(uptempo music) - We're now gonna begin my favorite part of this whole journey or this process. In fact, the very reason that
Chris and I wanted to do this, because it's to get
into this deeper level, what we're referring to as
the hero's inner journey. It's to go underneath the
level of plot and structure and story in a certain sense,
at least visible story, to get to not only deeper
levels of character, but also the deeper levels of meaning, the richness of the
screenplay or the story or the movie that you're creating. Now, I have to begin, though, by giving you a really
strong whatever it is, admonition, and that is this. Stories exist first and
foremost on the level of plot. Yes, we are gonna go deeper. Yes, we are gonna get into what is known as the character's arc
and the theme of the story and the meaning of the story, but none of that can
happen unless you have this visible journey in place. The deeper levels grow
out of that visible level. This is what first and foremost is going to elicit the emotion. This is what's gonna draw the audience in. This is what's gonna draw the reader in. And this is a very, very difficult thing to internalize, to accept,
and the reason it's difficult is because this is not
why we go to the movies, most of the time, and
it's most of the time not the reason you want to write movies. See, I know why you're here. You are here because
you wanna write movies that not only touch people
but touch them deeply, that say something about
the human condition that reveal something about you, that allow you to get
to that universal level, to get to the level that Chris
will refer to or Carl Jung or Joseph Campell as the
collective unconscious. When you go see a movie,
you don't come out "of the theater saying,
"Oh, I loved that movie "because I love that an ogre
wanted to rescue a princess," or, "I love watching them
survive the Titanic," or certainly in something that gets even deeper or richer than that. You talk about the characters, you talk about the originality,
you talk about the depth, and since that's what we talk
about leaving the theater and that's what we strive for
as writers and filmmakers, the difficulty is to
avoid going there first, meaning to think that you can skip over this level of plot and structure and just get into character richness, and it does not work, it does not work. I say that as an absolute. Certainly there would
be exceptions to that, but by and large and certainly if you're pursuing Hollywood movies, you gotta get 'em in the seats before you can change their lives, and before you can get 'em in the seats, you gotta get your movie made and you gotta get 'em to read and buy and produce your script, and this is what's going to do that. Then, once you've got this
in place you can go deeper and get to that level
of richness and meaning that is what you strive to do and that is going to increase
the emotional experience and increase your
connection to the audience or to the reader of your
screenplay or novel. And that's what I'm gonna talk about now. Not just some alternative
way of looking at a movie, but the parallel journey, and
show you how that intertwines with the structure that
I already gave you. Now, before I can do that, I need to start by just defining what I mean
by this inner journey again. See, the outer journey, or what
I call for instance the plot or the outer motivation of
your movie, is this simple. It is a story about a hero
who wants to accomplish a clearly defined visible goal, to cross a clearly defined
visible finish line. It is a journey of
achievement, I would call it. It is a journey that is designed usually to establish some kind of hierarchy, to be able to say, "I won, I
did what nobody else could do. "I'm the gladiator who killed the emperor. "I am the industrialist who saved the Jews "in Schindler's List," because
for all its meaning and depth and resonance and historical
fulfillment you might say, Schindler's List is a very simple movie. It's a story about
Schindler, a guy who wants to rescue the Jews that
work in his factory. That's it, that's the visible finish line, and everything is built around whether he'll accomplish that goal. But the inner journey, the
one that's underneath that is what I call a journey of fulfillment. It is the character
arc from, you might say from protection to courage,
from fear to courage. It is from being unevolved
to being evolved, to being fully realized. I like to Jungian term
to be fully individuated, meaning fully defining
yourself as an individual, as opposed to being defined by others. The heroes of movies are
very often at the beginning defined by other people or by a situation, by their parents, by their job, by the beliefs they've always
carried about themselves. In the end of the movie,
they stand up and say, "No, this is who I am. "It's not what you said I was. "It's not who I've always
thought myself to be. "I define myself. "I am complete and
unique as an individual," and that's what that character arc is, and it runs underneath that. Now, the conflict in the visible journey, the obstacles that seem
impossible to overcome, are visible obstacles, okay? They're a moat of lava. It's a fire-breathing dragon. It is Lord Farquaad who wants to stop him from taking the princess
away in the end of the movie. It is the very essence of the journey. It's at the beginning, the obstacle is just those fairytale
creatures who are swarming around infesting his swamp, in his opinion. They're visible things. It's the villain, it's the bad guy, it's the iceberg, it's the alien invasion, it's the magical powers
of the Lost Ark itself that's gonna keep them from retrieving it. It's all a visible obstacle, but on the inner journey of the character, the one that runs underneath
that visible level, the conflict and the obstacles
come from within the hero. I'm gonna explain all this in
more detail in just a second, but one other reason
I love this part of it is because it should become so clear, and I want you to think always on these two levels as I'm discussing this that I'm also talking about real life. I will often use the word, "We
do this," or, "You do this," because the characters
in movies are mirroring what we all do in terms of
the own obstacles we face or create for ourselves and what keeps us from achieving our own destiny, our own fulfillment,
our own individuation.
