Creating a story and characters for a screenwriter (Major project #3)

  I would like to tell you about my progress in creating a script for a short film. At the moment, I have a plan for my script and an analysis of the structure of writing the script, what I might need when writing the script. However, today I would like to tell you what my story should look like. To do this, I looked at very useful video tutorials from the creators of Pixar cartoons, and found a lot of useful information for what I should add to my story to make it more interesting and complete.

I - Create Idea

  The first video I would like to talk about is about how it's easier to create your own idea for a movie. The Pixar story writers in the video say that almost any story of the film can be presented as a What if... ? For example, what if aliens want to take over our planet? or What if a scientist creates a time machine? This method really works for a huge numbers of movies. After that, they tell that we need to create a story that will hook me. By the way, I probably will need many attempts to create interesting story. That's why I need to create a story from different angles. Also, the main thing to remember if story doesn't work with each new attempt, it doesn't mean that you will not get the story. You've already made progress by removing inappropriate options. Creating an impressive story is never easy, and even the best storytellers need months or even years of work.
  If we talk about my story, it is created on about the same principle and it can be represented in the question what if. It will look like that, what if one of the friends can't boast of anything, but he wants to be the center of attention (after that not important) and makes up stories about himself? If we say that it takes a lot of time to create an interesting story, then in my case this is not the case. The reason for this is that this story happened to one of my friends in real life. By the way, screenwriters also say that it's easier to write about what you know than to create a new original world with different fantastic characters.
  I can say that this video was moderately useful for me, because I already knew most of the information

II - Character creation

   The second video I would like to talk about shows two girls in an Elevator who talk about what characters can be, their features, and other. I learned from this lesson very helpful information.

   The character can be anyone. For example, it can be real character which played by a real actor or it can be animated character among which you can find live cars ( a character can have pros and cons, job, hobbies, problems, etc.). The character depends on you and how you show it in their world. 

  Your characters will be followed throughout the story. Together with them, they will receive the same live lessons, face the same life difficulties and experience, the same emotions. It is important to create characters with which the viewer can associate themselves, but this doesn't mean that it will be difficult to associate them with a live car. If we remember the cartoon Cars (2006), the cars despite the fact that they are absolutely not like us, their behaviour was similar to the behaviour of people as well as in their desires, actions and needs, you can see similarity with us. Therefore, it was easy for viewers to understand the characters of this cartoon. By the way, almost all interesting characters have disadvantages, because ideal characters are very boring.

 You must create a fully developed character. This means that viewers will get to know the character in such detail that they will be able o imagine them in any situations.

  This lesson was very useful for me. First, the video shows a good situation with the Elevator, where they show two different characters with flaws. Second, I found it very useful to know that the audience should associate themselves with the character in order to better understand it, and that the character should not be perfect, since it will be boring. In fact, this is true, in many Pixar cartoons, it is easy for me to associate myself with different characters, even if it is about a toy or a fish in the ocean, as well as they have disadvantages due to which the plot moves.

  In my story, there is no need to change the script, since initially all the characters are drawn from real ones, as well as all of them have drawbacks

     

III - External and Internal design of the character

   The last video I would like to talk about is about the external and internal features of the characters.

   External feature of the character contains details that tell you how the character looks, what clothes they wear, which there hairstyle is and much more that can be shown to the viewer.

   Internal image of the character contains details about its human qualities and they may not match their external image. For example, Syndrome from the cartoon The Incredibles (2004) his external image is typical superhero, but inside he is very envious and resentful because Mr. Incredible thought Syndrome was a stupid boy who put his life in danger without superpowers that Mr. Incredible has. By the way, if judging  by the Syndrome, there are many bad qualities inside, then for example,  Mr. Incredible has many positive internal qualities, such as courage, self-confidence, loving to his family. However, during the cartoon he shows his inability to stress tolerance and lies to his wife, which cold cause his family. Thanks to this set of qualities, this character is interesting. to us, as well as thanks to his problems and desire to be a superhero, not an office clerk, we get a fascinating story that received and Oscar nomination for the best original screen play.

  I liked this lesson most of all because it develops the previous video, where it was told about creating a character. Also in the video tutorial, it is told that first of all the character must be created from genuine human feelings and experience.

   In the end, I would like to tell you my conclusion about the video tutorials I have viewed and what I think I need to improve in my script. Firstly, I wanted to make sure that I was creating my story correctly. As a result, after watching many videos from professionals, I was convinced that in many ways I did everything correctly except for a few moments. for example, my characters do not have sufficient internal features, despite the fact that they are taken from real people. Secondly, I realized that I did the right thing, that I created characters that are similar to real ones with their positive and negative qualities. And finally I learned that the easiest way to start a story is to present it in the question what if.

 In my following his blog for creating a script will be devoted to dialogue and the structure of the story.

Sources:

Lesson: What if..?

Lesson: Introduction to character

Lesson: Internal vs. external features

References:

IMDB (2020) Cars [Online] IMDb.com

Available from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317219/ [Accessed 10/01/2020]

IMDB (2020) The Incredibles [Online] IMDb.com

Available from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/ [Accessed 10/01/2020]