Film Courage: Can you give me an example of
just showing, whether it’s someone waking up in the morning and they have back pain… Peter Russell: Oh yeah…BREAKING BAD, here
is this horrible guy, he got rid of his brother-in-law (we didn’t mind seeing him die), but he
ends up ruining his family entirely, Jesse, etc. When we first see Walter White, actually
we first see him in his underwear in the desert, when we first see him at home waking up, he’s
waking up in this awful little bedroom with a terrible nightstand, he’s got this crappy
little exercise machine which he gets up on which he’s broken after 10 seconds (one
of those step things) and then the camera pans to the wall and we see on the wall that
in 1983 Walter White was in line for a Nobel Prize in Physics (Chemistry). Then we go back
to him and see he’s dead, something has hurt him. What is it? Well we find out much
later what it is, that he was betrayed by his partner, by his love. And then he goes
and he slumps down and he is sitting at his breakfast table and it’s his 50th birthday
and he gets soy bacon for his birthday. And his wife goes “Eat it! You’ll like it!”
And then his son comes out and says “Well, the water heater is not working.” “Well,
you’ve got to get up early and be the first in the shower.” “Why can’t we buy a
new water heater?” Right? Well, because Walter is a loser, right? Everything about Walter shows us that he’s
been horribly wounded by something. What we’re rooting for is for Walter to get better and
so when Walter becomes a badass, I don’t know about you but I’m on his side. I know
he’s hurting innocent people, I don’t care…”Walter, get ‘em, get ‘em! Get
that guy!” So that is a terrible part of the human soul
baby. But it’s the device by which we make a character sympathetic is to show their wounds
because as human beings we’re not going to be interested in good-looking, perfect
people who are making a lot of money and they are great in everything they do. Who gives
a crap? We want to see people that we can identify with because that’s not us. We’ve
got problems, right? I’ve got problems, right? I want to see my problems and somebody
else with problems, dealing with problems, okay? And you can say Okay a show like RIVERDALE
doesn’t do that, but they do. And there’s fantasy shows where that’s not the case.
But most of the time you do want to see a wound. That’s what likability really means.
“Oh, they’re like me? They’re screwed up. They don’t have it all together. Wish
I did. Maybe they’ll get it all together, right? Film Courage: And then that means “I’ll
get it together.” Peter: Uh-huh. How did they get it together?
But mostly it’s just like “Yeah, they’re like me. They’re not perfect, they are like
me.” Film Courage: Well, you’ve been using an
acronym for a little bit. And what’s funny is driving over I was looking through the
notes and I think that David [Branin] had said off camera that BMOC stands for Big Man
On Campus in the basketball world which I was not privy to, I did not know that. For
writing what is your take on this acronym? Peter: Beginning, middle, obstacle and climax.
That’s what that stands for. I found this out years ago analyzing all movies that there
was an E = mc2 moment for me. There were four crescendos in a movie where the hero is asked
to change and asked to learn the theme of the movie and asked to learn how to heal.
All the things I talk about, the big things I talk about, healing, learning the theme,
stopping bleeding, all that. There’s four times in a movie inevitably that that happens
at a crescendo. It’s 30 pages in, 60 pages in, 90 pages in and about a 108 pages in.
Those I call the beginning, middle and climax. The BMOC, right? Now that’s a structure
that is in every great movie practically that you’ve ever seen. It’s not in a [Jean-Luc]
Godard movie, okay. If you’re writing a French Wave movie, I’m sorry I won’t be
able to help you. That’s just a French guy peeing in an alley for two hours and that’s
great! I love those movies. But in a Hollywood film that structure is
invariably in the story and if it’s not there’s usually something missing. It will
be superseded some day but that’s what’s operating now. That BMOC operates in everything, every movie
DUNKIRK, in DEADPOOL, everything. But now in DEADPOOL (let’s just take an example)
which is a great movie again I’m big on wounds, right? What’s our wound in DEADPOOL?
The guy…well he’s wounded because he’s ugly. He becomes extremely disfigured by a
chemical bath right. And because of his wound I’m ugly and he can’t face his girl. He
doesn’t feel lovable. So the big crescendos (the BMOC) points in that movie are is he
going to have the balls or the courage to believe that his girl will love him even though
he’s ugly. So what he’s got to learn in there to heal
his wound is I’m lovable. His wound is “Im not lovable.” Right? And that’s a wound
we can all identify with. A lot of us think we’re not lovable. So his journey in DEADPOOL,
the crescendos in the movie are you going to realize you’re lovable. The answer for
him is “Yes, no, no, no, yes. Yes, no, no, no, yes.” Because after he gets chemically
doused he’s too ugly and it takes him most of the movie to where he can take his mask
off, that’s the climax, right? That’s the part where he takes the mask off. I use
DEADPOOL, I could use a more high-flouted movie but I want people to understand this
pattern of BMOC works in every movie. And you can say “Wow, that’s great Peter,
that’s a tool, so what?” The tool will help you write your movie, you’ve got to
figure out what your theme is, you’ve got to figure out what your character’s wound
is and you’ve got to figure out how they are going to be healing it. That’s it, those
are the three things. So the BMOC does that. Now the interesting thing is a few years ago
I freaked out and nearly lost my stuff because I thought “Gosh, movies are going to be
over. Television is everything, oh my Gosh. I’m a movie guy, I don’t know what to
do?” So I slowly started tentatively “Does this
work? Does this work? Okay, that works? Does the BMOC works?” Well the BMOC turns out
to work in television as well. So this tool works in drama and comedy and TV as well (because
why?) Because what we want to see in a story is the hero learning to heal and even if he
doesn’t heal completely because he doesn’t in TV, he’s still going to go on a journey
to healing a little bit. The critical difference between film and television is that in TV
the hero doesn’t heal but he heals a little bit and at the end he gets ripped open again.
So every week he’s going to heal a little bit and get ripped open again, he’s going
to heal a little bit and get ripped open again, every week (152 times). But the BMOC works
at the exact same place as in a television hour as it does in a movie, there’s just
an extra M because there’s an extra act. So let’s take a 4-act television structure,
it’s B M M O C. The O C (the obstacle point) is the point where it looks like the hero
is going to lose. And in a movie this is right at the 90-page point, let’s take a movie
everybody knows (STAR WARS). Luke gets to the planet (the last rebel planet), Darth
has followed him there with a homing beacon, he’s got a death star, he’s going to blow
up the whole damn thing. There is nothing Luke can do about it, there’s just a little
star fighters and he’s got a death star. That’s it, the movie is over. And of course what happens is R2D2 says “Hey,
I stole the plans of the Death Star, there’s a little hole you can fill a missile in if
you get close. And Luke you can be the only one to get that missile in that hole if you
use The Force, not your computer. And so the obstacle point is all is lost and the climax
is Luke learns the theme of the story, Luke will you use the force to rescue the princess
and save The Republic. He puts his computer away, all the other star righters used it.
They couldn’t get the missile in, he’s learned, he hears Obi-Wan say “Luke, use
The Force, not the computer!” And he puts the missile in the hole, climax. So the obstacle point is “All is lost”
and the climax is “Luke you did it.” In BREAKING BAD, the obstacle point is he’s
making bad things in the dessert, Jesse comes back out with the Crazy Eight and the other
criminal, they’re going to hurt them both. Walt is in his underwear, he has no defense.
He’s going to get harmed. But he says “I’ll teach you, I’ll teach you how to cook my
recipe.” And the guy goes “Really?” “Yes.” And the go in the RV and Walter throws poison
into the thing “Whoosh!” And the climax is he kills them both and becomes the mass
for the next 150 episodes. So that’s the climax. So the O and the C point (I’m not
explaining this well but it’s in my lecture online), it’s a complex tool but it works
great, it’s like a little engine that works any television structure you want, just like
it did in the film. So what did I learn when I started learning about television, everything
I learned in movies works. Every element that I learned in movies works
in television, the structure is just a little more complicated, that’s all.
