Looking at Villians

From thescriptlab.com

FEMME FATALE
The French translation of Femme Fatale literally means “deadly woman." The Femme Fatale character is seductive, mysterious, and most of all – extremely dangerous. Her greatest power is her ability to entrance her victims with her appearance, and lead them into dangerous situations.
While she often uses her feminine charm and sexuality to get her way, there are times when she can be deceitful and lie. She is always physically well-endowed and defies normal standards of beauty with her exceptional appearance. While she is almost always a villain, there are times when she transforms into an anti-heroine. However, even in these tales, she usually drives her lover to the point of obsession and insanity. While her personality traits usually fall into a negative category, she can also be a symbol of female empowerment and freedom.
Femme Fatale in Film:
In early film, the Femme Fatale was introduced as an evil temptress. However, in the 1940's, the image of the Femme Fatale in screenwriting flourished with the introduction of Film Noir. In these screenplays the Femme Fatale was manipulative, double-crossing, unloving, and gorgeous. If the hero in the film chose to help her, this decision would lead to a path of tragedy and death. While the Femme Fatale saw her boom in the era of Film Noir, she still exists in modern film today. Her coy manner, sensuality, and undeniable allure ensures that she will forever be a part of film and history.

Examples of Femme Fatals in film: Brigid O'Shaughnessy in 'The Maltese Falcon', Alex Forrest in 'Fatal Attraction' and Catherine Tramell in 'Basic Instinct'

PSYCHOTIC
The Psychotic Villain is driven by his or her detachment from reality. It is certain that these villains suffer from some kind of mental illness, even if it is not specifically stated. Usually, the villain’s illness takes form in misplaced rage, explosive anger, or personality confusion.
Psychotic Villains can also suffer from grandiose delusion and hallucinations. A Psychotic Villain focuses his anger on an innocent victim, even though it is not rational. This Villain will stop at nothing to obtain his sinister goal, which often leads to his death or destruction.
Psychotic Villain in Film:
The Psychotic Villain has a huge presence in screenwriting and films. His violent actions can be written off to his psychotic nature, but a backstory can create a more sophisticated character. Psychotic Villains in film often immerse themselves in taboo lifestyles. Some of these villains participate in things like deviant sexual behavior, extreme anarchism, and even cannibalism.
In a screenplay, the greatest threat of the Psychotic Villain is the mysteriousness that surrounds him. His history is usually hidden, and his actions are unpredictable. The “unknown” attributes make the Psychotic Villain especially frightening. Because he has no rhyme or reason for the chaos he creates, his presence even more chilling.

Examples of Psychotic Villians in film: Hannibal Lecter in 'The Silence of the Lambs', Norman Bates in 'Psycho' and The Joker in 'The Dark Knight'

SEDUCER
Seducers knows what they wants and knows how to get it. Their aesthetic appeal and charming demeanor make those around them easy prey, like moths drawn to a flickering light. Unlike the Femme Fatale, the Seducer does not primarily aim to inflict harm upon others. More accurately, the Seducer’s foremost objective is to satisfy his/her own personal needs through the seduction of others without regard to the casualties left behind in the process.
Seducers in Film:
Since the concept of seduction is far from genre-exclusive, the Seducer is an incredibly malleable antagonist that could conceivably function within everything from romantic comedy to melodrama. Although the use of seduction clearly serves as a consistent character trait regardless of the genre, it is the goal of the seducer that often shifts with relation to the type of film this villain is placed within. In other words, Seducers are defined by what they hope to achieve through their acts of seduction. Some Seducers use sex as a means of accessing something more tangible; in other cases, the sexual gratification itself is the ultimate objective, and it is the repercussions of these sexual acts that negatively effect the protagonist.
It’s important to note, however, that seduction is not necessarily sexual. A Seducer might use sex, money, power, fame, a secret, classified information, or even just a piece of cake to convince another character to do something he or she does not want to do.

Examples of Seducers in film: Mrs Robinson in 'The Graduate', Norma Desmond in 'Sunset Blvd' and JD in 'Thelma and Louise'

DICTATOR
A cruel and malicious leader, the dictator rules over his territory without mercy or compassion. More so than many other villains, the dictator does not consider himself to be particularly villainous by nature, and what we perceive as his villainous actions are more the product of his vicious attempts to maintain order to his liking within his realms of power.
Dictators in Film:
Males more often than not occupy this role, but the Dictator could be written for a female as well. The Dictator often occupies a formal position of power, and while this power can reign over an whole community, town, city, or even an entire continent, what is most important is that the Dictator has an indisputable grip of control over the world, and the protagonist’s battle against this power often forms the backbone of the narrative.

Examples of Dictators in film: Warden Norton in 'The Shawshank Redemption', Nurse Ratched in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' and Idi Amin in 'The Last King of Scotland'

Looking at Heroes

From: thescriptlab.com

WARRIOR
A Warrior is a hero that has expertise in combat or warfare. This type of hero rises to the occasion by taking on a leadership position, and becomes extremely influential within his or her own circle. Warriors can be motivated by revenge, oppression, or moral responsibility. The traditional warriors tends to be serious and driven, often using action instead of dialogue to achieve their means. This role tends to skew more towards males, but the female Warrior has a strong presence in history, literature, and film as well.
Warriors in Film:
The character of Warrior is usually present in screenwriting through genres such as Action, Epic, and War. Although the traditional screenplay Warrior inflicts violence upon his enemy, this hero garners respect and admiration from the audience. The audience is able to justify the forceful actions of the hero Warrior because of his past, or because of the gross injustices he (or his counterparts) have endured. Strong and often silent, the Warrior becomes a hero because of his willingness to sacrifice himself for a cause.




Examples of Warriors in film: King Leonidas in '300', William Wallace in 'Braveheart' & Nathan Algren in 'The Last Samurai'

FOOL
Sometimes referred to as the “lovable loser,” the Fool is an anything-but-elegant hero. His desires rarely stray too far from our own – prove his value to society, garner the respect and praise of his peers/superiors, and perhaps find true love in the process – but the Fool is his own worst enemy: his physical clumsiness and intellectual limitations perpetually impede on the fulfillment of his own goals. And though we frequently share a good laugh at his expense and misfortune, we undoubtedly root for the Fool to succeed because, truth be told, we all can be fools sometimes, and there’s something undoubtedly reassuring about seeing the foolish underdog save the day and end up a hero.
Fools in Film:
Although the Fool could certainly be described as a tragic figure, he almost exclusively appears within the comedy genre, and rightfully so – the Fool starts as such an unfortunate character, we need to see him achieve that happy ending, thus making comedy the most suitable genre. In these films, there is very typically a secondary character to whom the Fool is actively trying to impress for various reasons, and a primary antagonist who actively attempts to disrupt this goal (often for his own gain). This antagonist is frequently a polar juxtaposition of the Fool (intelligent, suave, etc.), making the Fool’s eventual victory that much more satisfying.



Examples of Fools in film: Tommy in 'Tommy Boy', Harry and Lloyd in 'Dumb and Dumber' and Billy Madison in 'Billy Madison'

MUSE
In Greek mythology, the Muses were nine goddesses who inspired the creation of poetry and literature. Today, they take on a less literal role, but still are regarded as a key source of inspiration. We’ve heard on numerous occasions writer/directors discuss certain actors as their muse: for John Hughes it was Molly Ringwald; for Tim Burton, Johnny Depp. Whether male or female, dead or alive, the Muse speaks to us in a way that inspires us to achieve something great.
Muses in Film:
The 1997 Disney cartoon Hercules depicts the Muses in their original form as the nine Greek Goddesses. Most films, however, rely on the more contemporary symbolic understanding of the Muse. The Muse can be male or female and can work in most genres, but tends to appear most often within dramas and can take on either a lead or supporting role. While some Muses consciously act as mentor figures, aiming to inspire one or many individuals, the Muse can also act as an inadvertent form of inspiration for a character, unaware of his/her tremendous impact on the life of the protagonist.



Examples of Muses in film: John Keating in 'Dead Poet's Society', Jaime Escalante in 'Stand and Deliver' and Angela Hayes in 'Stand and Deliver'

 

SAVIOR
The Savior is one of the oldest characters in the history of storytelling, and arguably the most famous Savior character role is Jesus Christ from within the New Testament. The Savior is often a highly selfless character, willing to sacrifice him/herself for the greater good.
Saviors in Film:
In film, the Savior appears in most genres other than comedy, appropriate given that the notion of self-sacrifice is not usually a very humorous one. It is much more common with the Savior than other character roles for the Savior to die in the end, but this is not required of the role. What is required, however, is that the Savior has more than just his own life at stake. Whether it be just one person, a small town, or the entire human race, the Savior is responsible for the wellbeing of more than him/herself, and the plot requires a great deal of sacrifice from him/her in order to fulfill that responsibility.



Examples of Saviors in film: Oskar Schindler in 'Schindler's List', Neo in 'The Matrix' and Gandhi in 'Gandhi'

How to create a character

When thinking about how to create a memorable character, I stumbled across the following article by C.J. Perry from Film Slate Magazine which I thought gave good advice on how to create a truly memorable character.

"Creating memorable, sympathetic characters is something every screenwriter has struggled with at one point or another. Every writer approaches their screenplay from a different angle, whether they come up with the plot first, certain scenes that will serve as the lynchpin of the story, or even the third act that they will eventually have to build towards.

But none of it works without the characters. Every action is carried out through them in one way or another, every part of the story advances because of the characters in the screenplay. Even in a film that contains minimal dialogue or action, it will be the characters that make or break your screenplay. Here are ten things to keep in mind when writing characters.

1. Goal and Opposition Your character has to have something tangible that he or she wants to achieve. What does your character want and what will he or she do to achieve that goal? Wanting world peace is not a goal. If your character stops an ambiguously ethnic madman from blowing the planet into smithereens with some sort of doomsday device, that is a goal.

This doesn’t mean that the character has to operate in a vacuum; he or she can be influenced by outward forces and have internal conflicts and other desires along the way. Take the title character Clint Eastwood plays in “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” written by Philip Kaufman and Sonia Chernus. What starts out as a singular quest for revenge against the Union forces that killed his family and burned his house to the ground becomes so much more as Josey meets up with different characters (who all have their own goals) throughout the movie.

Your character’s goal is nothing without opposition. Even if what your character is going up against is vague, put a human face to it, or if it’s non-human, give it some quality that the audience can identify with. For Josey Wales, the larger symbolic enemy may be the Union Army, but its face is Captain Terrill, played with gleeful sadism by Bill McKinney. If there is more than one person or thing blocking your character, focus on a central antagonist, but don’t discard other threats to the main character. In the movie “Aliens,” written by James Cameron, Ripley and the rest of the crew fight a voracious outer space monster, but the character Carter Burke, played by Paul Reiser, serves as an excellent secondary opposition.

2. Motivation What makes your character chase his or her goal? What drives your character? In “The Screenwriter’s Bible,” David Trottier says, “The more personal it is, the more the audience will identify and sympathize with the character.” In “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” what sends Josey on his bloody trail of revenge? The slaughter of his family serves as all the motivation his character needs.

3. Backstory This ties in with the motivation, and it helps to explain the character’s actions throughout the movie. The backstory of your character should be decided before you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay. All people are flawed, and all people have needs. In “Slapshot,” written by Nancy Dowd, Reggie Dunlop, played by Paul Newman, is an aging minor league hockey player with nothing to look forward to as the end of his career draws near. His team is folding, and he has an ex-wife that he still loves and would desperately like to reconcile with. So when Reggie sees an opportunity to hold onto his career, bolster interest in the failing franchise he plays for and misguidedly tries to win back his ex, the audience can sympathize with him.

4. The Will to Act How does your character react to crisis? What does he or she do in the face of opposition? In “Slapshot,” as the steel industry in Johnstown is fading, and the team’s demise is imminent, what does Reggie do to hang onto his career and his identity? He changes the style of play of the team to attract more headlines and bigger crowds, and he starts rumors about the team moving to Florida to force the hand of management and the ownership.

5. Point of View and Attitudes As Trottier says, “Everyone has a belief system, a perception of reality that is influenced by past experience, a point of view that has developed over time.” No two people may react alike to the same situation. Your character has past experiences that influence how he or she will react to a situation. Two characters may reach the same point with vastly different attitudes about the event. In “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” written by Jack B. Sowards, both Captain Kirk and Khan find themselves facing off against each other after many years. Khan views the last fifteen years as harsh exile, that Kirk destroyed everything that he loved, including his beloved wife. Kirk viewed what he did as giving Khan a second chance. They each have a different view of how they got to the same place, and thus also have different opinions about how their showdown must end and who is in the right.

6. Room to Grow You have given your character a set of parameters. His or her personality, a sense of self, these things are the starting points for your character. The big event happens in Act I, to draw the character out, to start him or her on their quest. Your character should exhibit growth, have a realization about themselves, something which connects the audience to your character. At the beginning of “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” Josey is a loner with a scar on his face and a dark past. But as he continues on his journey, he comes into contact with a group of misfits who adopt him as their leader, whether he likes it or not. While his outwardly gruff demeanor does not change much, the audience gets to see the character grow and change throughout the movie.

7. Believability Making your character seem human can be difficult, but it will reward your audience with a much richer experience. Movie characters usually have one underlying focus—their goal—which tends to be not how real life works. People have several things going on at once and very rarely get to focus on once task to complete. So even though the situation or the plot may bend the rules of believability, give your character human emotions, human traits, and values. In “Ghostbusters,” written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the film succeeds not only because of the effects and the humor, but we see humanity in each of the four Ghostbusters and how they each react to a situation, especially Ernie Hudson's portrayal of Winston, the only non scientist of the group. His character is the everyman, someone who signed up for a job and ends up in way over his head.

8. Details These are the traits that make your character memorable. Do not boil your characters down to caricatures, but give them quirks and tics to flesh them out. In “Die Hard,” written by Jeb Stuart and Stephen E. de Souza, John McClane talks to himself throughout the entire movie. In the beginning as a fish out of water New York cop in Los Angeles, it’s because he’s bemused by the world he finds himself in. Later, as terrorists have taken over the Nakatomi Plaza, he does it to keep himself sane as he also tries to keep himself alive.

9. Research This comes down to the writer being willing to spend time developing characters, making them believable, and doing whatever necessary to create whole characters. Go the library, interview people in professions upon whom you'll be basing a character, figure out what really makes your character tick. This may take your character away from your original version, but it may be better for the screenplay. This will also help find your character's voice.

10. A Strong Supporting Cast Your main character will carry the story, but you need to fill out the rest of your screenplay with engaging secondary characters. Don’t short change the opposition; a sidekick is important, as is a love interest or love interests. “Tootsie,” written by Murray Schisgal and Larry Gelbart is an excellent example of a large ensemble working well together. Dustin Hoffman is clearly the main character as Michael/Dorothy, but the roles of the opposition (Dabney Coleman), love interests (Jessica Lange and Terri Garr), the sidekick (Bill Murray), not to mention the minor characters that populate the world of New York drama, contribute to a well written screenplay.

A screenplay has several facets that have to come together to be successful. Developing your characters and giving them strong foundations will be one way to create a connection with your audience and to bring your story to life."

 

From: http://www.filmslatemagazine.com/filmmaking/how-to-create-memorable-characters

Character Profile Exercise

In order to get us thinking more about characters in our film, we did a character profile exercise where we had to imagine that we were stuck in a lift for two hours after a long shopping trip and from that scenario we had to imagine the person that we would most want to be with us in that situation. We had to describe various different aspects of this person such as what they looked like, what their voice was like, how they were dressed and their personality. After this, we had to imagine the person we would least like to be stuck in a lift with.

After imagining our characters,we had to create a Big Brother audition tape for either our nice character or our nasty character. I was working with Lizzie Starling and we thought that it would be much more interesting to do our audition tape on our nasty character. We envisaged our annoying character to be loud, melodramatic, socially awkward, dominant, pretending to be drunk and having multiple personalities. When filming, we were limited to people that we could use to act for us but luckily we found Henry (who was the photographer for our recreation of 'My Beast Friend') to act for us and we're very happy with the performance that he gave us.

Audience Feedback from Pitch #3

After showing my third pitch (my apocalypse idea) to my media class, I received some feedback.

Because of the fact that I haven't yet got a concrete storyline for my film idea, i was expecting some questions about the plot. Hopefully though, those questions will be answered soon!

Lily Vosper: I like the idea of location and the use of saturation. I think as long as it has a solid storyline it will be brilliant.

Jake Brownbill: I love the look of the location. It's eerie, weird and definitely post-apocalyptic. With such a cool location, you have headway to make something either really subtle or really ambitious.

Beatrice Norman: The location is really cool and you could do some really good effects with that! But I think it also depends on what story you could come up to go with it.

Alice Leng : I loved the location, and think that you could really do something great with that as already you have the advantage of atmosphere and therefore a realistic feel. Firstly are you able to film there, do you need to gain any permission etc? And also the idea is starting to be developed, with a character a starting to emerge but have you thought about what will actually happen during the short?

Caitlin Robbins: This is a really good idea, I think you need to get a solid idea before committing to the film. Have you thought about how many characters you're going to have or how they survived? I think it would work really well once you've got a plot.

Lizzie Starling: Great location, and will work really well for the theme and idea you have in mind. It will create a really strong, realistic piece; as well as standing out and being original. Do you have more ideas in mind for storyline?

Nicole O'Malley: Really liked how you inserted clips of the location so that we were able to understand your 'vision'. Obviously you haven't yet thought of an actual idea, but have you yet considered characters, props etc. which will fit with the genre?

Farah Hamouda: I like the research you have done into your location, I think it is unique and will work very well. I like the idea of a post-apocalyptic theme - that stuff REALLY scares me! You'll need to start planning to make sure that you can use the location and the actual plot - what else is going to happen? Are any characters going to be introduced? I like it :-)

Martha Rumney: Clearly you have thought a lot about your idea, regarding location. I think it’s a great basis, you’re very lucky to have found such a great location for you to work with. I think a lot of people will connect to this as I’m pretty sure everyone has some kind of interest in the apocalypse. Looking forward to hearing your plot idea. 

Ben 'Gary' Hurst: Very good imagery of what you would plan how you plan to use the scenery. What story would stand out against other short films that involve a post-apocalyptic world?

Aimee Shingfield: I like the location, and the photos you incorporated are great. However, you haven't said much about the plot, just the basic idea - which is a good one! Just research more into the location, and the apocalypse etc. Have you thought about what kind of characters you would have in the short film, and how many?

Pitch #3 - Apocalypse

Here is my third idea for my short film about a post-apocalyptic world which I came up with when at an old RAF airfield:

Pitch #2 - A mugging like no other

Here is my second film idea, where I have explained two possible stories from the same starting point, a man being mugged:

Pitch #1 - Sophie

Here is my first film idea, a short documentary on a remarkable little girl named Sophie:

Practicing Ancillary Tasks

After finishing shooting our recreation of Ewan Torrance's 'My Beast Friend', we thought that it would be a good idea to take some original stills to use on a practice poster. 

This would meant that we would get to practice the skills that we would need to complete the final ancilliary tasks after creating our short films. We took a lot of images from lots of different angles and luckily George was happy modelling for us as Fluff the cat. After importing the images, we rifled through them to find the one we preferred. I, personally, preferred this image:

  

So, I then set about creating a poster using this image as a base. The first thing I did was remove the dull grey background so that I just had the image of George as Fluff. then I desaturated the image of George a little and put it against a light peach background. I added text with some special effects like drop shadows and highlights, credits and a recommendation and the poster below was produced!

Recreation Feedback from Fergus Mitchell - the writer of 'My Beast Friend'

I uploaded the video of our recreation of 'My Beast Friend' on 28th September and after a day of it being public, I received a comment on the video from Fergus Mitchell who wrote the script for the original short film!

After seeing the comment, myself and Lily Vosper proceeded to send him a message asking for any advice on how to create an original short. The message is shown below:

Hello,

We are currently doing A-level Media Studies and for our practical work we have to create a short film that lasts 5 minutes. We were wondering if you had any advice on how to go about creating and/or writing a short film that is fairly simple to produce as we have a very low budget. We also have a passion for filmmaking and want to work in the industry when we leave sixth form so we want to make sure that our short film is the best that it can be.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

Evie Calaby & Lily Vosper

Fergus replied quickly with the following message:

Hi Evie and Lily,

That sounds great.

I haven't done that many short films, though I have done quite a bit of TV writing over the last few years. I think some of the same rules apply, like...

The key to good films and low budgets is planning.

Only film what you'll need, and remember that people like stories about people. Spend time making your characters interesting. Make us care about them, even if we don't like them.

Don't set out to write a five minute film. Start writing a half hour and edit edit edit the script until you've got down to five minutes. Like I said, I went from four minutes down to one and ditched a lot of stuff. But what was left worked really well.

Remember that you have much more than just words to use. We used looks, reactions, movement and even the hand-written note to get the information across. Make every shot work as hard as it can.

If you get the opportunity, there is one pretty good book you could look at. 'Rebel Without A Crew', by Robert Rodriguez (who made 'Sin City' and 'Spy Kids'), where he describes making his first feature. It's pretty good nuts and bolts stuff.

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now. Let me know if I can help with anything else, and keep me posted.

All the best,

Fergus Mitchell