Character
Every episode tagged Character, newest first.
2026
"We’re oscillating between push and pull, right? In a way, learning information is pull, danger is push. So you’re talking about a way of creating a narrative energy from oscillating between those two."
— Stu Willis | DZ-126: Secrets and Clues
DZ-126: Secrets and Clues
How can Secrets and Clues motivate characters?
AI✦Stu, Chas, and Mel break down how Benoit Blanc is pulled through the story by his need to solve the case while Father Judd is pushed through against his will to prove innocence–two distinct motivation engines for dual protagonists.✦
Listen if you want to understand how hidden information drives character motivation and plot structure!
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“Getting information puts your character in danger. And danger rewards your character with information." — One of three ideas we steal from game design in this episode. In this two part series, we talk about how secrets, clues and hidden information motivate characters and may (or may not) help you plot from a character perspective. Part One (this episode) looks at WAKE UP DEAD MAN; while Part Two looks at SIDE EFFECTS, and the pilot episode of SHRINKING… →
Films:
Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
DZ-125: Oscars One-shot - BLUE MOON
What craft tools make a low-budget, contained, period drama riveting?
AI✦Mel and Chas examine how Larry’s motivations remain deliberately ambiguous–whether he’s genuinely trying to reconcile with Rogers or unconsciously sabotaging himself, whether the party is born of connection or performance–and how this moral complexity keeps him from being a simple tragic figure.✦
Listen if you want to understand how narrative POV, screenplay format, and dialogue craft can elevate a contained biopic into an Oscar-nominated film
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BLUE MOON is a talky, period-drama that film about an obscure songer-writer in the 1940s. Yet, it attracted world-class talent AND Academy Award nominations, including for it’s script. Join Chas & Mel as they explore how narrative POV, interweaving relationships, hooky dialogue, and even the screenplay format itself make the script for BLUE MOON so great… →
Films:
Blue Moon (2026)
DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling
How does Film Noir show us terrible people doing terrible things without endorsing it?
AI✦The episode isolates voiceover and given circumstances as tools that contextualize why characters make incredibly stupid or morally grey choices for understandable reasons.✦
Listen if you need audiences to root for characters who do terrible things
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Mel and Chas continue to explore what Noir (the genre) can teach writers of all other genres. In particular:… →
Films:
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
, Woman of the Hour (2024)
, Double Indemnity (1944)
, The Long Goodbye (1973)
2025
"Everything is now finally significant. The world is a beautiful and radiant place. I’m not trading that for this."
DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir
What can Film Noir teach us about character arcs and audience engagement?
AI✦Double Indemnity makes you stressed wanting the murderers to get away with murder, and Chas notes the film accomplishes this ‘without ever endorsing this is good this is right.’✦
Listen if you want to write morally compromised characters without endorsing their choices.
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In this two part series, Mel and Chas use Noir (the genre) as a lens to interrogate flawed characters. How can characters doing reprehensible things still engage audiences? How can you ensure representation isn’t endorsement? And whether these characters undergo transformative arcs, or simply reveal their true natures… →
DZ-122: Escalating Antagonism Across Genres
How can you apply horror ideas to action and comedy?
AI✦Chas identifies how Greg’s insecurity drives his bad decisions in MEET THE PARENTS, and Stu traces Terry’s motivation in REBEL RIDGE from saving his cousin to confronting systemic corruption–showing how TOMBS clarifies what characters actually want at each stage.✦
Listen to learn how thinking of your hero as the horror (for your villains) makes your script dynamic.
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In this episode Chas, Stu and guest Kim Ho continue their exploration into the power(s) of antagonism and how focusing on them can develop story… →
DZ-121: Escalating Antagonism in SINNERS
How do the antagonistic forces in your story escalate distinctly from the protagonists' journey?
AI✦The episode frames Survive, Solve, Save as three distinct stakes that protagonists choose based on their position toward the antagonistic threat, moving from internal mystery to externalized action.✦
Listen to strengthen your story by focusing on the antagonistic forces in your script.
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We often struggle to develop the middle stages of a story. Could this be because we focus on our protagonists’ journeys and plot structure more than on how the antagonistic powers are awakened, wronged, discovered, gathering strength and revealing themselves… →
Films:
Sinners (2025)
DZ-120: Subtext is Overrated!
How do character goals, tactics, and fears create subtext automatically?
AI✦Chas, Stu, and Tom dissect how character goals and the tactics characters deploy to achieve them–what they want and how they’re trying to get it–create the scaffolding for everything else in a scene.✦
Listen if you're struggling to write subtext without it feeling forced!
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Or, how focusing on good drama will result in good subtext. We often hear how subtext is important for good screenwriting. We’re here to tell you it isn’t. Good subtext is a result of good drama, and your focus should be on creating that good drama. But how… →
DZ-119: Final Character Choices & Great Endings
How do you dramatise a protagonist's internal journey through their final decision?
AI✦Stu and Chas isolate the final choice as the mechanism through which a protagonist’s internal journey becomes visible, examining how characters are presented with options, make their selection, and face consequences.✦
Listen if you want to understand how to better dramatise a character's internal journey
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In this episode, Stu and Chas focus solely on the final choices made by protagonists and how that reflects their character journey and successfully, or not, dramatises the internal… →
Films:
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
, Finding Nemo (2003)
, Michael Clayton (2007)
, Promising Young Woman (2020)
, Talk to Me (2022)
DZ-117: Pulling Off Tonal Shifts
How can we teach our audience new storytelling rules in the middle of our story?
AI✦Mel notes that Swiss Army Man’s tonal shift happens precisely when the script stops filtering everything through Hank’s unreliable point of view and introduces Sarah as a separate consciousness.✦
Listen if you want to write tonal pivots that land on the page without a director's toolkit.
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Following on from our episodes on establishing tone through action lines and through character, this is what we have been building up to: how to pull off a tonal switch… that does NOT throw the audience out of the film. And, in particular, how to pull that off on the page when writers don’t have framing, lighting, music, editing, etc. at our disposal… →
2024
"the characters can obviously have control over what they say, but I get no sense of this feeling that they have control of how their story is being represented in terms of the filmmaking or otherwise."
— Stu Willis | DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall
DZ-114: Climaxes in CHALLENGERS
How does ending your story on the climax affect audience experience?
AI✦The discussion hinges on moments where what’s on the page doesn’t match what’s on screen, creating a gap between stated and obscured motivation that becomes thematically significant.✦
Listen to understand how withholding resolution can become your story's greatest statement.
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While Stu is on show, Mel and Chas sit down to analyse the meaning behind the ending of 2024’s CHALLENGERS, especially when - upon reading the script - the most impactful moment of the ending on screen (for Chas in particular) is not written on the page… →
Films:
Challengers (2024)
DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall
How is the effect of breaking the 4th wall different to voiceover?
AI✦Breaking the fourth wall involves the audience in the character’s emotional present by establishing a direct relationship where we–the viewer–become the recipient of the character’s gaze and narrative control.✦
Listen to understand how breaking the 4th wall directly involves the audience in a character's emotional present.
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As part of our series on how filmmakers can directly communicate to the audience, we finally examine the most blatant tool of them all: when character look directly down the barrel of the camera… and thus look directly at us, the viewer. Chas, Stu and Mel take the craft tools/levers they identified in previous episodes and use them to examine the tv-version-of HIGH FIDELITY (“Top Five Breakups”), ABBOTT ELEMENTARY (“Attack Ad)”) and - of course - FLEABAG… →
DZ-111: Unreliable Narrators and FIGHT CLUB
How does the unreliability of a narrator impact the way a story is told?
AI✦Stu and Mel dissect what makes Jack an unreliable narrator and how his control over the storytelling fundamentally shapes what the audience believes they’re witnessing.✦
Listen to learn how unreliable narrators shape storytelling through voiceover, structure, and control.
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In this episode, Stu and Mel (sans Chas!) take a deep dive into FIGHT CLUB and its use of the unreliable narrator. This is a bridging episode between our previous episode on VOICEOVER and our forthcoming episode on TALKING TO CAMERA as Fight Club does both.… →
Films:
Fight Club (1999)
DZ-110: Voiceover
How can you use voiceover without it feeling like a cheat?
AI✦Voiceover becomes a tool for exposing what characters actually want beneath the surface, and Mel identifies how the timing of that voice determines whether we trust the narrator’s interior truth.✦
Listen to explore how voiceover can set tone, reveal character, enhance empathy, and create tension.
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DZ-109: Talking DIRECTLY to your audience
What are the different ways a filmmaker can ask something of the audience?
AI✦Mel and Stu repeatedly return to the dramatic purpose driving communication: what does the speaker want from the audience, and how does that differ when they’re aware they’re being listened to?✦
Listen if you've wondered what a character actually wants when they're talking directly to the audience!?
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What are the different ways a filmmaker can ask something of the audience… →
Films:
Fight Club (1999)
, Fleabag (2016)
, The Big Short (2015)
, F for Fake (1973)
, Star Wars (1977)
DZ-108: The Emotional Event with Judith Weston
How and why should every scene have an emotional event?
AI✦The episode’s breakdown of each scene hinges on what characters aren’t saying directly, with Judith emphasizing how subtext emerges from the unspoken dynamics between people in a room.✦
Listen to understand why a scene's power lives in what shifts between characters, not what happens to them.
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2023
"don’t put your mind in your opponent’s sword. Don’t put your mind in your opponent’s eyes. Don’t put your mind in your opponent’s feet. Don’t put your mind anywhere, because the whole idea is to achieve a kind of fluid mindlessness that responds to the situation."
DZ-104: Characters Alone - Dramatizing the Internal
How can scenes where characters are alone increase our connection with them?
AI✦Moments of vulnerability in isolation allow characters to shed their social performance, which Chas and Stu argue deepens the audience’s understanding of who they actually are.✦
Listen to understand how solitude reveals character interiority and deepens audience connection
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In this episode, we explore the audience’s connection with characters through the lens of characters being alone… →
DZ-103: Game of the Scene 2 - Triangle of Sadness, The Favourite
How can games elevate dramatic scenes?
AI✦Games reveal character through the competency, decisions, and rule-breaking choices characters make when resources and skills are constrained, forcing them to show who they are through action rather than exposition.✦
Listen to understand how games force characters to interact and reveal themselves (through competency, decisions, and rule-breaking)
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In part two of this two parter, Stu and Chas go further into the game (of the scene) and look at how games force characters other than the protagonist to interact. We deep dive into the wonderful social satires of TRIANGLE OF SADNESS and THE FAVOURITE… →
DZ-100: Scenes through Swords
What scene-writing tools can be learned from martial arts?
AI✦By examining who chooses to engage first and how characters initiate contact, Stu and Damon highlight how agency manifests in the moment-to-moment decisions that drive confrontation.✦
Listen if you want to know why the distance between two characters matters more than what they say.
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In this slightly unusual episode of Draft Zero (but also incredibly on brand), Stu and philosopher-swordsperson Damon Young discuss how the lessons they have learned from martial arts can be applied to scenes. In particular, they discuss how approaching an opponent in a sword fight can be analogous to how characters approach conflict, such as: the distance between the characters, who chooses to engage first, how to feint, how to lure an attack by leaving yourself vulnerable, etc… →
Shows:
The Clone Wars 3x20
DZ-98: Ensembles 3 - Character Function & Theme
What effect does adding a ton of characters have on your story?
AI✦The episode’s central question examines what happens when you add a ton of characters to your story, using THE WOMAN KING, RIDERS OF JUSTICE, and NOPE as case studies in how ensembles function narratively.✦
Listen if you're writing an ensemble storiy and want to understand how different characters serve different narrative and thematic functions!
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In Part 3 (the final part? Ha!) of our exploration into ensemble stories, Stu, Chas & Mel examine films whose genres do not conventionally require a ton of characters or that use those ensembles in unconventional ways. In particular, adding whole storylines that are separate from the main character’s story. To that end, we dive into three films that were horrifically snubbed by the Oscars: THE WOMAN KING, RIDERS OF JUSTICE and NOPE… →
DZ-97: Ensembles 2 - Servicing Characters
How do you give your audience access to a lot of characters?
AI✦Stu, Chas and Mel tackle the structural problem directly: how to give multiple characters dimension and access in films where ensemble size is demanded by genre and plot.✦
Listen if you're writing ensemble stories and want to discover tools for giving all your characters adimension
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In Part 2 of our exploration into ensemble stories, Stu, Chas and Mel examine films whose plot and genre require a lot of characters. Thus we tackle a team sports film (PITCH PERFECT), a murder mystery (GLASS ONION), a slasher (SCREAM 2022) and a family holiday flick (THE FAMILY STONE)… →
Films:
Pitch Perfect (2012)
, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
, Scream (2022)
, The Family Stone (2005)
DZ-96: Ensembles 1 - What do we mean by an ensemble?
How can the same story feel different when you have more characters?
AI✦The entire series kicks off by defining what they mean by calling a story an ensemble and how that designation differs from single-protagonist or two-hander narratives.✦
Listen if you're working on a story with multiple protagonists and want to understand what makes an ensemble different from a single-protagonist narrative
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In the first part of our series on ensembles, Chas, Stu and Mel start by laying the groundwork for our future episodes. And we begin by asking the seemingly innocuous question: What do we mean by calling a story an ensemble?… →
Films:
Jurassic Park (1993)
, Alien (1979)
, Heat (1995)
, Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
, Ocean's Eleven (2001)
2022
DZ-94: Talismans (Part 2)
How can you use physical objects to track character change… wordlessly?
AI✦The entire episode dissects how physical objects become talismans that wordlessly articulate character journeys, tracking three detailed examples across Thor: Love and Thunder, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and In the Mood for Love.✦
Listen to write objects that accumulate powerful meanings across your story and create unspoken emotional payoffs.
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In part two of our two-part series on TALISMANS, we break down the beats used to turn objects (in a broad sense) into talismans; how talismans can track character journeys and transitions; and how they can be used to create powerful moments without words… →
Films:
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
, In the Mood for Love (2000)
DZ-93: Talismans (Part 1)
How can you use physical objects to reveal inner character?
AI✦Chas and Stu build a taxonomy of talismans–physical objects imbued with character meaning–and argue they’re fundamentally different from MacGuffins or other story devices because they reveal inner character rather than merely drive plot.✦
Listen to so you can write talismans that are powerful tools for accessing character!
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In this series, Chas and Stu discuss TALISMANS. Physical objects that are imbued with meaning by a character or characters. They’re a powerful tool to access inner character… →
Films:
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
, In the Mood for Love (2000)
, Cast Away (2000)
, The Dark Knight (2008)
, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
DZ-92: Insightful Recognition in Powerful Endings
How can endings prompt an audience to reflect on your story?
AI✦Chas and Stu discover that the most powerful endings aim anagnorisis at the audience itself, prompting viewers to ask ‘What was that all about?’ rather than leaving the moment of recognition solely with characters.✦
Listen if you want to write endings that make audiences pause and ponder (in a good way, obvs)
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Stu & Chas set out to explore what makes certain endings powerful, in particular those of LA LA LAND, INCEPTION, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and TURNING RED. The lens they bring to those endings is Aristotle’s moment of “anagnorisis” (don’t worry - we can’t pronounce it either), traditionally when a character moves from ignorance to knowledge (particularly of self)… →
DZ-91: Raising (different kinds of) Stakes
How can you keep your audience hooked when they know the end of the story?
AI✦In biopics where the ending is known, Stu and Chas examine what drives characters forward moment-to-moment, separating the what-happens from the why-it-matters.✦
Listen listen if you're writing a biopic or any story where the audience already knows how it ends.
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Chas, Stu and Mel take a deep dive into stakes, using then lens of biopics to help us think about them. If an audience already knows the “plot” outcome of a story, then how do you create stakes to make a story tense for the audience… →
2021
"So say, for example, if I’m to tell a joke about what happened in the news today, even if people don’t know that news story, the joke still has to work."
— Alice Fraser | DZ-83: A Very Thematic Stand-up Special!
DZ-85: Choices & Decisions 2 - The Farewell & Wrath of Man
What is difference between choice and decision when it comes to audience experience?
AI✦The episode’s core framework distinguishes choice (options presented), decision (knowing consideration and action), and consequence, showing how this distinction shapes what audiences feel about characters across three films.✦
Listen when you want to show a character refusing to change despite every opportunity to do so.
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In our second part of our “series” on Choices & Decisions, we take a deep dive into THE FAREWELL and WRATH OF MAN, with a sidebar on NOMADLAND… →
DZ-84: Choices & Decisions 1 - Booksmart
What is the difference between choice and decision when it comes to characters?
AI✦The episode’s central framework distinguishes choice (options presented), decision (knowing consideration and action), and consequence (resulting outcome) as three separable dramatic tools that create different emotional effects.✦
Listen how the separation of choice, decision, and consequence (for a character) creates emotional impact.
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In order to better understand dramatising of character, Chas and Stu take a very draft zero look at very specific tool: choices and decisions. We analyse three films through the decisions made by their characters. In particular, how the audience understanding of: the choice available, the considered decision itself, and the consequence changes how we feel about these characters. And how separating those three things can create different emotional effects on your audience… →
Films:
Booksmart (2019)
, Se7en (1995)
, Star Wars (1977)
, The Farewell (2019)
, Wrath of Man (2021)
, Fleabag (2016)
Shows:
Fleabag
DZ-83: A Very Thematic Stand-up Special!
What can screenwriters learn from the storytelling techniques used by stand-up comedians?
AI✦The ethos pillar of the rhetorical triangle centers on who the storyteller is, and Alice Fraser discusses how a comedian’s perceived authenticity and persona become inseparable from the emotional contract with their audience.✦
Listen you want to understand how stand-up comedians grip audiences and build emotional arcs (and what narrative tools screenwriters can borrow from comedy)!
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Standup comedians can keep audiences gripped to their every word for over an hour, and often bring them to emotional climaxes by the end. So how do they do it and what tools can apply to scripted narratives… →
DZ-79: Interweaving Timelines 2 - The Social Network
How can interweaving two timelines change how we feel about a character?
AI✦Stu, Mel, and Chas specifically investigate how the interweaving timelines change how the audience feels about Mark Zuckerberg across the film, recontextualizing his character through temporal structure.✦
Listen to understand how manage stakes when you're using flashforwards.
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In this Part 2 of Interweaving Timelines (aka The Stu Monologue Episode), Mel, Chas and Stu tackle Sorkin/Fincher’s The Social Network. As you’ll hear, it is clearly Stu’s favourite of the examples we cover and, ah, not Mel’s favourite. While all three bring their own biases and opinions on the reality of Facebook as it has become, we do manage to put the destruction of democracy to one side to actually analyse the meticulous craft that this film displays… →
Films:
The Social Network (2010)
DZ-77: Backmatter - Prioritising and choosing projects
How do you choose which project to start next?
AI✦Stu and Chas spend considerable time waxing lyrical on character journeys–how they develop through a screenplay and what makes them satisfying.✦
Listen if you're starting a new co-writing relationship, managing multiple projects, or wondering how to prioritize your next screenplay.
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In their now-annual full backmatter episode, Stu and Chas let their hair down, drop the guise of objectivity, and allow themselves to have an even more subjective opinion about writing and the business of writing… →
Shows:
The Mandalorian 2x1
DZ-76: Spotlight on Sofia Coppola
What can we learn from Sofia Coppola's on-the-page skills over her career?
AI✦The episode is structured around Coppola’s masterclass in writing character performance on the page–actor catnip that gives performers material to work with rather than strict direction.✦
Listen to discover how Sofia Coppola crafts character performance on the page and uses whitespace to create her distinctive cinematic voice
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Following the success of the Tips from Tarantino episode, we have again decided to look at three different scripts from over the course of a long screenwriting career from a single writer to see what we can learn. Our beloved patreons not only selected Sofia Coppola as said writer, but also selected the scripts to analyse: LOST IN TRANSLATION, THE BLING RING and THE BEGUILED… →
2020
DZ-74: Midsommar & Folk Horror
What can we learn from folk horror?
AI✦The deep dive into toxic relationships and grief reveals how Dani’s underlying psychological pain drives her choices throughout the film and makes her vulnerable to the cult’s manipulation.✦
Listen if you want to understand how folk horror works as a genre and how Ari Aster uses it to explore grief and toxic relationships
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Draft Zero return with their next YouTube livestream! Stu and Chas are joined by previous guest (and successful screenwriter) C.S. McMullen for a deep dive into MIDSOMMAR! We analyse the film through the lens of Folk Horror, but tackle broader topics such as horror vs dread, rising tension, transgressions, unfilmables, and portraying toxic relationships… →
Films:
Midsommar (2019)
DZ-72: Theme & The Story Synopsis - Development Tools 2
How can I develop my theme without writing script pages?
AI✦Understanding theme requires seeing how your protagonist’s internal journey connects to the story’s thematic proposition, which Stephen explores through the lens of WITNESS.✦
Listen tolearn concrete tools for developing theme in the early stages of your writing.
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Continuing our look at tools used in development, Chas & Stu are joined by Stephen Cleary to talk about Theme, The Thematic Logline and what Stephen calls The Story Synopsis. All are tools to help writers better understand their theme and how it is dramatised. We use the classic film WITNESS as an example, so spoilers abound… →
DZ-71: Treatments & Loglines - Development Tools 1
How can I develop my plot before writing the screenplay?
AI✦Character documents are identified as part of the pre-screenplay toolkit, meaning motivation work happens within these short-form development pieces.✦
Listen to understand why a treatment isn't something to dread, but the plot-development tool that saves you months of writing.
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Stu and Chas are joined by fan-favourite, Stephen Cleary, to NOT look at what makes great screenplays work – but what makes great “short documents” work. We draw on Stephen Cleary’s wealth of experience in developing work with writers, as a producer, as a script editor and as a former head of development… →
DZ-70: Joker & Melodrama
How does Joker use melodramatic techniques to elevate its storytelling?
AI✦Joker’s entire narrative architecture turns on Arthur’s accumulated trauma and psychological damage, which Stu and Chas examine as the foundational material that melodrama draws from and amplifies.✦
Listen if you're writing a character whose trauma becomes the engine of your entire narrative.
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Draft Zero return with their next YouTube livestream! Stu and Chas take a deep dive into JOKER and analyse the film through the story paradigm of melodrama. Is it a melodrama? Why or why not does that matter? And does that influence how it has been written on the page… →
Films:
Joker (2019)
DZ-69: Parasite & Audience Questions
How can you use audience questions to heighten emotional investment?
AI✦The film’s refusal to give audiences easy moral answers about its characters’ actions generates persistent questions that deepen investment in their fates.✦
Listen to understand how refusing to give your audience moral clarity can deepen their investment in character fates.
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Draft Zero return with their next YouTube livestream! Stu and Chas take a deep dive into PARASITE and how its mastery of audience questions elevates the film. They then answer listeners questions on PARASITE and much more… →
Films:
Parasite (2019)
DZ-68: Using POV to structure KNIVES OUT
How can shifting narrative point of view drive your sequences?
AI✦The discussion traces how Johnson’s choice of which character’s perspective to privilege in each beat controls information flow and shapes the audience’s investigative journey alongside the detective.✦
Listen to help you master the gap between what your audience knows and what your characters know.
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Born out of isolation madness, this episode is an edited version of Draft Zero’s first YouTube livestream. Stu and Chas both watched KNIVES OUT and - together with our listeners - broke down each sequence and turning point by reference to what the audience knows in relation to the characters (aka narrative point of view). They then answer listener questions on KNIVES OUT and much else besides live on air… →
Films:
Knives Out (2019)
DZ-67: Writing Passive Protagonists & Melodrama
How do I tell a powerful story where the protagonist cannot drive the plot?
AI✦The episode’s central question hinges on how to write powerful stories where protagonists cannot drive the plot–a direct inversion of agency-driven narrative.✦
Listen if you want to write powerful stories centred on characters without much agency.
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Stu and Chas are joined by Stephen Cleary following his exploration into Melodrama, and together they try to reclaim the word from its pejorative meaning… →
Films:
Ladies in Black (2018)
, Marriage Story (2019)
, Pete's Dragon (2016)
, Mildred Pierce (1945)
, Joker (2019)
, The Handmaid's Tale (2017)
, Stranger Things (2016)
, The Witcher (2019)
, Lost (2004)
DZ-66: The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker - Audience Knowledge vs Character Motivation
How does audience knowledge affect your character's motivations?
AI✦The episode’s central question asks how audience knowledge affects character motivations, making this the core craft lens for examining Poe, Rey, Kylo, and Palpatine across these serialized stories.✦
Listen to understand how fan service weaponizes external knowledge against character logic.
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By Order 66: Chas and Stu are joined by special guest - filmmaker Mel Killingsworth - to talk all things Star Wars. Well. Focusing on The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker and wherever else our tangents take us… →
DZ-65: Collaborating with a Director - The Snip
HOw does a writer work with a director (on a short film?)
AI✦Ben discusses directing performance on the page–the craft of writing dialogue and action that gives actors room to inhabit their characters while maintaining the writer’s intention.✦
Listen if you are thinking of producing your own short film!
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This episode, Chas steps down as co-host (kinda) and is interviewed by Stu as a guest, alongside director Ben Mizzi, about the short rom-com that Chas wrote and Ben directed & produced. The episode covers taking an idea from pitch to screen, working with a director, directing performance on the page, and marketing and distribution strategies for short films… →
DZ-64: Backmatter - Controlling your Work, Treatments, and Writing Styles
What can and should you do next?
AI✦David Wappel’s guest contribution on anchoring nouns speaks directly to the craft of writing prose that actors can work with on the page.✦
Listen to understand what you can control in your career--and what you absolutely cannot.
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In our annual Backmatter-only episode, Stu and Chas indulge themselves by offering personal opinions on the life and work of emerging screenwriters based on their own personal experience… →
2019
DZ-63: Tools for Better Dialogue 2 - Hook and Eye
How can you create flow and contrast in your dialogue?
AI✦Stephen’s research into genderlect and the hosts’ focus on the ‘hook and eye’ in dialogue reveals how characters conceal their true intentions beneath what they say.✦
Listen when you're rewriting dialogue and want to create connection between characters.
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A full three years after the first instalment (and one of our most popular), Stu and Chas have kidnapped Stephen Cleary to once again develop some craft tools around dialogue. It would be fair to say that - in that time - all three have learnt a lot more about dialogue than they knew in 2016. It would be also fair to say that Stephen perhaps learnt a little more through his research into “genderlect”… →
DZ-62: Unfilmables 3 - As Ifs & Emotional Context
How do you know if your unfilmable is good... or if you're just being a wanker?
AI✦Carissa Lee’s perspective as an actor performing the excerpts grounds the conversation in what’s actually playable and what feels like writer indulgence on the page.✦
Listen if you want to learn how to write tone and emotional context on the page.
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In this third and final part of our series on unfilmables, Chas and Stu turn their critical eye to… each other’s work! They take their key learnings from the previous episodes and apply them to rewriting scenes from their own projects. They discuss metaphors, emotional context, and how you can write tone on the page without resorting to unfilmables… →
DZ-59: Avengers Endgame - Ending Character Journeys
Do you want your audience feeling with or for your characters?
AI✦Chas and Julio’s disagreement hinges on whether Cap and Tony actually change across Endgame, making character arc construction the central dramatic question of the episode.✦
Listen if you're interested in how to dramatise character change, position your audience in relation to characters, and explore the difference between empathy and sympathy in screenwriting
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One day, Chas saw Avengers: Endgame for the second time and wrote a review on Letterboxd. In particular, he had issues with how little he perceived the characters of Cap and Tony changed within the film, their big finale (spoiler). Then friend and patron of the podcast Julio Olivera vehemently disagreed in the comments. He was egged on by Stu. And there in the comments began a debate that looked a lot like an episode of Draft Zero. So we decided to make it one… →
Films:
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
DZ-58: Game of Thrones - Character Exposition
How can you let your characters tell us how they feel?
AI✦The hosts show how characters ‘screw talking about plot or backstory’ and instead expose their authentic selves–how it feels to be them, how they have or have not changed.✦
Listen to understand why what a character *doesn't* say reveals more than exposition ever could.
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In watching Season 7 (and the first three episodes of Season 8) of Game of Thrones, Stu noticed that there were lots of scenes where characters either met for the first time or were reunited after a long time apart. In these scenes, the audience knows (or thinks they know) more than either character. And so the fascination, power and subversion comes from what the characters choose to reveal… or not… →
Films:
Game of Thrones (2011)
Shows:
Game of Thrones
DZ-56: Character Motivations (Part 2)
Workshopping ways to fix character motivations.
AI✦The entire episode centers on diagnosing and fixing moments where character decisions feel unmotivated, using specific examples from films like INFINITY WAR and SICARIO 2 to show what breaks belief.✦
Listen if you want to understand how character decisions can break a screenplay and how to fix them
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In this second part of their exploration of character motivations, Chas and Stu dive into what makes “BAD” screenplays NOT work. They examine at moments where they (and maybe you, dear listeners) did not believe a key decision being made by a character and so were taken out of the movie. In a departure from the Draft Zero format, they apply the tools they developed in Part 1 to workshop potential fixes to these beats… →
Films:
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
, Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
, Die Hard (1988)
, Predator 2 (1990)
, Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
, Prometheus (2012)
DZ-55: Character Motivations 1
What to do when a reader says "I don't buy that he/she would do that"?
AI✦The episode’s central focus is understanding how to construct motivations that feel earned enough for audiences to believe a character’s decision, especially at key structural moments.✦
Listen if you're writing a scene where your character does something 'out of character' and your readers to buy it.
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Chas & Stu look at examples of good character motivation. We’ve all watched movies where we don’t believe the motivation of a character or characters. We may have even written scripts where readers don’t buy the character’s choices. And that’s often a real problem because most of these choices coincide with key structural moments — e.g. the moments where the characters decide to do something “out of character” in order to progress to the next part of the story. To help us solve the problem of how to improve our character motivations, in this episode we explore great examples of character motivation and how they have helped the audience believe a character’s decision… →
Films:
Arrival (2016)
, Notting Hill (1999)
, Blockers (2018)
, The Matrix (1999)
, Star Wars (1977)
, Game Night (2018)
2018
DZ-53: Antagonists! 5 - vs Audience
What if there is no antagonist?
AI✦The episode’s central mechanism is how these films engage directly with the audience through lying, misdirection, and direct address to keep viewers compelled without traditional antagonistic forces.✦
Listen to turn narrative uncertainty itself into the engine that keeps viewers compelled.
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It’s time. The Epic Deep Dive(TM) into Antagonists has reached its shuddering conclusion. And for this Part V - by choosing films that have no obvious singular antagonist (and in some cases no obvious narrative either) - Stu and Chas realised there was indeed a final category of antagonists: the films themselves. Where the film (and the filmmaker) are engaging directly with the audience. Where the films are… VERSUS AUDIENCE… →
Films:
Ocean's Eight (2018)
, The Second (2018)
, F for Fake (1973)
, Sans Soleil (1983)
, Forrest Gump (1994)
DZ-52: Antagonists! 4 - vs Systems
How do systems pressure your characters to change?
AI✦Chas and Stu frame every character’s journey in relation to how the world’s rules pressure them toward three outcomes: submission, overthrow, or escape–making systemic antagonism the engine of thematic character development.✦
Listen if you want to use how societal, governmental, or environmental forces as villains.
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This is Part Four (!!) of our Five Part Epic Exploration into antagonists forces and sources of conflict. In this episode we explore “system/world/society” antagonists. While stereotypically associated with science-fiction, these sources of conflict are found across genres… →
Films:
Minority Report (2002)
, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
, Mudbound (2017)
, The Lobster (2015)
DZ-51: Antagonists! 3 - vs Nature
What changes in your story if your antagonistic forces can't be bargained with?
AI✦By examining how protagonists are pushed to their limits by antagonists that cannot be reasoned with, the episode shows how external pressure from an unyielding force generates internal transformation.✦
Listen to understand why pressure--not obstacles--is what transforms a protagonist when they face an unstoppable force.
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In this Part Three of our Five Part Epic Exploration™ into antagonistic forces (and sources of conflict), Chas & Stu explore “nature” antagonists, including some supernatural ones. What became clear in doing the homework (and recording this episode twice) was that the antagonistic forces - whether natural or supernatural - presented different narrative challenges to the protagonists if (a) they did not seem to make choices and (b) could not be bargained with or defeated… →
DZ-50: Antagonists! 2 - vs Self
How can characters be their own antagonist?
AI✦The episode examines how a protagonist’s internal flaws become the antagonistic pressure that drives their arc and shapes everyone around them in films like SHAME and MONSTER.✦
Listen if you want to understand how protagonists can serve as their own antagonist and how antagonistic forces shape a character's journey
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In Part Two of our Five Part Epic Exploration™ into antagonists, Chas & Stu take a look at “vs self” stories. Stories where the protagonist (or main character) serves as their own antagonist as well as the antagonist for those around them… →
DZ-48: One-Shot - Blade Runner 2049 - Agency vs Choice
Can your characters be given choices and yet still be deprived of agency?
AI✦CS McMullen reveals that Blade Runner 2049 dramatises characters through binary choices while systematically depriving them of agency–the distinction between being given a choice and having a choice that produces different outcomes.✦
Listen to discover how characters can be dramatised through binary choices (and understand the difference between choice and agency).
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To kick off 2018, Chas and Stu take a deep dive into one of their favourite movies of 2017: Blade Runner 2049. However, they abstained from “Fox News-ing this shit” by being joined by the most accomplished screenwriter they know, C.S. McMullen (Blood List 2017, Black List 2017, also a lover of Blade Runner 2049)… →
Films:
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
DZ-47: Backmatter - A Lost Jedi, White Knighting, and Writers-On-Set
Will Director Stu allow Writer Chas on his set?
AI✦Stu and Chas examine how character actions–and the consequences that follow–fundamentally shape how an audience perceives and judges a character.✦
Listen to understand how consequences (not intentions) impact whether an audience roots for or against your protagonist.
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Following our annual wrap up in 2017, we’ve decided to once again explore what craft issues/lessons we can garner from the latest Stars, namely Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, focusing on how consequences of character actions can do a lot of heavy lifting as to how the audience perceives that character (as well as looking at worldview and overall story structure)… →
2017
DZ-45: Arguments of the Scene
How can you dramatise your theme on a scene level?
AI✦The episode demonstrates how thematic questions operate beneath the surface of individual scenes, connecting character motivation to larger story concerns.✦
Listen to discover how a character's worldview becomes the engine of conflict inside a single scene.
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As part of their ongoing exploration of scene-work, Stu and Chas apply their earlier thinking on theme and character worldview to individual scenes. Can examining a scene from a thematic perspective impact the drama, conflict or stakes of the scene? How does your character’s conscious and subconscious world views dramatise the overall theme of the work? How can an individual scene reflect the larger themes of the overall story? Do any of these questions or approaches lead to writing better scenes… →
DZ-44: Marvel - First Acts and Establishing Characters
How can your first act effectively establish your character journey?
AI✦The episode examines how IRON MAN, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and DOCTOR STRANGE each introduce their protagonists in ways that immediately signal their defining flaws and wounds.✦
Listen if your first act exposition feels clunky--the MCU has a schema for burying backstory inside character introductions.
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First Acts are hard. They have to set so much in motion, especially setting up characters. To help them understand how to write effective first acts better, Stu and Chas turn their analytical gaze to a franchise that has been refining and reiterating its first act “schema” for over a decade… THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE… →
DZ-43: Driving Sequences - Character and Plot Intensity
What gives your sequences their intensity?
AI✦A recurring theme across the episode’s examples is what happens to your story when your protagonist actively decides to abandon the plot, foregrounding choice over external momentum.✦
Listen to understand how dramatic questions shape audience engagement and pacing through sequences.
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Chas and Stu are joined for the fourth time by the inestimable Stephen Cleary - this time to take a deep dive into sequences. A real deep dive. A 3+ hour deep dive… →
Films:
The Bourne Identity (2002)
, Naked (1993)
, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
, There Will Be Blood (2007)
, Fargo (1996)
, Children of Men (2006)
, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
DZ-40: Tactics and Scenes
How do tactics make your characters and scenes more dynamic?
AI✦Tactics are the core subject–how characters pursue their goals in scenes–and Stu and Chas argue they’re revealing of character essence and can drive dramatic change when shifted or thwarted.✦
Listen to learn how a character's tactics reveal who they are under pressure--and how their changing tactics reveals their growth.
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In this episode, Stu and Chas turn their gaze to the “tactics” that characters use in scenes to get what they want. Tactics are how the characters try to achieve their goals and (we reckon) can be revealing of the essence of their character. The shifting and thwarting of tactics can make scenes more dynamic; while over the course of a story, the changing of tactics can reflect the growth of characters… even if their goal stays the same… →
Films:
Zodiac (2007)
, Training Day (2001)
, Hell or High Water (2016)
, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
, Winter's Bone (2010)
DZ-39: Backmatter - Hitting LA, Receiving Feedback, and a Roguish One
How can writers make use of their time when hitting LA?
AI✦Stu and Chas examine character choices in Rogue One to understand how writers can give characters meaningful agency within constrained circumstances.✦
Listen if you're about to network at a festival and have no idea what writers actually do with their time there.
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In another backmatter-only episode, Stu & Chas zig-zag through a range of topics. We talk about Chas’ experience(s) hitting both Los Angeles and the Austin Film Festival, effective networking, career capital, the art of receiving feedback, and Stu’s harsh Three Strikes Rule. We look back at the most important lessons we’ve learned about storytelling in 2016 and that leads us to talk about character choices in a little-known and little-talked about film called ROGUE ONE… →
2016
DZ-37: Excelling at Exposition (Part 1)
How can you successfully integrate exposition into your story?
AI✦Understanding why characters act provides a natural vehicle for exposition, and Stu and Chas use real scenes to show how character desires and backstories can justify why information gets revealed when it does.✦
Listen if your exposition scenes feel like information dumps disguised as dialogue.
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In Draft Zero’s first two part episode, Stu & Chas take an in-depth look at one of screenwriting’s most common challenges: EXPOSITION. For many stories there are pre-existing facts that need to be communicated to the audience — whether those facts be about the rules of the world, the nature of a location, character motivations, character backstories or just character names. So how have great writers made exposition move the story forward, rather than stopping it to tell the audience stuff they need to know… →
Films:
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
, Short Term 12 (2013)
, Inside Out (2015)
, The World's End (2013)
, The Big Short (2015)
, It Follows (2015)
, Jurassic Park (1993)
, Jurassic World (2015)
DZ-35: Driving Characters or Character Driven?
How can films maintain audience interest without stakes or plot questions?
AI✦Stuart and Chas examine how character choice–rather than external plot forces–propels these films forward, making what the protagonist decides the engine of engagement.✦
Listen if you're writing a character study and unsure how to build momentum without external conflict.
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Continuing their focus on “character”, Stuart and Chas take a close look at films that may be considered character-driven… or rather character studies… or just plot-lite films? Whatever you call them, these films — CHEF, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, and AMOUR — let their plots take a back seat to a closer examination of their characters. Stuart and Chas dive in to investigate how, without plot driving the story forward, do these films maintain our interest? We talk Mike Leigh’s idea of the ‘Running Condition’, Character Choice, SceneWork and the myriad other techniques the filmmakers use to keep us interested… →
DZ-34: Game of Choices - Decision Making and Character Implications
How does the experience of a character's decision impact our feelings towards that character?
AI✦Stu and Chas use Sansa’s near-total absence from Battle of the Bastards as a case study in how point of view selection determines what an audience can know and feel about a character’s agency.✦
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After a spectacular end to Season 6 of GAME OF THRONES, Chas and Stu were struck by the very different portrayals of Sansa in Episode 9 - Battle of the Bastards and Cersei in Episode 10 - The Winds of Winter. Despite both characters having an enormous impact on the narrative, the audience’s experience of those characters is very different – largely because Sansa is absent from 98% of Battle of the Bastards… →
Films:
Game of Thrones (2011)
DZ-33: Protagonist vs Hero - Dawn of Character Function
How does splitting 'character functions' enhance theme?
AI✦The episode’s central argument is that splitting protagonist, hero, and active character functions across multiple characters allows you to reinforce theme rather than concentrating all three in a single primary character.✦
Listen to see how splitting character functions across your cast sharpens what your story actually means.
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We are often told that our ‘protagonist’ needs to be a active. That they need to be compelling. That they need to change. And - old faithful - that they need to be likeable. But after looking at MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, STAR TREK (2009), THE FIGHTER, and SICARIO, Chas and Stu learn that your primary character does not need to do all these things. In fact, they learn that splitting these functions between your primary characters can reinforce theme and create potential for different types of narratives… →
DZ-31: Tools for Better Dialogue 1
How does dialogue serve to reveal character?
AI✦The episode examines how dialogue reveals characterization by making characters sound like themselves rather than mouthpieces for exposition or theme.✦
Listen if your want your dialogue to individualizes characters, reveal characterization, and shift status!
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Chas & Stu are joined once again by the renowned script developer and producer, Stephen Cleary. In the first part of our series on writing better dialogue (there will be more!), we take a close look at how dialogue serves character: individuating characters, revealing characterisation, shifting status, and much more… →
Films:
Analyze This (1999)
, Notting Hill (1999)
, The Remains of the Day (1993)
, The Avengers (2012)
DZ-29: Showdowns & Scene Structure
What can fight scenes - whether physical or verbal - teach us about structuring any scene?
AI✦Each character in a fight–whether throwing punches or insults–pursues a specific tactical objective, and understanding what each combatant wants in the moment is what makes the scene land.✦
Listen to discover how fight scenes can be great inspiration for writing any kind of showdown (verbal or otherwise)
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In exploring how to write good fight scenes, Stu and Chas compare how writers structure memorable showdowns - both verbal and physical. Fights vs arguments. Swords vs insults. Lightsabres vs passive aggressive subtext. To do this, they analyse the showdowns in EASTERN PROMISES, ROB ROY, THE FORCE AWAKENS (yes, yes, we finally let Stu officially discuss Star Wars), A FEW GOOD MEN, BREAKING BAD and BEFORE SUNSET… →
Films:
Eastern Promises (2007)
, Rob Roy (1995)
, A Few Good Men (1992)
, Before Sunset (2004)
, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
2015
DZ-26: Horror and Collaboration- Wolf Creek 2
How does a screenwriter collaborate with a director on an existing property?
AI✦Horror screenwriting, particularly in a franchise context, hinges on how much control characters retain when the genre demands vulnerability, a tension Aaron and Chas likely examine through WOLF CREEK 2’s choices.✦
Listen if you're co-writing and need to figure out where your voice ends and your collaborator's begins.
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In this halloween special, Chas (sans Stu) is joined by a very special guest… Aaron Sterns the co-writer of WOLF CREEK 2 – the big budget sequel to the infamous WOLF CREEK, also directed by Greg McLean. Chas and Aaron talk horror, anti-horror, collaboration, novels and how a screenwriter works within an existing franchise… →
DZ-22: Romantic Comedy, Actually
How can studying RomCom clichés teach us to subvert them?
AI✦The deep analysis of films like When Harry Met Sally and 500 Days of Summer reveals how character desire drives the romantic comedy forward and keeps audiences invested.✦
Listen if you're writing a romcom and want to understand what makes this gentre tick.
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With Stu busy working on Hollywood blockbusters, Chas is joined by Alli Parker (script department on Aussie TV series and former co-ordinator of European #scriptchat) to unpick successful romcoms to see if they can illuminate a path for writers working in this struggling genre. Cheap to produce and potentially highly lucrative, Chas and Alli look at RomCom’s conventions to see what it may take to reinvigorate this genre… →
Films:
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
, (500) Days of Summer (2009)
, The Proposal (2009)
, Notting Hill (1999)
DZ-20: Writing Strong Secondary Characters - Trinity, Bechdel and a Bamboo Killer
How can the Trinity Syndrome help you write better secondary characters?
AI✦Chas, Stu, and Emily dissect the Trinity Syndrome’s core critique–a ‘Strong Female Character With Nothing To Do’–which is fundamentally a problem of characters lacking meaningful choices and impact on the story.✦
Listen when you're writing secondary female characters and need them to have more depth.
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Chas & Stu are joined by Bamboo Killer (aka Emily Blake) - one of the co-hosts of the Chicks Who Script podcast. They take a critical look at secondary female characters in mainstream movies through the lens of the oft-cited Bechdel test and the new, less-cited, Trinity Syndrome. The Trinity Syndrome berates movies for creating a “Strong Female Character With Nothing To Do” (like Trinity in the Matrix sequels) and raises a list of questions for filmmakers to ask themselves about their (female) characters… →
Films:
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
, Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
DZ-19: Car-Crash Characters
How do you make unlikeable characters compelling to watch... in drama?
AI✦Stu and Chas build a toolkit specifically for making asshole protagonists–deeply flawed, morally compromised, or reprehensible characters–compelling enough to sustain a drama.✦
Listen when you're writing a protagonist who does terrible things but you need the audience to keep watching.
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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 asshole protagonists compelling to watch. We expand our original list of five writer’s tools to include a few more for your tool belt… →
DZ-18: Michael Bay - F*ing the Frame and P*ing the Page
Are there screenwriting lessons to be taken from analysing the work of Michael f-ing Bay?
AI✦Bitter Script Reader demonstrates how Michael Bay constructs villains with clear functional purpose within the narrative machinery, rather than treating antagonists as mere obstacles.✦
Listen to understand how one of the world's highest-grossing directors structures story, makes great villians, controls information flow, and makes visual decisions on the page
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Of course there are. How could there not be? After all, Michael Bay is the 3rd highest grossing director at the worldwide box office… of all time. Behind, y’know, Spielberg and stuff. How could a man of such credentials not know story? Or, so argues this week’s guest: the author of MICHAEL F-ING BAY: THE UNHERALDED GENIUS IN MICHAEL BAY’S FILMS… [drumroll]… the Bitter Script Reader… →
2014
"There’s no lesson plan. If you want to be like I’m going to start at episode one and by episode 56, I’ll have written my first feature? Not going to happen."
— Stu Willis | DZ-0: Welcome to Draft Zero
DZ-14: Writing For Actors with Succession's Sarah Snook
How can we make our screenwriting more appealing to Actors?
AI✦Sarah Snook brings an actor’s perspective to what makes a script compelling to perform, helping writers understand how to craft material that gives performers something to work with.✦
Listen to understand how writers can craft more compelling material for actors (and how they approach scripts)
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In this episode, Chas and Stu are joined by a very special guest, SARAH SNOOK - star of Succession, Predestination, Jessabelle, and Oddball, amongst many others - to discuss ACTING and it’s relationship with WRITING… →
DZ-13: True That - Tips from Tarantino
What is it about Tarantino's *writing* that elevates his work?
AI✦Understanding what drives Tarantino’s characters–and what they’re concealing–becomes central to understanding how his scripts generate their particular dramatic irony.✦
Listen to steal Tarantino's technique for planting details that detonate as payoffs three scenes later.
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Chapter 1: Of Milk and Men… →
Films:
True Romance (1993)
, Inglourious Basterds (2009)
, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2011)
, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
, Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
DZ-12: Craft, Career and Coffins
It's the The Podcast You Used To Know…
AI✦Tash’s experience in front of the camera informs how she thinks about writing for performers, giving her a unique perspective on the writer-actor relationship.✦
Listen if you're navigating multiple creative disciplines and wondering how to build a sustainable career across them.
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Well, half of us is… Chas (sans Stu) is joined by a very special guest - Natasha Pincus. As a screenwriter, Tash’s feature CLIVE was on the 2012 Black List. As a director, her music video for Goyte’s Someone I Used To Know was nominated for an MTV Music Video Award. And at the time of this recording, her debut feature as a screenwriter FELL was weeks away from opening night… →
Films:
Fell (2014)
DZ-11: Adventure for the MacGuffin!
Is the MacGuffin truly interchangable, and how does it impact on your character writing?
AI✦Brad Johnson and the hosts demonstrate that what the protagonist wants–the MacGuffin itself–directly shapes whether an action-adventure film succeeds or fails at the character level.✦
Listen to discover why the MacGuffin's emotional weight--not its function--determines whether your audience cares enough to follow the entire adventure.
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Stu and Chas are joined by a special guest - Scriptmag contributor Brad Johnson - to discuss how the choice of the MacGuffin can impact on the quality of an action/adventure film. To test this thesis, our heroes compare the auspicious originals of two iconic franchise with their, um, less-than-auspicious 4th instalments (in other words we compare RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK with KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL and THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL with ON STRANGER TIDES) as well as look at two recent & original entries into the genre, namely NATIONAL TREASURE and PRINCE OF PERSIA… →
Films:
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
, National Treasure (2004)
, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
DZ-10: Midpoint Reversals and The Ride
How can the middle of your film pivot so much that it pulls the rug out of your audience?
AI✦Examining films like Prisoners and Short Term 12 alongside ALIEN reveals how a midpoint shift resets the protagonist’s motivation, forcing them to pursue a new or inverted goal.✦
Listen when your second act sags and you need a structural jolt to accelerate audience engagement.
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Stu and Chas embark on the first of a series of explorations into the dreaded Second Act. Their first stop is midpoint reversals or shifts, a plot point bang in the middle of ACT II that changes the protagonist’s goal, raises the stakes and potentially leaves your audience leaning forward and asking “How the hell is this going to end?&rdquo… →
Films:
Death at a Funeral (2007)
, Prisoners (2013)
, Short Term 12 (2013)
, Alien (1979)
, Aliens (1986)
, The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
, Full Metal Jacket (1987)
, Philomena (2013)
, How I Live Now (2013)
, Elysium (2013)
, Die Hard (1988)
, Star Wars (1977)
DZ-9: Characterising Introductions
Can the introduction of a character be so good that the character doesn't need describing?
Stu and Chas argue about different techniques for introducing characters and whether character descriptions are even necessary. This is important for writers, as we only have words to compensate for the whole range of cinematic expression. And so Chas and Stu explore techniques like introducing characters through action, having other people discuss the character first, ensuring the introduction represents the character’s goal/flaw/theme, and many more… →
⏱ 1h 22m
Listen if you want your character introductions to pop!
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Stu and Chas argue about different techniques for introducing characters and whether character descriptions are even necessary. This is important for writers, as we only have words to compensate for the whole range of cinematic expression. And so Chas and Stu explore techniques like introducing characters through action, having other people discuss the character first, ensuring the introduction represents the character’s goal/flaw/theme, and many more… →
DZ-8: Status Transactions
How does a shift in status or power reveal character?
AI✦Characters reveal themselves through how they pursue, defend, or surrender status within a scene, making tactics the operational tool Stu and Chas use to track these power negotiations.✦
Listen to make your character relatinships more dynamic.
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Stu and Chas explore an idea they both came across studying theatre: status and by extension (or juxtaposition) power. Is a story where a character changes status or experiences loss (or gains) in power more compelling… →
Films:
The King's Speech (2010)
, The Princess Bride (1987)
, The Social Network (2010)
, True Grit (2010)
DZ-7: On Rewriting - How much Bull is left in the Hustle?
What can be gleamed from the substantial rewrite of a famed spec?
AI✦By comparing Singer’s original script with O’Russell’s version, the hosts examine how character trajectories were altered in the rewrite process.✦
Listen to learn how impactful rewriting can be.
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Stu and Chas look at AMERICAN BULLSHIT (the 2010 Black List spec script by Eric Warren Singer) and the film it became… AMERICAN HUSTLE (co-written and directed by David O’Russell), which garnered 10 Oscar nominations in 2014… →
Films:
American Hustle (2013)
DZ-6: Key Scenes and Unlocking the Story
Can one scene be the key to unlocking the whole story?
AI✦Stephen’s observation hinges on having your characters figured out first, meaning their motivations must be clear enough that they’ll naturally reveal your story’s architecture in a single scene.✦
Listen if you want to understand how a single key scene between protagonist and antagonist can unlock the entire structure of your story!
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DZ-3: Making Unlikeable Protagonists Compelling
How do you make obnoxious a-holes compelling
AI✦Stu and Chas use HOT FUZZ, AS GOOD AS IT GETS, GROUNDHOG DAY, and ANCHORMAN to dissect how filmmakers construct protagonists who are genuinely obnoxious but still compel an audience to keep watching.✦
Listen if you want to understand how filmmakers make audiences care about deeply flawed protagonists
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Stu and Chas delve into unlikable protagonists in comedy. How do filmmakers keep us watching characters who should alienate us? To answer this question, Stu and Chas look at the first 20 pages of HOT FUZZ, AS GOOD AS IT GETS and - of course - GROUNDHOG DAY… →
DZ-1: Do Screenplay Gurus win you Oscars?
Do Oscar-Nominated screenwriters follow the structural formulas prescribed by the 'gurus' and books?
AI✦Stu identifies Dallas Buyers Club’s arc as Ron’s journey ‘from helping himself to helping other people,’ a throughline that repeats cyclically rather than hitting traditional turning points.✦
Listen if you want to know whether Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler's structural theories actually apply to Academy Award-nominated screenplays
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In this, our debut episode of Draft Zero, Stu and Chas analyse two screenplays nominated for Academy Awards in 2014 – PHILOMENA and DALLAS BUYERS CLUB – to see whether they follow the structural theories espoused by Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler. We discuss character dynamics, structural challenges, and the complexities of narrative… →
DZ-0: Welcome to Draft Zero
What, exactly, is Draft Zero?
AI✦Chas mentions exploring scenarios where ‘your protagonist doesn’t go on any journey at all’ and might be ‘a point of view protagonist,’ which centers character agency rather than obligatory character arcs.✦
Listen if you're new to the podcast and want to understand our philosophy on screenwriting craft!
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Welcome to Draft Zero. A message from 2019 to those starting with our first episodes dating from 2014. We’ve learned a lot in five years. So where do you begin… →