Structure and Character Today we'll be talking about ... - Users

Structure and CharacterToday we’ll be talking about screenplay structure and character building and development,but we need first to regress to our last screenwriting lecture in order to move forwardtoday.Before we can structure our screenplay idea, before we can build a frame to hang ourcharacters and our scenes from, we need to be able to say what our movie is about. Youcan’t just start with a cool opening scene, or a violent action sequence, or a killer twistending. The root of your screenplay, the genesis of its structure and its content andeverything in between, is the subject. Here are examples of subjects of several movies.The Truman ShowThe story is about a man who’s been living his entire life under surveillance of countlesscameras, in a TV show centered all around him, and he doesn’t know. But soon he beginsto figure out that his entire world is fiction and he tries, and finally succeeds in, escaping it.Die HardThe story is about a police officer who is trapped in a hotel on Christmas Eve, along withseveral other people, held hostage by some ruthless terrorists. He fights back and makeshis way through the hotel, dispatching the terrorists one by one until the day is saved.West Side StoryThe story is about two teenagers who fall in love, but risk danger in doing so due to theiraffiliations with rival gangs. In the end, their attempts to love each other are tragicallydashed against the rocks after the boy is killed in a knife fight.Once you can sum a movie up in such few sentences, beginning to end, you have a subjectand then you can begin to work on structure. Syd Field has that bit of advice to give, aswell as many others, and I advise that you read his books, yet take him with a few grains ofsalt. He’s a control freak. Witness this structure diagram, which sets up the important plotpoints and segments of a movie:I know. It’s insane. And if you read his book, The Screenwirter’s Workbook, you’d be ableto make sense out of it. I can. And I can also see how, in many cases, with many people,that would be an effective and productive way to create a screenplay.But Syd Field is business-oriented. He values creative thought, of course, but he’s moreafraid of that thought getting out of control than I am. He knows that in Hollywood, you’renot allowed to break free of traditional, linear storytelling or introduce radical new ideasuntil you’re an established professional. And so he figures that he’s doing the reader afavor by introducing this chart, this “paradigm,” to you and asking you to squeeze yourthoughts into these holes.

I say come what may. You can use this structure if you like, but going with your gut feelingis sometimes better than going with Syd Field’s gut feeling. If the square block isn’t fitting inthe circle hole, maybe it’s the hole you need to get rid of and not the square.Knowhutimean? In this class, I’m encouraging a bit more creative freedom and I’m allowingyou to let your creative pistons fire a bit more to tell the story you want to tell—becauseGod knows you won’t be able to when you’re punching out a second draft of someoneelse’s TV sitcom script and you’ve got a focus group breathing down your neck. Besides,for many of you this is your first full-length script, so what the heck? Ramble a little.But in no way am I saying you can just toss out a stream-of-consciousness hunk of treebark. I don’t want to sound hypocritical and contradict what I just said, but I believe thatstructure, in its theory and rigidity, is actually extremely necessary. That’s why we’ll betaking the most basic elements of Mr. Field’s paradigm and applying them to our work.Here is the simplified version, which I think can be really conducive to writing and editingyour script.This, I think, will work much better. Most likely, your scripts will work in a three-actstructure, and your plot points near the ends of acts I and II will throw the plot into thenext stage of its trip to the end, or conclusion. The rest of that pretty ornamentation wasto help guide you in writing Act II, which Field believes is the most difficult act for youngwriters to maneuver through. Here’s why:In Act I , the writer must establish the players and the conflict; he/she must “set-up” theaction which will carry on into Act II. The writer is required to create drama and “lay outscenes and sequences that build and expand the information of your story.” Somewherearound the end of Act I (which will go on for however long you need it to), Plot Point 1must appear. We’ll go over plot points after the acts. This sounds like a lot to do, but thefact that Act I assigns you so many important tasks is good, because you’re forced to think,from the start, how your story will work.Act III is concerned with resolving the conflicts, problems, dilemmas, and desires of thecharacters, wrapping everything up and putting a nice pink bow on top. You’ve got toknow how your story ends, because “if you don’t, who will?”Those acts are simple enough to write. As long as you’ve got your subject down, youshould be able to construct something that at least resembles a set-up and a resolution.Besides, when you think back to movies, what do you remember the most? How theybegan and how they ended, right?Act II is how the beginning gets to the ending. It’s responsible for taking you there in aplausible fashion, while keeping things entertaining. In several movie-watching instanceswhere you feel the blood start to drain from your legs and your posterior getting weak,you can probably blame Act II. It’s the longest and least memorable of the three acts, butit’s got to shoulder the conflict and keep things interesting until the story winds its waydown in Act III. This is definitely a difficult act to write, but I think that Plot Pint 2 workswell as the hinge on which Act II rests. If you can take the conflict of the plot that Plot

Point 1 created, and run with that conflict by showing how the characters are affected by itand what they do, all the way to Plot Point 2, then you should be fne.Plot Points “move the story forward,” and they don’t just come up in pairs with movies.There can be many, many plot points, which twist, turn, propel, and detour the storythroughout, but Plot Point 1 and 2 are the big guns when it comes to keeping theaudience’s interest. Plot Point 1 is the moment, be it a revelation, a gun shot, a phone call,or whatever, that finally sets up the conflict that leads into Act II, the meat of the story.Plot Point II raises the stakes (perhaps another gunshot, if your name is John Woo). This2 nd plot point “spins the action into a new direction,” which hopefully has the moviegoergripping their armrest a bit tighter or at least watching more intently when the whole trainfinally comes to a stop in Act III.This structure is basic, but I require that it be not just taken into consideration when writingyour scripts, but employed to the best of your abilities. You need to be able to show thatyou can write film scripts the way Hollywood wants you to. Besides, that’s probably theway you want to write them, too. You just like complaining too much to notice it.CharactersUsing an ever-so-clever analogy in my last lecture, I stated that the plot of the movie is therollercoaster, and the characters are the people who ride in it with you. I coupled thatanalogy with the theory of the film being this fantastic, unordinary journey, and thecharacters were the people who took that journey. You, as an audience member, want toidentify with these characters so that you can feel like you’re on that journey. Thus, thesecharacters have to be developed to the extent that we care about them. Then, they’resitting right next to us in that cab as we speed right along the rollercoaster.Syd Field doesn’t disagree, from what I’ve read. But he likes to say that “Action isCharacter—what a person does is what he is, not what he says.” By this, he is commentingon the nature of your character when he, say, is under pressure, or wants something badly.What he will do to achieve his goals and overcome his obstacles – or won’t, for thatmatter – really defines who he is.“…what makes a good character? Conflict? Definitely. Background? Definitely.Personality? Definitely. But these qualities are only parts of the whole. In order to create acharacter we must first establish a context of character; that way, we can color and shadeour various traits and mannerisms later.”And Syd Field’s context in question, since I’m ripping off of him a bunch already, consists offour areas:Dramatic Need – what your character wants, needs, absolutely has to have. Many actionthrillers simply have their main characters desire deeply to survive. How much moredramatic can you get than someone’s life being on the line? But other characters needmoney. Some need to be loved. Others are chasing after that dream girl/guy. “Once youestablish your character’s dramatic need you can create obstacles to that need.”

Point of View – The way that character interprets and views the world around him. Whatdoes your character think of current events, or different issues? Are they vegan? Do theyabsolutely hate people with thick lower lips? This point of view doesn’t just help dress upyour character—if their opinions are especially controversial or they firmly believe in them,you can create conflict just through that. Suppose your character is a Wall Streetbusinessman who absolutely treasures money, believes it is what makes the world goaround. Now what if the villain steals the money away? Knowing how deeply thischaracter’s love for money is helps us understand his actions further when he fights to gethis money back.Change – You’ve heard this before, and it still makes sense that characters have to gothrough change by the end of the screenplay. For all the rules that Clerks breaks in termsof storytelling and structure, Dante, the main character, does indeed go through a changeby the end. If your character steps off the rollercoaster in the end without having learnedsomething, or become a better person, or perhaps being emotionally ravaged or mentally illforever after, then that sound you hear is me yawning.Attitude—Not like point of view, which concerns opinions, attitude is a more basic view ofthe character’s personality. Happy? Sad? Depressed? Emotional? Negative? Postiive?Victoria Lynn Schmidt, author of the book 45 Master Characters, definitely delves into thetopic of character constructing deeper than Syd Field does. The path she takes is anintriguing notion…mining the archetypes of Greek mythology to categorize all the differentcharacters present in film today…but sometimes she loses focus. Here I go, being a bookcritic again when I have probably written 1/3 of the number of screenplays these otherpeople have. But what can you say about an author who seriously considers Xena,Warrior Princess as a “complex, human and interesting” character?Anyway, she brings up this notion of Archetypes, such as The Seductive Muse, the FemmeFatale, the Gladiator, the Woman’s Man, the King, the Recluse, the Artist, the Maiden, theMystic. Not to be confused with stereotypes (which are based on bias and usually notcredible or fair), archetypes allow for much more room to make a character an individualor unique. Basically, no matter what character you come up with, the Greeks have thoughtof it already.Ms. Schmidt asks that we start building our character by imagining the physicality of them.Their facial features, their hair, their age and body type. Then, through a series of questionsthat she asks, we can calculate which archetype our character resembles the most andwork from there.Schmidt’s book is interesting to flip through, and there’s no question that you will find anarchetype in there that fits your script quite nicely. Syd Field’s book talks chiefly about thecharacter doing, not just saying or being. Their actions should speak louder than words.I say both of these writers can contribute healthily to building a good character. But I say,in addition, that you want your character to appeal to your audience, and understanding abit about human psychology helps. Knowing how a teenager’s sex drive works helps youwrite such characters in a script, and understanding the intricacies of a troubled Vietnam

vet’s mind makes for great internal drama on the screen. It helps to do a bit of research,then, to make your players familiar and inviting to an audienceAdvice Recap:Characters are defined by what they do, not what they say. Their actions speak loud enough.Your character must need something.Your character must have a point of view.Your character must have a particular attitude.Your character must go through some sort of change by the end of the script.The character must connect with the audience, so that people can get into the movie.Look to Greek archetypal characters for similarities in your own characters.Don’t compare your characters to Xena, Warrior Princess. Do to so would be selling yourselfshort.Picture what your character may look like, act, do or say in different situations.Research the psychology of people that your character resembles so that your portrayal isaccurate, insightful, and therefore can forge a connection with the audience.