Quoted from slabstaa Everything that happens in 3000 Miles to Graceland is by coincidence, and that's one of my favorite movies.

There are other examples as well. I'm just speaking generally.  

Unless they are a part of the fabric of the structure or the story itself, they generally don't play out very convincingly. For instance, people have been known to fall out of a plane from 25,000 feet and survive. It's possible, but it would seem rather silly if that happened to your action hero in the middle of a film. I'm not explaining it very well, so I'll stop there.

Quoted from JamminGirl 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.

I never claimed it was. I'm just saying that real life characters don't necessarily play out well on screen. The instance I gave was just an example.

People do amazing things, there's no question about that. What I'm trying to get across is the point that film is not real life. Our expectations of a film are not like real life. If you witness a guy saving someone's life on a train, without any knowledge of their background, it's an amazing thing. In a film it isn't. It's just a film, we know it's not real. To get the same level of emotion as the real life event you have to structure it deliberately so that you care about both the people and want them to survive. In real life that is taken for granted.

The filmic equivalent would see us meet both the characters and find out about them. Probably the saviour would have a backstory that had something to do with the fact he's a coward, maybe his daughters don't respect him, his life is all out of kilter, maye he's even contemplating suicide, then something like this happens. I don't know it could be anything, but you've got to set the stage for it to have emotional resonance.

If you just jump straight into it, the audience will have no emotional connection to the event and will just be asking questions like Who is this guy? Why is he so brave? Where did he learn to do that?

That's why what Mckee says stands up, I think you're just interpreting it to mean something he doesn't intend. Clear doesn;t mean that they have to be one dimensional, that's just the way some people have written characters.

Audiences definitely need clarity about the characters, they can be deliberatley ambiguous, but they shouldn't be unclear, because if the audience doesn't understand what they want, they can have no emotional connection to them because there's nothing to empathise with.

It's different to real life because altruism doesn't extend to fictional characters on the TV screens.

Of course, it all depends on the type of film you are making. Movies generally don't need real life characters, they need something more but something that is believable at the same time.

decadence, if you met both characters and do profiles, I gaurantee that they will be twice as interesting as anything you could imagine in abstract. Why, people come in layers. Some show you what they want you to see in order to hide what they're ashamed of. Some overcompensate, some are extroverts but are extremly oblivious to nuances etc It depends on you and how observant you are of the people around you. People often speak in subtext, can you figure out what's going on?
Take this example: If the guys didn't know their characters inside and out would this scene work?



The funny thing is, I know a guy who is exactly like Damon's character. If I tell you about this guy...

Quoted from JamminGirl decadence, if you met both characters and do profiles, I gaurantee that they will be twice as interesting as anything you could imagine in abstract. Why, people come in layers. Some show you what they want you to see in order to hide what they're ashamed of. Some overcompensate, some are extroverts but are extremly oblivious to nuances etc It depends on you and how observant you are of the people around you. People often speak in subtext, can you figure out what's going on? Take this example: If the guys didn't know their characters inside and out would this scene work? The funny thing is, I know a guy who is exactly like Damon's character. If I tell you about this guy...

Intersting that you use Good Will Hunting as an example. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote it as a thriller, about a guy with super intelligence who was hunted by the military intelligence to become a G-Man.

It went through further changes after suggestions made by Rob Reiner (he said it should be about the realtionship between Will and his Therapist) and William Goldman. Some of the scenes were made up on the spot. Minnie Driver, Ben Affleck and Robin Williams improvised a lot of their stuff in rehearsals.

The classic moment with Robin Williams talking about his wife's idiosyncracies was made up on the spot. Matt Damons laughs were real and the camera jiggles because the camerman was laughing so hard.

Appearances can be deceptive.

You see the point? The guys wanted to contrive a plotty thriller and instead they were advised to focus on creating characters based on themselves. They ended up with a much richer story for it.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films There are other examples as well. I'm just speaking generally.   Unless they are a part of the fabric of the structure or the story itself, they generally don't play out very convincingly. For instance, people have been known to fall out of a plane from 25,000 feet and survive. It's possible, but it would seem rather silly if that happened to your action hero in the middle of a film. I'm not explaining it very well, so I'll stop there.

I understand what you're saying. It's not the point of "coincidence" being wrong, but it's the way things are built within the fabric of the story. There needs to be a very pointed kind of logic so that things don't apparently happen out of the blue, but due to some kind cause. Even if it's a flawed kind of logic, there needs to be a connection. That's where the set up is so important.

Right now, the movie Night at the Museum comes to mind. To me it was a fun movie for kids and silly grown ups like myself. The significance of Larry's flashlight is played to the hilt with the other guard when he "touches" the exhibit. And then later, he's using it as a sword. If someone just threw that kind of thing into their script somewhere at random, it might come off as "where the heck did that come from"? But if it's pointedly used, it can be extremely effective.

Your point is a good one. It's much easier said then done and it's why we have to keep scrutinizing the smallest energetic units within the story and weighing them against the story as a whole.

Sandra

It's "the hand of God" saving the character from an impossible situation kind of coincidences that are a no-no. Opportunities are a necessary part of drama(ie story) as much as they are in real life. The writer just have to know how to blend them well with character skills and circumstances for them to work.

Was that his point?

Quoted from JamminGirl Was that his point?

I couldn't tell you.  I've focused most of my energies on ignoring the things (read: books) put out by others while concentrating on my writing.

Your characters should have some semblance of realism in them, where their actions don't seemingly come out of left field.  A basic example is the nerd who is picked on for an entire film only to finally take a stand.  Does he do it right off?  No.  There's usually some sort of buildup to it, in the form of a clever montage or something, that jives with this new change in personality and gives it a sense of realism.  It brings logic into things, and solves allows the character to overcome both their internal and external conflicts.  Sad thing, is that even if you manage to accomplish that, there are still questions to be asked.

I'm rambling.

I'm trying so hard to stay out of this...but...I can't!  Sorry.

Listen, every example that anyone gives of a plot point, or even example of characterization, or writing in general.  Keep on doing the same thing equals BORING...equals BEEN THERE ALREADY SEEN IT...5 TIMES!

My point is this, create great charaters whatever way works for you, but make sure they are real people with real back stories, lives that continue when the camera moves away.  Who cares how you do, what book you read, or which guru you listen to.

It doesn't matter how you get there, just do what you can to get there.

You know?

Jammingirl, McKee is not saying that good characters cannot be based on real people, he is just highlighting the fact that good characters are not real people. There is a huge difference there. I do not see that Decadence is disagreeing with you at all. I think you have just taken a quote by McKee and mis-interpreted what he meant by it.

Good characters are above real people in everything they do, this is what audiences expect. Some will be smarter, some will be braver, others will be funnier etc.. You can certainly take a real person and use them as a base for a character but you cannot hope to use a real person as a character and think you will get away with it. Look at the big biopics of the last few years and see how even a real person has been turned into an unreal character, this is the movies.

The most important factor in this though is through dialogue, no matter how hard you try you can never make your characters talk like real people. The simple reason is that when we engage in conversation we do not plan ahead what we are going to say, there is often no time limit on what we have to say, there is no goal or direction the conversation must follow and there is certainly no rules as to whose turn to speak it is. Our characters get to have all of the above and more, you have two pages to get to the next plot point and you need to have someone say where the secret door is. Your characters are therefore above real people, every single movement they make and sentence they speak is planned.

This, as simple as it sounds, is all that McKee is saying. You do this alot, you take simple, no-brainer stuff that the "guru's" say (stuff incidentally that you already know) and read far more into it that there is.

Of course you are right, it is a great idea to create backstories for characters, this though is not for the audiences benefit, it is purely for your own benefit, the audience will only ever see what you write.

I didn't take Mckee's words out of context and there was nothing for me to interpret. He was very clear. He is very wrong. Contriving characters based on what one deems "better than real people" will only make them flat, and unrelateble.
I notice that some gurus often say "don't make your characters talk like real people because they make alot of 'ums' " well that depends on the person. Some writers actually walk around with notepads trying to capture overheard conversations that play great onscreen. I've been in a couple situations where I wish I had a notepad to write things I overheard... Great dialogue should be important to the story but it should also reflect the character. And you can't do that without knowing your character well.
See my script, 'after the trade'? I didn't base my characters on real people and it reflected in the dialogue. But it was my very first script and I've learned alot since then.

Quoted from JamminGirl I didn't take Mckee's words out of context and there was nothing for me to interpret. He was very clear. He is very wrong. Contriving characters based on what one deems "better than real people" will only make them flat, and unrelateble. I notice that some gurus often say "don't make your characters talk like real people because they make alot of 'ums' " well that depends on the person. Some writers actually walk around with notepads trying to capture overheard conversations that play great onscreen. I've been in a couple situations where I wish I had a notepad to write things I overheard... Great dialogue should be important to the story but it should also reflect the character. And you can't do that without knowing your character well. See my script, 'after the trade'? I didn't base my characters on real people and it reflected in the dialogue. But it was my very first script and I've learned alot since then.

He's not telling you to base your characters on "what one deems better than real people". That's the point you are taking in error. He's merely expressing that characters in a story are not real life people, they are art.

In your example of Good Will Hunting, his whole character arc is a metaphor for life (and the importance of love). In just two hours we see a complete change in his personality and it is a change that is irrevocable. That is the difference between characters and real life people. Their struggles are clearer (both internal and external) and their goals are readily identifiable.

He doesn't contradict what you are saying, he never says that characters can't be multi-dimensional. It's just that their dimensions have to be clear and visible, otherwise the story is unfathomable.

I'm no disciple of Mckee, like most writers in the end I decided to rely on my own instinct for story. Be aware that there are different types of film though. These guru's are ususally talking about a specific type of creation, which is a "Movie" for want of a better word. There are other styles of film and script you can write and there is everything in between.

Of those types of writers my personal favourite is Alexander Mackendrick:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Film-m.....243417720&sr=8-1

One other thing that I would like to throw into this debate is this:

http://www.empireonline.com/100-greatest-movie-characters/

These are the characters considered the best by the general viewing public. Whether you agree with them or not is not the issue in question.

I'm just pointing out that there are alternative ways to make interesting characters.

The top three of all time as considered by the viewing public are The Joker, Darth Vader and Tyler Durden. The only one who had any kind of back story was Darth Vader, but people, I have no doubt, picked him for when he was sheer evil, ooked very cool and not because we found out he was really a weird looking old man in a helmet.

The three greatest characters of all time as considered by the public were pretty much standard archetypes. The Joker of Chaos ( "Some men just want to watch the world burn"), Darth Vader of Fear/Evil and Tyler Durden was a representation of the male ID. He had no doubt, he was strong, physically perfect, confident and attractive. He was what every man would like to be.  

Maybe there is a difference between main characters and lesser characters? I'd say so. the main character needs more than one dimension. Maybe there are different styles that work for different films?

Certainly a back story can harm a bad guy. Look at Michael Myers in the new version of Halloween. He's gone from being a scary boogeyman in the first film, to being a weird little kid who has to hide his face. It doesn't work. Attempting to humanise archetypes seems to actually lessen their appeal.

As always, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Quoted from Dreamscale I'm trying so hard to stay out of this...but...I can't!  Sorry. Listen, every example that anyone gives of a plot point, or even example of characterization, or writing in general.  Keep on doing the same thing equals BORING...equals BEEN THERE ALREADY SEEN IT...5 TIMES! My point is this, create great charaters whatever way works for you, but make sure they are real people with real back stories, lives that continue when the camera moves away.  Who cares how you do, what book you read, or which guru you listen to. It doesn't matter how you get there, just do what you can to get there. You know?

I hear what you are saying, but isn't this thread about discussing ways of doing just what you say?

In order to find the way that works for you, is it not good to hear other options?

Saying "create great charaters whatever way works for you, but make sure they are real people with real back stories, lives that continue when the camera moves away"; is all well and good, but how would you suggest one does such a thing?

What defines a great character?

What you have said is true, but it's the same as saying "Just write a masterpiece". It's a good idea but it's not exactly a systematic plan.

Yes, Dec, it is. But as always, everyone seems to be arguing about what is the right way and what is the wrong way to shape a character...to create a character.

The answer is that there isn't a right or wrong way.  You may use one way, Baltis another, Jammin' a third, and me, a completely different way altogether.

USe whichever way works best for you.  Nothing wrong with trying a bunch of different ideas until you find what works best for you.

Quoted from Dreamscale Yes, Dec, it is. But as always, everyone seems to be arguing about what is the right way and what is the wrong way to shape a character...to create a character. The answer is that there isn't a right or wrong way.  You may use one way, Baltis another, Jammin' a third, and me, a completely different way altogether. USe whichever way works best for you.  Nothing wrong with trying a bunch of different ideas until you find what works best for you.

Ditto!

Just work it. Work it your way. Work it any way. Just work it.

Sandra