- I do solemnly declare. - I do solemnly declare. - [Priest] That I know not of any lawful impediment. - That I know not of any lawful impediment. - Why I, Lydia. - [Groom] Why I, Bernard. - "Four Weddings," which is thought of as a romantic comedy, I didn't see as that. I thought of it as a semi-autobiographical film about love and friendship.
(00:51) I wasn't really aware that there was genre or a rule book. Then I became more aware, with "Notting Hill," that that was what I was up to. Every Thursday, I used to go and have dinner with my friends, Piers and Paula. And I just thought, if I turned up at Piers and Paula's, if Madonna was my date, how would they react? Helen Fielding, who then wrote Bridget Jones, obsessive Madonna fan.
(01:16) She would scream a lot and lose her cool. And neither Piers, nor Paula, would have any idea who she was. And that exact scene actually happens in "Notting Hill". - Last film you did, what'd you get paid? - 15 million dollars. - Right. - The curious thing about "Notting Hll" is that, even though Hugh had been the star, Hugh Grant had been the star of "Four Weddings," I didn't want Hugh Grant.
(01:40) I very specifically didn't want him. Because I thought it would so fantastic to have a complete unknown, which would really have made the movie be like a perfect mirror to the story itself. But we auditioned about 10 people, and I thought, oh god, I'll never find anyone who's any good. We might as well cast Hugh.
(01:59) I'm quite embarrassed by "I'm just a girl, "standing in front of a boy," because I clearly thought it was a good line. Because in the next scene, one of the characters says to Hugh Grant, "what did she say?" And he says, "oh, she's just--" - A girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.
(02:17) - So I obviously thought, I better repeat it, like it was going back to the chorus, or the hook, in a song.
BRIDGET JONES
(upbeat music) Well, the terrifying thing about being involved in "Bridget Jones" was actually Helen Fielding, because she was my best friend; it was her book. And I'd actually read "Bridget" seven times before it came out because she gave it to me with every extra 50 pages.
(02:40) We cast Renee, and we made the film. And then we had trouble editing the film. And Helen was full of, "that's not quite like Bridget. "This isn't quite right." And then you realize the big revelation to making movies, that there comes a point where you've gotta stop thinking about your source, as it were, stop thinking about the script you've written, or the book that the script you've written is based on, and say our Bridget is Renee.
(03:04) And the moment that we accepted that, and all the wonderful qualities that she brought to the film, some of which might not be the exact representation of the book, but was a fully-fledged, fabulous human. You then edit the movie towards what you've got, and that means that, in some ways, it's better for that, because you've got an embodiment of a special, cinematic Bridget, rather than an attempt to just reproduce what was in the book.
LOVE ACTUALLY
(03:33) ♪ I'll take you down ♪ ♪ I'll take you down ♪ ♪ Where no one's ever gone ♪ - Yeah. - I mean, "Love Actually" was partly inspired by the fact that I had done these three romantic comedies before, and I, in fact, didn't want to write another one. The plot in that movie, of Hugh and Martine, was a whole film I thought of doing.
(03:54) And the plot of Colin Firth's story was a whole film that I had intended to write. So, what I was trying to do was, it was push the romantic comedy genre as far as it could possibly go. And just take the three best scenes of 10 different films and shove them all together. The big inspiration was "Nashville," a Robert Altman movie, and "Short Cuts," a Robert Altman Movie.
(04:17) Which are very standards to be aiming for, because these are two of my favorite movies of all time. These movies with a lot of plots are tough to do. "Love Actually," in its first edit, was the third worst film of all time. I mean it was really the worst example I can remember of something which had worked brilliantly in a read-though, not working well.
(04:39) So it was like playing three-dimensional chess, because any scene could go after any other scene, from any other point, in any of the other stories. So, that was very, very hard work. I was a new director. And if it had been a movie in which there was a cast who would've had 10 weeks to get used to me, maybe they would've got used to me.
(04:58) But we only had one week per plot. So I felt I was auditioning for the actors every single week. What I realized was quite how unfair I'd been on the directors that I'd worked with beforehand. Because there's this terrible contradiction in movies, that a writer's got two years to fix absolutely everything, and then the director's got one day in which to shoot it.
(05:21) And suddenly I understood why sometimes the directors had rushed through things I thought was important or been happy when they got it. Because I was always saying, oh, let's have another go, let's try it another way. - I'd only give one piece of advice to anyone marrying: try and marry someone kind.
(05:39) - The original inspiration for "About Time" is the scene that most people talk to me about, which is the scene on a beach, when the leading character travels back to just spend an afternoon with his dad who's just died. And, almost for the first time in the movies, the idea I had was based on a visual thing.
(05:58) And I remember starting now, at last, as a writer, to start to sort of think, well, what really matters about that scene isn't so much all the words that they're saying, but where they're standing, that it's a lonely street. So I think, at last, by "About Time" I was gaining a bit of visual confidence.
(06:17) And I hired the cameraman from my favorite visual movie, called "Like Crazy," that Drake Doremus made. And I started to think, if you want to fall in love with a character, then the words can do two-thirds of it, but if you can shoot it well, then maybe that's gonna be the thing which, as it were, goes into your heart without knowing how it got there.
(06:42) ♪ Oh, I believe in yesterday ♪ - Oh my, when did you write that? - I didn't write it; Paul McCartney wrote it, the Beatles. - Who? - I mean I've been obsessed by the Beatles for the whole of my life. That's the real inspiration. But then, of course, the inspiration that the Beatles gave me was that a lot of their stuff was about love.
(07:08) We got permission, fabulously, to use, I think, 18 Beatles' songs, and they didn't say which. It was a wonderful thing to write, because I'd be typing along and think, okay, he's having a crisis. And then I'd go through the Beatles catalog and think, well, "Help" is clearly, if he's gonna sing any song now, it should be "Help.
(07:26) " It was a wonderful thing 'cause they've got such a range that, as I told this tale, there was always a perfect Beatles' song to go in. I think that the curve of my career is to realize that love doesn't end at the first kiss or as you walk down the aisle in wedding. That's where some of my movies did end.
(07:46) When I went to "Love Actually," which had brothers and sisters, and fathers and sons, and married couples. And then, "About Time" was a romantic comedy for half of it and then a film about death and family and marriage. And that "Yesterday" is a movie about love of music and love.
(08:03) I think I've learned that love's a big subject that the traditional shape of a rom-com doesn't quite cover.”
Video: "Richard Curtis And His Very Limited Experience Of Life" - Notting Hill Screenwriter Criticised - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVQnQC8vGdo 
Transcript:
(00:00) well comedian Ria Lena joins us in the studio now Ria what do you reckon um do you reckon that that the Richard Curtis should be regretting these jokes that he's made in the past or do do you think he's learned his lesson do you know I think it is about whether he should or he shouldn't I think it's the fact that he is he is looking back and he is seeing in his old work through current eyes and I think there's a lot of people that agree with him are they looking at their work through current eyes um and (00:27) regretting what they did is there not just an acknowledgement that really the world's changed I mean this is a really inter my gosh that is the most leftwing question you've ever asked I've been watch for a while I'm being serious I know the world's changed but you can't apologize for everything listen to this this is interesting Tina we've got loads of respon to this section there was no one more loved or more relevant than Robin Williams nothing was off limits he was comedic genius that's why we loved (00:51) him he must be turning in his grave to see what's happening to Comedy now because they look back the whole time I think it's a very relevant point I and I'm trying to think of of something that Robin Williams said that that in any way was was offensive he did Cover a wide range of topics he wore a fat suit for Mrs dfire was that disrespectful no that was Mrs Doubtfire he was pretending to be a Scottish nanny I don't are we implying that all Scottish nannies are we didn't have enough time in this (01:17) segment to discuss Mrs delire what a film in itself uh but well the thing is is that if you want to be successful you're going to want to make most of the people laugh most of the time all right nobody's really said that anything's per se of limits but it might limit who's going to enjoy your artwork so Ava Santina and I were talking about this earlier in our pay-per review uh the fat jokes that he would make about Bridget Jones uh and about Marty McCutchen's character in Love Actually where car (01:46) another character called her the chubby one which she wasn't at all we were led to believe at me as a young girl that Bridget Jones was overweight or even fat and I look at her now with Modern Eyes and go she hardly had on it no but I think a film but part of that part of that was the fact that the actress are suffer El wagger it was a whole publicity compan how much weight she had to put on for it because they didn't even cast somebody you know that that would fit that would fit that role I think the Bridget Jones thing is  (02:19) interesting I don't think that I mean yes there were a lot of fat jokes but what I think that was if you look at the original Helen Fielding books you know he didn't completely rewrite the books this was a character that was sad to be single she was obsessed about her weight uh I think the issue was is that it was it was screen written by a straight white male instead of perhaps a woman that could understand exactly what Helen Fielding was getting at with that character and then just portray that the (02:43) way that we women would understand give you Steven both of you understood this it's ridiculous apologizing for a joke written 30 years ago if it was funny then in my mind it's funny now I'm sick of being expected to accept that everything I've ever learned loved and laughed at is wrong it is not wrong simply a reflection of my life and time no I'm sorry about the reflection of your life and time Stephen but but he has a right to that opinion and I have a right to have an opinion on his opinion (03:07) um so when we move to the the the topic of minorities in Richard Curtis films there's no doubt you watch Notting Hill there's not a single black character in it you watch Love Actually there are very few black characters in it and that's you know London in the naughties OR Notting Hill in the '90s OR that's Richard Curtis and his very limited experience of life he said himself he went to her and then he went to Oxford and he never looked outside of that and that really is a question about who are (03:35) we allowing to write art and who are we turning to and that is you know brings us on to the diversity question I know a lot of people going why do we have so much diversity so that we can have a wider range of authentic artwork put in front of us comedy or otherwise in terms of what's on or off limits I mean we we cover all things in drama all things are covered what what why you're you're she got a lovely Tour on rear Awakening I get that to 2023 where are see well that we're getting free tickets putting you on is that (04:03) right where are you where are you next where are you next I'm well I'm going to be I'm going to be in leads on Thursday I'm doing Cambridge uh we're going to do more dates in Guilford and Maiden head because the first two sold out 1 of November at the London comedy and what's your what's your favorite joke try to make me laugh tell me an unpolitically tell my mother's favorite joke go on then did you hear about the miracle baby no it was born with a penis and a brain see that just you see that (04:28) absolutely sums up that I'm rounded Kevin did you hear that joke it's very anti-men it is very anti-men sexist joke anti-men that's the problemay no listen oh well listen riina I love that R re yeah re Reawakening Reawakening it's where can they find out more where can they find out more uh real. (04:50) com all tickets are on there but you two email me and we'll get your tickets fabulous absolutely let's just point out though Love Actually was a fantastic film and it was a massive hit but there we go it was it's my I've T up I didn't mean to do that I thought it was a piece of paper I was that is no way a reflection look we'll put it back together now you have to come to the show and you have to laugh at every every single joke every joke you send me tickets listen I go anywhere for free don't I care do you get sick and tired (05:13) of people saying yo you're a comedian make me laugh because I think every time someone meets me or you they go oh yeah yeah you do the breakfast show tell me some news.”


Video: Richard Curtis: Career In Four Minutes - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4XaYbQlKxI 
Transcript:
Richard Curtis: (00:04) hello my name is <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON> and this is apparently my career in four minutes
[extract from a movie] my dear son this is going to sound strange but there's this secret but the men in this family can travel in time
Richard Curtis: Wow I mean I think of anything the secret of my films has been alive still tried to keep writing sketches and many of them if you look at “Four Weddings” it's it's in a funny way sketch movie really this these two jokes of this wedding these two jokes of the next wedding and if you look at “Notting Hill” (00:36) those seen when in the junket where is being interviewed that's like a sketch about somebody misunderstanding a film or not have you seen a film so I think they're sketch writing definitely informed and was crucial to the movie career I think the magic of sitcom is probably still writing sketches in sitcom but the plot structure of sitcom which is so crucial I don't think resembles the structure of movies very much so I think this it's harder to see the line between the sitcoms and the films. “The Tall Guy” was a very happy (01:07) film Jeff gobble a very funny man and I particularly remember just roaring with laughter in a scene where Rowan was having a party when he'd sacked Jeff go from and he for the party just bought a mini bottle of champagne because at the end of my tour with Roman we did 72 dates and Roland had a party and he bought one bottle of champagne and one pizza not one pizza for all of us one pizza so I remember having a very good time on that the successful forwards and femur was a complete surprise to everybody I got a piece of paper from (01:43) MGM or whoever owned the movie and Paula Graham who at the movie and next to America of the expected earnings that said naught so it was a great shock to everybody the strange thing was I remember thinking of the plot of Notting Hill on a very wet afternoon sitting in a waiting room with corin redgrave who played and in the dalles husband and James fleet on for wedding so I actually thought of knotting here while we were making for wedding so it was lucky for me that that coming out of the success of for weddings I already knew what I (02:19) was going to do rather than thinking oh god what's next the thing about Love Actually is it was a curious film because everybody was only on it for a week or for two weeks so that nobody could see quite how bad I was about it because just when they were thinking of my god really doesn't know what he's doing they were off so it was it was it was it was nerve-racking but it was like I could start 12 times you know every time we've got a new bunch I would be a little bit better one of the reasons I (02:46) wrote that film was because there's a whole chunk of it was particularly the Robert Altman ones but I love Nashville as a movie called smooth and I love they loved pulp fiction so there were a lot of a multi-storey for shortcuts it was a genre i love the strange thing about the cast of the boat rocked as they were almost all in every single scene so that was when i started directing just with the camera on people's shoulders so that instead of saying a single of him a secured him a single of helena chemicals (03:16) go like that and find whoever was talking I think what I learned was the sort of negative lesson which is that I didn't like the formal structures moving making I did not like doing the wide shot followed by a two-shot follow back because he just get locked in at the beginning of the day into one performance and one geography so I think that I in this in the boat the rod and now in about time the cameras very fluid and flexible and just waiting to catch good things rather you know being part of a verse of a (03:43) formal shooting straight working with earl morris with students berber was absolute joy because steven is a sultan it really is storytelling genius so you would come up with a scene and he would say what that sounds great how about this and suddenly he would imagine 10 minutes of cinema that you can completely see if you said well I'm not sure that's right because this character wouldn't do that he'd imagined another whole 10 minutes of cinema I mean he was fantastic like someone who could go on (04:09) writing brilliant Tunes one after anot her well it's funny I have already written to time travel thing said there was time traveling in a black and a special that we do and I did a doctor who which was fun time traveling back to him Vincent van Gogh so I obviously am interested in it I didn't research time travel movies before I made my wanted to go back and watch I mean at the moment I'm not intending to direct something again the moment the message of about time is just do stress do less stressful (04:40) things and enjoy yourself and so the next time i work with bill will be working on a walking holiday rather than a movie.”
Video: Richard Curtis and His Start with Four Weddings and a Funeral - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YutcjLfHVRI 
Transcript:
(00:04) Interviewer: the film that we first got to know you with As Americans uh was “Four Weddings and a funeral” was it the first film you wrote
Richard Curtis: second I wrote a film called “The Tall Guy” which was Emma Thompson's Emma Thompson and Jeff Goldblum MH that that smatter is an exact proportional representation um of how much money that movie made in comparison to Four Weddings
Interviewer: okay so “four weddings and a funeral” um introdu gave us Hugh Grant in America that's sort of what all sold us on Hugh Grant um would you like to apologize to anyone right now
Richard Curtis: (00:39) the answer the official answer is only to Divine Brown isn't it that's the that's the official answer to the question but no no I mean I didn't I tried not to allow Hugh to audition because I thought he was too handsome and I thought it would…
Interviewer: he wasn't he wasn't you didn't think he was right for that part
Richard Curtis: no no and in fact in the end were me the director and the producer and it came down to choosing between Hugh and Alan Rickman and I voted for Alan wow so I I I was so wrong um but would have been a very (01:14) different part yeah and the thing is I'd imagined it like breaking away in a film called Gregory's girl a very great English movie where uh I thought that that the the guy had to be not attractive particularly that had to be the explanation and then he found true love I didn't realize that by making him attractive it would make the film sort of three times as successful but Hugh was uh Hugh was the only but Hugh was the only person who could do the lines of all the 70 people we auditioned and he was extraordinarily on point he was (01:47) completely accurate he he did everything as exactly as I'd dreamt it I was I was very lucky.”


Video: ‘Love Actually’ writer Richard Curtis on film’s legacy - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNspva0W3xY 
Transcript:
Interviewer: (00:00) 20 years
Richard Curtis: yeah I know I think the 20 years shows what a youthful optimist I probably was when I wrote it
Interviewer: he says he still wants to write about our Humanity the surprising ways we are good to each other in a world that has so many movies filled with trauma and violence
Richard Curtis: we get thousands of films about serial killers and there's only ever been about nine of them and yeah there'll be a million people falling in love feeling it's the most interesting moment of their lives Good Deeds inside families and Good Deeds inside (00:38) communities if you look at what happened during covid and the extraordinary sort of bravery and heroism I do think the way to think about life is that every day has the potential in all its Simplicity just to be just to be gorgeous.”


Video: (1) Richard Curtis explains why he likes to set his films in Britain - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCvBZnc_Wbg 
Transcript:
(00:03) and I wrote the script and it was set in Boston and I went to see the people at MGM and they said this is amazing this is a fantastic script I said oh I'm so thrilled and they said except the two leading characters we don't like I said why and they said well it's sort of weak no one's gonna admire them we'll want to spend time with them I said no and they said the dialogues very English it doesn't really read American so you'll have to work on that and I said oh right and then they said which means that most (00:38) of the jokes don't work because people won't get their humor so I said that only needs the title that's the only thing we've got and they said we hate the time and I I flew home two weeks later and I swore I'll never do a film that's not set actually where I live." Be as much detailed as possible. PLEASE