Characters, Do They Care

Characters, Do They Care

Any type of action,horror, suspense or drama will come down to the one basic question.

Do they care?

There is a huge debate as to what makes the audience care about a character. If you can get them to care you will be very close to winning them over.

Here is how one writer sees it.



How I see it is more focused than that. They will care if others care.
They will like the song if everyone else in the room is dancing to. In other words if there is caring happening on the screen then it will be happening inside the viewer. You see human beings are great at empathy.
 The second way it to introduce them to a situation or a relationship that is fundamental.

We all understand and can relate to family relationships. The most powerful is a parent for a child or child for parent. Next is siblings. Then comes love relationship and finally friendships.

Friendships can be very powerful tools. If you do not believe me then look at the success of two major film franchises. The Harry Potter series and the original Star Trek series are all films about friendships and the prices that the characters are willing to pay to maintain those friendships.

The movie Taken is so easy for an audience to access because of the father/daughter relationship. The Exorcist is mother/daughter. The horror movie Jeepers Creepers is brother/sister. You care as an audience because you understand and can easily relate. Die Hard works because it is husband/wife. Same thing for the film Fireproof.

I know this person, I understand this person. I could be this person is the road you need to walk if you wish to get them to care.

I do not believe in the goal theory. Is it the goal that makes Lord of the Rings work or is it the friendships that develop? We want these friends to make it through together and get back home again.

I will give one goal its due. The revenge goal seems to get an audiences attention better than any other. For some reason we can universally relate to the concept of payback. From the Godfather to Kill Bill we can not seem to get enough of this. The action committed against the lead and or his closest must be so terrible that it strikes a chord inside of each of us and we connect because we wish we could do the same thing under those circumstances.

Think about the Godfather and the tremendous number of blows the family suffers one after another. Blows that leaves a battered and emotional wounded Michael as head of the family. As one after another of his enemies are take out we are all hoping that he is successful in his revenge plot. 


Consider this when you are reviewing your script. If you believed that you have written a great script, but it gets rejected then perhaps it comes down to characters that you have created. You may have created great characters, but no one cares about them. Go back and see if you can fix this.

That is it for today. Take a moment to share this post and to stumble us on Stumbleupon. I am sorry that I have not been posting as often as I use to, but the ebook on screen writing has been doing very well and I have to find areas that are not covered in the book. The next post will be about how less can be worth more where it comes to describing characters in screenplays that sell.

About Being A Writer

 
I have written over forty post on this blog and I have failed to mention one the most important thing.

We are writers.

It is not easy to be a writer.

If you are really good at it then you are a rare and wonderful thing. Writing is like performing magic. We start with a blank page. We produce something from no where and even after it has appeared we are the last person who could possible explain where it came from.

How did you do that?

How did you come up with that character?

Where did that plot twist come from?

The most frightening question of all is, “What are you going to write about next?” Screenwriting is still writing. It depends more on form, style and technique that the art of the novel, but it is still writing. In some ways it is harder than writing a novel because you have no real restrictions where the novel is concerned.  

  You have decided to write screenplays. You have a talent for writing in general or you would not be here or would not have chosen this path in life. I tell people that if someone would pay me money to play baseball instead of writing I would never write again. That is a lie of course. I was a pitcher and that was mostly by choice. You see the pitcher is the one who controls the narrative flow of the game or in other words the plot.

I remember that Mickey Spillane would say that he would be a house painter if they paid as much for painting as they did writing the Mike Hammer novels. Maybe he really believed that, but I believe that after a few weeks of painting walls he would have looked up at the end of the day to find that instead of putting primer on the wall he painted pictures of hot dames and sleek 45 caliber guns.  

If I were forced to do only one thing in the film making industry it would not be acting. I have wore the hat of a producer and will wear it again and that will only be because I will have to. I like directing, but I would not trade control of a film set for control over that blank computer screen.

I have written Fade In a few hundred times and only managed to write Fade Out less that two dozen times, but the act of finishing with those two words even though I knew at the time I would have to go back over it and cut and repair the thing over and over were still some of the happiest moments of my life.

Today I wanted to remind you that you are a writer.

When people ask you who you are and what you do the words, if they are true, will come immediately to your lips. Say to them, I am a writer. I write movies. I write screenplays. I am a screenwriter.

Screenwriting, A Learned Skill

Screenwriting, A Learned Skill


You need some talent to be a writer. Talent for the chosen field is a given, but just about everyone can tell a simple story. The art of the novel is 80 percent talent and twenty percent technique. The art of screen writing is twenty percent talent, forty percent technique and forty percent persistence.

The good news is that the technical aspect can largely be gotten through basic software programs. We have gone over them before and I can do a quick listing of some of the best no budget options for you.
 Celtx is great and is free to use. There is a upgraded version that cost about ten dollars. Unless you are going to be producing the movie as well the upgraded copy is not necessary. There is the great store and working on your screenplay online resource Scripped. This site s free to sign up at. Free to use. Free to store your screenplay there online. They have a screenplay registration service that is great if you do not use the writer’s guild or want to file for a copy write. There is also the free software known as Roughdraft. It has templates for stageplay screenplay and novel. It is great and very simple to use.

Next I can not teach you to have talent. Either you do or you do not. If you have little or no story telling talent that is okay. You can still find a way to craft a screenplay. You can adapt someone else’s story or a true story that you have read about or heard about. The talent to tell a great story is not needed if you can find a great story. Once the story is found all you have to do is to fall back on the technique of writing the screenplay. Identify the lead character. Figure out who or what are the protagonist and the antagonist. Learn all that you can about creating conflict. Conflict is what drives a narrative story forward. Opposing forces pushing against each other.

Next learn the basics of the three act structure. It is as simple as beginning middle and end. If you can understand that Act I is the beginning, Act II is the middle and Act III is how to script will reach an end.
Now since this blog is about low to no budget screen writing then I have to remind you that you must limit the size of your cast and the number of locations. To pick up and move a crew and actors cost money every time that you do it. To secure a location cost. To move equipment cost. Even if a production does not pay the actors they have to be fed and travel cost as well so keep those things in the back of your mind when writing your micro budget screenplay and in the front of your mind when rewriting it.

The last word has to be about persistence. You have to face that plank screen everyday. Write something everyday. Aim for a rough draft pace of five to six pages a day. That is between a thousand to fifteen hundred words. At this pace you can finish your first draft in about three weeks. It this pace is too much that is okay. One page a day, everyday, for a year is equal to four ninety page screenplays a year. That is a great
pace. What I am trying to tell you is that as long as you write something everyday you are doing better than ninety five percent of the writers out there. Write as often as possible. Writing is like lifting weights. You get stronger and it gets easier. Persistence pays off over time. Keep writing. Keep writing and did I mention that I think you should keep writing?

Okay that is it for today. Thank you for visiting and please take a moment to stumble us on stumbleupon and to share this post.

Your Screenplay, The Classic Film Lessons

            Your Screenplay, The Classic Film Lessons

    It seems that the majority of film critics agree that the best year ever generated by film makers was the year 1939. At least 10 four star all time classic films were released that year. The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Young Mister Lincoln, Destry Rides Again, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Wuthering Heights and The Oscar winner that year, Gone With the Wind.

    All of these movies have one thing in common. They are almost pure story from beginning to end. Every scene has value. In movies like Gone With The Wind almost every line of dialogue is there to reveal something about the character who delivers it.

    “How can these movies help me to write my micro budget screenplay?”

    I will go back to what I just told you. These films were pure story. Some had the equal of multi million dollar budgets and some did not. All of them had great story telling at their core. In the low to micro budget world story telling will have to make up for massive special effects and overpaid actors.

    We live in a world where board games become major summer releases. Pointless and plot-less releases that are quickly rejected by the movie viewing public. A great story well told is what we should all aim to produce.

    The problem is that no one knows exactly how to do this because no two people tell a story in exactly the same way. I can suggest things to you, but I cannot give you a special formula that will get it done every time. The best screen writers on earth have written great films and turned around and written something lifeless and boring. You are the writer of your no budget screenplay.

    One of my favorite modern horror movies is Jeepers Creepers. I love the script for that movie. The writer/director of the film based it largely upon the great Universal films of the 1930's and the Creature from the Black Lagoon from the 1950's. My favorite Vampire film of all time  Fright Night (1985) and the movie Disturbia is based upon the Hitchcock classic Rear Window. The writers of these films took lessons from these movies and gave them their own spin.

     Learn to watch classic films in a new way. Not just as a member of an audience, but as a writer. Watch how one sense is connected to another. Study how dialogue is selected to tell you all that you need to know about the characters and their motivations. The greatest scene ever written of this type is in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life.  You find out everything that you will ever need to know about these characters by what they say about themselves and about each other. And it is all done in one minute.  Violet, Mary and George are revealed to us through this little exchange.  Here is a except from the shooting script of It's A Wonderful Life.

 INTERIOR DRUGSTORE —– DAY

MEDIUM SHOT –– George comes in and crosses to an old-fashioned
cigar lighter on the counter. He shuts his eyes and makes a wish:

GEORGE
Wish I had a million dollars.

He clicks the lighter and the flame springs up.

GEORGE (cont'd)
Hot dog!

WIDER ANGLE –– George crosses over to the soda fountain, at which
Mary Hatch, a small girl, is seated, watching him. George goes on
to get his
apron from behind the fountain.

GEORGE (calling toward back room)
It's me, Mr. Gower. George Bailey.

CLOSE SHOT –– Mr. Gower, the druggist, peering from a window in
back room. We see him take a drink from a bottle.

GOWER
You're late.

MEDIUM SHOT –– George behind soda fountain. He is putting on his
apron.

GEORGE
Yes, sir.

WIDER ANGLE –– Violet Bick enters the drugstore and sits on one
of the stools at the fountain. She is the same height as Mary and
the same age, but she is infinitely older in her approach to people.

VIOLET (with warm friendliness)
Hello, George.
(then, flatly, as she sees Mary)

VIOLET
'Lo, Mary.

MARY (primly)
Hello, Violet.

George regards the two of them with manly disgust. They are two
kids to him, and a nuisance. He starts over for the candy
counter.

GEORGE
Two cents worth of shoelaces?

VIOLET
She was here first.

MARY
I'm still thinking.

GEORGE (to Violet)
Shoelaces?

VIOLET
Please, Georgie.

George goes over to the candy counter.

VIOLET (to Mary)
I like him.

MARY
You like every boy.

VIOLET (happily)
What's wrong with that?

GEORGE
Here you are.

George gives Violet a paper sack containing licorice shoelaces.
Violet gives him the money.

VIOLET (the vamp)
Help me down?

GEORGE (disgusted)
Help you down!

Violet jumps down off her stool and exits. Mary, watching, sticks
out her tongue as she passes.

CLOSE SHOT –– George and Mary at fountain.

GEORGE
Made up your mind yet?

MARY
I'll take chocolate.

George puts some chocolate ice cream in a dish.

GEORGE
With coconuts?

MARY
I don't like coconuts.

GEORGE
You don't like coconuts! Say, brainless, don't you know where
coconuts come from? Lookit here –– from Tahiti –– Fiji Islands,
the Coral Sea!

He pulls a magazine from his pocket and shows it to her.

MARY
A new magazine! I never saw it before.

GEORGE
Of course you never. Only us explorers can get it. I've been
nominated for membership in the National Geographic Society.

He leans down to finish scooping out the ice cream, his deaf ear
toward her. She leans over, speaking softly.

CLOSE SHOT –– Mary, whispering.

MARY
Is this the ear you can't hear on? George Bailey, I'll love you
till the day I die.

She draws back quickly and looks down, terrified at what she has
said.

CLOSE SHOT –– George and Mary.



    It has never been done better.  You will know who George is, who Violet is and who Mary is for the rest of the story. George is a dreamer. Mary loves George and Violet is well Violet. Their characters are defined in that one scene.

    Okay that is it for today. Sorry that the post are coming about a month apart, but I am working on a script and it is taking longer than I thought. It always does doesn’t it. Remember to add us to your google plus.