14 Movie Characters Writers Should Know - Eric Edson [Full Version - Screenwriting Masterclass]

California State University, Northridge (CSUN) screenwriting professor Eric Edson: This evening we're going to take a look at character categories and I hope it's going to be fun I think it will be fun I have I pick six six particular categories I obviously I can't do all 14 in one night we will be falling asleep here but we will talk it through and what what the examples are and I picked examples for specific reasons I'll tell you when we get there some like for instance some adversary characters in major motion pictures are pretty obvious right and therefore I picked one that isn't obvious so you can see the other side of it too okay now then perspective Erik does like the Greeks doesn't he what is character you know in a screenplay or a novel and they are both important because they are very different and we'll get to that in a second about 400 BC what's his name Theo frost Asst Theophrastus was a Greek philosopher and he sat down and made up this list it was about you know 70 types long but made up a list of types of people based upon predominant predominant attitudes flatterer garrulous bore reckless superstitious and so forth I'm not quite sure why he did it because he was a philosopher not a dramatist but it just turned out that one of his students was named Menander and Menander as some of you obviously woops Menander went on to make a career out of writing somewhere around 100 comedy plays based upon these character types using the types of people in exaggerated form to create comic characters Menander basically was the first comedy writer first playwright comedy writer in history as far as we know and he did quite well he had a good career at it but attitude types do not relate to plot function and what we must concern ourselves with and obviously as I eliminate other possibilities here we're talking about plot function and that is where we go to the 14 character categories early on I mean this was Moliere was doing this you know almost 2,000 years later using the types the exaggerated types all of which was swell but the plots were not necessarily dependent upon those characters feeding into them okay I just typed in character categories and googled it and this is what came back this is contemporary this is a few months ago round character flat characters stock character one dimensional three dimensional but again this has nothing to do and misses completely story purpose and that's what we're looking for the story purpose of characters because the storytelling function of a character in film is critical it's absolutely critical work even more critical than it is in novels right so every character present in your screenplays and scripts other scripts they have to be there to serve the plot the story and moving it forward and there's only two ways that they can serve a story they either are there to help or to hinder the progress of the hero that's it and let me tell you this is this is why that is true okay and then we have to back up a bit and I have I have had lots of students through the years who come in with attitudes towards story and character that they have learned from teachers and professors of English and of literature and in other words from novels and the difference between novels and motion picture visual storytelling couldn't be more extreme and pen and separate absolutely separate first of all here is how a novel works number one it is subjective subjective they are it is always an interior monologue which means there is a narrator writing it or talking it and talking to you the reader that makes it subjective it is the opinion of one person basically and even when the story is written in third person or third person omniscient you know like the voice of somebody looking down from heaven upon the scene and describing everything and then jumping from inside the head and feelings of one character to inside the head and feelings of another character that - is completely subjective because some God is narrating it - in writing in novels you've got sentences in paragraph and they can own at paragraphs and they can only focus on one thing at a time what a sentence describes the sunset and describes the way the trees are blowing in the breeze or whatever it is and then the next single thing gets addressed one thing at a time so what happens is well it only works in that the reader provides everything else from your own memories your own oh yeah I remember then you kind of fill in the details and help create that fictional world of the novel in your own imagination and that too is subjective the whole process here of reading and enjoying a novel and experiencing that story is subjective three novels can take side trips they don't have to be read in one sitting bacon temple tribe war and peace you're gonna be having several sittings to get through it yes but that means there's less focus on plot not always but in general it is looser it is looser the Pope lot thing is looser let me see I was just thinking about Ernest Hemingway book but for Whom the Bell Tolls anybody read it grand total of one okay I know it's another era of another era I was I was a Hemingway a fan when I was in my teens you know and I compulsively read them all kind of stuff but for Whom the Bell Tolls is a really great book but the main story is it takes place in revolutionary Spain in the mid 30s just before World War two Francisco Franco as a dictator - had taken over Spain and the rebels were in the mountains fighting to return to democracy and that's the main plot but there is one character in it by the name of Pilar a woman by the name of Pilar as I recall she was she's about 50 years old I can't remain you know that's the image that still this objective image that still stays with me all these years later right but she's taking all the risks of all the other people she risks death every day when they go into battle and so forth but Hemingway grew so fond of her that for almost 90 pages he takes a sidestep and writes her entire story and her entire backstory and it's wonderful I mean it's him writing prose which is wonderful by definition and then some 80 or 90 pages later he comes back to the main plot and continues you cannot do that in visual storytelling that is a quality only available in novels in the in literature you can't do that plot can be looser because it's not limited to two hours only and has to be seen in one sitting describes feelings and thoughts that you know the narrator goes from inside the feelings and thoughts of one and describes them and describes the other so we can subjectively know people's emotions okay now here's the movies film is exactly the opposite visual storytelling is as utterly objective as novels are subjective when we go into a theater and sit down and the movie begins everybody in that audience sees exactly the same thing every everybody there is we don't bring our own imagination to it we see the exact same thing everything has been decided the set the the lighting the costumes the blocking everything is taken care of and does not require our imagination to feed over it and secondly instead of one thing at a time motion pictures give to us a deluge of information all at once hundreds of individual there's motion and there's color and there's speech and there's action physical action and it's all happening at once and that's why it's such an overwhelming art form it is the most overwhelming and / you know personally involving art form so far that there is in the world because of this deluge of information no side trips you got basically you've got approximately two hours to tell your story beginning to end and then everybody goes home it's not done in small little bites like you would read a novel over time it has to be complete in two hours and that means no side trips none and because it is utterly objective that means the only way we learn really are about character is by what they do behavior in film is character in novels that can be describing go inside and you know this and that is going on inside you know Sasha you don't you can't do that I'm not saying that there isn't dialogue and people can say ouch because they're feeling pain or something but for us to know it and to share it it has to be behavior which can be seen three-dimensional visual and that is why when you build a story a visual story you are providing the plot that will allow your characters but specifically your your key character to take this journey and demonstrate who they are and demonstrate how they grow and how they change by the end that is very completely different really then not been novels okay therefore all characters must serve the ends of in that two hours making that hero's journey his or her trip through whatever your story is they must feed into that and they have to either help or hinder the hero and simultaneously be providing conflict visible present tense conflict so that's how we arrive at the 14 character categories now you saw this last time here it is again and I just want to run these past you one more time these are in the book no these are in the book don't worry about that but uh this is the first half of them and tonight I've got examples of here of adversary love intra sidekick mentor and endangered innocent the gate Guardian we will save it's it's usually more of a lesser part than the others and we'll save it for another time and then these are the other seven and these we will get to over as we analyzed the pictures that we're going to be looking at right although I'll say off the top my head adversary agent is extremely important because most adversaries have helped and that help the ones who do the bidding of and take the orders from in one way or the other the adversary they are adversary agents and there's various ramifications of who that can be but that is the purpose storytelling purpose they serve and down here it's not really last on the list in terms of importance at all I don't know how it arrived down here but the helper follower allies of the hero are people who do the same but for the hero helper followers there's all kinds of different lungs Ocean's eleven that's a one hero movie Danny ocean is the hero he has a sidekick rusty that's another category we're going to take a look at and then he has his team all those other guys the the terrific you smaller parts but they are key to the enterprise and they are all helper follower allies okay beyond the 14 characters of course you have atmosphere characters the under-fives or the extras they don't really have a category I haven't given them a category here because they do not serve a direct plot storytelling function what they are saying it crassly I suppose are props they are there to make the world if they're there for verisimilitude to make the world this fictional world for this particular story feel real and sometimes they have a few lines you know the the sassy waitress who okay you know has a quick quick cute quip and drops the bill and we never see her again she has no story function it's just mail you just to give it depth and they don't advance the plot and something else that's useful about having the character categories is once you assign a role to one of your characters and pick them out of because all of these can provide subplots all of them once you pick a particular individual and you paint them and create them and make them three-dimensional and once they are in a category they have to stay in that category you can't change categories okay when it happens and I've seen it happen a few times and it just destroys movies what's it called the deep end anybody seen the deep end Tilda Swinton I think stars in well that alone tells you something it starts out very interesting and it's about Tilda Swinton who whose son who is you know late teens and applying to college and something happens and and then all of a sudden it looks like it's going to ruin his entire life and there's bad guys and gangsters trying to blackmail mom and she's running around trying to fix it and set it all right but a very strange thing happens at the midpoint of that movie his mom just kind of gives up and Falls in a frump and one of the adversary agent characters who works for the bad guy if the midpoint decides to take up the flag of hero and all of a sudden the mantle of hero changes from her to someone else and he is the one who goes forward and resolves the story and it doesn't work it eliminates the emotional connection we have with the characters it's changing horses midstream and psychologically for your audience it just doesn't work we've talked about the the nine hero sympathy qualities that's the list this is also in the book I have put stars there by five of them because I believe at a minimum every hero he or he or she needs to have at least these five qualities one or two more wouldn't hurt but they need to have these you this allows your audience in it allows them to identify with at least temporarily and they don't have to be you know just somebody pure and good we don't much like pure and good people all that much they're not very interesting but they have facets and qualities but one of those qualities is we have to be able to like them up to a certain degree and that goes for all kinds of heroes and there are a number of different kinds of heroes all heroes must be at the very least empathetic and I just put on you know five different kinds of heroes here to catch some categories for which this remains true just to prove the point anti-heroes a lot of people ask me about that but Eric Eric this is an antihero they can't be they can't be sympathetic well they need to be if it's going to work remember Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Lisbeth has anybody seen girl okay okay starting to worry there oh yes good good but Lisbeth is this dark self-contained she lives in her isolated emotional bubble because she has been hurt so much since childhood she is a profoundly wounded person but she still has six out of nine of the sympathy characters her characteristics um tragic hero Scarface Tony Montana a formal tragedy that's King Lear that's Macbeth that is a contemporary that's Scarface and these are otherwise admirable heroes who have one fatal flaw within them that they cannot correct the character growth is not possible for this person and that becomes the admonishment tail of we know that they will be destroyed and they will be dead by the end of the movie that it kind of said is kind of sad because we know what they could have been too if they had had that one thing fixed within themselves the tragic hero Tony Montana in Scarface tragic hero out of the nine sympathy tools he has eight of them and it works quite well catalyst hero have any of you seen an old movie called the in the heat of the night good a couple anyway it's a terrific movie if you ever want to spend a nostalgia night Sidney Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs actually the part that that that year I think it was uh that was the movie in the heat of the night that took Best Picture I think he did I think he did right right right no no there were there were some before yeah yeah right right although I think he won maybe that came later lilies of the field I think he did yeah anyway history he is a highly skilled murder investigator for the police homicide detective from New York very sophisticated very good at what he does he's in the deep south for some reason and he ends up in jail he gets arrested for something of course that he didn't do all of which is outrageous and he is very blustery and terrific about you know and you can see Sidney Poitier playing at history they called me mr. Tibbs and that became the movie that followed this one when he became such a popular character I think they made two or three more movies with him as the lead and then there is the redneck cracker small-town Deep South sheriff right and that was played Steiger rod stay stikers you have great character actor and of course you know he's his cracker as they get and so naturally you've got this wonderful personal conflict between these two people but the one who does the growing and character growth is the sheriff and not the the hero not Virgil tipped and that's catalyst hero that there are those kinds of heroes who do not personally change but bring about change in others trickster hero Axel Foley remember Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop remember that's the old series and he is the trickster Harry hero is is it's funny energetic and always sticking it to the man you know how to use old terms and very snide and playful and jester esque with authority that's the trickster hero and this isn't in a number of movies like that of with that character in them but they too need to be sympathetic and then the mentally challenged hero that's a whole sub-genre too that's not too hard because before because of their disadvantages going in they we're automatically sympathetic for them Forrest Gump I am Sam dumb and dumber those kind of you know the mentally challenged characters are natural we are naturally affectionate toward them but there's other things you can't let it you know you have to keep it keep it alive and you have to be careful - they have to be sympathetic as well all just to prove that the sympathy requirements remain the same and you need to pay attention to it okay pop quiz everybody got to take out a piece of paper no no no sorry rotten joke rotten joke but I do have a question for you for the pop quiz take a look at this list you'll get out of your way take of this look look at this 7:57 titles of pictures what to think if you've seen two or three of them has anybody seen two or three of them okay okay you guys then what to or through are two things in all up do all of these films have in common but anything pop out at you yes they're I believe they are all one hero movies yes but what we're looking for is this they all have despicably unsympathetic heroes and all of them bombed at the box office even even Waterworld that cost over 200 million and at the time that was a lot of money not anymore but yes these these are your case examples of when they did not pay attention to keeping the hero sympathetic okay just trying to prove the points okay now we're going to get into the character types here first of all we're going to start with an adversary adversary is the primary opposition for the hero right and it's one person appears unbeatable for you no good hunk of the movie usually throughout throughout act two they can wear a mask of friendship they can be a wolf in sheep's clothing for a while and then that comes off and they are revealed who they truly are but they have not changed categories they were simply disguised for a while do you remember the fugitive again this goes back a few decades but I was Harrison Ford in his heyday when he you know an a-list movie star and he is Richard Kimble on the run he was been convicted and condemned condemned to die for his wife's murder which of course is tearing him apart because he really loved her a lot but he has a friend that he had when he was still a doctor and respected and all that he has a friend and when he escapes and goes back home to try to find you know that the one-armed man and all that who who they thought was the real killer this is his friend who he helps him out a little slips him you know whatever cash he's got in his pocket you can't give him a cat you know we can't go to a bank he needs help and this character that this other doctor helps Kimball and and speaks well of him and so forth but what we find out at the end of Act two is the helpful friend doctor that's the adversary who set him up he is he's it he's the bad guy and then in Act three it's all about the resolution between the two of them fight to the death kind of thing so it can they can wear a mask of friendship but that not is not the case they are not always a bad person and you know that and I'm sure you sure you've seen and can think of a whole bunch of adversary characters they're not bad people they just happened to because of circumstance with the nature of the story they come into opposition with your hero and that can work extremely well sometimes and remember of course the adversary must be one person not an idea not a group it has to be one person or a personification of one person by that I mean jaws or one of those the shark is the adversary there there's another guy who's messing thing as an independent troublemaker and that's the mayor of the town but it's the shark who is the director adversary but it's not just a shark it's a super shark it is the smartest most devious most bold and vicious and and seeking of revenge a shark seeking revenge this is what I mean by when when such a creature an animal becomes your adversary they become more like a person they are personified it seems some we're gonna take a look at something I am Legend the top zombie it's the same thing it is the sentient zombie who becomes the adversary because he can think and plan and hate and he's the only zombie who can do that that kind of thing ok here are some examples some classic examples of adversaries oh heavens who will ever forget Jamie Gumb is that how you pronounce his name down here on the right the nightmares that character gave to lots and lots of people and certainly lots and lots of kids he played it you know the actor who played it it was written so strong and and and drippy with menace and then it was played to the hilt by the actor the poor actor you know for some a couple of years after this he couldn't get any more work because everybody took a look at him and said oh that's Jamie Gumb it was so typecast the poor guy he was too good yeah but eventually you know now he works all the time yeah he plays a lot of cop parts oh yeah yeah yeah yeah right yeah yeah oh he's a great actor yes ok that's but this is clean and clear I mean this is the bad guy the crazed killer ok sergeant Foley in an officer and a gentleman that's up up there that was Lou Gossett jr. and he got an Academy Award I think Best Actor Best Supporting supporting Best Supporting Actor he's the drill sergeant and he's not a bad man he's a very good man with a very diff job he is a drill sergeant whose job it is in these new candidates for flight school these are all the people who want to become jet fighter pilots right and it's his job to weed out the ones who just might get themselves or somebody else killed and he the ones who don't aren't willing to defend and risk themselves to support and defend their their fellow fighter pilots and and he puts a lot of pressure on him to see who cracks and there are several who crack and one of them who almost cracks of course is the hero Richard Gere so he's not a bad man but oh what a challenge and what an adversary he presents to be to the Richard Gere character Miranda Priestly and The Devil Wears Prada ooh a woman who just relishes in crushing people for the pure power of it it's it's marvelously written and marvelously play Karen Crowder that's the character's name from Michael Clayton how many of you have seen Michael Clayton mmm that you got to put on the list Michael Clayton I at the risk perhaps of getting too personal that's one of my favorite films Michael Clayton and that year and I was only on Oh seven eight years ago I was beside myself furious that it was overlooked for the Oscars because there was so much going on there it was a really terrific film and her as the adversary you just got to see this you got to see this she's an executive you know a woman trying to climb her way up in the executive jungle and her interpretation of how that is done is you do anything necessary up to and including murder it's not like she's comfortable with it but she does it and she is the adversary it's great it's a wonderful movie agent Parcher in a beautiful mind this is the beautiful man I used to try to do that in this class but it's too long and it's too complicated and goes you know this many things to talk about so it really doesn't work for our purposes but a beautiful mind is the story of a man John Nash a genius physicist and he goes insane he I forget the nature of the insanity but he yes he has hallucinations he talks to people who aren't there I mean his whole career was destroyed by I mean what can you do you go insane they don't employ insane people as professors and scientists but that could have been done whereas I mean what does that mean it means that John Nash is his own worst enemy he is being destroyed from within that means he's his own nemesis however it wasn't done that way when it was turned into a movie the nemesis the adversary has to be one person a real person and so Agent Parcher came onto the scene and was invented agent Parcher is his strongest fantasy although he doesn't know it's a fantasy for you know two-thirds of of Act two but it's his invention and projection of a person who has control of him and that way okay agent Parcher is the personification the one person adversary that fills in for him being at war with himself because Wars you know battles where people are their own worst enemy as a rule they do not work we can talk about that later if you like I got another example there but Agent Parcher and Amy done in gone girl okay there's some great examples now then here's here's my first example for you for adversary here's the reason I picked this one sideways how many of you have seen sideways oh good good good most most of you and it's worth it's worth putting down on your lists sideways was an independent small movie outside of the Hollywood mainstream truly I I checked and I believe it was made for around six million dollars total budget its total gross in its in national theatrical release was a hundred million dollars and that's in its first theatrical release yes that I would say against the six million it cost to make it did very well indeed so of course I got it broke it down and it is the paradigm it worked because it is the paradigm writ small as opposed to the big-budget movies where it's writ large but that is the way it is structured beginning to end and one of the things that's unusual about it is that the adversary most people say Jack is you know his friend his lothario friend who keeps getting in more and more trouble every single day that that miles the hero had then has to get him out of that he that he's the adversary he is not he is Jack in this for those who have seen it and may see it soon Jack is a comedic sidekick character and the adversary is Miles ex-wife Victoria he is obsessed with and crushed with depression over they got divorced about a year ago he lost his wife Victoria we find out eventually that it was his own fault but you know it's not her fault she didn't just dump him he crossed the line he had an affair etc old story but she is not physically present in most of the movie she is present in two locations this scene which is very early in in the second act and then she shows up and that even that she's not physically present we only hear her voice on the telephone and then she shows up in the obligatory scene remember the the adversary has to be one person or personification because of the obligatory scene that's where they have to show up in the flesh so that the hero and the adversary can go for all the marbles and that's where she shows up which again is proof that she's the adversary but it's done so uniquely and so simply I just I just I really cherished this adversary is not physically present the hero's ex-wife Victoria okay let's see if I can lay this out for you quickly I got to do this like that okay the setup for does a few of you who have not seen it and the setup is that Myles has taken Jack his his good buddy on a bachelor-party trip through wine country in one week Jack will get married and Myles is an on a file and that's why he's taken him to wine country and showing him around he's proud to show him how much he knows about wines but unfortunately Jack has always been a compulsive chaser of women any woman who was in the room he it's like it and it is it's a compulsion and he admits that later on he says you don't know the nature of my problem and it's true it's for him a real problem but that gets him into all kinds of trouble which means it pulls miles into all kinds of trouble okay Jack recently told miles just Mac a few hours before this scene but jack told miles that his ex-wife Victoria just remarried miles didn't know that obviously because it wasn't invited to her wedding and that for miles in this little movie that is stunning surprise one because he freaks out and he's very childish in his response and he runs back to the car he's just talking he's waxing loquacious about the memories of when he came to this beautiful spot where he'd taken Jack under this tree and we had a picnic here and we drank wine and made love and and then Jack breaks it to him he says look I was looking for an opportunity when we were alone to tell you this but Victoria just remarried and and miles comes unglued grabs a bottle of wine runs off into the vineyard as Jack is chasing after him trying to stop him and he's slugging back this is the beginning of act 2 there are remember what we said about act 2 act 2 well act 1 that fades into Act two is the adolescence the character growth in the character growth pattern it's the adolescence of the hero and at the beginning of act 2 miles is quite an adolescent and very childish in his in his moods and and in his depression and that's and that it's laid out for us at the beginning of act 2 this is the nature of what must change within him in the character growth arc right so jack has just set up this blind double date because he met Stephanie the lady is sitting beside there in that other picture and he's coming on full bore for Stephanie unfortunately he doesn't tell Stephanie that he's going to get married in about five days just a little oversight there and of course that weighs on miles too because miles has a better moral compass than than Jack does about these things and it's troubling him but you know he can't blow it up either jack has set up a blind double date with Stephanie who got a friend of hers to come so basically Maya is miles miles date for the night but he is ignoring her completely because he's getting and he's being depressed miles is lost in the past all and this kept getting repeated and even in in act one even his mother says it he stops off for a scene with his mother he's you know stealing borrowing money or something like that and my mother says oh you should go back with Victoria you two are perfect for each other she is echoing the truth of his suffering he has always felt that they would get back together again and that's his greatest wish and I love double-entendre titles and that's part of a double entendre of the title of the movie which is sideways sideways number one of course means drunk it's another you know another term for tipsy because people move sideways rather than straight ahead they lose balance but sideways is also the way that miles is living his life he can't go ahead he's stuck he's focused completely on the past he wants to step back into the past get that relationship again and he cannot think about moving forward and that's why at the moment he is not communicating very well with the lovely lady Maya at all miles has lost in the pan past longing to go home to Vicki he can't even and again as a repetition he can't even see this terrific woman Maya right beside him Jack doesn't want a drunk miles to ruin Jack's own chances of sleeping with Stephanie jack is yes a narcissist and he's just worried about his own goals and concerns but he's sweet and he's funny and he is he has told miles do not drink and dial he told him I just outside he's been shaken amidst you cannot drink and dial I don't want you spoiling this date so of course miles drinks a lot drinks a lot of wine until it gets good and blasted and he goes to dial stag staggers on back to the payphone at the back of the restaurant and the dialing of course is to Vic aurilla and so there is a scene here early in the second act where the power of the adversary is demonstrated just here it's only on the telephone she is not physically present okay Victoria answers the phone and he's lighthearted and he tries to be you know upbeat about it Oh Jack just told me and I called to say congratulations on your wedding you know and it's all bullshit of course and it slips into Jack's being sarcastic and snide and then crashing pretty much crashing emotionally then he crumbles and says it again and out loud I just always felt someday we'd get back together again and that's become harder now since she's gotten remarried and the adversary still dominates every corner of his life she has the power here you see how that is she is more powerful than he she they divorced she is moving on in life he can't he's stuck because of his immaturity and she says miles don't call me when you're drunk well didn't help and he kind of weaves on back to the table miles still is stuck drifting sideways and more than anything he still wants to go home to Victoria and Jack has just ticked off at him because he's starting to spoil his odds with Stephanie that's that's Jack's fist over the top of the wine bottle cutting him off Myles must learn what true adult unselfish love is it's a really very nice very very well drawn character growth arc he does grow up by the end okay so now we jump to act 3 and the one other scene the obligatory scene in which the adversary appears at great personal risk Myles has gotten Jack home just in time to be married and the big wedding and stuff right and as you can see in the picture with the bandage jackers had his nose broken for those of you who haven't seen the way he gets his nose broken is when Stephanie finally finds out that in 24 hours he's going to get married to somebody else and she whacks him really hard and breaks his nose okay but miles is the hero and miles has grown in the second half of the second act because Jack gets himself into such deep trouble and it's pretty pretty outrageous and it is a hilarious comedy and it's it works it all works it's awfully well written but he has made sacrifices and take taken great personal risks to get miles back and get him married he has matured and so he must face the obligatory scene and here comes Victoria Victoria comes up to him and introduces her new husband and rather than the childish reaction that he got at the beginning of act 2 he's hurt yes he's wounded he's just you know awful things emotionally are going on inside of this guy but the new husband can is is respectful he offers a handshake is glad to meet him and all that and then Ken makes himself scarce just I'll give you guys a minute and I'll go get the car you know he's a class act really this guy miles discovers Ken is actually a decent guy miles is suffering yes but he deals with it by also offering respect in return so they chat a little bit more he's no longer behaving like a child like he was several times earlier and that's a good thing and miles says well let's go to the reception and toast to your wedding only this time he almost means it and Victoria says oh she's not going to the reception she's given up drinking and that's kind of strange two miles because they were wine drinkers and they shared that passion when they were together and Ken comes up and she says I need a minute more and this all sets up for what's coming you know those of you who have seen it then the final Tet I mean she's sweet about it she is taken the time to make sure he knows in advance this is an honorable thing for her to be doing and the final test and the final blow she says as gently as she can I'm pregnant for a guy like miles that is truly the hardest kicking the vitals he could possibly receive and Victorian can head off to their future lives together and miles now knows there's absolutely no road back that's it her life is settled and set in another way and he is not part of it that's never going to happen he must love her enough to finally let her go and then there's this lovely little kind of quasi Daniel Moss scene where that is his victory at last he closes the door on the past and he throws himself a growing up party he opens his best and most expensive outrageously expensive bottle of wine which he was always saving for a very very special occasion well now he opens it alone in a burger joint to toast to the salt and a solitary farewell toast to Victoria and the past and to a hope for a new start in the future for himself okay I got a bit far afield there because it's a small movie and small movies are more about interpersonal things then than the larger movies and in order to understand the adversary and the power she has over this hero you need to know some of this stuff but this is an extra for this story and this hero this is an extraordinarily successful adversary character she's in two scenes in the whole movie that's another way of doing it okay and these are the requirements primary opposition for the hero yes appears unbeatable for a long long time she sure peers unbeatable and and she's going to take him down a very bad emotional trail can wear the mask of friendship not relevant not always a bad person she's not she's a true sweetheart must be a person and so she is so you can see some of these are fulfilled in this particular adversary and some of them are not the love interest now this is outside of hero and adversary I believe the login' love interest character is the most fascinating of the rest of the character categories because it's so replete with emotion and a way to explore the nature of the hero what is right with them and what is hurting them and what is wrong with them to the love interest creates a subplot or a main plot and drive story change and humanizes the hero there's you know through these through intimate emotions but it's about mate bonding with a love interest character that's what it is and there is a way to tell I think this is important to know because a lot of people get confused about love interest characters whether they're Co heroes or or you know what is their place in the story there is a way to know whether a love interest character is a subplot or the main plot and it's this if you took a love interest character and that relationship out of the movie would you still have a story that's how you do it and sometimes we're going to see yeah when I have some examples here lined up you'll see what I mean but that's important to know Drive story change works alternate leaf for and against the hero remember every character category isn't only about helping the hero there has to be challenge and there has to be conflict too for it to work the love interest character works alternately for and against the hero and the issue of a love interest character with the hero who are here whoever he or she is the love interest character adds sexual tension and a sexual conflict going on under the surface of things because that plot is about in fact mate bonding which is in fact about sexual conquests now I'm stating it bluntly to make the point I mean there's a lot of wiggle room there and using this plot or subplot you can do it from the very very gentle and and and hardly hinting at sexuality at all to the incredibly steamy and everything everything in between and that of course depends on you and it depends on the story you're trying to write you get your choice but the thing is it is there and once you have sexual tension between people it is a universal thing every nation every language humanity gets what that is I mean would you we are we are sensual creatures and therefore you are offering up emotion that is international in scope and you can use that for character growth purposes for challenges of personality and how people must grow and all that kind of stuff it is you it is the well of what you want screenwriting and visual storytelling to be which is the pursuit of emotion it's just it's amazing it works very well and it also pushes the hero into character growth ah and yes people sometimes get this wrong if a couple is married at the beginning of the of the of the film above your story and with some ups and downs whatever you know but they stay married and they are reasonably happy together all the way through the movie into the end that is not a love interest character it has to be about this back and forth back and forth opposing and and then helping and opening a couple of examples of that yeah there are two Apollo movies that have come out actually three lately but the two that I'm thinking of our Apollo 13 which goes back a ways and the the one the latest one which was overlooked by everybody which is really tragic because I thought it was really I've seen it three times now and it's just riveting in its first man it was the true rendition of the true story of both what's his name the first Armstrong Neil Armstrong but Neil Armstrong is married and in Apollo 13 Tom Hanks is married to and the married spouse at home becomes that category of character that they turn into is the endangered innocent not a love interest they become the goal of those two astronauts they are going through all of this and all they want to do you know for all the been you know the problems that come up and the possibilities of dying they come up they want to surmount all that so that they can get back to earth and save that endangered innocent from the metaphorical death that she would also be experiencing if he were to die in space that is endangered innocent plot and that is not a love interest plot okay here's some example Neytiri where is she oh wait a minute here she is in in Avatar Oh again what a what a wonderful relationship in that picture and this I ask you she's also doing a whole lot of mentor duties again but with overlaid with sexual tension because that's key to that relationship it just is and elevates it if you take a net-net eerie out of avatar do you still have a movie yeah you do which means Neytiri is a love interest subplot it is not the main plot although she you know it she's there and it's big and it's important in all that stuff but all the same it is a subplot it is not the primary goal right officer rhoads in bridesmaids that's easier to see and to be able to say you know if you took him out of it could you still have a movie yes you could that's a subplot Lisa McDowell in coming to America if you removed her from coming to America would you still have a movie you sure yeah yeah no yeah that's it this is not fair I'm going back too far here I'm going back too far you would not because she is the heroes got the eddie murphy the prince she is his goal he goes to America to find a woman that he can fall in love with and marry and not have to marry the the woman that he knows nothing about and really doesn't care about back home that the king his father has chosen for him she is the goal therefore she is a love interest character who also provides there's a double role here we won't talk about it tonight but the love interest who is the main goal also is plays adversary they are each other's adversary and love interests simultaneously that's why it works differently and we'll talk about that another time Alicia Nash in a beautiful mind if you take her out what yes it would be crushingly less interesting and very diminished but yes you could you could remove her and you would still have the man struggling to come back from madness and making it yes so that is when one of the character categories gets played by a movie star and it is big I mean it takes a lot of screen time and it's really important to things but it is still a subplot in its way that is called a charismatic whatever a charismatic mentor or a charismatic love interest they get a lot of screen time but at their core they are still feeling filling the functions of these sub categories Georgia Coors June Carter how about June Carter and Johnny Cash if you took June Carter out of there would there still be a movie what does he want throughout he wants Jude Carter even more than he wants to be famous as a singer he wants her yeah she is the love interest adversary for that film and so forth okay you get the idea now then this example I've chosen for a love interest character this is Carol the waitress in as good as it gets this one had me stumped for a while when I first sat down to analyze it I thought it was a three hero movie and then I went through it once and I said no that doesn't work and I took a harder look at it this is a one hero movie Melvin Udall is the hero because it is Melvin who wants Carol she never until you know at certain points toward the end expresses really any romantic interest in this poor man who is trapped in being a jerk you know because of the nature of how he defends himself against all emotion but the beauty of the profession that has been assigned to him which is a very successful romance novel writer I mean it's just it's perfect you know that is the true him screaming to get out you know that kind of thing it's yeah I think it's a wonderful wonderful story and wonderfully written but okay I mean at this point and this is as part of a midpoint sequence Carol her son I believe it's asthma he's got asthma really bad the kind that under certain conditions the kid could die from and he had a really bad attack and she got all panicked and she's a waitress who waits on on Melvin every morning and how many of you have seen this okay most okay cool good then you get it and then after a heat Belvin sends a top-flight top-dollar doctor to her apartment to to see the boy and yes and he writes prescriptions and he's telling her you know it's gonna be okay we're gonna bring him back and he knows how to do it and she's been getting you know crap advice from these you know bad cheap programs healthy health care programs that she's had Carol couldn't afford the doctor for her sick son so Melvin got her a very high-end one and in the middle of the night she's got up she sleeps on the couch and she pulled on her jeans she has to tell Melvin something she is burning with the need to tell Mel than something and she runs out to get to his place in the night in the middle of the night that's how urgent this is for her and that's telling us something right there well it happens to be raining that night and she also gets soaked so she's dripping soaking wet by the time she gets to Melvin's apartment building and of course Melvin is very well off and the apartment is very upscale so here she is and she's coming up to his front door this is a comedy this is a romantic comedy and this whole thing is setting it up this way especially what she's going to be telling him be that she has to tell him face by face that this the rain is accentuating a sensuality in her that she is about to deny and it's perfect as a juxtaposition so she knocks it's me and Melvin lives alone self created isolation no one can stand him early on I guess it's the it's the next-door neighbour Simon Says to home who says to Melvin you are a horror of a human being I mean that's the general attitude that he has created out there in the world and then he hears my goodness it's Carol the waitress he yes he wants her to wait on him every day when he goes for breakfast because she's the only one who will wait on him you know cuz she can give guff as good as she gets it from this guy but he has stronger feelings I mean he's of an age he's desperate he's got a break out of his prison and he knows that and he's drawn to her and one of the reasons Melvin is sympathetic is we like her too I mean she's a genuine human being she's a terrific lady and you can tell by you know caring for her son you know and she he's making a good choice here and therefore we're kind of rooting for him in strange ways okay but because of his OCD he has insufferable all he is insufferable always cracking wise with sharp put-downs for everyone and she says I'm sorry about the hour but I must speak with you she hasn't opened the door yet and now he opens the door Melvin so opens the door and immediately averts his eyes embarrassed at seeing her t-shirt he was not expecting this because for him you know the sensuality there is a it's funny it can end the day the dial the scene is being played and what's going on between them but what is being done here by the writers and by the director is they are playing the element of sensuality and sexuality and mate bonding conquest that is what they are playing here romantic comedies and romances all have to have something insurmountable between the two lovers insurmountable and that's what the story is about how they finally get together in this case what is insurmountable is Melvin's personality okay and he's his eyes you know averts are his eyes and so forth just glancing at the t-shirt and she finally catches up with it I mean she's cold she's wet she wasn't thinking about that boobs Carroll realizes the physical picture she is unwittingly presenting Melvin can't takes take his eyes from wandering wandering a bit but he also looks down and sees that she's sopping wet you know she's dripping all over the floor all over the the hallway for a guy like Melvin you know he can't step on a crack let alone stand watch somebody standing there dripping all over everything Carol waits for Melvin to be polite and offer her a bloody towel so he's flummoxed at this point and so he's gonna and he goes inside and he doesn't know quite to do what quite to say and he Melvin hates thank-yous again it's part of his no emotion he fights the emotion at every turn thank you contain emotion and he always avoids revealing emotion and that's his sarcastic nasty wit that's another way he avoids emotion but he says if you've come to thank me don't know I put it in a note he doesn't want any emotion expressed face-to-face even just in the thank you so he gets her a towel there's another funny bit in there we won't go there and Carol just has to ask why did you do this for Spencer that's her son and Melvin said I wanted you to come back to the restaurant and wait on me and she says do you have any idea how odd that sounds but it's pure Melvin too and we know that so he blurts it so what have you come to tell me what is this and there is one of the more charming elongated deathly silences between two people now the awkward silence lingers has come all this way and this cold in the wet and she's trying to find the words to say what she came to say and it's not coming she really struggles with it and on until she can finally blurt it out all at once push it out and say I will never sleep with you never that's what woke her up in the middle of the night and drove her through the rain she was terrified worried that this is why he did this and in truth that had something to do with it we're about to see that here too but also again a relative to the sexual tension okay if that's her a message that coulda waited until you know next morning at the at the cafe why this absolute burning urgency you know there's something else going on there all of Melvin's defenses go up and he resorts to his self protective cynical sharp tongue because deep down that was what he was hoping or thinking well we don't open for the no-sex O's until 9:00 a.m. and again yeah that's that's pure Melvin right and again he's just being defensive and obnoxious and that's how he gets defensive and she's turns to go and she mumbles I really mean it and he blurts will you be at the restaurant to wait on me tomorrow that's a very strange thing to say and to go through all of this for that and she says yes and she goes there's that that's the scene and next this comes right next and this only is a few seconds long we cut to a close-up of his clock and then his slippers while he's in bed now sleeping and mumbling to himself habits half-asleep never she says never and then he gets up and he puts on his slippers and what is happening here is perfect for a midpoint sequence perfect the second step of character growth which usually takes place in hero goal sequence 12 is when the hero undertakes a physical action some sort of metaphoric physical action to overcome what is stopping them and clogging them emotionally inside and that is exactly what Melvin does a man who hates all pills gets up to take his first anti obsessive-compulsive disorder pill ever that is a huge thing for Melvin so alright the love interest as Carol and at the midpoint we understand you know the kind of wacky rare and wacky nature of that relationship creates a subplot or main plot absolutely drive story change and humanizes the hero you bet works alternately for and against the hero yes throughout and in other ways she is doing that adds sexual tension and a sexual conquest conflict remember that can be just a small tone a mood it's not you know nothing blatant or flagrant necessarily and pushes the hero into character growth he just took the pill yes all of that is true of this character I think it's a very unusual love interest relationship with the hero when you see the whole thing I think it works marvelously okay sidekick that's that's the Prince Eddie Murphy and then semi I think semi was the name of his his loyal sidekick right a sidekick is not as skilled as the hero but has certain skills to offer remains complete loyal as semi does the sidekick is always loyal does not die unless it's a formal tragedy yeah then like King Lear and the fool yeah provides counsel and conflict yes often same-sex but not always there are some very interesting relationships sidekick relationships that are opposite sex relationships and can echo a hero's romance with a comedic one now then here are some successful sidekicks Dory in Finding Nemo did see Dory the forgetful one she is a classic classic sidekick rusty Ryan in Ocean's eleven also a classic it's against sometimes casting throws you off because he's a star playing the part but it's still the role and function in the story is that's a sidekick Ellie burr in insomnia how many of you have seen insomnia a few okay yeah it is it's really terrific in many many ways and it's got relationships that are worth taking a look at especially this one between Ellie burr and her hero so I would put it on the list just don't view it when you're depressed okay Albert of course in hitch Oda Mae brown in ghost remember how wonderfully charming that relationship was she becomes the medium through which the dead guy can speak to his living girlfriend they weren't married were they I don't I don't think so I think was a girlfriend and she's perfect and she's hilarious and Peter brand and so forth okay I have picked also here an opposite-sex a sidekick I want you to see how this works too this is not the obvious one of the obvious ones okay and this is out of Inception and it's Ariadne remember he Cobb I'm assuming most you have seen this picture yes has anybody not seen it just okay mm-hmm okay put it on the list he has taken he's putting together a team because he needs to enter a CEOs dreams and fool him into changing his mind about something extremely important it's rather intellectual but physically it works visually it works very very well in the movies extraordinary movie actually and she is the architect he has hired and brought in so she goes back she's curious about her hero here because he's acting kind of funny kind of strange he can tell that there's something going on inside of him that she really thinks she needs to know about finds Cobb hooked to the dream machine and she joins him she hooks herself up to the same dream their upcoming job is dangerous so she needs to know more about Cobbs troubled dreams what is he hiding and then she finds herself wakes up in the dream and finds herself descending in this decrepit wonderful old elevator descending into Cobbs dark psyche and she finds him in a room of a house somewhere speaking and low low tones low personal tones with a woman she doesn't yet know that this is mall and that this is this is his dead wife all is dead and the only place she still exists is in Cobbs memory and dreams and but all of a sudden there's a there's another person in the dream so mall and Cobb are startled that they're with somebody and they see they're not alone Cobb runs over you know he's got to get her out of there as quickly as he can I'll get Ariadne out of there he says what are you doing here this has nothing to do with you and she retorts like a good sidekick would it has everything to do with me you've asked me to share with you I need to go implication I need to know what the heck is going on in here well I guess I jumped the gun I need to know what's going on with you yes there are things you should know he's not always you know antagonistic towards his sidekick that is not the nature of the hero sidekick relationship he knows he's he's got a show or something and let her in on something so Cobb takes her deeper into his dream world he is willing to reveal parts of his troubled psyche to his sidekick he takes her to his home at another time and he shows her his home takes her down the hall and into his home and shows him her to his two children that he longs more than anything to return to that's his goal actually but the children never quite turned to me I can never see their faces he confesses he's always denied fulfillment of being with them and holding them and having them see him too and re-add me says these aren't dreams they're memories and you told me never to use memories see she's on this stuff she's learning she's putting two and two together Ariadne slut slips back into the elevator without Cobb and pushes the basement button she must find out what haunts Cobb the most so at the very bottom in the basement of things that he protects about himself she finds his darkest memory is about a hotel suite where furniture has been trashed and thrown thrown around like it'd been a big fight or something like that and then she noticed over on the on the couch is the same woman that she saw before this is mall this is Cobbs dead wife remembered in his memories and dreams mall hisses you don't belong here the sidekick finds herself trying to understand the nature of the heroes do you know what it is to be a lover to be half of a whole and and Ariadne is just kind of overwhelmed by at all it just no and what she does not see it at least it's shot in a way that she does not see that mall leans over basically and picks up a weapon a broken a broken wineglass Cobb arrives pulls Ariadne back into the elevator just in time because Maul attacks her Maul attacks and screams you promised you promised and she's talking to Cobb obviously he has promised her something Ariadne now understands that Maul could show up in their dream at any time with the power to kill people she insists the other members of the team need to be told okay I've had to skip over a whole lot of stuff but what she is doing the absorption of information about her hero how she pushes back on her hero as he tries to cover things up forcing him to deal with the troubling stuff inside this is classic this is classic sidekick stuff and there is no no hint of anything romantic between the two of them that would that would ruin the whole sidekick thing that's not an issue here that would that would change the dynamic and it just wouldn't work in this case the sidekick not as skilled as the hero that is true here remains completely loyal that is absolutely true of her does not die actually that is true also in it by the end provides counsel and conflict for the hero exactly what she does usually same sex but not always and can echo a hero's romance with a comedic one of her own in that case that is irrelevant but that is how she fits into that category okay mentor I just two more two more hang in and these are gonna go relatively quickly but I would like you to see tonight at least these six the mentor can be any person any age as long as they pass on skills and wisdom to the hero they can there can be more than one mentor in a story like Star Wars there are several mentors going on there the mentor often dies but not always the mentor gives a hero a life-saving gift and that is almost always that's what happens whether it's knowledge or it's an actual gift or if it's you know teaching the hero about the power of the force that is a life-saving gift that obi-wan passes on they can be also dishonest in morale or a reprobate that has nothing to do with what we're going to be seeing now here but like for instance what a league of their own you know the Tom Hanks part of the drunken guy who gets the job of being their coach a reprobate and turns into quite a meaningful and powerful mentor character can be dishonest or immoral or a reprobate and can be negative this one gets overlooked sometimes can be negative and be teaching or trying to teach the hero the wrong way to live in the firm met remember that Tom Cruise film the Gene Hackman character I forget the character's name but he's assigned you know then he's the new the new be the Tom Cruise character he is a son he's the partner of the firm who's assigned to teach him the glories of the ways of working in a firm that their major client is the Mafia and he shows him in a very sad way because he was at one time a very decent man and how this how working for this firm had but he doesn't even know this is what he was showing him but how it has sucked the soul out of the guy he's crushed by what he has done with his life okay some successful mentors I'm going to show you the matrix I got a bit on the matrix here Morpheus is you know the classic father figure of all time Penny Lane also interesting as I mean she is a young woman groupie in almost famous and she is teaching the hero what is 16 year old I think sport a music writer how do you know groupie world you know how to be a groupie and following and following a band and basically she's a negative mentor teaching him how hollow this life really is Matilda and Leon the professional how many have seen that one yeah runs late night you know they play it all the time it's really a terrific movie if you get a chance to see it I mean you don't have to go out of your way but if you get a chance to see it see it because in this case the mentor is a 12 year old girl and because her mother and father are killed by the bad crazed bad guy and she takes up with and follows and and and seeks for protection Leon who is himself a hitman for protection but what she ends up doing is giving Leon a reason to live teaching him about life yes it was one of her first one of her very first films and it's I think a very powerful film anyway Simon and as good as it gets and Chaz Reinhold in wedding crashers if anybody remembers that one again he's a negative he's a negative mentor there and even in The Wizard of Oz okay okay I will assume most of you have seen the matrix Trinity this in in jirobo this is the end of hero gol sequence v and Trinity has taken neo up in this strange building to meet Morpheus for the first time and he's been built up as as quite something and it's important to meet him and it's an honor to meet him so she says and he asked her I think is there anything I should know and she says be honest he knows more than you can imagine so knock knock and they go in over by the window waiting is Morpheus and the first thing he says is at last neo says it's an honor to meet you and Morpheus says no the honor is all mine this mentor is already giving his gift right upfront his gift to the hero and it is the gift of knowing that he is special and that he is chosen by their mythology by the rebel mythology and all he has to do is come to believe it himself and that's his arc his growth art I imagine you're feeling a bit like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole all the images all those images are coming into play here even Alice Through the Looking Glass that's going to get used here in a minute - you're here because you oh yes listen you're here because you know something you can't put your finger on it but you've always known that something was wrong and the reason I'm particularly pointing out this passage is that is the state the emotional state of almost all heroes in the first act they are living in their own world their own in their life yesterday the world they've always lived in and it's just day to day and you know okay it's there and they do it but they know that something is wrong it hasn't been even maybe hasn't even been articulated yet but something is wrong with society and what they don't know is they are the one who is going to set it right Morpheus says you were born into a prison you cannot taste or smell or touch a prison for your mind can you imagine when this first came out and was speaking to young people teens and young people all over the world how they're just sitting there nodding and saying yes yes that's me that's how I feel the identification here was complete with an entire generation you cannot be told what the matrix is you must see it for yourself all I'm offering is the truth and then the classic moment when Morpheus offered the two pills picked blue or pick red blue you wake up in your bed then you go on about your lives and you forgot this all together pick the red and there's no turning back so of course the hero picks the red and that is the inciting incident when he chooses and swallows the red pill that is what begins this story and no other he is defined by that act and there's no going back that has already been stated through him so that is the end of Hira goal sequence 5 and it pushes us in the hero goal sequence 6 and cipher Amit's you meet some some of the crew cipher says buckle your seat belt Dorothy because Kansas is going bye-bye and things start to get weird and change and the mirror starts to flow and he touches it if you'll recall and then the mirror latches on to his finger and starts pouring up his arm and there's no stopping it and it's about to drown him not looking good for ya but then this this takes him boom he wakes up in a you know in a tank like thing and covered by membrane and tubes and he fights his way out right it's like being born it's a metaphor it's being reborn into the real world he fights he gets up and he takes a look outside of his own pod to see millions and millions of other pods just like it you've been living in a dream world neo this is the world as it is today watch this what do we call that look bingo stunning surprise one for neo he wakes up and he sees the real world for the first time eyes open wide mouth open drippy with birthing goo yeah it takes place 33 minutes in which is just about perfect and welcome to act 2 neo he is thrown into this new world in which his entire adventure and story will take place welcome to the desert of the real we've done it Trinity we found him again a reiteration of the fact that the the mentor is utterly convinced that this is the chosen one who is worthy of all the instruction that now must be given ok mentor can be any person of any age yes can be more than one mentor in a story in this case actually there's only one mentor the mentor often dies but not always in this case he almost dies he's captured and he's tortured but he does not die and I think there's a very good storytelling reason for that I won't go into it now but somebody remind me later and we may have a discussion about why the mentor is actually allowed to live here in this story gives whoops did gives a hero a life-saving gift yes belief that he is extraordinarily special can be dishonest not irrelevant here can be negative not relevant here okay one last one the endangered innocent the endangered innocent as I was pointing out earlier I was talking about the wives of the astronauts they were they that's their function they're endangered innocents they are the story goal they are the ones that need to be saved and that is the story goal too in they are in imminent danger of death or loss and the stakes have to be nothing less than that as high as stakes can be for whatever story you're telling and can be one person or a group yes provides a strong subplot an enormous ly strong subplot must be sympathetic what must be sympathetic they are provides a ticking clock and a ticking clock we will come and refer to again and again that is really important they usually start at the midpoint the ticking clock but it means time is running out to accomplish whatever it is the hero is out to accomplish the ticking clock zero hour is approaching get on it and make it happen okay my example for you here is Kevin the bird in up he is the endangered innocent Carl and his friends have escaped from evil adversary Charles Muntz is cave and and his nasty dogs who are his adversary agents and now they continue pulling Ellie's and Carl's house this last short distance to Paradise Falls he's almost there is almost an accomplished his task Kevin when their escape from you know the previous escape kevin has been wounded kevin was was basic to their escaping at all and and was wounded so she's bandaged and resting on the steps Russell tells Carl about the happy times he had with his dad but they were but they're foreign to few those those happy times and the boy is clearly needing a father figure and he's Russell more and more with their adventures together he tried to dismiss him in the beginning but more and more Carl is falling for Russell and seeing Carl's immediate today needs as weighed against the needs of his past and being caught in the past and all of a sudden there's a car in the distance a high-pitched car and Kevin jumps up and it is her babies it is one of her babies they have found the nest and Kevin is jubilant and runs off and Russell and Carl also so excited that I'm gonna be able to get Kevin home and as they run over joyed an ominous shadow comes over them that they don't see right away of spotlight a very hot blinding spotlight suddenly turns on and nails Kevin the bird who freezes in it the evil adventurer months is huge blimp hovers above and he's come for Kevin a live version of That Bird he's got a skeleton in you know it is if you remember in this museum in his blimp they're all dead things and skeletons and he always wanted to find a live one and here's a live one and he's going to get it in the hovers above and he has come for Kevin a net thing made of thick ropes shoots out and and traps Kevin so Kevin can't move and Carl works very very fast to cut him free get him out of there as quickly as possible action sequence and in the meantime you know the off ramp lowers from the blimp and down comes the evil adventurer months and his sinister pack of adversary agent dogs I keep repeating that because that is it whether they are dogs or people they are serving the will the other of the adversary and in these he's made them you know it's a it's a cartoon it's it's animation and these these dogs are given the power of speech so they speak think and behave personified like people but he has a lantern and to draw Carl away from Kevin the bird the cruel adventure adventurer throws the lantern under Ellie's house to set it on fire this is was a very startling you know to go this far as I recall was a very startling thing to see whether you are adult or a child at the time the first time you saw it very cruel and of course in an instant Carl does not wrestle he cannot wrestle with this decision he's got to save Ellie's house it is it is the mausoleum of all his precious memories and life with Ellie so he runs to try to save the house while the dogs run up to Holloway Kevin the hero pose Ellie's house aloft it's still just floating you know a few feet off the ground because the the balloons are getting tired and losing helium but he's able to pull it away and get it away from the fire and he saves the house but in the meantime months and his vicious dogs dragged Kevin into the bowels of the sinister blimp and poor Russell he's devastated carl has saved Elly's house but he has given up Kevin the bird to a cruel fate and he's obviously he's glad that he saved the house but he's also feeling like you know feeling really badly and crushed Russell says to him you just gave her away you gave her away that's how the boy has seen it because he doesn't understand the pull you know within within Carl and and and his experience and everything he is lost when his wife died and the only thing that really matters to the boy is Kevin the bird and he snaps he gets angry because of all of this emotion being pressed down upon him I didn't ask for any of this Doug the dog tries to soothe Carl and Carl turns on him bad dog bad dog okay and that's the end of which hero goal sequence here I don't quite remember the endangered innocent is is the story goal actually actually kevin has been the endangered innocent in this film for a long time from about the middle of the of the second act he was set up to be the endangered innocent it's been going on for a long time but now you see a ticking clock has been sent in motion save him quickly or it's going to be too late in in a danger of death or loss absolutely can be one person or a group one person provides a strong subplot you better believe it must be sympathetic ah they come very few come as sympathetic as Kevin is and provides the ticking clock so you made it there are in general between five and seven main characters in an in movies in movies that work if you have as you must have a hero in an adversary that means you will have three to five more central characters in order for your story to work I know there are lots of students writing scripts who don't have enough people who don't have enough of a cast with knowing exactly what their function is how they are going to serve this story in one of these categories but now you get to choose what kind of story do you want your story to be okay is a love interest possible does that work that doesn't work for all stories you know and you don't want to push it a lot of people wait on that a lot of people that it's tricky to really make that work so okay a sidekick or no sidekick we're gonna talk about that a little later this evening as a matter of fact after the break but this is it when you know the paradigm of how the blocks and pieces of the puzzle fit together and now you've got this you know what you're looking for when you are looking to create characters for your story these are the character functions that are served by these by these characters you may fight it fine if you want to fight it for a while that's fine by me try it on I think the more you more movies you go to the closer you look I think the more you will see that I am here to ruin the movies for you at least for a short while just for a short while you'll get over it and you will be able to play that piano like I was a virtuoso okay any any immediate questions right now yeah it's it's usually just one if you have two people following and doing it's not a sidekick anymore it's it's a helper follower to help or follower characters category from that category then it's like well like you know uh Ocean's eleven that hero Danny ocean he gets a true sidekick who sticks with him all the time and he's also got all these helper followers going to so he's got the whole ball of wax because some plots require that to rob a casino takes a lot of people and a lot of different skills but anything else for now in up Kevin the bird was is the first of the strange friends picked up by by Russell he goes to you know because to do number two and the bin bushes and he takes he digs the hole and does all the things they taught him in camp or school but this huge bird comes up and eats his candy bar is chocolate I think he's got or something like that and and then there's some comedy and romping with with with Carl and all that stuff but the thing is immediately after that Doug the dog shows up and the first thing Doug the dog says is my master wants me to bring a bird home I'm going to take this bird prisoner can I take your bird prisoner in other words Doug the dog is just the sweetheart and doesn't know about being mean but he is telling us from the first time he arrives which is very shortly after the time that kevin has arrived somebody is out to get Kevin and he's the master my master this and my master that can I take him home and be a hero so that is what I mean by its laid in its laid in early and then during the midpoint sequence and they're having dinner with with with months and there he's just a Karl is just catching up to the this is not good you know this is a creepy guy and a creepy place although he was friendly and they in the beginning they thought okay we got a new friend but he sees outside the portholes he sees Kevin bouncing around having fun and doing things and then oh my gosh you know if months sees that Kevin is gone he's lost right then and there so again Kevin is at risk and that is one of the main reasons that they grab and run they grab Kevin and run and try to get him out of there and then it goes on and on and you remember huh what act what act three is stunning surprise to of up anybody remember not quite not quite stunning surprise to of up is when is when Carl goes outside and Russell has gotten a few balloons and tied him around himself and he's got this leaf blower or something and he's in the air and his I'm gonna go save Kevin what out of the blue changes everything here his life is never gonna be the same again and then then what does Carl do by then he has completed his character growth arc and he gets it the stuff in his house yes it has sentimental meaning to him but it's just stuff and he starts throwing it out in order to lighten the house so that he can get it back up into the air again and go save Russell and Kevin which which he does he takes it's the the metaphor is so perfect and so complete all the stuff he has in that house that means so much to him the furniture that he throws it all away to make it into a flying machine you get yet again to get it in the air and go after and be the hero who's going to save Russell and Kevin and metaphorically he has finally left the past behind and he has committed to a future and then that's in the knack three is this kind of very lovely and elongated obligatory scene anything else for now thank you for your patience I know this this this was a long one longer one but there's a lot of juice here guys there's a lot of things to think about and to see how all of this fits together and it's it's really critical to what we're going to be doing and what you're going to be doing starting next semester at least with me writing a feature film okay take a break Thanks

Channel: Film Courage

Views: 176,716

Rating: 4.9383278 out of 5

Keywords: story solution, 23 actions all great heroes must take, screenwriting tips, screenwriting techniques, screenwriting 101, screenwriting for beginners, screenwriting advice, screenwriting career, screenwriting, Eric edson, filmcourage, film courage, interview, screenwriter interview, screenwriter, stunning surprise one, stunning surprise two

Id: d85qzE6V38E

Length: 108min 36sec (6516 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 09 2020