First off I need to apologize for the tardiness of this entry.  I was infected with the swine pandemic and was unable to do anything but utter “Bbbbraaaiiinsssss…” feebly from my bed.  Now I’m up and about again, so here we go.

One of the first things to do when making your movie is figure out who your main character is going to be.  Now, you may pick your plot first and then figure what kind of protagonist you want or you may pick your characters and write about what they do – it all depends on your style of writing.  In either case, understanding your protagonist(s) is very important since these are the people whom the plot revolves around, who we will come to know and love and who we will follow for the next 120 minutes.  They will be our tour guides through your movie so you have to pick what kind of tour guide you want.  Please don’t get stuck on the names I decided to slap on them, e.g., Heroes, Bad Boys, etc.  These are placeholders so that we are on the same page and nothing else (refer to my comments on genres in Film School 101:Laying Down the Law).  There are three types of protagonists: The Good Guys, The Morally Ambiguous and The No-Good.

1) The Good Guys

The Good Guys are the simplest of the protagonists to write, if only for the fact that they don’t have much, if any, internal conflict.  All of the conflict in the plot with a Good Guy will come from the antagonist, which may be a person or an organization, or nature.  These characters tend to not change much; they are basically the same person at the beginning of the film as they are at the end.  The Good Guys can be further subdivided into three different sections: Heroes, Loveable Idiots and Bad Boys.

1a) Good Guys: Heroes

These are the ones who come to save the day.  The guys or gals who jump out and place their fists on their hips while shooting us a glance at their profile.  All the heroes you can think of (excluding modern superheroes, more about them later) can go into this category.  These characters can do no wrong and everything they do is thoroughly justified and beyond reproach.  When writing heroes you must make sure not to make them too two-dimensional.  Since they are often on a mission that makes them rather myopic, it is important to surround them with fascinating sidekicks or villains or scenarios, To put it more simply, since they are themselves not all that fascinating, their surroundings have to be.  All this said, the most important thing is to keep them likable.  Keep in mind that there is no better, faster and easier way to make someone likeable then to show injustice being done to them.  However, they themselves cannot be unjust, cruel, unkind or uncaring.  They also have to have a great deal of common sense because if the hero starts to make bone-headed decisions, our love for them will wane and we may start to root for the villain to take them out.

Examples: AI – David; Alien – Ripley; Back to the Future – Marty McFly; Amelie – Amelie; Air Force One – President James Marshall; Cinderella Man – Jim Braddock; Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer; The Matrix – Neo; Monsters, Inc. – Sulley; Singing in the Rain – Don Lockwood; The Sixth Sense – Cole Sear; The Truman Show – Truman Burbank; To Kill a Mockingbird – Atticus Finch; Wall-E – Wall-E.

1b) Good Guys: Loveable idiots

This is the group of almost childlike characters to whom things happen.   This group lets us view life again in simpler ways.  It’s the lack of impression that the world has made on them that make them interesting and fun to be with.  This is also the group that is almost always used for comedic value – typically a fish-out-of-water scenario.  It is imperative that, whatever they do, they mean no one any harm.  They have to be sweet, gentle and kind.  However, in writing these people you have to toe the line between immature/naïve and just plain dumb.  Again, almost in line with the Heroes above, make sure that the decisions they make are not completely moronic — otherwise we’ll start to lose faith that they will ever amount to anything.  These characters, I know, will make some pretty dumb decisions but the trick is, when it counts, when it’s heroic and when it’s most needed they make good decisions for the benefit of others.  This group also includes characters that are complete pushovers; people with no backbone that usually find their self-worth by the end of the film.  The same rules apply to them except that they will be different by the end of the movie.

Examples:

Bedazzled – Elliot Richards; The Big Hit – Melvin Smiley; The Court Jester – Hubert Hawkins; Elf – Buddy; Forrest Gump – Forrest Gump; Harvey – Elwood P. Dowd; Zoolander – Derek Zoolander; Napoleon Dynamite – Napoleon Dynamite; Adventures of Power – Power.

1c) Good Guys: Bad Boys

This last subset of the Good Guys is possibly the most fun to write.  Everyone loves a bad boy.  They are on the line between The Good Guys and The Morally Ambiguous.  The main difference is most often the tone.   In most Bad Boy movies, the tone is much lighter.  The filmmakers are not trying to make a point about society or its effect on the psyche of the youth of today.  They are just having a little fun.  These guys, and they do tend to be men,  (please tell me if I’ve over looked some female roles that would fit in this category), may do things which are unjust, cruel unkind or uncaring – things the previous two sub groups could not.  The difference here is you must establish that the evil they are fighting against is far worse then the evil that they themselves do.  In this way, they will be justified when they do unjust, uncaring and cruel things.  We can say, “The Evil People deserved it” and our hero will remain a hero.  Be sure to make the dialogue snappy and give him or her plenty of style.  They should always appear heroic, whether that is intentional or reluctant is up to you.  Still, their main motivation, through their gruff exterior, must be good.

Examples

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – Ferris Bueller; Ghost Busters – Peter Venkman; Star Wars – Han Solo; Indiana Jones series – Indiana Jones; Die Hard – John McClane

2) The Morally Ambiguous

The Morally Ambiguous characters tend to come around when the writer wants to make a more “realistic” character or story.  These are the protagonists we like to see grow and become better because of adversity or struggle.  Some, if not most, of this struggle comes from within them, which is to say throughout the film they spend time trying to figure out who they are or why they do what they do.  The heroes in the Good Guys would not bother pondering such existential themes and ideas, they have people to save and poses to strike.  The characters in this section, however, tend to be a bit more broody.  The Morally Ambiguous is split up into two subsets: Hooker with a Heart of Gold and Vigilantes.

2a) Morally Ambiguous: Hooker with a Heart of Gold

This group takes up all the stories where people learn a valuable life lesson by the end on the film.  Yes, that is a heck of a lot of films but for the life of me I couldn’t see much difference in the protagonists between these films.  They start greedy or crotchety or selfish and end up the salt of the earth.  That’s a little extreme, I know, but the fact is we love to see that change of heart happen.  The darker or bleaker the situation at the beginning, the brighter it will appear at the end.  This is what is called a character arc.  This is where the internal conflict happens.  Since the change has to happen within, they have to be shown, usually by a secondary character, why the path they are on is wrong and which way they should be going instead.  I used the name “Hooker with a Heart of Gold” simply because they are morally repugnant on the outside but it is that glimmer of hope on the inside that shows us they have the ability to be different.

Examples:

About a boy – Will; American Beauty – Lester Burnham; The Aviator – Howard Hughes; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby; Pretty Woman – Vivian Ward; Good Will Hunting – Will Hunting; Groundhog Day – Phil; In Bruges – Ray; Lawrence of Arabia – T.E. Lawrence; Liar Liar – Fletcher Reede; The Professional – Leon; Schindler’s List – Oskar Schindler; Scrooged – Frank Cross; Sneakers – Bishop.

2b) Morally Ambiguous: Vigilantes

This group is closely related in coolness to the Bad Boy however, as I mentioned in that paragraph, the tone in the vigilante movies is much darker.  This is where most of today’s superheroes lie.  They make tough decisions, not because they want to, but because they have to — and it tears them up inside.  But if they don’t make those tough decisions, many others will suffer.  The biggest difference is again the internal struggle of whether or not they want to be heroes, how they want to go about it and why they do it.  Usually they are started on this path by the death of a loved one or by some great injustice they see or that is done to them.  They are the more three-dimensional Bad Boys.   The end of the film is often marked with a resolution to the internal struggles or at least a happy middle ground where they can find some reprieve.

Examples:

Nolan’s Batman – Batman; Braveheart – William Wallace; X-Men – Wolverine; The Bourne series – Jason Bourne; Falling Down – William Foster; The Fugitive – Richard Kimble; Gladiator – Maximus; Kill Bill – Beatrix Kiddo; Old Boy – Dae-su Oh; Spiderman – Spiderman.

3) The No Good

The No Good are motivated by greed and selfishness.  They are not however “Hookers with Hearts of Gold” because, by the end of the film they have not changed, come to their senses, repented of their ways or anything of the like.  Again, like the Good Guys, there is no character arc here.  By the end, they are still as corrupt as they were when we first met them.  Why would we care to watch such horrible people, you may ask.  Sometimes it’s because the characters themselves are very intriguing.  Although often it’s for the same reason we want to see most films, to see justice be done, to see these guys get their comeuppance.  The stories, however, must be incredibly good in order to support our enjoyment of following such vile people.  We have to be so captivated by what’s happening that we want to see it to the bitter end.

Examples:

Amadeus – Mozart; Memento – Leonard Shelby; Chicago – Roxie Hart; Closer – Alice, Dan, Anna and Larry; Miller’s Crossing – Tom Reagan; There Will Be Blood – Daniel Plainview; The Usual Suspects – Kaiser Soze; Scarface – Scarface

Keep writing in your input. I want to know what you think, if you agree or disagree. If you have any questions for me, anything you would like me to cover in more detail, anything you may think I’ve missed please let me know as this column can only improve with a steady bit of dialogue from you.  See you soon!

We’ve all gone to the movies and said “I can make a better film then that.”  Personally, I’ve said that more than most, being a part-time film critic and part-time filmmaker.  But how easy is it really to make the Next Great American Film?  Truth is, not all that simple.  To say that the stars and the planets have to align in order to make a great film is not that far from the truth.  There are many, many things that can derail a film. You could hire the wrong actors, the wrong cinematographer, the equipment could fail – heck, the Craft service table could have non-refrigerated mayo and give everyone food poisoning.  However, I am of the belief that we make our own luck and that having the proper knowledge will increase our chances at success.  Therefore, over the next few weeks I will be dissecting many movies to tell you what ingredients you need to make a great film.  I will take them apart and show you in as much detail as possible, a great film and what makes it great.  That being said, I have to give a few caveats up front.

It is very rare for any film to be purely and solely one genre.  Let’s take the thriller/suspense genre for example.  In the following paragraphs, I will define what I consider a thriller, but please keep in mind that you may consider some of my examples mysteries (The Silence of the Lambs) or action/adventures (The Bourne Series) or film noir (The Third Man) or sci-fi/fantasy (Alien) or crime (North by Northwest) or horror (Psycho) or political (Clear and Present Danger).  On top of this, films can be categorized by as many as three or four genres at once.  Alien can also be under horror.  The Bourne movies can also be under espionage.  However suspense/thriller ideas and motifs are just seasoning, additives that can be (and should be) sprinkled over any crime/mystery/sci-fi/etc. story, just as any crime/mystery/sci-fi/etc. should have suspense and thrills.

So let me define what makes up a thriller/suspense movie for the sake of furthering this discussion of the distinction between genres.  To do so, I turn to the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.  In 1962, Francois Truffaut interviewed Hitchcock for five days.  During that time Hitchcock explained it thus: “Suspense bears no relationship to fear. Instead, it is the state of waiting for something to happen”  In further discussing what makes for good suspense he said, “…if you have a scene where two characters are conversing in a café, and a bomb suddenly goes off under the table, the audience experiences surprise. On the other hand, if the audience sees the saboteur place the bomb, is told that it will go off at one o’clock, and can see a clock in the scene, the mundane conversation between two cafe patrons now becomes one of intense suspense, as the audience holds its collective breath waiting for the explosion. Fifteen minutes of suspense, as opposed to fifteen seconds of surprise. It was therefore necessary that the audience be as fully informed as possible.”

Therefore, a suspense/thriller is a story where an audience is waiting and anticipating something to happen.  We are held, suspended, waiting for the other shoe to drop and we are thrilled with the prospect.  This is in contrast, although not in direct opposition, to a mystery film because a mystery is a story where something has already happened and we need to find out who did it or why they did it.  In a mystery, the viewer is often a step or two behind the detective, aware of all the evidence collected to solve the mystery but missing one crucial piece to complete the puzzle.  In a thriller/suspense film, the viewer is often a step or two ahead of the protagonist.  We need to know that there is danger, how severe the danger is and where it happens to be lurking so we can yell at the screen “Don’t go in that dark alley!”   Movie genres are almost as subjective as movies are themselves.  You may not agree with one of the movie/genre parings I made.  Oh well.  I bring this up because I will be referencing many films and I don’t want you to get hung up on my categorization of When Harry met Sally as a comedy with some drama when you think it’s a drama with some comedy.  As they taught at my church, “In the non-essentials, liberty.”  Sometimes we’ll just have to agree to disagree, okay?  I’m also going to be going on the assumption that you know the basics of storytelling and its terms – e.g. protagonist = hero; antagonist = villain.  If there’s something you don’t understand, well, you’re on the Internet.  Look it up.

Let me stop here and declare that if you are able to write a solid story, it will mean you’re able to work in all genres.  Write a good story and it will take a fairly large amount of bad acting, directing, lighting, camera work, etc. to keep you out of the limelight.  Story is king -  always keep that in mind.

For now, we will be going over characters, plot, music, conventions vs. clichés and endings.  I say “for now” because I want this column to be something that is fluid and organic.  I want to get input from you.  If you have any questions for me, anything you would like me to cover in more detail, anything you may think I’ve missed please let me know as this column can only improve with a steady bit of dialogue from you.  In any case, drop me a line and we’ll see you here next week.