by Alan Denman
For millennia storytelling has been exerting its unique power over us. Somehow, a magical process occurs, transporting us from our own mundane time and place into the world of the story, whether it be set in the past, present or future, in this world or another.
Yet, no matter how extraordinary a story may be, if it is told well, we become - for the duration of the telling - part of its world. We live out other lives, face issues, resolve conflicts, suffer defeats and attain victories in a vivid, imaginative state of consciousness.
We are engaged.
The problem of engagement is most acutely critical in cinema, visual storytelling at its most sophisticated. The success of any film depends upon its ability to draw an audience into the fictitious world depicted on screen. How can this be achieved? Are there techniques for engaging an audience?
In mainstream feature storytelling the primary link of engagement is through character.
In the opening scenes of a film, the "set up", we are invited to emotionally identify with a protagonist in some way. This identification is easier if there is a single rather than a dual or multiple protagonist because the emotional energy of the viewer can be focused more intensely in one direction.
This is the main reason why most mainstream features do have a single protagonist and it also, of course, means that the main storyline can be very clearly laid out, leaving an audience in no doubt as to who they are following and what her/his story is. That's the theory.
However, as we all know, many films fail to engage us. Either we are not emotionally roused at all and we remain locked outside the world of the film story, or we experience some initial engagement and then lose interest. Sometimes the engagement is misdirected and we become more interested in a secondary character or the antagonist.
(Blade Runner is an interesting case: who are we most interested in - the Harrison Ford 21st century stock detective whose task is to restore order or the Rutger Hauer "replicant", the superhuman leader of the rebels, the antagonist, who "wants more life"? This, I believe, was a deliberate conscious choice on the part of the screenwriters, which is one of the reasons this film has an enduring life.)
Identifying with the Protagonist
However, let's go back to basics. The protagonist acts as a device to lead us, so to speak, through the fictional world depicted. He/she is the gateway into that world. So how, more precisely, do you get an audience to identify with your protagonist?
Firstly, we have to care about her/him. A child lost, a man being beaten up, a loving wife losing her husband in an accident, will normally arouse sufficient emotional interest to start us off. But this engagement must then be developed and maintained.
One of the greatest and most difficult achievements in characterisation is creating living three dimensional characters that have an inner life outside their time on screen and even long after the end credits have rolled. Care and belief go hand-in-hand: the more we believe in a character the more we are prepared to care for him/her.
This leads us to our next question: what makes a "living, three-dimensional character"?
There are a number of aspects to this question. If we only a see a character in one dimension of their existence, say at work, then we sense something is missing. What are they like with friends? with lovers? alone with themselves? The more facets we see the more we begin to believe in a character - especially if there is conflict and contrast between these facets.
A character who is cheerful and optimistic at work, but drinks him/herself alone to sleep at night is more interesting than a character who is a monotone. However, as cinema audiences become more sophisticated, it is easily possible to over-exploit these principles of engagement. If a protagonist has too much stacked against her/him, then we may become too aware of the process and withdraw our support.
Billy Elliot is a case in point: are there simply too many obstacles in Billy's life to be really believable - dead mother, aggressive older brother, senile grandmother and distant father caught up in the miners` strike? Is this excessive? And is he too good, too much of a victim?
Flaws
For us to really care for a character he/she must have flaws. If they are too good, they're not believable and may remind us too painfully of our own shortcomings. We may well then withdraw our identification, for how can we engage with a character who is so damned perfect!
We forgive a character's shortcomings - in fact, they may even endear us to him/her. The American film industry understands these principles well and has been applying them with great success for generations.
Formulaic
However, as we all know, studio films often appear formulaic and manipulative, applying the techniques of engagement with repetitive precision. The challenge for new producers and writers is how to create a central character who is at once universally relatable and individually unique.
Stereotypes will no longer do and the subversion of stereotypes may also be too transparent.
Good characters grow out of the private and passionate imagination of the writer, but they will almost certainly need a shaping and guiding hand along the way in order to become great screen characters.
Underdeveloped
The most common and fundamental problem with UK scripts and treatments is that the characters are woefully underdeveloped. This also means that the story will in most cases be thin, predictable and stereotypical.
The golden rule of storytelling is story comes out of character. The best film stories have great characters with unique, memorable traits - Hal the computer in 2001, Rick in Casablanca, Ada in The Piano.
As you develop characters, peeling back layers, so more and more information becomes available which is useful for events in the story. Script developers must learn to let the characters take over, to let them show how they act, show where they want to go.
© Alan Denman
Now read: Developing Strong Scripts...
Link to: