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How Much Is Enough? Part 1
Though I am not a script guru, it would seem various people out in www.land still believe I am, for this was nestling in my inbox this morning:
Hi Lucy. I'm an aspiring screenwriter with no formal training, though I want to do a Script Factory course soon to "start off". I have been reading your blog...I haven't finished my first screenplay yet, but have noticed you've said a lot about readers not liking screenplays with "a million characters". I don't understand what you mean about this, since whenever I watch a movie, the actors' credit list seems to go on forever. My question then is, re: characters, how many is too many? Sincerely, Jazz Juice
First off, WHOA! on that email name. Mind boggles on how s/he got that one. Secondly, I suddenly I feel like John August. How cool is that.
How many characters should your average screenplay have? That's a tough one. As Mr. or Mrs. Jazz says, actors' credits can seem deceptively large on produced movies.
But that's just it - it's a deceptive list. No movie should have loads of characters, they should have the illusion of loads of characters (if that's the effect the writer or director wants to achieve).
Back to basics: you need an antagonist and a protagonist - a goodie and a baddie, in effect. From this, you can make things more complicated: perhaps you want a protagonist who is also an antagonist; perhaps you want to present the idea of a doppelganger, in that your antagonist and protagonist are different people with the same ideals on opposite sides - whether that's the law, morality, religion or anything else.
This all might sound a bit obvious, but many writers are surprised when I write in their coverage that I was unsure who the protagonist or the antagonist were. Remember, what's obvious in a writer's brain is not always obvious to the reader. (I'm not immune in this either. My first four drafts of Divine Rites had no obvious protagonist as I'd spent so much timeon the antagonist, whom I secretly preferred, since I had spent more time on him).
So that's two.
Many people, of which I am one, say eight is the magic number when it comes to good characterisation. ALIEN is the most obvious example of this: there are seven members of the Nostromo and all have very defined character role functions, from comic relief (Parker and Brett), the gung-ho warrior (Kane), the damsel in distress (Lambert), the villain (Ash), right through to an inflated sense of responsibility (Dallas and Ripley). Of course, we have eight characters when the beast is added to the mix.
There was a recent film called MINDHUNTERS that echoed Alien's characterisation in this fashion, almost to a tee. It did not have a theatrical release in the UK as far as I'm aware, as one day it turned up out of the blue in the DVD store with one of the best taglines I've seen in a while:
For seven elite profilers, tracking a serial killer is a process of elimination. Their own.
Not only are we treated to a "siege-like" situation in that all seven were trapped on an FBI training ground on an island (all avenues of escape blocked, just as "In Space No one Can Hear You Scream" - where could the crew of The Nostromo have gone??), each character had a specific function that was not only brought out via the narrative, it actually formed part of it: in other words, the serial killer (one of the seven, naturally), used the characters' quirks and foibles against them in order to kill them. This is by no means a radical idea, however it was a neat and logical device that in my view, delivered a very watchable and well-done movie.
So that's eight (sometimes seven), of which two should be the protagonist and antagonist. However, let's go back to that notion of the BIG list of actors. This is something I'm not awfully keen on, as I'm probably too lazy to keep track of who is who. However, lots of people want to write movies in which there's a plethora ofpeople - either because it adds to their arena or because they want to kill them (it can be carthartic!), horror and action movies being the most obvious.
With reference to arena and wanting romcoms, thrillers, horrors, action-adventures etc to seem more colourful then, just don't give these extra characters too much space, as they're not real characters. This might sound odd, but think of it in this way - these extra people are peripheral, there to add to the protagonist's journey. A good example of this would be RED EYE. The screenwriter does not bother to reference any character other than those involved in the main action. All other characters are simply known in the credits list by what they do - how they add to the narrative, in fact. For example, when our heroine stabs our villain in the throat with a pen in order to escape, she steals it from a boy on the plane who is simply known in the credits as BOY WITH PEN. As an audience we hear this boy speak a couple of times and we know he hates his brother, but there is a crucial difference between his characterisation and the heroine's or villain's: his doesn't add to the story, he adds to the situation in that he hates the person sitting next to him just as much as our heroine hates the villain. End of. This is what makes him peripheral; we don't need his entire history, who he is in relation to anyone else, not even his name.
As for having lots of characters and wanting to cull them, the answer is a simple one:
Do it as soon as you can.
Alot of action-adventures or horrors I get begin with a big number of people being threatened. This is a good starting point. However, what differentiates the newer writers from the more experienced is the number of characters still present in the middle of the script and at the end: the former tend to have too many. By this, I mean families and groups of friends who fall victim to slasher killers or monsters down holes are still intact; army squadrons still have the majority of their recruits; more people than not survive natural disasters or massacres in banks, offices, schools or whatever.
Let's have a look at the Alien movies again. ALIENS is vastly different from the first movie in that it has many, many more characters in the first instance - a whole troup of marines, in fact. It's a nice contrast, but it is an illusion. Let's examine the evidence.
Who is important in this movie? Well, Ripley of course. Then there's the evil Burke. Then wimpy Lietutenant Gorman follows in a secondary role. These are outlined from the start as "important". Then we meet the marines. Though there are loads of them, we see Hicks, Hudson and Vasquez in the most prominent positions from the start, as is the Sergeant, Apone and android Bishop. Then they go to the planet and find Newt.
But wait a minute! That's nine. You said eight, right?
Right. Apone is one of the first marines killed in the alien nest. This is a really old trick: setting someone up in a secondary role whom the audience will expect to see on screen for a long time, then killing them. It's a great device because though it is an "oldy but goody", the first time an audience watches there's no way of knowing a) if it'll be employed or b) if it is, on whom. So, the only survivors of those marines who go into the nest are Hudson, Hicks and Vasquez. So what are all the other marines' narrative function? To die. If your characters are supposed to die then, do it ASAP! Aliens did it by the end of the first act. Isolate your main characters, make them realise the chips are down and odds are against them - this increases drama.
But we still have eight human characters - in the other movie, the beast made eight. We still have nine.
Right again. Except this time, one of those characters is a child. All the adult characters, even a synthetic one like Bishop, perform vital functions in their own rights. Hudson is the damsel in distress, Vasquez is the gung-ho warrior, Hicks has an inflated sense of responsibility (as does Ripley, of course). Burke takes Ash's place as the villain, Gorman has a new role as an incompetent in which he must redeem himself, mirroring Bishop's as a saviour-prejudiced-against. The beasts of course are the main threat and antagonists of the piece, just like the lone creature was in the first film.
Well, durr... What is Newt?!
Newt is a big fat Deus Ex Machinas, there only to extricate Ripley from the plot. Ripley fights to survive this time not for herself, but for her lost daughter on Earth as well as the notion of innocence in Newt's name: "My mommy said there were no monsters, no real ones, but there are, aren't there?" Newt is less of a character in her own right than a device that gives Ripley's character new meaning. This means, yet again, we are brought back to eight characters: two in primary roles, the rest in secondary.
What do you think? Any examples of movies with a "million characters" you can think of that work? And what of ensemble casts? Hmmm, intriguing... Over to you!
bang2write at 11:31:00 o'clock BST Blog about this entry |
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Y'know, I watched SHORT CUTS and can't remember a thing about it. That's not good in my book! ; )
It's funny, CRASH seems to have writers in particular divided - and they either LOVE it or HATE it. I haven't watched it yet, but I have read it and I did like it on the page. Will be interesting to see if the produced version and what I saw in my mind's eye tarries up... -
I'm not sure of any films with many characters that actually work, apart from maybe something like Short Cuts, which weaves the lives of all the characters together very well. One multiple character film I HATED was Crash - ALL the characters are unlikeable, and while I certainly don't expect characters in films to always be likeable (but rather, understandable) that many unpleasant characters just put me off.
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Hi Julie! Glad you like it - and if the blog can be of service, that'll be great, cos that's what it's for! Hope to see you again soon...Remember, if you have a specific question about writing, feel free to leave comments anywhere on here for me or any other writer to answer. Lucy
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Hey!
Great blog! Think I will visit often. I have a short story in my head, but not sure how to go about it, but this place may help.
Julie
http://journals.aol.co.uk/julieweeks/ANursesThoughts/
18/04/07 12:11
http://journals.aol.co.uk/aco