The principle of character
“The strictest observation of the rules (of composition) cannot outweigh the tinniest fault made in the characters” – G. E. Lessing.
The defining aspect of a character is the will. This means everything can be a character as long as it has a will it can act upon. Remember we are talking construction here. Of course the background, the feelings, the profession, the relations and the psychology of a character can be extremely important – but in terms of construction all we really need is the will. What the character wants, what its intentions are in any given scene. How you go about ‘finding’ or inventing your characters are entirely up to you. But when you get down to constructing your script, you must be clear about what the basic will of the character is. This is the will, the intention that will guide the characters’ actions throughout the script. Romeo wants love – everything he does in Romeo and Juliet is done out of this basic will to find love. Even when he kills Tybalt, he does so beset by rage out of love for his best friend Mercutio, newly slain by Tybalt.
The complementary aspect of 'want' is 'need', which is a way of expressing an internal conflict or dynamic in the character. We may want something, but often what we really need differs from that. Romeo wants personal love, but maybe his need is to find the compassion that his world seems to lack. If you look at the incidents in the play, which sends Romeo on his tragic course, they might arise from lack of compassion. He kills Tybalt, which gets him expelled from Verona. For Romeo this seems almost like the end of the world, because it means separation from his personal love, and only the priest's compassionate words, which are able to encompass a broader view on the situation, persuade Romeo to leave for Mantua and bide his time. But when confusion muddles the intricate and dangerous plan to reunite Romeo and Juliet - who are being kept apart because of the lack of compassion from the parents - Romeo finally succumbs, feeling mortally wounded by the apparent loss of Juliet, exactly because what he wants is his personal love and he is not able to balance that with a compassion, which extends beyond his own personal interest, he chooses to take his own life.
Another aspect of character is what I call – a little simplistic – the heroic quality. Romeo has faith in love. Batman is resourceful. Chaplin’s vagabond never gives up. Pacino’s Michael Corleone understands the danger of the mafia-game. The knight in Bergmann’s The 7th Seal is self-sacrificing. All great characters have one fundamental quality, which makes them able to strive for they want in their world. It may or may not be enough to get them what they want. This depends on the world and their weakness.
The heroic weakness is the last main aspect of character. This is the Achilles’ heel of the hero. Romeo has doubts about love. Batman carries a personal tragedy, the loss of his parents. Chaplin’s vagabond is poor and without means. Michael Corleone has a blind love for his father or psychological speaking a father-complex. The knight doubts the meaning of life after his sacrifices in the holy crusade seems pointless. As much as the heroes will struggle with the world, they will also struggle with their weakness.
You can create a drama where you only operate with the will of the character, but adding the other two aspects and linking them together in a simple meaningful triangle, you create a dynamic which will steer the drama, and give rise to the unfolding of conflicts and their resolutions. You will probably add other characteristics to your characters, but you have to stay focused on these three. In every major conflict and turning point of the drama, it has to be this trinity, which is at play. The construction questions will every time be: What opposes what the character wants, how will the he apply his heroic quality to overcome it and how will the weakness go against him?
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
BUTTERFLIES AND TORNADOES
The principle of unity
“Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.” - Prince Gautama Siddharta.
Nothing stands alone. It is unified in both obvious and subtle ways. This is more or less what the first philosopher of drama, Aristotle, was talking about with the “The unity of place, action and time”. Traditionally this has been taken in a more or less literal sense. Many theatre plays take place in a single day, in the same location and all about a singular event. And this normally works really well, because they follow this Aristotelian principle to the letter. But taken in a broader sense, the principle means that things are connected. They don’t exist in and by themselves.
The reference above to the famous butterfly-effect, the idea of the so-called chaos-theory, which uses the image of a butterfly flapping its wing in Japan, which initiates a chain of reactions that leads to tornado in America, as a metaphor to explain the immensely complex and connected systems that determines events all over the world. Actually this is not chaos at all, but something called self-organizing critical systems. It only seems like chaos if you are used to think within the framework of the classical physics of linear cause-and-effect.
What we do, when we create a drama is basically to create a self-contained universe, a micro-cosmos. And the peculiar thing is that both in aesthetic and scientific terms such a universe, or system, seems to work most convincingly when we make sure that all elements are somehow connected. And this goes for any level of your script, from the obvious plot-connections, over the psychology of the characters, the weaving of your theme(s), use of visual imagery and all the way to signaling of your grand motif (the big fat secret of your drama). All these should have as many plain visible or hidden connections as possible, because this creates complexity – not in the sense of being intellectual high-brow – but in the simple sense of creating a system (a work of art) that each and every time you immerse yourself into it seems alive and able to generate a fulfilling reflection of human experience and life.
There is quite a number of well-known script techniques and models, which relates to this principle – that I will return to later on – but as a principle it simply means that when you are creating a script, you just have to keep connecting your dots inside whatever universe you have chosen, with whatever logic rules that cosmos. Every time you introduce new elements you will know that eventually they have to be integrated into your system, in the sense that they connect to other elements. If for example you have a character that only appears once, maybe it doesn’t really belong in your universe, or maybe you need to take a good long look at how the character connects, how this character, within the logic of your world, creates more ‘meaning’ than what it is in itself. This is the mechanism behind the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts – exactly because the parts ‘interact’ they generate more meaning than they have in themselves.
Again with the example of a single appearance of a character, I want to mention “Apocalypse Now” as film where even though the ‘villain’, the Marlon Brando-character, Colonel Kurtz only appears in the final scenes of the film, the script constantly creates connections to him in advance of his appearance, so when we finally experience him, it is with the full resonance of all that has gone before.
This is a good example of why I don’t really believe in rules and models, even though they can be really helpful, because what we are dealing with in drama is so complex that for every rule you can come up with, there will always come along a new rule to undo it. For me at least is has been more creative and productive to focus on principles, and only use the rules as temporary tools.
“Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.” - Prince Gautama Siddharta.
Nothing stands alone. It is unified in both obvious and subtle ways. This is more or less what the first philosopher of drama, Aristotle, was talking about with the “The unity of place, action and time”. Traditionally this has been taken in a more or less literal sense. Many theatre plays take place in a single day, in the same location and all about a singular event. And this normally works really well, because they follow this Aristotelian principle to the letter. But taken in a broader sense, the principle means that things are connected. They don’t exist in and by themselves.
The reference above to the famous butterfly-effect, the idea of the so-called chaos-theory, which uses the image of a butterfly flapping its wing in Japan, which initiates a chain of reactions that leads to tornado in America, as a metaphor to explain the immensely complex and connected systems that determines events all over the world. Actually this is not chaos at all, but something called self-organizing critical systems. It only seems like chaos if you are used to think within the framework of the classical physics of linear cause-and-effect.
What we do, when we create a drama is basically to create a self-contained universe, a micro-cosmos. And the peculiar thing is that both in aesthetic and scientific terms such a universe, or system, seems to work most convincingly when we make sure that all elements are somehow connected. And this goes for any level of your script, from the obvious plot-connections, over the psychology of the characters, the weaving of your theme(s), use of visual imagery and all the way to signaling of your grand motif (the big fat secret of your drama). All these should have as many plain visible or hidden connections as possible, because this creates complexity – not in the sense of being intellectual high-brow – but in the simple sense of creating a system (a work of art) that each and every time you immerse yourself into it seems alive and able to generate a fulfilling reflection of human experience and life.
There is quite a number of well-known script techniques and models, which relates to this principle – that I will return to later on – but as a principle it simply means that when you are creating a script, you just have to keep connecting your dots inside whatever universe you have chosen, with whatever logic rules that cosmos. Every time you introduce new elements you will know that eventually they have to be integrated into your system, in the sense that they connect to other elements. If for example you have a character that only appears once, maybe it doesn’t really belong in your universe, or maybe you need to take a good long look at how the character connects, how this character, within the logic of your world, creates more ‘meaning’ than what it is in itself. This is the mechanism behind the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts – exactly because the parts ‘interact’ they generate more meaning than they have in themselves.
Again with the example of a single appearance of a character, I want to mention “Apocalypse Now” as film where even though the ‘villain’, the Marlon Brando-character, Colonel Kurtz only appears in the final scenes of the film, the script constantly creates connections to him in advance of his appearance, so when we finally experience him, it is with the full resonance of all that has gone before.
This is a good example of why I don’t really believe in rules and models, even though they can be really helpful, because what we are dealing with in drama is so complex that for every rule you can come up with, there will always come along a new rule to undo it. For me at least is has been more creative and productive to focus on principles, and only use the rules as temporary tools.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
TO LAUGH AND CRY
The complementary principle of comedy and tragedy
"A triviality is a statement whose opposite is false. However, a great truth is a statement whose opposite may well be another great truth." – Niels Bohr
This is obvious stuff, but often sadly neglected, especially outside mainstream drama, which of course is always painstakingly aware if they are trying to make a comedy or a tragedy. In my opinion any work of drama is either a comedy or a tragedy. At the bottom-line, that is. Because of course it might mix comedy and tragedy in any number of ways. It might seem like a tragedy, but in reality be a comedy. Or the other way around. In other words there is a lot of fun to be had in playing around with these two fundamentally different perspectives on the human condition. But in terms of the basic design of a drama, at the end of the day it is either-or. You can’t have it both ways. Or not at all.
When I’m coaching, consulting or teaching, if this is not clear, then it is always my first question to the director/writer. Is this a comedy or a tragedy? And of course most of the time it is initially a difficult question to answer (since I had to ask it). My next question will then be something like: “Will the protagonist get what he/she needs in the end?” or “Does it end in some kind of harmony or in despair”. Some people object a lot to this idea. “I am just writing a story about real people - I want it to be real, not some sort of comedy or tragedy”. Fine, but first of all, you a creating a drama, you are not creating reality (unless by chance you happen to be God), and by creating a drama, you are choosing a perspective, a reflection of reality, and the two fundamental ones concerning human reality are the comedic and tragic. All the other genres are essentially based on these two major ones. Melodrama is a kind of tragedy with some well-hidden comedy in the mix. Pure horror is a kind of grotesque tragedy. Fantasy and fairy-tales are mainly comedies as they end in harmony. Naturalism is most often some kind of tragedy. Farce is comedy in up-tempo with a razor sharp focus on the follies of our self-conceptions. Realism seems mostly to be tragedies, but has been known to spot the humorous side of real life. Teenage-silly-movies are slapstick comedies with extreme focus on sex and bodily functions. And so on.
The comedic perspective is characterized by seeing the human experience from a certain distance. It believes that none of us are so special that any kind of suffering or pain is to be taken too seriously. You are just one out of many – a number in an endless row of numbers. It makes fun of those who think they are above the rest. It sides with the little man. It believes a lot in earthly things, like sex, food, money and the body (including bodily fluids and excrement) – that these things are natural and good for us, and it readily pokes fun at any taboo regarding these, but on the other hand if any one is obsessed with them, it is also ready to bring them down to the general laughter of the rest of us – although then often with a softer landing than the one granted the high and mighty. In general the comedy doesn’t believe in very hard landings – people has to get up again and go on with their lives – because this is the ultimate credo of the comedy: Life goes on.
The tragic perspective is completely opposite. For the tragedy, each and every one of us is something unique. Tragedy demands compassion and total identification with it’s subject. It sees the human condition as a striving for the higher goals, be they justice, the truth, passion, love, immortality or whatever ideal you might have. But tragedy is a tricky bedfellow, because there’s always a price to pay for the higher aspirations. When a tragedy is closer to and tempered by comedy, then the price might be a partial sacrifice – the hero achieves his goal, but will always be marred by the sacrifice he had to pay. Or in the case of the pure tragedy, the hero must utterly fall. Oedipus is the example per se. The guy is like the greatest hero of his time. He has answered the riddle of the Sphinx (a metaphor for understanding the human condition), he has become king of Thebes, which is now smitten by a plague send by the Gods. Oedipus is a man of action and determined to save his kingdom, but eventually discovers that he is the cause of the plague, as he unbeknownst to himself has broken the taboos of the Gods by killing his father and bedding his mother. There is no way out for the poor fellow, he has to rip out his own eyes and live in torment. What we see here in the pure tragedy is what I call the blind spot. The hero is by all measures almost perfect. We can admire and identify, but there is a blind spot, a hidden truth about the hero that despite all his heroic qualities will lead to his undoing. There is no mercy in the pure tragedy – because whoever stands tall, must fall.
And here we come full circle with the comedy, as this almost sounds like something a comedy would do. The only difference being that in comedy the fall is never so hard, that life can’t go on, whereas in tragedy life as it has been known is destroyed. Now I claim this to be the complementary principle of comedy and tragedy because the two perspectives basically counter each other. One says we nothing special. The other says we are. They can’t both be right. But it works like yin and yang (if you like Eastern philosophy) where the two basic forces of the universe a mutual exclusive but in their center contains each other or like the paradox of quantum physics (if you like science) where your choice of perspective determines if you are observing a particle or a wave – something not possible as it is supposed to be either-or. And here we are with our drama – it is either a tragedy or a comedy in terms of creating it, playing it and describing it, but of course behind the outer forms they are the same, feed of each other in an eternal dialectic.
So when you go about creating your drama, you cannot escape choosing a perspective – like the scientist cannot avoid making a choice when observing the sub-atomic waves/particles – like each of us has to be either male or female, even though we contain the opposite qualities – and not only should you – at least at some point – do this knowingly, but also enjoy the kind of almost musical sense of tonal sensitivity this choice will open up for you. The choice you make never exclude the other perspective, it just means that if you choose comedy, then it has to begin with some kind of comedic harmony and also end likewise. In between that beginning and end, you can cross the line as many times as you want. Going with the tragedy, you must strike a tone of despair, loss, death or however you want to put it, in your opening, then – if you want – you can lead on with all kinds of temptations of hope, but then reaching the end, let that initial note of gloom bear the full fruit in it’s inevitable cruel logic – matching the degree of tragedy you are playing at. Let me say this in another way: To miss out on the interplay of comedy and tragedy is like missing out on the joy of sex. And like sex, its something you will never get tired of fooling around with, once you have gotten the hang of it.
"A triviality is a statement whose opposite is false. However, a great truth is a statement whose opposite may well be another great truth." – Niels Bohr
This is obvious stuff, but often sadly neglected, especially outside mainstream drama, which of course is always painstakingly aware if they are trying to make a comedy or a tragedy. In my opinion any work of drama is either a comedy or a tragedy. At the bottom-line, that is. Because of course it might mix comedy and tragedy in any number of ways. It might seem like a tragedy, but in reality be a comedy. Or the other way around. In other words there is a lot of fun to be had in playing around with these two fundamentally different perspectives on the human condition. But in terms of the basic design of a drama, at the end of the day it is either-or. You can’t have it both ways. Or not at all.
When I’m coaching, consulting or teaching, if this is not clear, then it is always my first question to the director/writer. Is this a comedy or a tragedy? And of course most of the time it is initially a difficult question to answer (since I had to ask it). My next question will then be something like: “Will the protagonist get what he/she needs in the end?” or “Does it end in some kind of harmony or in despair”. Some people object a lot to this idea. “I am just writing a story about real people - I want it to be real, not some sort of comedy or tragedy”. Fine, but first of all, you a creating a drama, you are not creating reality (unless by chance you happen to be God), and by creating a drama, you are choosing a perspective, a reflection of reality, and the two fundamental ones concerning human reality are the comedic and tragic. All the other genres are essentially based on these two major ones. Melodrama is a kind of tragedy with some well-hidden comedy in the mix. Pure horror is a kind of grotesque tragedy. Fantasy and fairy-tales are mainly comedies as they end in harmony. Naturalism is most often some kind of tragedy. Farce is comedy in up-tempo with a razor sharp focus on the follies of our self-conceptions. Realism seems mostly to be tragedies, but has been known to spot the humorous side of real life. Teenage-silly-movies are slapstick comedies with extreme focus on sex and bodily functions. And so on.
The comedic perspective is characterized by seeing the human experience from a certain distance. It believes that none of us are so special that any kind of suffering or pain is to be taken too seriously. You are just one out of many – a number in an endless row of numbers. It makes fun of those who think they are above the rest. It sides with the little man. It believes a lot in earthly things, like sex, food, money and the body (including bodily fluids and excrement) – that these things are natural and good for us, and it readily pokes fun at any taboo regarding these, but on the other hand if any one is obsessed with them, it is also ready to bring them down to the general laughter of the rest of us – although then often with a softer landing than the one granted the high and mighty. In general the comedy doesn’t believe in very hard landings – people has to get up again and go on with their lives – because this is the ultimate credo of the comedy: Life goes on.
The tragic perspective is completely opposite. For the tragedy, each and every one of us is something unique. Tragedy demands compassion and total identification with it’s subject. It sees the human condition as a striving for the higher goals, be they justice, the truth, passion, love, immortality or whatever ideal you might have. But tragedy is a tricky bedfellow, because there’s always a price to pay for the higher aspirations. When a tragedy is closer to and tempered by comedy, then the price might be a partial sacrifice – the hero achieves his goal, but will always be marred by the sacrifice he had to pay. Or in the case of the pure tragedy, the hero must utterly fall. Oedipus is the example per se. The guy is like the greatest hero of his time. He has answered the riddle of the Sphinx (a metaphor for understanding the human condition), he has become king of Thebes, which is now smitten by a plague send by the Gods. Oedipus is a man of action and determined to save his kingdom, but eventually discovers that he is the cause of the plague, as he unbeknownst to himself has broken the taboos of the Gods by killing his father and bedding his mother. There is no way out for the poor fellow, he has to rip out his own eyes and live in torment. What we see here in the pure tragedy is what I call the blind spot. The hero is by all measures almost perfect. We can admire and identify, but there is a blind spot, a hidden truth about the hero that despite all his heroic qualities will lead to his undoing. There is no mercy in the pure tragedy – because whoever stands tall, must fall.
And here we come full circle with the comedy, as this almost sounds like something a comedy would do. The only difference being that in comedy the fall is never so hard, that life can’t go on, whereas in tragedy life as it has been known is destroyed. Now I claim this to be the complementary principle of comedy and tragedy because the two perspectives basically counter each other. One says we nothing special. The other says we are. They can’t both be right. But it works like yin and yang (if you like Eastern philosophy) where the two basic forces of the universe a mutual exclusive but in their center contains each other or like the paradox of quantum physics (if you like science) where your choice of perspective determines if you are observing a particle or a wave – something not possible as it is supposed to be either-or. And here we are with our drama – it is either a tragedy or a comedy in terms of creating it, playing it and describing it, but of course behind the outer forms they are the same, feed of each other in an eternal dialectic.
So when you go about creating your drama, you cannot escape choosing a perspective – like the scientist cannot avoid making a choice when observing the sub-atomic waves/particles – like each of us has to be either male or female, even though we contain the opposite qualities – and not only should you – at least at some point – do this knowingly, but also enjoy the kind of almost musical sense of tonal sensitivity this choice will open up for you. The choice you make never exclude the other perspective, it just means that if you choose comedy, then it has to begin with some kind of comedic harmony and also end likewise. In between that beginning and end, you can cross the line as many times as you want. Going with the tragedy, you must strike a tone of despair, loss, death or however you want to put it, in your opening, then – if you want – you can lead on with all kinds of temptations of hope, but then reaching the end, let that initial note of gloom bear the full fruit in it’s inevitable cruel logic – matching the degree of tragedy you are playing at. Let me say this in another way: To miss out on the interplay of comedy and tragedy is like missing out on the joy of sex. And like sex, its something you will never get tired of fooling around with, once you have gotten the hang of it.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
IT CANNOT BE TOLD
The principle of mystery
”The cause is hidden. The result obvious to all.” – Ovid
The famous Danish author Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen) said the human being is like a plant that needs roots deeply buried in the dark soil, away from the light, hidden safely. And that if you tried bare the roots, dig them up, examine them under the glaring light of the sun, the human being would wither away. She said so, amongst other things, because she was in opposition to the psychoanalysis and the academic literary analysis, which seeks to uncover all hidden motives.
That opposition is understandable, but perhaps it is more difficult than that to go about and uncover the secrets of the human existence. It might be possible to explore the realms beneath without digging up the whole tree, roots and all. At least it seems that in Karen Blixen’s own works, she was constantly referring indirectly to those forces beneath that motivate and orchestrate so much of our lives. She tried to tell stories about those forces without ever exposing them to direct light.
The root of drama, our ancestor, is the mystery play, the ritual - the enactment of the hidden. It is exactly being enacted because it cannot be told, explained or communicated in any other way than through experience. You just had to be there. The deepest kind of secrets, knowledge and insights are the founding base of drama. It is the force that keeps making us re-visit the greatest works of art, because their mystery runs deep and is really beyond the consciousness of our rational mind. We have to experience them by immersing ourselves in the drama.
This might come off as either very ambitious or pretentious, but for me it is simply a design principle. Even if you are ‘just’ trying to write a good, solid mainstream script, you should apply the principle of the mystery to some degree. Take a good mainstream movie like “The 6th Sense” which translates this principle beautifully into a story that brings us face to face with the great mystery of our mortality. It even does so almost literally on the plot-level by withholding the fact that our protagonist is already dead, and we realize this ‘secret’ simultaneous with him.
The presence of the secret should permeate the script from beginning to end, sending out constant signals just below the threshold of our ordinary level of consciousness. The tragedy deals with the basic mysteries of death, mortality and fear. The comedy deals with the mysteries of life, the birth, the marriage of opposites and joy. There are many ways to approach the great mysteries and sometimes we might find them in the most unexpected places, both as creators and as audiences.
When you work, creating a script, you have to know what your secret is. When I say 'know' it can mean a lot of things. You might know it quite clearly, like “This is a comedy about a guy with an extreme fear of dying, it controls his whole life, and the script lingers constantly on the side of tragedy, but towards the end, when it seems our guy for sure is going to die, the miracle of love let him live on”. Or you might just have a feeling guiding you to send out those signals as you write, and leading you to the eventual revelation of your mystery.
”The cause is hidden. The result obvious to all.” – Ovid
The famous Danish author Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen) said the human being is like a plant that needs roots deeply buried in the dark soil, away from the light, hidden safely. And that if you tried bare the roots, dig them up, examine them under the glaring light of the sun, the human being would wither away. She said so, amongst other things, because she was in opposition to the psychoanalysis and the academic literary analysis, which seeks to uncover all hidden motives.
That opposition is understandable, but perhaps it is more difficult than that to go about and uncover the secrets of the human existence. It might be possible to explore the realms beneath without digging up the whole tree, roots and all. At least it seems that in Karen Blixen’s own works, she was constantly referring indirectly to those forces beneath that motivate and orchestrate so much of our lives. She tried to tell stories about those forces without ever exposing them to direct light.
The root of drama, our ancestor, is the mystery play, the ritual - the enactment of the hidden. It is exactly being enacted because it cannot be told, explained or communicated in any other way than through experience. You just had to be there. The deepest kind of secrets, knowledge and insights are the founding base of drama. It is the force that keeps making us re-visit the greatest works of art, because their mystery runs deep and is really beyond the consciousness of our rational mind. We have to experience them by immersing ourselves in the drama.
This might come off as either very ambitious or pretentious, but for me it is simply a design principle. Even if you are ‘just’ trying to write a good, solid mainstream script, you should apply the principle of the mystery to some degree. Take a good mainstream movie like “The 6th Sense” which translates this principle beautifully into a story that brings us face to face with the great mystery of our mortality. It even does so almost literally on the plot-level by withholding the fact that our protagonist is already dead, and we realize this ‘secret’ simultaneous with him.
The presence of the secret should permeate the script from beginning to end, sending out constant signals just below the threshold of our ordinary level of consciousness. The tragedy deals with the basic mysteries of death, mortality and fear. The comedy deals with the mysteries of life, the birth, the marriage of opposites and joy. There are many ways to approach the great mysteries and sometimes we might find them in the most unexpected places, both as creators and as audiences.
When you work, creating a script, you have to know what your secret is. When I say 'know' it can mean a lot of things. You might know it quite clearly, like “This is a comedy about a guy with an extreme fear of dying, it controls his whole life, and the script lingers constantly on the side of tragedy, but towards the end, when it seems our guy for sure is going to die, the miracle of love let him live on”. Or you might just have a feeling guiding you to send out those signals as you write, and leading you to the eventual revelation of your mystery.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
OUT OF TWO OPPOSED, A THIRD WILL RISE
THE FIRST PRINCIPLE
"Conflict is the beginning of consciousness" - M. Esther Harding
Before anything else, we need to understand who and what we are - ‘we’ being the drama. A way to understand yourself is to look at what separates you from the others – what separates drama from the other major genres – prose, poetry and music? Each major genre has a fundamental nature – the core strength – what it’s all about. I believe drama is about conflict, the moment – the stuff that makes us ask, “what will happen next?” This is the core value of film and theatre – the drama. Conflicts. Who will win the conflict? How? And what will then happen? This is obvious in mainstream films and theater, but it also goes for art house films and off-off Broadway productions – only maybe in a more subtle way.
The other major genres also make use of conflict, yes, that’s correct, but let’s take prose as an example. This is the most obvious mirror for drama as this genre also deals mainly with stories. What really makes a novel great is the reflection – it’s ability to take a step back and reflect upon the moment instead of being immersed in it. To go inside people’s heads and let us listen in on their thoughts. The ability – by reflection - to connect events in time and space that are not otherwise connected. And to give meaning to events, places and persons only by description (which is reflection) is the strength of prose. We can also use reflection in drama, but if we rely on it as a major quality, the audience seems to loose interest. This has something to do – I think – with the fact that the film or the play is taking place in front of our eyes right here and now. It is unfolding in time second by second – and we watch it almost as we would watch real life. We have no time or patience for too much reflection. It takes us out of the moment.
This blog is not about the other genres, and so the analysis of their basic nature is not that well developed – but let’s say poetry is about feeling and music is about emotion - the difference being that the feeling of poetry is about a state, where the emotion of music is about a flow. So if you want to give a word for the nature of drama in the same manner, it could be ‘will’. Drama is about the will, because a character’s will to achieve an objective eventually lead to conflict with other characters or the environment.
This is the first principle of drama. The will of the character leads to conflict. This is what creates drama. This is where it all begins. Don’t ever forget that. It will save you every time you are stuck with a problem. Every time. Don’t underestimate this. It is always about the will of the character and the conflict. This is the fundamental principle of drama, so this is the thing you should check every time you are stuck. Again: Every time. Yes, I repeat this because I have seen in workshops, as a consultant and in my own work, how easy it is to forget this very simple thing. To become entangled with more complex ideas, the models, the theory, the psychology or whatever else we may use as tools when we are stuck with a problem. Because the very nature of drama is about the will of the character and the derived conflicts, then more often than not, this is were the problem and solution is found.
By stating the first principle in this way, I also take side in the old question: What is most important, the plot or the characters? The logic answer to this question must be: The characters.
The plot, and the plotting you do when creating a script, is of course immensely important. But the moment you say that the plot is more important than the characters, you will end up – to some degree – making the characters behave like marionettes to suit the needs of the plot – and thereby bereaving them their true will – their autonomy. But if you go the other way, saying characters are the most important, then you are not necessarily endangering the plot – because the plot can spring from the will of the characters, in the actions and conflicts revolving around them. Now remember we are talking principles here. In my experience, when working, there’s nothing so black and white. At moments the plot is most important – when you do the plotting. But the principle matters, because it’s your touchstone. Even when you have a great plot-idea, you want to pull off; you have to be dead sure, that it can be generated by the will of your characters. But on the other hand if you have great characters, you can let the plot be formed by them. This question of character and plot will be re-visited several times later on, when discussing the principle of character and the principle of uncertainty.
"Conflict is the beginning of consciousness" - M. Esther Harding
Before anything else, we need to understand who and what we are - ‘we’ being the drama. A way to understand yourself is to look at what separates you from the others – what separates drama from the other major genres – prose, poetry and music? Each major genre has a fundamental nature – the core strength – what it’s all about. I believe drama is about conflict, the moment – the stuff that makes us ask, “what will happen next?” This is the core value of film and theatre – the drama. Conflicts. Who will win the conflict? How? And what will then happen? This is obvious in mainstream films and theater, but it also goes for art house films and off-off Broadway productions – only maybe in a more subtle way.
The other major genres also make use of conflict, yes, that’s correct, but let’s take prose as an example. This is the most obvious mirror for drama as this genre also deals mainly with stories. What really makes a novel great is the reflection – it’s ability to take a step back and reflect upon the moment instead of being immersed in it. To go inside people’s heads and let us listen in on their thoughts. The ability – by reflection - to connect events in time and space that are not otherwise connected. And to give meaning to events, places and persons only by description (which is reflection) is the strength of prose. We can also use reflection in drama, but if we rely on it as a major quality, the audience seems to loose interest. This has something to do – I think – with the fact that the film or the play is taking place in front of our eyes right here and now. It is unfolding in time second by second – and we watch it almost as we would watch real life. We have no time or patience for too much reflection. It takes us out of the moment.
This blog is not about the other genres, and so the analysis of their basic nature is not that well developed – but let’s say poetry is about feeling and music is about emotion - the difference being that the feeling of poetry is about a state, where the emotion of music is about a flow. So if you want to give a word for the nature of drama in the same manner, it could be ‘will’. Drama is about the will, because a character’s will to achieve an objective eventually lead to conflict with other characters or the environment.
This is the first principle of drama. The will of the character leads to conflict. This is what creates drama. This is where it all begins. Don’t ever forget that. It will save you every time you are stuck with a problem. Every time. Don’t underestimate this. It is always about the will of the character and the conflict. This is the fundamental principle of drama, so this is the thing you should check every time you are stuck. Again: Every time. Yes, I repeat this because I have seen in workshops, as a consultant and in my own work, how easy it is to forget this very simple thing. To become entangled with more complex ideas, the models, the theory, the psychology or whatever else we may use as tools when we are stuck with a problem. Because the very nature of drama is about the will of the character and the derived conflicts, then more often than not, this is were the problem and solution is found.
By stating the first principle in this way, I also take side in the old question: What is most important, the plot or the characters? The logic answer to this question must be: The characters.
The plot, and the plotting you do when creating a script, is of course immensely important. But the moment you say that the plot is more important than the characters, you will end up – to some degree – making the characters behave like marionettes to suit the needs of the plot – and thereby bereaving them their true will – their autonomy. But if you go the other way, saying characters are the most important, then you are not necessarily endangering the plot – because the plot can spring from the will of the characters, in the actions and conflicts revolving around them. Now remember we are talking principles here. In my experience, when working, there’s nothing so black and white. At moments the plot is most important – when you do the plotting. But the principle matters, because it’s your touchstone. Even when you have a great plot-idea, you want to pull off; you have to be dead sure, that it can be generated by the will of your characters. But on the other hand if you have great characters, you can let the plot be formed by them. This question of character and plot will be re-visited several times later on, when discussing the principle of character and the principle of uncertainty.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
INTRO: WHAT IS THIS DRAMA-THING?
”With certainty there are laws for drama, as it is an art-form; but it is uncertain in what they consist” – Pierre Corneille, french playwright.
This has mainly been written to develop a greater understanding of the principles of drama and how to apply them when you create a script for one of the dramatic media – the original live theater and the younger electronic brethren, film, radio or TV.
I always use this word – drama – to define what my job is about. Many people, when they hear this word, think about the kind of serious, sort-of-tragedy movies that has a lot of emotions and stuff – the one you find in the video store exactly under that heading: Drama. This is a misconception. Drama is the word used to describe the whole major genre, which this blog is dealing with. Any kind of play for theater, any type of script for a film – funny, sad, scary or whatever – is a dramatic work. This is our major genre. The other major genres are prose, poetry and music. We are the drama.
This is important. Over the years of struggling with creating good scripts for both theater and film – and failing a lot - I learned that - despite my failings - I was in this game for good reasons. I wanted the drama. I believed in drama as a way of approaching and understanding the world. The more I realized this and the principles of drama – the stuff that makes drama, drama – the more I could go with the flow and create scripts I could believe in.
I liked to study the many how-to-books with different script models – you know, the ones that describe how to structure a script – how many acts, different plot points and such stuff. The form is important – but form will always change – whereas principles stay the same. My advice has always been to learn about the models, but never believe in them. Principles are the stuff you should believe in. This blog will also present a variation of an act-model that I find useful when forming a script. I certainly like to think about structure and models – but they also leave me unsatisfied as a basic explanation of drama. They only deal with a form – this is how it looks. Then I always end up asking why? This is where the search for principles comes into the picture.
In our work we have to understand these founding principles of drama, so not to work against them, but with them. During our years of working with drama, we can continue to meditate upon them, deepening our understanding of drama. They will guide us in any difficult passage when creating a script. They are really simple, but that doesn’t make it easy. The simple is often the most difficult art.
I talk about creating a script, because I don’t really any longer see it as writing. There is a trap in thinking of ourselves as writers, because it associates to literature. It is not the writing that’s important. Very few people are going to read it. Most people will watch a film, a play or a TV-series. We create the script as a basis for a production. Actually instead of script I very much like the word the French and Greeks use: Scenario. The word is perfect because it implies that things will maybe turn out in another way in production, than what was imagined when creating the scenario.
Another and maybe more important reason not to think of it as writing has to do with the process of creating and experiencing a drama. A play, a film or a TV-episode has so precious few minutes. When you create a script, you have to be deliberate. There’s no time to waste. Also it is a very expensive art form. Every minute costs a lot of money, even in a small theater production, compared to literature or music. You have to construct carefully, think about production economy, a whole lot about how the audience perceive things (and here I’m not even talking about hitting mainstream, just about communicating the drama in a understandable way), and you have to think even more about what is really, really satisfying for you – because you are going to spend a massive amount of energy on the script. This is why I always spend the majority of my energy and time on a script in planning the construction of it. I never sit down to write the first draft of a script until I’m sure where I’m going and how to get there. And in my experience getting it right from the beginning saves you a lot of energy, time and anguish.
This stuff I'm going to write about here in the blog, it can’t really teach you to write a good script. This is an undertaking you have to struggle with yourself, making the mistakes and finding your answers to how it's done. But maybe I can save you some energy, time and anguish. It took me 10 years of writing not so good scripts – working for TV, film and theater - before I eventually created my first good script. One, I could read over and over without feeling bad about it, and one for which I could get a positive response from production companies. This happened after I had realized the thing. And that’s the thing I’m going to talk about here. And maybe we can even have a qualified exchange and discussion of our experiences with that thing called drama.
This has mainly been written to develop a greater understanding of the principles of drama and how to apply them when you create a script for one of the dramatic media – the original live theater and the younger electronic brethren, film, radio or TV.
I always use this word – drama – to define what my job is about. Many people, when they hear this word, think about the kind of serious, sort-of-tragedy movies that has a lot of emotions and stuff – the one you find in the video store exactly under that heading: Drama. This is a misconception. Drama is the word used to describe the whole major genre, which this blog is dealing with. Any kind of play for theater, any type of script for a film – funny, sad, scary or whatever – is a dramatic work. This is our major genre. The other major genres are prose, poetry and music. We are the drama.
This is important. Over the years of struggling with creating good scripts for both theater and film – and failing a lot - I learned that - despite my failings - I was in this game for good reasons. I wanted the drama. I believed in drama as a way of approaching and understanding the world. The more I realized this and the principles of drama – the stuff that makes drama, drama – the more I could go with the flow and create scripts I could believe in.
I liked to study the many how-to-books with different script models – you know, the ones that describe how to structure a script – how many acts, different plot points and such stuff. The form is important – but form will always change – whereas principles stay the same. My advice has always been to learn about the models, but never believe in them. Principles are the stuff you should believe in. This blog will also present a variation of an act-model that I find useful when forming a script. I certainly like to think about structure and models – but they also leave me unsatisfied as a basic explanation of drama. They only deal with a form – this is how it looks. Then I always end up asking why? This is where the search for principles comes into the picture.
In our work we have to understand these founding principles of drama, so not to work against them, but with them. During our years of working with drama, we can continue to meditate upon them, deepening our understanding of drama. They will guide us in any difficult passage when creating a script. They are really simple, but that doesn’t make it easy. The simple is often the most difficult art.
I talk about creating a script, because I don’t really any longer see it as writing. There is a trap in thinking of ourselves as writers, because it associates to literature. It is not the writing that’s important. Very few people are going to read it. Most people will watch a film, a play or a TV-series. We create the script as a basis for a production. Actually instead of script I very much like the word the French and Greeks use: Scenario. The word is perfect because it implies that things will maybe turn out in another way in production, than what was imagined when creating the scenario.
Another and maybe more important reason not to think of it as writing has to do with the process of creating and experiencing a drama. A play, a film or a TV-episode has so precious few minutes. When you create a script, you have to be deliberate. There’s no time to waste. Also it is a very expensive art form. Every minute costs a lot of money, even in a small theater production, compared to literature or music. You have to construct carefully, think about production economy, a whole lot about how the audience perceive things (and here I’m not even talking about hitting mainstream, just about communicating the drama in a understandable way), and you have to think even more about what is really, really satisfying for you – because you are going to spend a massive amount of energy on the script. This is why I always spend the majority of my energy and time on a script in planning the construction of it. I never sit down to write the first draft of a script until I’m sure where I’m going and how to get there. And in my experience getting it right from the beginning saves you a lot of energy, time and anguish.
This stuff I'm going to write about here in the blog, it can’t really teach you to write a good script. This is an undertaking you have to struggle with yourself, making the mistakes and finding your answers to how it's done. But maybe I can save you some energy, time and anguish. It took me 10 years of writing not so good scripts – working for TV, film and theater - before I eventually created my first good script. One, I could read over and over without feeling bad about it, and one for which I could get a positive response from production companies. This happened after I had realized the thing. And that’s the thing I’m going to talk about here. And maybe we can even have a qualified exchange and discussion of our experiences with that thing called drama.
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