Paint your characters on the page…

John Wayne as Ethan Edwards in THE SEARCHERSNot really that hard to do. You’re writing a spec script, not a novel but remember, your spec has got to have LASTING POWER. One of the very best ways to do that is with your characters. I’m gonna spend quite a bit of time on characters because I think a screenplay is your characters.

I’m going to have to go against quite a few of the gurus and books that shall remain nameless when it comes to writing a spec and attempting to sell it. You will of course have to enter the market once your spec is completed but do YOU really want to become a salesman?

Sure, a lot of you possess this knack for selling and trust me, that’s icing on the cake. May God bless you. I also feel that I’m pretty good in a room too but even having said that, your spec is your BUSINESS CARD. Your spec makes the REAL FIRST IMPRESSION.

So it ONLY MAKES SENSE to pay special attention to those areas of your script that the reader and everyone else that follows are going to pay special attention to as well.

This is why it’s so important to KNOW your characters. The more you know about them, the easier it’s going to be to paint them on the page.

Descriptions…

This is where I start to part company with a lot of books and gurus. They will straight out fucking tell you NOT to labor too long on your character descriptions because hell, all that’s going to change anyway.

BULLSHIT.

If you paint your character on the page, you’re giving us JUST A LITTLE MORE insight to that character that we might not be able to pick up from their actions and dialogue. Of course you want the action and dialogue to help paint the picture but give me a fucking visual FIRST so I’ve got something to work with!

Let’s go back to Red Right Hand’s ONE PAGE blog event back in September. This is very interesting because I haven’t seen this particular ONE PAGE since September and yet, I still remember it. It came from Pooks over at Planet Pooks:

Here’s the description:

BOONE COULTER – a tortured man tired of living but too skilled a fighter to die – jerks up from his bedroll, shaking, sweating.

Notice how our first meeting of BOONE is ACTION? Does this paint a picture for you? Of course it does. Notice how short the description is? Nothing long-winded about it yet we have enough to get behind this character and cheer him on.

Here’s some more of my favorites…

From Cameron Crowe’s ELIZABETHTOWN:

DREW BAYLOR is 27. He sits rigidly upright, a man facing his destiny, even though he’s seated backwards. He’s the only passenger in this company helicopter whistling over the tops of tall Oregon trees. In the distance, the magnificent Mount Hood. Drew looks at the large open side-window to the helicopter. It beckons, a tempting way out.

Notice how the above description also gives us a clue that he’s responsible for something that’s happened and he wants to run away?

More from ELIZABETHTOWN:

Drew arrives at the desk of ELLEN KISHMORE, 24. She’s a high level assistant with great style, poise, memorable green eyes and a few too many magazine photos of Jude Law on her cubicle wall. She greets Drew with a not-quite-disguised look of horrified concern. Frankly, she’s shocked he’s still on two feet.

And of course, Claire:

The Airport. She walks the thoroughfare. It’s mostly empty, just a crying baby and a group of stray late-night passengers. She dutifully shows an armed guard her Airline security badge. There is a little romance left in what was once a glamour profession. She took the job for freedom and travel. Lately she feels like a cop. She is CLAIRE COLBURN, built for travel, tired by nature, and she pauses to adjust her shoe.

A great minor character description:

Drew faces the gimlet-eyed reporter, HERBIE GONSALVES, 46, a poker-faced professional.

How about the Dude in THE BIG LEBOWSKI:

It is late. The supermarket all but deserted. We are tracking in on a fortyish man in Bermuda shorts and sunglasses at the dairy case. He is the Dude. His rumpled look and his relaxed manner suggest a man in whom casualness runs deep.

You gotta love The Dude… LOL.

Todd Bowden from APT PUPIL:

A boy is seated near the back of a moving bus. This is TODD BOWDEN, 15, as All-American as they come.

Simple but says it all…

BULL DURHAM:

ANNIE SAVOY, mid 30’s, touches up her face. Very pretty, knowing, outwardly confident. Words flow from her Southern lips with ease, but her view of the world crosses Southern, National and International borders. She’s cosmic.

AS MAX PATKIN CONTINUES HIS ROUTINE, PLAYERS WARM UP, AND THE MANAGER, JOE RIGGINS, 45, known merely as SKIP, short for “Skipper”, a chaw of tobacco in his cheek, stands with his pitching coach, LARRY HOCKETT late 30’s, an ex-big leaguer whose body has seen too many cocktail lounges.

LARRY ROLLS SOME RED MAN CHEWING TOBACCO into a slab of pink bubble gum, carefully folding the corners, tucking it neatly together. Larry examines it as they talk-And shoves the giant chaw into his mouth.

And of course Crash:

THE DOOR OPENS — A PLAYER ENTERS, in street clothes, carrying his suitcases. CRASH DAVIS, 30, older than the other players. And different. More than just opinions, he actually has a point of view. A career minor leaguer, hanging on wherever he can get a job. Unlike Ebby–Crash knows a lot about the world without baseball. Also unlike Ebby–he loves baseball desperately.

From FIGHT CLUB:

TYLER has the barrel of a HANDGUN lodged in JACK’S MOUTH. They struggle intensely.

They are both around 30; Tyler is blond, handsome, eyes burning with frightening intensity; and JACK, brunette, is appealing in a dry sort of way. They are both sweating and disheveled; Jack seems to be losing his will to fight.

MARLA SINGER enters. She has short matte black hair and big, dark eyes like a character from Japanese animation.

From THE LOST BOYS:

GREG, the head Surf Nazi, sits in one of the carousel’s benches with his arm around his girl, SHELLY. He thinks he’s King of the Boardwalk.. And doesn’t like it one bit when Shelly casts an appreciative glance toward David.

LUCY ANDERSON drives — late thirties, sexy, warm, comfortable with herself — a bit of a free spirit. SAM, 11, a victim of too many afternoons in shopping malls watching Bratpack movies, sits next to her in his trendy duds, suffering the foreign coastline with his large Malamute dog NANOOK.

GRANDPA, a rugged individualist wearing old denims, Indian moccasins, long grey braid down his back, is a lifeless form on the front porch.

REAR WINDOW:

He is L.B. JEFFRIES. A tall, lean, energetic thirtyfive, his face long and serious-looking at rest, is in other circumstances capable of humor, passion, naïve wonder and the kind of intensity that bespeaks inner convictions of moral strength and basic honesty.

THE SEARCHERS:

The CAMERA FRAMES and MOVES with the lone horseman. He is ETHAN EDWARDS, a man as hard as the country he is crossing.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION:

ANDY DUFRESNE, mid-20’s, wire rim glasses, three-piece suit. Under normal circumstances a respectable, solid citizen; hardly dangerous, perhaps even meek. But these circumstances are far from normal. He is disheveled, unshaven, and very drunk. A cigarette smolders in his mouth. His eyes, flinty and hard, are riveted to the bungalow up the path.

Are we getting the picture here?

Your character’s description doesn’t just have to introduce your character… In fact, that’s almost always the boring way to go. Make that character description pull double or triple duty by giving us clues to what the character looks like, his or her personality, and their current state of mind as well as the current situation they are involved in.

Do this in no more than four action sentences and do it right and your characters are going to immediately pull us into your story. Remember, we the readers and hopefully, your eventual audience know people like your characters and whether we or YOU like it or not, we will immediately compare these characters to ourselves or people we know. The MORE you give us, the faster we can get on board and root for your characters.

Unk

EDIT: It just occurred to me that if you are so inclined, why not share some of YOUR favorite character descriptions in the comments section… Either your own or from your favorite screenplays…

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December 30, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

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Another free screenwriting program…

Page 2 Stage...I meant to get this post up on Christmas Day but it just didn’t work out but better late than never when it’s free…

Right?

A temporary diversion from CHARACTERS and then back to them…

First of all… My apologies to Mac users… You’re once again out of luck as this program is for Windows only… It seems that the nice people that once sold the screenwriting software are now GIVING it away for free. Support is now through the ONLY.

I’ve downloaded it and typed a few pages and for free, it’s not too bad… If you’ve already got Movie Magic or Final Draft then you’ll most likely want to stick with them but if you’re still using something OTHER than those two programs, Page 2 Stage might just fit into your screenwriting toolbox.

You can download it by navigating the Page 2 Stage web site or if you’re feeling adventurous, you can download it right here on the blog (no viruses, I promise):

You’ll have to punch in the following Username and Password:

Username: WindwardReports.com
Password: XSSZLcYZuWSXRhNXQOM

About the only real problem I can see with the software is that it doesn’t have the ability to create a PDF document… However, you can easily resolve that by downloading a free PDF printer driver…

I just downloaded and installed (free) and tried it with Page 2 Stage and it worked like a charm…

So MERRY CHRISTMAS two days late!

Unk

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December 27, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

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Shut up and do your ABCs…

Charisma!This is the first time I’ve had Internet access in the last five days… WOW! Lots of email wondering if I’m okay and if I ever plan to make another post on the blog. LOL.

In fact, while I’ve been up to other filmmaking errands, I have been giving the subject of characters a hell of a lot more thought.

Let’s face it… Your CHARACTERS are YOUR STORY. I would even take this a little farther and say that your Protagonist IS YOUR STORY.

So just how in the hell do you create characters… Especially your Protagonist, so that actors want to play them? We already know that our characters, even if shooting from the hip, really should shoot from the hip in a way that presents an honest (consistent with character) line of dialogue and or an honest line of action.

Time to go deeper… Back to our ABCs…

A = ACT

Let’s look at the definition… I’ll leave OUT the definitions that do not apply…

ACT:

Yow!

Of course we’re talking mostly about your Protagonist but let’s face facts… Your character has to ACT. Too many spec screenplays have the protagonist being a very passive character and unless that act of being passive is consistent with the character, it becomes downright boring when your Protagonist doesn’t ACT.

Let’s talk about PASSIVE PROTAGONISTS for a minute… I’m not saying that your protagonist can’t be passive but if you’re going to make him or her passive, then you’ve got to create the quintessential passive protagonist and paint them on the page for us… That way, when they finally do ACT, their ACT, while still somewhat passive, is a major act for THEM. In other words, be consistent. How many times have I read a spec script with a rogue cop who’s fucking passive almost all the way through the script?

Are you fucking kidding me????? How in the hell did he get to be a rogue cop in the first place? LOL. By ACTING. Through ACTS. Definitely NOT by being passive.

Do you ever wonder what people YOU KNOW are doing at any given moment? I do. I wonder what so and so is doing at Christmas. I wonder what he or she might have thought about a certain movie or book. Why do I wonder that? Because I know these people and I LIKE them.

By the same token, I could give a shit what other people are doing right now. Why? Because they’re boring and because of that characteristic, I can reasonably predict what they are doing right now.

Nothing.

So think about it… I contend that for pretty much the same reasons we wonder what certain other people are doing right now or what certain other people’s opinion is about something are the same reasons we care about the characters on the screen.

Of course the eventual actor on the screen will only ADD to this phenomenon but damn… THAT’S ICING ON THE CAKE, BABY!

It starts out with you and how you create that character… More importantly, your Protagonist. Make us care about your characters. Make us wonder what they would think about something. Make us wonder what they might be doing right now. Do that and we will lean forward in our theater seats and peek over your characters’ shoulders and root for them all the way to the end of the movie.

Make them ACT.

B = BECOME

Definition…

become:

Don’t just make your characters ACT… Make them BECOME i.e., the character arc. The internal change that they don’t necessarily want or desire but absolutely NEED to be able to move on with their lives. Each ACT from above should be yet another step closer to completing your Protagonist’s evolutionary process. Notice BECOME doesn’t necessarily mean good or bad. Yeah, some protagonists can undergo an evolutionary process that makes them worse than they were at the beginning of the story.

Note that I said, “evolutionary process.” Make each ACT allow your Protagonist to BECOME just a little more and a little more and a little more until, at the end, we can SENSE the transformation. Your plot should SERVE your character’s transformation not the other way around. Remember, your audience doesn’t know SHIT about character arcs… LOL. But they can SENSE transformation.

C = CHARISMA

Definition…

charisma:

How many times have we seen Protagonists that we don’t care about?

Plenty. Let’s put a STOP to it now!

It doesn’t matter if they’re good or bad… They must have charisma.

Let’s take a look at what they say about charisma at Wikipedia:

The word charisma (from the Greek word χάρισμα (kharisma), “gift” or “divine favor,” from kharizesthai, “to favor,” from kharis, “favor”) refers to a rare trait found in certain human personalities usually including extreme charm and a “magnetic” quality of personality and/or appearance along with innate and powerfully sophisticated personal communicability and persuasiveness; in short, charisma is often used to describe a seemingly uncanny ability to charm or influence people. It refers especially to a quality in certain people who easily draw the attention and admiration (or even hatred if the charisma is negative) of others due to a “magnetic” quality of personality and/or appearance. Though the term as it stands is extremely difficult to define, other similar terms/phrases related to charisma include: grace, exuberance, equanimity, mystique, positive energy, joie de vivre, extreme charm, personal magnetism, personal appeal, “electricity,” and allure, among many others. Another term constantly used is the “X-factor.” Usually many of these qualities must be present within a single individual for the person to be considered highly charismatic by the public and their peers.

Despite the strong emotions they so often induce in others, charismatic individuals generally project unusual calmness, confidence, assertiveness, dominance, authenticity, and focus, and almost always possess superb communication and/or oratorical skills. To the early Greeks, charisma was said to be “a divine favor/gift” or “gift of grace,” implying that this “divine quality” was an inborn trait; today however, many believe it can be taught and/or learned, despite the persistent inability to accurately define or even fully understand the concept.

In other words, what I’m trying to say is that your characters… Especially your Protagonist… Has got to have enough charisma to influence me, your reader and your audience to sit forward in my seat and root for him or her until the end of the story.

So quit thinking of charisma in the usual manner… It works both ways in screenwriting. Even your antagonist can use some charisma… Give your antagonist enough charisma and he or she will become one of our guilty pleasures… Take a look at Hans in the original DIE HARD. Wasn’t he almost like a guilty pleasure?

Why?

Charisma.

Here’s another interesting read about CHARISMA.

No, probably not in a screenwriting book… Yet. LOL. But so so imperative to create characters we want to root for or admire.

The ABCs. Learn ‘em.

Unk

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December 20, 2006 | Filed Under Uncategorized

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