GET OUT Analysis Part Three: Integration of Theme

Spoilers: Get Out (of course!)

After considerable delay (sorry), I’m going to conclude my three-part analysis of Get Out (written by Jordan Peele) by discussing the use of theme. The movie has been widely praised for its exploration of race relations in America. It’s unusual to hear people talk about theme in a genre movie. We typically think commentary on social issues as being the opposite of entertainment. But Get Out uses racial issues and tension to provide a context for the dramatic horror story events. This allows Peele to both make more sophisticated comments on race relations and to use those relations to deliver twists and thrills for the main horror plot.

The most overt aspect of race relations in the plot is the idea of Chris, as a Black man, going to the very white world of his girlfriend’s upper-class family. The very real and understandable anxiety this causes Chris helps to establish the creepy tone that I discussed in my first post on the movie. The act one encounter with the traffic cop, who asks for Chris’s ID even though he isn’t the driver, adds to the sense of danger (more about this scene in a bit).

But initially the white people are mostly not played as racists. In fact, they seem very self-aware about the situation and about the optics of having Black servants. Rather, we are given a look at the more subtle aspects of race relations. It’s easy to say racism is bad. Peele wants us to examine the insidious way it works even when white people are well meaning.

This context also helps create story points and dramatic scenes, which can then illuminate thematic issues. Consider when Chris’s TSA buddy, Rod, goes to the police to report that Chris is missing. He talks to a Black detective, who then brings in other Black detectives to hear Rod’s theory about a white sex slave ring. We assume that they will believe him – but it turns out they think he’s a nut job, which gets a laugh.

What Peele is doing here is playing with audience expectations. This is a form of dramatization. Rather than talky pontificating on the theme, he is finding ways to show us how race works in our society. He achieves this by considering what the audience will expect. Our expectation is that the Black cops will believe Rod's theory… because they’re all Black. In order to reinforce that, Rod clearly shares this belief. By undercutting our expectation, the scene causes us to examine why we believed it to begin with. And from an entertainment perspective, it creates an obstacle for one of our heroes, heightening the drama – we establish that no help is coming from the authorities.

We see this approach again in one of the big twists at the end. When Chris is choking Rose and the police car pulls up, we immediately assume the cop is going to believe Rose, and that Chris will be arrested. We are primed for this belief because of Chris’s treatment at the hands of the cop in act one. So when Rod gets out of the police car instead of a racist white cop, it’s a complete surprise, even though it’s also completely plausible – we knew Rod was looking for Chris. This is a great example of building a twist with the kind of planting and payoff I discussed in the second post in this series, but layering in thematic expectations to create a red herring for the audience.

Another way to explore theme in a movie is through the supporting characters. Not everyone in Get Out expresses the same attitude toward race. Rose’s parents are well meaning but also a little condescending. Rose, meanwhile, expresses shame about her family’s behavior when she and Chris are getting ready for bed at her parents’ house. This is a particularly subtle scene because the subtext is that Rose is delighted to be able to feel superior to her parents. And of course we later discover this was all an act (Rose is a classic shape shifter in the mythology structure archetypes).

Other characters with different thematic perspectives include Rod, who warns Chris not to go to the white people’s house, the wealthy people who think being Black is “cool,” and the blind art dealer who buys Chris not because of his race, but because of his photographic skills. This last one is particularly interesting because the movie has set up a slave auction conspiracy where Black people are only valued physically, but one of the most frightening characters is actually one of the least concerned about race. Again, Peele upends our expectations and makes us think.

It’s easy when discussing theme to get into a literary theory mode, but I try to make this a practical, how-to blog, so let me refocus a bit on some of the techniques I’m discussing here. If you want to do a story with a strong exploration of theme, these are some of the things you should consider:

• Build a context for your story that allows you to dramatize thematic ideas rather than have characters talk about them.
   
• If you really want a thematically complex story, avoid binary thematic approaches (“racism is bad”) in favor of nuance. Present contrasting ideas that challenge a binary interpretation.
   
• Consider audience expectations and undercut them to create entertaining twists that also cause the audience to think.
   
• Give supporting characters different attitudes on the theme.

Most importantly, tell a dramatic story about a real character with a relatable dilemma, and create entertaining scenes. Get Out succeeds because it’s suspenseful, emotional, and funny. The thematic elements heighten the entertainment value rather than bogging the story down. And the audience is open to thinking about the thematic elements because they are enjoying the experience of watching the movie.


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Get The Three Stages of Screenwriting

"I used to always recommend that new writers read Story as their first and most important introduction to the craft of screenwriting, but from now on, I’m going to recommend The Three Stages of Screenwriting."
-LA Screenwriter Review

The Three Important Questions Your Story Should Answer

(Spoilers: Gravity, Little Miss Sunshine)

In my book, The Three Stages of Screenwriting, I describe what I refer to as the “Dramatic Question” of the story. This is the question that is asked by the Catalyst (also known as the Inciting Incident) and answered in the Resolution. At its most basic, the question is some form of: “Will the main character achieve their goal?” This question defines the scope of your story. On an unconscious level, the Catalyst lets the audience know what the plot is about by posing this question. The audience knows the story will be over when they get the answer.

The Dramatic Question relates to plot. When I ask my students to define the Dramatic Question of their screenplays, they sometimes give me an answer along the lines of: “Will Keisha overcome her fear of intimacy?” Now, this could possibly be the Dramatic Question of a story, but usually this kind of internal question relates to the character arc, not the plot.

Other times a student will give me an answer like: “Is humanity worth saving?” This is also not really a Dramatic Question. It’s a thematic question.

I demand the students form their Dramatic Questions in relation to the plot because they will be using this question to structure their story. The act breaks and other structural beats will be related to this question. Since this is film, it’s important to make it external and measurable. And I encourage questions with a yes or no answer because it’s easier to figure out what should be happening at each structural beat.

But I’ve been thinking lately that the other types of questions the students provide are also important, just perhaps not to structuring the plot. After all, the best stories typically have strong character arcs and deal with powerful thematic ideas. So maybe we should really be looking at defining three different questions in our stories:

The Dramatic Question

The Character Question

The Thematic Question

One of the films I use as an example in The Three Stages of Screenwriting is Gravity (written by Alfonso & Jonas Cuaron). The Dramatic Question in that movie is “Can Ryan make it back to Earth?” This is a good dramatic question that drives the plot, and the movie ends when we get the answer. So let’s consider what the other questions would be and try to determine how they work in the story.

The Character Question in Gravity would probably be: “Can Ryan find the will to survive?” This question is set up when Ryan tells Matt about the death of her daughter. We see that she has lost her reason for living. This happens in the beginning of act two. It comes to a head near the Second Act Turning Point when Ryan decides to give up and turns off the oxygen in her capsule. It is resolved when she has her vision of Matt and he asks if she wants to live or die. She chooses life, and figures out how to solve her problem. This coincides with the Epiphany stage of the structure.

Building from this, I would say the Thematic Question of Gravity is: “What keeps us going in the face of death and danger?” Though there is an answer to this question in the story, I will note that this is not a yes or no question. Perhaps that is what makes a thematic question different than the other types of questions. Maybe good Thematic Questions have more complicated answers.

Let’s consider another film I use as an example in the book: Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt). The Dramatic Question of Little Miss Sunshine is: “Will Richard enable his daughter to win the beauty pageant?” (Richard is the main character of Little Miss Sunshine. If you want to know my justification for this statement, read the book!)

The Thematic Question of Little Miss Sunshine has to do with winning and losing. Richard’s first words are, “There are two kinds of people in the world, winners and losers.” And when deciding whether to take Olive to the pageant, Richard asks her if she thinks she can win, because, “there’s no point in entering a contest unless you think you can win.” The themes of winning and losing are set up early in the script. And near the Midpoint, Olive confides in her grandfather that she fears Richard won’t love her if she doesn’t win. Of course, in the end she doesn’t win… but Richard has realized it’s more important to support his daughter no matter what.

And that reveals the Character Question of Little Miss Sunshine: “Will Richard support his daughter even if she doesn’t win?” And of course the answer there is “Yes.” Here that character question is established at the Catalyst and again answered at the Epiphany when Richard jumps up on stage to join Olive in her crazy dance.

I realize I never proposed an actual Thematic Question for Little Miss Sunshine. Let’s go with: “What is more important – being a winner or having people who love you?” You might notice that all of the subplots about the supporting characters involve that question in some way. Exploring the theme is a common use for subplots.

So from these two examples, the Character Question seems to be important to the Epiphany of the film. This makes sense. We want the character arc to affect the plot, and the plot to cause the character to change. And the Thematic Question seems to be the result of what it means to place this specific character in this specific plot.

As you may gather, I don’t yet have a fully formed theory about these three questions. But I will be watching for them in movies I study in the future, trying to figure out how they work. Stay tuned… there will be future posts on this topic!

Using Minor Characters to Explore Theme

(SPOILERS: The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Up in the Air, American Beauty)

We don’t talk about theme in Hollywood much, but every movie has some kind of philosophical subject, even if it’s just good vs. evil. You can deepen your story and provide a more meaningful experience for your viewers without sacrificing entertainment value if you explore a complex theme in a way that is not didactic. One of the best ways to do this is by giving different supporting characters different points of view on the thematic topic of your story. This will not only add intellectual and emotional depth to your story, it will help you develop interesting supporting characters and insert conflict into your scenes as points of view conflict.

This approach is one of the reasons why the screenplay for The 40 Year Old Virgin (written by Judd Apatow & Steve Carrell) was nominated for an award from the WGA. The thematic subject of The 40 Year Old Virgin is, obviously, sex. Notice how each of Andy’s friends holds a different take on the topic: David is still hung up on an old girlfriend and has an over romanticized view of sex, Jay is in a relationship but cheats because he is afraid of monogamy, and Cal just likes any kind of freaky, no-strings-attached sex. These views interact with Andy's anxieties about sexuality in a way that makes the movie more complex than a simple "losing his virginity" story.

The theme of Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) is success and failure. Richard believes the world is made up of winners and losers, and commitment is how you become a winner. Sheryll, on the other hand, believes everyone just needs to be practical and take care of their responsibilities. Grandpa doesn’t care about success, he advises everyone to just enjoy life. Olive loves the process of preparing for competition. Dwayne represents someone who does everything in their power to achieve a goal, only to be foiled by something out of their control. And Frank has given up on life altogether. Each character takes a different approach to the question of success and failure, allowing the film to explore the theme from different perspectives.

The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine are ensemble movies, but the same technique can be used in movies with a strong central character who is going on an emotional journey. The theme of Up in the Air (screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner) is relationship. The main character, Ryan Bingham, believes that relationships weigh you down. He goes through life avoiding any kind of attachment. But over the course of the movie this point of view is challenged by Ryan's experiences and the characters around him.

Natalie, the young woman Ryan is forced to train, longs to be married but has unrealistically high expectations. Alex, a woman Ryan is sleeping with, seems to share Ryan’s point of view but we later learn she’s leading a double life – trying to have it both ways. We get additional perspectives from Ryan’s siblings when he goes back home for his sister’s marriage. The bride and groom are perfect for each other, and though there lives aren’t fantastic (there’s intimations of considerable financial difficulty), they are happy. Meanwhile we get an even different perspective from Ryan’s other sister who has just separated from her husband.

Each of these characters allows us (and Ryan) to view the question of whether relationships are good or bad from a different perspective without implicit discussion (though that sometimes occurs). And the movie doesn't shy away from things that reinforce Ryan's original position.

Dealing with theme is tricky. You don’t want your story to come off preachy. Characters should have good, justifiable reasons for their point of view. And it’s much better if they demonstrate their point of view through their actions, rather than through debate and argument. Watching characters debate philosophy is not a recipe for engaging storytelling!

In the beginning of American Beauty (written by Alan Ball), the main character, Lester, is doing what a middle aged family man is supposed to do in the suburbs. He works at his job, provides for his family...and is thoroughly miserable. Over the course of the movie we see Lester abandon his concern for what others think of him and be true to his own desires. This manifests itself in both positive and negative ways. He quits his stultifying job but there is some question if he can sustain his new lifestyle financially. He gets in shape and starts to enjoy himself by buying a car he wants and smoking pot. But he also pursues an immoral and inappropriate attraction to an underage girl. Ultimately Lester finds balance between honoring who he is and being responsible.

The minor characters illuminate this theme of individuality and conformity. For example, Caroline is the embodiment of the suburban image. Maintaining that image has become her entire purpose as shown by her carefully coordinated dinners and attention to landscaping. And being accepted and “normal” makes her happy. Meanwhile Ricky has abandoned any need for acceptance or normalcy. He is an outsider and proud of it. This attitude grows out of the dysfunction and inauthenticity we see from his family life.

Angela is one of the most interesting supporting characters from a thematic point of view. She constantly talks about her various conquests and sexual experiences. Of course we learn at the end that she's been making it all up. She's a virgin. We also learn that Angela's biggest fear is being ordinary. It's when Ricky insists she is just ordinary that Angela works up the nerve to actually sleep with Lester. It's an attempt to be special. Angela doesn't want to be just another suburban girl, but the pressure to conform has forced her to seek distinction by pretending to fulfill a stereotype - the sex object.

The most important thing to keep in mind when assigning thematic points of view to your characters is to make sure they are human beings, not bumper stickers. Give them fully fleshed out lives, human desires and foibles, so that we get caught up emotionally in their story.

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Bridesmaids 4 - Supporting Characters

(Spoilers: Bridesmaids)

Last week, in part 3 of my in-depth analysis of the movie Bridesmaids (written by Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo), I looked at the main character, Annie. This week I will examine the use of the supporting characters in the film.

Supporting characters, naturally, serve many purposes in a story. Some are necessary for the plot. For example, in a movie called Bridesmaids, you will probably need a character of the bride. Others can serve to dramatize the main character’s evolving state of mind – as Ted and Rhodes do in Bridesmaids (again, see last week’s post). Supporting characters can also serve to provide various perspectives on the theme or themes of the movie. This is especially common when you have an ensemble group at the core of the story, as Bridesmaids does. And it turns out that Bridesmaids is an exceptional example of using characters this way.

When I say “theme,” I’m not talking about some deep moral lesson. I’m talking about the subject matter of the story. What aspect(s) of the human condition does the story explore? That’s the theme. Bridesmaids is about romantic relationships, marriage, and friendship. Look at the title – what did you think it would be about?

So let’s look at how each of the women in the group illuminate aspects of these themes:

Lillian is Annie’s best friend and the bride-to-be. She’s excited but also anxious about her upcoming marriage.

Becca is the optimistic newlywed. She represents someone in love with the idea of marriage who thinks being single is kind of sad.

Rita is sort of the opposite of Becca. She’s been married a while now and she’s burned out on marriage.

Megan – Megan is the crazy one who speaks her mind and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She’s confidently single. She’s also ultimately the best friend to Annie – the one that comes to Annie’s aid at her lowest moment.

Helen – Helen is the perfect one. She’s beautiful, wealthy and supremely good at all of the bridesmaid duties. She appears as an impossible ideal for Annie, and threatens to replace Annie as Lillian’s best friend. Later we learn that Helen is actually extremely lonely – her marriage is empty and she has no real friends.

See how each of these characters offers a different angle on the themes of the movie? Doing this also gives each one distinctive characteristics that add tremendously to the humor of the film. In any given situation, each will react differently. The scenes practically write themselves! Well, maybe not, but giving supporting characters unique attitudes relating to the theme of a story makes your job a lot easier.

Ideally supporting characters do multiple things. Lillian is not just the bride needed for the plot, she provides perspective on the themes and stakes for Annie.

And as I mentioned back in part 1 of this series, Helen is the antagonist of the film. I often recommend looking at the story from the antagonist’s point of view. This helps ensure the antagonist is active. I usually do this by writing a one or two page treatment of the story as if I was going to make the antagonist the hero. Of course, I have no idea if the writers of Bridesmaids did this, but let’s take a moment to look at the story from Helen’s point of view. (I’ll keep it to a paragraph for the purposes of this post.)

Helen learns that her husband’s employee, Dougie, is getting married to Lillian, whom Helen wants to be friends with. Helen offers to host the engagement party at a private club where she's a member. She prepares a toast to impress Lillian. But the Maid-of-Honor, Annie, keeps trying to upstage her. Helen decides to try to make Annie look bad, hoping Lillian will ask Helen to take her place. Helen convinces the other bridesmaids to go to Vegas for the bachelorette party, even though she knows Annie can’t afford it and is afraid to fly. Her plan works and she manages to drive a wedge between Lillian and Helen. Lillian asks Helen to host the bridal shower, and Helen steals Annie’s idea for a French themed party. This pushes Annie over the edge and Helen achieves her goal – Lillian asks Helen to replace Annie as Maid-of-Honor. But on the morning of the wedding, Lillian vanishes. Panicking, Helen seeks out Annie and asks for her help. Annie finds Lillian and the wedding is saved. Helen and Annie become friends.

Much of this occurs off screen, of course. But when you look at the story this way, you can see that Helen is actively pursuing her own goals. Those goals in turn cause problems for Annie. This is what makes Helen a good antagonist rather than a passive annoyance.

Want to read the Bridesmaids screenplay? It’s online here.


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Learn to pitch like a pro with The Hollywood Pitching Bible: A Practical Guide to Pitching Movies and Television by Ken Aguado and Douglas Eboch.

Creating Distinct Characters

Blog reader Joe Sola recently asked me via email if I would discuss differentiating characters. I’ve talked a lot about developing the individual character and about giving each character a distinctive voice. But much of voice comes out of deeper aspects of character, and I haven’t talked much about creating characters that will play off of each other in interesting and dramatic ways. Most movies, of course, rely on multiple characters interacting with each other to create drama. And if you’re writing an ensemble or team movie, that’s going to be all the more critical.

The first thing to point out is that the same techniques I use to develop my main character will be used for all the other major characters. Chief among these is identifying what they want within the context of the story. What goal is driving them? What is at stake for them in the outcome of the story? For some I will also identify an underlying psychological need – giving them their own internal journal or character arc.

Often the above decisions are derived from and/or create much of the conflict in the film. If there’s a villain character or a rival character, for example, their goal should be in opposition to our hero’s goal. That becomes one of the major obstacles to our hero’s success.

I will also write at least a few lines on each of the three dimensions – physiological, psychological and sociological – for every significant character. And here’s the first place where significant characterization differences between them will likely appear. The older, wealthy industrialist should act and speak differently from the young, idealistic artist.

If you find you have several characters who are too similar, which is a common problem since the world of your story will likely contain similar people, this is a good starting place to find distinctions.

Let’s say you’re writing a story about a group of coal miners. There will be obvious similarities – it may not be plausible to have the coal miner with a PhD from a wealthy family. But too often our first instinct is to have every miner conform to some stereotype in our head – they’re all in their twenties, big and brawny, uneducated, lusty beer drinkers.

But do they have to be? In real life some miners are young while others are older. Some are married, some single, some divorced. Many are probably big and brawny but I bet there are a few short guys and skinny guys working in mines as well. That might affect how they interact with their fellow miners. It’s likely few miners will be highly educated but that doesn’t mean their intellectual level is the same. One might be a real moron, another smart (but unschooled), a third with average I.Q. but going to night school to try to improve himself. Maybe one of the miners is a sex-crazed alcoholic while another is a teetotaler Christian fundamentalist. Maybe one is gay.

In your outlining phase take some time to consider the range possible in the various physiological, psychological and sociological elements of your characters. Are you using the whole range? Pushing a character farther or in an unexpected direction can open up all kinds of depth in your story.

Let’s look at an example: the three brothers in The Godfather (screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola). There are necessarily a lot of sociological similarities, so the characters are primarily differentiated in the psychological range. Sonny is a hothead, Michael is thoughtful and confident, and Freddy is nervous and avoids conflict. Michael is further differentiated in that he’s the only brother who fought in the war, where he was a hero, and that he wants to get out of the family business. These simple distinctions have huge effects on the characters’ behavior – and their ultimate fate.

The more specific you are here the better. Specificity makes the characters feel like real people. Think about your friends or your coworkers. How do you differentiate them? It’s the specific details of their characters, isn’t it? Creating clearly distinct characters makes them more believable which in turn makes the audience care about them.

But in fiction we want to do more than just capture reality, we want to bring a point of view to the proceedings. Our stories are organized around a theme or subject or idea. You can improve both your characters and your story’s thematic depth if you differentiate the characters by giving each a different attitude or point of view on the subject matter.

Look at the different attitudes of the three main characters in Ghost Busters (written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis): Egon is intellectual, pursuing the ghosts out of a purely academic interest. Ray exhibits a childlike excitement about the prospect of ghosts. And Venkman is the sarcastic skeptic who initially doesn’t really care about the paranormal at all; he just wants to meet coeds. These different attitudes toward ghosts make the characters distinct within the subject/world of the story.

Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) provides an even better example. There are a lot of characters to develop. Thematically, the story is about winning and losing. And each character approaches success and failure in a distinctive way that affects their behavior and voice.

The father, Richard, believes there are winners and losers and that anyone can be a winner with the right plan. Olive approaches her desire to be a beauty queen with innocence and optimism and almost no self-doubt. Her brother is pursuing his goal with a methodical and single-minded purpose. Grandpa has rejected traditional definitions of success and is focused on enjoying his remaining years. Mom is just trying to keep her head above water and wishes Richard would be more help. And the uncle is suicidal, having given up all hope of achieving his goals.

I hope that’s helpful, and I’d like to thank Joe for the question. If you have a topic you’d like me to discuss, feel free to send an email or make a comment. I make no promises – I’m not a jukebox – but I am always looking for ideas for posts.

Conceptual Decisions in Elf

(Spoilers: Elf)

In the spirit of the season, I’ve decided to spend a few posts analyzing Elf (written by David Berenbaum).

Normally when I – or most other screenwriter guru types – analyze a movie, we start by diving right into the structure. However, lately several of my students have been struggling with structuring their screenplays because they haven’t really figured out the bigger conceptual ideas.

It’s really hard to know what the story structure should be until you know what the story is really about. How do you make the decisions as to what the Act One Turning Point or Midpoint are? Too often we begin the discussion of how-to-write assuming that the writer has a fully fleshed out story concept. But seldom do stories just spring to mind fully formed.

So I want to start by looking at some of the big conceptual decisions Mr. Berenbaum made. Of course I have no idea how he went about his idea development process. But even if we can’t say exactly how he made his conceptual choices, identifying those choices will demonstrate the kind of things you need to figure out in your story before you can properly break the structure.

Let’s start with the logline: Elf is the story of a human raised as an elf in Santa’s workshop who goes to New York to seek his biological father. That’s the high concept idea, the thing that sells the movie. And it suggests a lot – it gives us a good sense of the character’s external journey and a hint at where the internal journey may lie.

Again, I don’t know how Mr. Berenbaum developed the story. Perhaps he first had the idea of an elf in the city. Or a human raised by elves. Or maybe the whole premise came to him all at once. Regardless, it’s important to note that there are actually two big ideas here: 1) a human raised by elves, and 2) that character searching for his father. I find that most really good concepts are actually two big ideas put together.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment: What if the story was simply about a human raised by elves – if it left out the part about going to New York. Imagine what that movie might be. Can you imagine a good version? Did you have to add a different second idea?

Let’s consider what underlying concepts Elf’s logline suggests. First, it’s a fish-out-of-water-story times two. We have a human who is out of place in the elf world, and then an elf who is out of place in the human world.

Second, it’s about family. Buddy (the human/elf in question) is looking for his father. This dovetails nicely with the fish-out-of-water idea. Buddy doesn’t feel like he belongs at the North Pole, so he’s seeking out his human family. And, given our fish-out-of-water angle, he shouldn’t fit in well there, either.

Third, this is a Christmas story, so it ought to take advantage of the mythology of Christmas.

Now may be a good time to bring up genre, tone and rating. There are several ways one could take this concept. It could have been done as a raunchy, R-rated, anti-Christmas comedy (like Bad Santa). Or it could have been done as a G-rated, sentimental children’s adventure (like the Rudolph TV special). It might have even worked as a straight-up romantic comedy, but that would be fighting the concept. The filmmakers of Elf chose to do a PG-13 all-audience broad comedy.

So that decision influenced how they addressed the underlying conceptual elements. The fish-out-of-water element obviously has great potential for humor, and based on the tone/genre/rating choice, that humor ought to be broad, goofy and largely inoffensive. In terms of the family element, the tone would suggest a happy ending where Buddy finds a family. And in terms of the Christmas element, we would expect a positive angle celebrating Christmas as a time of love, joy, optimism and hope.

And sure enough the movie delivers exactly those things, achieving a tonal and thematic consistency. Now the structure should start to grow organically out of these conceptual decisions. I’ll look at how that happens in my next post.

Note that these conceptual decisions are the ones I encouraged writers to make in my post titled, “What Kind of Movie Is It?”

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Inception vs. Prometheus – Ambiguity vs. Confusion

(SPOILERS: Inception, Prometheus)

There’s a saying in filmmaking: ambiguity is good, confusion is bad. The meaning of this might seem obvious, but I’ve had difficulty explaining the difference when trying to help a student with a confusing script. I recently saw Prometheus (written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof) and found it a horribly confusing mess. And since I’ve been breaking down Inception (written by Christopher Nolan), famous for its ambiguous ending, I thought comparing the two would be a good illustration of the difference between confusion and ambiguity.

Clearly the makers of Prometheus intend to raise some questions that won’t be answered. That’s okay – that’s ambiguity. But there are also some flat out logic holes in the movie.

For example, why is the medical bed in Vickers chamber only calibrated for men? I’ve heard people suggest this is a clue that Vickers is a robot (or more comically, a hermaphrodite). Even so, if she brought the med-bed then it should be useful to her, which really invalidates both those suggestions. And she’s also not the only female crewmember… does she consider all women expendable? Not likely. More likely the writers simply thought this would make the scene more dramatic and didn’t consider the logic implications.

A sampling of other logic problems in the movie: If the Engineers created all life on Earth, and this is why we share their DNA, why is the DNA of all other life on Earth different? Why would the Engineers leave a map on Earth to their weapons facility (instead of, say, their home planet)? Why did Weyland pretend to be dead?

Those are flat out logic holes, but more common in Prometheus are characters behaving in extremely unlikely and stupid ways. For example, two scientists get lost in the alien base. Despite the fact that they are being tracked on a big 3D map in the ship. And they have radios.

Now, I suppose the captain and Vickers could be so incredibly incompetent they don’t noticed two of the crew they’re supposed to be tracking got left behind. And the other crewmembers are all too clueless to notice that none of the vehicle have been taken from the alien base. And maybe it doesn’t occur to these two scared, lost guys to radio and ask for directions. But that’s all pretty unlikely.

The first problem here is that when the basic plot beats and character motivations don’t make sense, I’m left wondering about things like why didn’t Shaw tell anybody she left a living alien baby in the escape pod when I should be left contemplating the nature and origin of humanity. I never get to the big questions because I’m too busy trying to figure out the pointless ones.

The second problem is that when a movie does dumb things like these, it’s hard for me to give credit to anything in it. If I’m to contemplate bigger mysteries, I have to believe everything in the movie is there for a good reason. If it’s possible the filmmakers just screwed up, that becomes the answer to every question. Some of the big questions in Prometheus are certainly intentional, but some are probably just places the filmmakers made a mistake. It’s hard to know the difference. In Inception, even if I can’t quite figure out what’s going on, I have faith that Christopher Nolan knows what he’s doing.

Inception may not bring up a lot of complex questions, but it does leave us with one doozy – is this all a dream? Now on the one hand, this is simply an unanswered plot question (though, crucially, it’s not a logic flaw because either answer would make sense). But it also brings up the thematic point of the film: how do we know if what we’re experiencing is real? What is reality? And the reason that ambiguity is so compelling is because the question is so clearly intentional.

So how do you avoid the kind of confusion found in Prometheus? First, make sure that everything that you don’t want to be ambiguous is perfectly clear. Earn the audience’s trust through rigorous plot logic and believable character behavior. Make sure the questions you’re not answering are clearly intended to be not answered.

Another little way to earn audience trust is by planting something early in the film and paying it off fairly quickly. And bring up a few questions and answer them early in the film. Show the audience that when something is on screen, you mean for it to be there.

The truth is most movies have a few small logic holes, but in the good movies we don’t notice. The industry mantra is, “if they notice that you’ve got bigger problems.” A good example from Prometheus is when people ask how the alien in the escape pod grew so big with no source of food.

It is a logic hole, but it’s one that was also in the first Alien movie (story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, screenplay by Dan O’Bannon) – and I’ve never heard anyone complain about that. That’s because we’re caught up in the story. But apparently Prometheus has bigger problems because people noticed. And I think one of the big differences is that in Alien the overall plot makes sense and all the characters behave in rational ways. But in Prometheus, once the audience starts to get confused, they notice every flaw.

So let me try to reduce these to simple definitions of the terms for screenwriters:

Confusion occurs when the film has conflicting plot information or inexplicable character behavior that does not ask a philosophical question.

Ambiguity occurs when the film clearly asks but does not answer a philosophical question.

I do have to give Prometheus some credit – everyone is talking about it. And how many movies do that? For that reason alone perhaps it’s a valuable film. But it’s certainly not a well-written one.

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(By the way, if you’re a Twitter user, my handle is @dougeboch)

Structuring with the Internal Journey

(SPOILERS: Amelie, American Beauty)

The majority of films are structured around an external journey for the character. This makes sense – film is a visual medium. We observe the external actions of the characters. For the most part we have to infer their internal feelings from these actions. Sure, you can use voiceover, but if the movie is built on the running internal monologue of the main character, it’s probably not going to be very visually interesting. And if characters constantly reveal their feelings in dialogue, the dialogue will seem clunky and unrealistic.

So does that mean you can’t tell the story of a character’s internal journey on film? Of course not! Most films do tell an internal story. But they pair that story with an external journey that allows them to reveal the character’s thought process through behavior. I use the concepts of want and need to define the character’s external and internal story, and to tie them together so that both are organic to the movie.

For example, Amelie (scenario by Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, dialogue by Guillaume Laurant) is a story about a woman who has closed herself off from the world and needs to open her heart to another before it’s too late. The film builds an external story where Amelie tries to locate a quirky man whose scrapbook book she’s found. Once she’s found the man, she must learn if he’s truly worthy of her affections. Then she must attract his interest. And finally she must gather the courage to reveal herself to him. This goal of finding and investigating the stranger provides an external story that has action and momentum, which in turn allows revelation of her internal journey of trust and connection.

As you can see, the internal and external stories interact. Something happens in the external story that causes a change in the character’s way of thinking. That leads her to take action in the external story that has a result that leads to another character change.  This leads to another action, and so on. But as related as the two stories are, one is usually structurally dominant.

If you’re interested in telling a story that is primarily about someone’s internal journey – say coming to terms with grief, or coming-of-age, or overcoming prejudice – I suggest devising an external story that will allow you to reveal that internal journey. If this bothers you, think of it this way: If you’re telling an external story, you need to come up with an internal arc for your main character so that the external story has meaning. And if you want to tell an internal story, you need to come up with an external arc to reveal the meaning of the character journey.

Structure is always hard, but structuring a movie around an internal journey is often a lot harder than structuring it around the external story. The first step is to remember that the internal journey actually has to be structured!

Ask yourself these questions: What does the character learn? How do they change? What are the stages of this internal journey? How do you externalize those to show the internal change?

American Beauty (written by Alan Ball) is a story about a character’s internal journey. Lester goes from an ineffectual, unhappy, unassertive man to a man who has the courage and determination to live his life on his own terms – but with moral responsibility.

What are the stages of this internal journey? First, Lester realizes how unhappy he is. So he stands up for himself, and discovers he likes the results. As he continues to assert himself, he goes too far, becoming selfish. He starts catering to his own desires without concern for others. Then he realizes how his actions can hurt others. So he finally decides to be both true to himself and responsible. And then he discovers he is happy.

This internal journey is revealed through an external journey of Lester falling for his daughter’s friend, Angela. Seeing Angela triggers his first revelation of his unhappiness. He starts to get in shape and smokes pot, and he discovers that doing things for himself makes him happier. This culminates in Lester quitting his job, which is incredibly freeing. But then he becomes selfish, doing whatever he feels like regardless of the consequences. And he actively pursues the underage object of his affection – something very selfish.

His transition doesn’t always go smoothly – the results aren’t always what he expects. But at each point he learns more about himself. Then finally, on the brink of sex with Angela, he realizes his selfishness could destroy this girl. He backs off, realizes he has to temper his desires with responsibility, and his journey is complete. And it works because the journey has been revealed in stages through external actions.

I commonly see students struggling to structure a story that is an internal journey. The two most common problems are: 1. They are only describing a particular state of being, or a start and end point, rather than moving coherently through each stage of a full journey; and/or 2. They have failed to create an external journey that will reveal that internal journey.

The other side of this is the student who has created an external story, usually a genre piece, with a one-dimensional character that has no internal journey. The solution to both situations is often the same: figure out how the character changes, and structure the stages of that change.

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If you're in the L.A. area, I'm going to be co-teaching a one-day seminar on the first ten pages of your screenplay at The Writers Store on October 15.  My fellow teachers are Paul Guay (Liar, Liar) and Jeffrey Berman (Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story).  There are only a couple more days to get the $149 rate.  Here's the link:  The First Ten Pages.

Theme/Minor Characters

(SPOILERS: American Beauty)

Movies can engage us in different ways. American Beauty (written by Alan Ball) primarily engages us on a philosophical (or intellectual) level. For this to work the movie needs to have a complex theme. If the theme is simplistic or pedantic we will quickly become bored.

The theme of American Beauty has to do with the devastating effect the pressure to be normal has on suburban Americans. Note, a theme does not have to take a particular point of view (see my post on theme and thesis). In this case the movie does seem to have a bias toward the need to be true to oneself, but it doesn't so much advocate that position as explore aspects of it.

For me the most organic way to approach theme is through character. This makes the issues at hand personal. We care about the character so we care about the philosophical issues they're wrestling with. We don't care if those issues are simply discussed in a dry, hypothetical conversation. Let's look at how American Beauty explores its theme through the main character, Lester.

In the beginning of the movie Lester is doing what a middle aged family man is supposed to do in the suburbs. He works at his job, provides for his family...and is thoroughly miserable. Over the course of the movie we see Lester abandon his concern for what others think of him and be true to his own desires. This manifests itself in both positive and negative ways. He quits his stultifying job but there is some question if he can sustain his new lifestyle financially. He gets in shape and starts to enjoy himself by buying a car he wants and smoking pot. But he also pursues an immoral and inappropriate attraction to an underage girl.

Ultimately Lester finds balance between honoring who he is and being responsible. Of course the fact that he is then killed might suggest that the suburbs won't tolerate someone who has found this healthy balance.

You can use the characters surrounding your main character to explore different aspects of the theme. Let's look at how American Beauty does this with the other major characters:

Caroline - Caroline is the embodiment of the suburban image. Maintaining that image has become her entire purpose - witness her carefully coordinated dinners, attention to landscaping and behavior at the realtor event. She becomes unhappy when she fails – such as when she can't sell the house despite doing all the things she believes should result in a sale. Ultimately she indulges in such rebellions as having an affair and firing a gun. But mostly Caroline has happily embraced the suburban lifestyle.

Ricky - Ricky has abandoned any need for acceptance or normalcy. He is an outsider and proud of it. In the original script he goes to jail for murder, though the movie cut that out. In the script it reinforces the idea that society will punish those who don't conform. In the movie Ricky serves more as an example to Lester (and also to Jane) of a different way of life, one they hadn’t dared to consider before.

Angela - Angela is playing the role of a sex object. She constantly talks about her various conquests and sexual experiences. Of course we learn at the end that she's been making it all up. She's a virgin. We also learn that Angela's biggest fear is being ordinary. It's when Ricky insists she is just ordinary that Angela works up the nerve to actually sleep with Lester. It's an attempt to be special. Angela doesn't want to be just another suburban girl, but the pressure to conform has forced her to seek distinction by pretending to fulfill a stereotype. This makes her an ironic figure thematically.

The Colonel (Ricky’s Dad) - Here's the guy with the ultimate secret. He's a moral conservative who condemns anyone who steps outside strict societal norms. In fact, as a military man, he's actually a defender of those norms. But he's also gay – something that he can't tolerate. And it is his attempt to protect this secret that ironically leads to the destruction of any normalcy that might have existed in this little corner of suburbia. The Colonel is a demonstration of what happens when we try to deny our individuality.

Barbara (Ricky’s Mom) - She is a grim vision of what will happen to Caroline if Caroline doesn't protect her individuality. Barbara has lost all sense of purpose in herself, though she adheres to the domestic requirements of a suburban housewife with tenacity. By being simultaneously completely normal and completely empty she reflects the emptiness of suburbia.

Each of these characters approaches the issue of suburban society in a different way. Few of the characters are completely bad or completely good. They’re each just taking their own approach to the question. This allows the writer (and we the audience) to explore the thematic ideas in the film more fully.

Reflecting Theme Through Character

(SPOILERS: Wedding Crashers, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Up in the Air)

Last post I talked about theme and thesis. One of the best ways to explore your theme in a way that is not didactic is through character.

If theme is the philosophical subject matter of your script and thesis is a particular point of view on that subject matter, you can explore various theses by giving those points of view to your characters. As I mentioned last time, some movies promote one particular thesis while others compare various theses without advocating one over another.

If you want to convey a particular thesis your strongest vehicle will be your main character. There are two basic approaches here:

1) The main character can share the author’s thesis. Often in these cases the antagonist will hold the opposite point of view. For example, in Good Night and Good Luck (written by George Clooney and Grand Heslov), Edward R. Murrow believes that Joseph McCarthy’s fascist tactics are a threat to democracy while McCarthy believes he is protecting the country. The movie obviously sides with Murrow. This is also the approach usually taken in less complex good vs. evil genre stories.

2) The main character can start the movie holding one thesis and through the story convert to the author’s thesis. In this case the conversion is the character arc. For example in The Wedding Crashers (written by Steve Gaber & Bob Fisher) John and Jeremy start the movie wanting to avoid commitment but in the end come to value and desire marriage. In these types of movies there is often a mentor who teaches the main character the author’s thesis.

You can explore multiple aspects of theme by giving different supporting characters different points of view on the topic. This approach is one of the reasons why the screenplay for The 40 Year Old Virgin (written by Judd Apatow & Steve Carrell) was nominated for an award from the WGA.

The theme of The 40 Year Old Virgin is, obviously, sex. Notice how each of Andy’s friends holds a different take on the topic: David is still hung up on an old girlfriend and has an over romanticized view of sex, Jay is in a relationship but cheats because he is afraid of monogamy, and Cal just likes any kind of freaky, no-strings-attached sex. These views interact with Andy's anxieties about sexuality in a way that makes the movie more complex than a simple "losing his virginity" story.

Movies like Crash (story by Paul Haggis, screenplay by Paul Haggis & Robert Moresco), Syriana (written by Stephen Gaghan) and Babel (written by Guillermo Arriaga) use this approach to show how one topic can affect various people in different ways.

Now let’s look at Up in the Air (screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner). The theme of the movie is relationship. The main character, Ryan Bingham, believes that relationships weigh you down. He goes through life avoiding any kind of attachment. But over the course of the movie this thesis is challenged by Ryan's experiences and the characters around him.

Natalie, the young woman Ryan is forced to train, longs to be married but has unrealistically high expectations. Alex, a woman Ryan is sleeping with, seems to share Ryan’s point of view but we later learn she’s leading a double life – trying to have it both ways.

We get additional perspectives from Ryan’s siblings when he goes back home for his sister’s marriage. The bride and groom are perfect for each other, and though there lives aren’t fantastic (there’s intimations of considerable financial difficulty), they are happy. Meanwhile we get an even different perspective from Ryan’s other sister who has just separated from her husband.

Each of these characters allows us to view the question of whether relationships are good or bad from a different perspective. And it doesn't shy away from things that reinforce Ryan's original position. This makes the movie far more thematically complex than something, like Wedding Crashers.

The most important thing to keep in mind when assigning theses to your characters is to make sure they are human beings, not bumper stickers. Give them fully fleshed out lives, human desires and foibles, so that we get caught up emotionally in their story.

Not every movie gets its power from thematic depth, of course. In fact, those are probably the exception rather than the rule (and I don't mean that judgmentally). But if you want to tell a story with complex thematic elements, it will be at its most powerful when the ideas are delivered through believable characters in a strong, emotionally involving story.

Does Theme Have a Place in Screenwriting?

(SPOILERS: To Kill a Mockingbird)

“If you want to send a message use Western Union”
-Sam Goldwyn

What Sam Goldwyn meant, of course, is that movies ought to be entertainment. I think he’s right about that. But that doesn’t mean your movie can’t have strong, thought provoking thematic elements. In fact, I believe every movie sends out all kinds of thematic messages whether the filmmakers mean to or not. And personally I like to be aware of what kinds of messages I’m putting out into the world.

We don’t use the word theme much in the movie business but we do talk about it. We often discuss “what the movie is really about” and “what’s the heart of the story” and “how will the film resonate with the audience.” These are all ways of getting at theme.

First I’d like to differentiate between theme and thesis. Theme is the philosophical topic of the story. Thesis is the take the writer has on that theme. So a movie’s theme may be “infidelity” and the thesis may be “infidelity leads to unhappiness for all involved.”

What good old Sam Goldwyn was really railing against was thesis, not theme. Thesis can get you into trouble. Often the most thought provoking of thematic movies don’t have a strong thesis. They take an ambivalent approach to the theme.

If you want thematic depth in your story you have to have a thesis with some complexity. The movie Extraordinary Measures (written by Robert Nelson Jacobs) has this problem. The movie makes the profound statement that disease is bad and helping kids is good. I hardly need a movie to tell me that.

If you’re making an action movie or comedy you can easily get away with a simplistic thesis such as “love conquers all” or “good men can’t be knocked down.” In fact, you might be better off keeping things simple. But if you’re doing a drama or social satire where the main appeal is that it’s going to engage the viewers’ minds then you better explore a complex theme. And you’re probably going to be better off avoiding a strident stand.

There are exceptions, though often they are most powerful in the context of their time and place. Philadelphia (written by Ron Nyswaner) wears its thesis in support of AIDS victims on its sleeve, but it was released in a time where such a thesis wasn’t very widely accepted. That made it controversial. A similar movie released today would probably bore the audience.

To Kill a Mockingbird (screenplay by Horton Foote) holds up much better. At first glance it may seem that the movie’s thesis is “racism is bad” – a pretty simplistic idea. But though the movie does assume that point, its real theme is about standing up for one’s beliefs.

And it doesn’t treat that theme in a simplistic way at all. Atticus Finch suffers for his beliefs and ultimately loses his case. Scout, whose eyes we’re watching this through, is left with the distinct message that ultimately life isn’t fair. Doing the right thing doesn’t always succeed. And that ambivalence is what makes the movie profound and makes the thesis – that it’s important to do the right thing even when it’s not popular – resonate powerfully.

In practice I’m not always aware of exactly what my theme is when I’m developing my story. Often I think I’m writing about one thing but discover after the first draft that I’m really writing about something else. It was only after Sweet Home Alabama was released that I realized it was actually about the mixed feelings I had about my small town roots when I moved to Los Angeles. I always thought it was a love story!

And it’s in the first draft where we best listen to Mr. Goldwyn. If you want to get the audience involved in your story it must be about characters and their problems, not about philosophical arguments. You can think a lot about theme in the development phase, but when it comes time to write the scenes you need to get all of that out of your head and concentrate on what the characters want and what stands in their way.

(That is how movies like Philadelphia can hold up over time. Even after the relevance of the movie's "message" fades, we can still become involved in the character's struggle.)

Ultimately the best way to explore theme and convey thesis is through character. How you do that will be the topic for my next post!