DZ-19: Car-Crash Characters

How do you make unlikeable characters compelling to watch… in drama?

Stu and Chas revisit a topic from a year ago: how do screenwriters make unlikeable characters compelling? This time, we turn our focus to dramas and analyse how AMERICAN HISTORY X, YOUNG ADULT, NIGHTCRAWLER all make their a**hole protagonists compelling to watch. We expand our original list of five writer’s tools to include a few more for your tool belt.

In response to our audience survey, we also introduce our first episode of backmatter.

EPISODE LINKS

• Draft Zero: DZ-03: Making Unlikable Protagonists Compelling
• AMERICAN HISTORY X by David McKenna
  • YouTube: American History X – First Scene
  • YouTube: American History X – Basketball Game
• YOUNG ADULT by Diablo Cody (Final Draft) – First 20 pages. For educational purposes only.
  • YOUNG ADULT by Diablo Cody – First 20 pages. For educational purposes only.
  • YouTube: Young Adult – Trailer
• NIGHTCRAWLER  by Dan Gilroy
  • YouTube: Nightcrawler Best Scenes
  • New York Times: ‘Nightcrawler’ Anatomy of a Scene with Dan Gilroy
• YouTube: THE KILLER INSIDE ME – Trailer
• Every Frame a Painting: Snowpiercer – Left or Right

BACKMATTER LINKS

• Cinephilla & Beyond: Alien 3 Archive
• The Contrarians: Episode 2 – Alien 3
• Temple of the Seven Golden Camels: Staging and How It Affects Mood & Drama
• Temple of the Seven Golden Camels: (Just a Little Bit) More Flat and Deep
• Every Frame a Painting: Drive (2011) – the Quadrant System
• Every Frame a Painting: The Bad Sleep Well (1960) – the Geometry of a Scene
• Day One: A Simple and Elegant Journal for iPhone, iPad and Mac 
• Shawn Blanc: Day One review
• IMDB: David Caesar

Please send feedback to ask at draft-zero.com, via our web form or twitter @draft_zero  We are @chasffisher and @stuwillis on twitter.

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