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Do you find the character? Or does the character find you?
What if you fill out some kind of elaborate form on "your" character, and everything is all very neat and cozy but THEN, he/she behaves differently. Either you, or your character have problems.
On a side note, I thing I'm strongest at writing dialogue.
Don't forget one thing: the strongest films are the one without (or almost) dialogue. Have a look at silent movies. Every feeling was passing through the image.
Dialogs or sitauation boards were there for only convenience.
Remember Chaplin. Remember Jacques Tati. Why do think that Bean was worldwide sold?
I have several posts in there. That's what I do sometimes. There's also a pretty fair series of questions both in that thread and in the Screenwriting Palette thread.
I am not really sure what the issue is here, I happen to think that he has hit the nail firmly on the head with that sentence. He is saying that characters are not real people and never should be seen as real people, I for one think that exactly right.
It is the same as all the people who keep saying that dialogue should be realistic, that the best way to learn good dialogue is to listen to real people talk etc.. Sorry but that is clearly not true, has anyone ever listened to real people talk? Have you ever stopped to take in your own conversations with friends? My God what a boring movie! Great characters are way above real people, they say things in ways that real people cannot. In movies conversations are had that last fleeting moments and yet say so much more than any of us could manage in a 20 minute chat with friends.
Think of some of the greatest movie characters in the history of film and then try to imagine how many of them could actually exist in the real world, I mean really exist just as they do within their fictional world.
I don't take issue with the idea of fleshing out a character before you go into your first re-write and serious dialogue pass, it is probably a great idea to understand him/her as much as you can. I do think however that McKee, in this instance, is spot on. Character should be larger than life and thus speak in a language that is unheard of here on Earth.
I think you're not noticing/understanding people in real life. Mckee himself admits people are complex. This is why he suggests writing characters in abstract. Nothing, can be more silly. The best character dramas(indeed, the stories) are taken from real circumstances and drawn from real people. People have amazing layers. What they might show to you in a sitting might be the boring bits but if you dig deeper like the first post suggests, you would be amazed. The reason for deep character profiles is that you can take the story in authentic places and you'll never feel stuck. When you do otherwise, you run the risk of contrivances.
Someone mentioned a character set in stone. That's far from it. People in real life react to various circumstances in ways that, though seem alien to them, are genuine.
Nothing to me, feels weirder than the librarian who hacks up lovers and keep them in the freezer in her basement... Unless, there is something in her history that explains her current state. Hence the need for character profiles.
Characters are not set in stone, and when you write silly character profiles, which are a good way to waste time, that's what you're doing. You're making decisions before writing the script.
Characters should act first and speak second. We're not writing plays. We're writing movies. I think most novice writers make their characters say too much.
Nothing to me, feels weirder than the librarian who hacks up lovers and keep them in the freezer in her basement... Unless, there is something in her history that explains her current state. Hence the need for character profiles.
It is said that character profiles didn't work for Ted Bundy. He worked for the Samaritans and was polite and courteous.
Not every character is set in stone.
All these pillars of society we are suppose to look up to from cops, judges to priests and doctors. A librarian can of course kill.
I think you're not noticing/understanding people in real life. Mckee himself admits people are complex. This is why he suggests writing characters in abstract. Nothing, can be more silly. The best character dramas(indeed, the stories) are taken from real circumstances and drawn from real people. People have amazing layers. What they might show to you in a sitting might be the boring bits but if you dig deeper like the first post suggests, you would be amazed. The reason for deep character profiles is that you can take the story in authentic places and you'll never feel stuck. When you do otherwise, you run the risk of contrivances.
Someone mentioned a character set in stone. That's far from it. People in real life react to various circumstances in ways that, though seem alien to them, are genuine.
Nothing to me, feels weirder than the librarian who hacks up lovers and keep them in the freezer in her basement... Unless, there is something in her history that explains her current state. Hence the need for character profiles.
I take your point, but films aren't life. They tend to be heightened realism.
Real life things often play out as false or weak on film.
For instance, I've often heard Producers complain that people come to them with real life stories that are full of coincidences. The Producer will point out that drama shouldn't play out through coincidences because the audience won't buy it, to which they get the inevitable reply "But it actually happened".
The other point is that most people don't react like the heroes in films. They would simply call the police and go home or whatever, give up.
What is taken for "realism" in a film is usually not very real at all.
I remember reading a review on Nil by Mouth, a British drama. The Guardian described it as a very realistic portrayal of domestic violence. It struck me at the time; How would they know?
I once saw a fight between a husband and a wife outside a working mans club, it went a bit like this, they were both very drunk
You're a fucking cock you are, a fucking cock
I'm a cock? You're a slut. You're a fucking tramp.
No, you're a cock.
Shut your face, you slut.
You're a cock. A fucking pissed up fucking cock.
Stop calling me a cock you slut
I'll call you what I like you fucking wanker. You're a cock
Call me a fucking cock again I'll fucking slap you.
Go on then you cock
Then he slapped her and they scuffled a bit and it got broken up.
That's a realistic portrayal of some domestic abuse, but if you wrote that and put it on the screen, people would say your dialogue was crap and unimaginative.
You have to heighten it and make it more dramatic. You lose about 80-90% of the emotion when it's on screen, so you have to ramp it up to get it back to what seems like the same level.
Kckee is not saying that your characters should be one dimensional, he's merely saying they should be clearer and more pronounced than real life. After all you only have 90-120 minutes to get their story across.
I couldn't disagree with you more. That one incident you saw is not representative of the plethora of domestic situations. I've seen an obese woman pummel her skinny boyfriend to shame, flinging him around like a rag doll, while I've seen a grown man attacked a skinny teenage girl on a bus(I was livid, but that's beside the point). You're right about most people being cowards. Most people are also sheep. But that doesn't preclude them from doing amazing things during the most dramatic points in their life.
In new york a father was on waiting on a train with his two young daughters when a guy had an epileptic attack and fell onto the tracks. With the train bearing down, the man made a split second decision and jumped onto the tracks. He put the guy in the gutter between the lines and laid attop him. The train passed over them, harming noone. When asked why he did it, he said he didn't want his girls to experience seeing the alternative. Another element of marvel to the media was that this was a black man saving the life of a young white guy. This happened about three or four years ago. Real life drama that storytellers can only copy.
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