The Story Driver
I was reminded by Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises about a simple concept that most of us over look and it is the same whether you are writing a script for a three thousand dollar film or a three hundred million dollar blockbuster. The question must be asked, “Who is driving your script?
”
If it is not the antagonist or villain why not?
We love our heroes so much we spend little to no time with our villains. This means that most of us will create stories that will soon be forgotten. The strength of Nolan’s last two films have been his Villains.
Both his Joker and now Bane are remarkably complex antagonist who in different ways offer almost overwhelming challenges for the hero.
Take the time to ask the question, What is it that will give my protagonist the most trouble? What is it that he or she will not be able to deal with? A character who lives in a world of logic and order will be disrupted and or undone by a force that is all emotion or chaos. A character like Batman who depends upon practiced fighting skills and the power of his technology can be undone by a force that is elementally brutal in its approach to everything.
There is a saying in the world of boxing, that if you can trick a boxer into a real fight with a fighter the boxer will lose 19 out of 20 times because the boxer depends upon their plans, their technique and their timing. A fighter depends only upon brute force and instinct.
What is your lead character?
Understand this and you will be able to create his opposite and once you have created this opposite give him or her or it a lot of screen time. I believe that the reason why we do not give our villains as much times is that we want to identify with our heroes. Stories have always been about can the hero save the world or the girl. On some level we wish to be that hero and at the same time most of us are afraid to spend too much time with our bad guys, but a bad guy well written can change everything.
Looking back on the movie Silence of the Lambs is there anyone out there who does not wish that we had been able to spend more time with the character of Hannibal Lecter? He was not only repulsive, evil and ruthless, he was also intelligent and charming and honest in a way that few people will ever be.
I am going to suggest an exercise for you guys. Write some scenes that are off script with or about your antagonist. By doing this you will be spending some time with them, getting to know them and over time this will help you to create stronger characters.
Face it, that in the low to micro budget film world your characters have to make up for the lack of effects and sets and size of cast. Those characters are the one thing that you can offer to any size production. Create a great and memorable villain and you have traveled a long way toward creating a quality script.
Okay, good luck guys. Remember to stumble us on Stumbleupon and to tell a friend about this blog. I wish that I could post more often, but right now I am in the middle of pre-production of a feature that I am aiming to produce around November of this year. So I am spending every free moment looking at equipment and talking to possible crew members and working my day job and trying to get my script just right. If I turn in a movie with a script that does not measure up to what I have been preaching here you guys will tell me about it.
Each day the director/producer me is constantly yelling at the screen writer me. When will we have a final shooting script? The answer to those parts of me is what Hitchcock would have wanted to hear. “Once the script has been written and then the dialogue added we will be ready to make this movie.”
I know, I know, we have not talked about writing the script with no dialogue and then adding it in a second or third draft. The next post will most likely be about that subject.
Good bye for now.
I was reminded by Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises about a simple concept that most of us over look and it is the same whether you are writing a script for a three thousand dollar film or a three hundred million dollar blockbuster. The question must be asked, “Who is driving your script?
”
If it is not the antagonist or villain why not?
We love our heroes so much we spend little to no time with our villains. This means that most of us will create stories that will soon be forgotten. The strength of Nolan’s last two films have been his Villains.
Both his Joker and now Bane are remarkably complex antagonist who in different ways offer almost overwhelming challenges for the hero.
Take the time to ask the question, What is it that will give my protagonist the most trouble? What is it that he or she will not be able to deal with? A character who lives in a world of logic and order will be disrupted and or undone by a force that is all emotion or chaos. A character like Batman who depends upon practiced fighting skills and the power of his technology can be undone by a force that is elementally brutal in its approach to everything.
There is a saying in the world of boxing, that if you can trick a boxer into a real fight with a fighter the boxer will lose 19 out of 20 times because the boxer depends upon their plans, their technique and their timing. A fighter depends only upon brute force and instinct.
What is your lead character?
Understand this and you will be able to create his opposite and once you have created this opposite give him or her or it a lot of screen time. I believe that the reason why we do not give our villains as much times is that we want to identify with our heroes. Stories have always been about can the hero save the world or the girl. On some level we wish to be that hero and at the same time most of us are afraid to spend too much time with our bad guys, but a bad guy well written can change everything.
Looking back on the movie Silence of the Lambs is there anyone out there who does not wish that we had been able to spend more time with the character of Hannibal Lecter? He was not only repulsive, evil and ruthless, he was also intelligent and charming and honest in a way that few people will ever be.
I am going to suggest an exercise for you guys. Write some scenes that are off script with or about your antagonist. By doing this you will be spending some time with them, getting to know them and over time this will help you to create stronger characters.
Face it, that in the low to micro budget film world your characters have to make up for the lack of effects and sets and size of cast. Those characters are the one thing that you can offer to any size production. Create a great and memorable villain and you have traveled a long way toward creating a quality script.
Okay, good luck guys. Remember to stumble us on Stumbleupon and to tell a friend about this blog. I wish that I could post more often, but right now I am in the middle of pre-production of a feature that I am aiming to produce around November of this year. So I am spending every free moment looking at equipment and talking to possible crew members and working my day job and trying to get my script just right. If I turn in a movie with a script that does not measure up to what I have been preaching here you guys will tell me about it.
Each day the director/producer me is constantly yelling at the screen writer me. When will we have a final shooting script? The answer to those parts of me is what Hitchcock would have wanted to hear. “Once the script has been written and then the dialogue added we will be ready to make this movie.”
I know, I know, we have not talked about writing the script with no dialogue and then adding it in a second or third draft. The next post will most likely be about that subject.
Good bye for now.
