Character Arcs

"I really like David Mamet's definition of a character being habitual action. That's his interpretation of Aristotle, that all a character is is habitual action. And therefore, I think, when... talking about a character change, you're talking about a character's habits changing, right? And therefore, you know, and the other derivation of that is that that means the film has to do enough setup to understand what a character's habit is. And then it needs enough payoff to understand that it wasn't just a one-off thing that they did, but it's actually going to stick."

"If you never have any doubts ad you never sort of falter: you're a psychopath, you're not steadfast. If you have a character who is steadfast, obviously there's doubting and there's wobbling and that's part of what makes it interesting. But also that also tripping you up, that stubbornness, that determination, that steadfastness being the thing that trips you up, like the dramatic irony there is really juicy."

"To define how I think of steadfast, it's the person whose... resilience and stubbornness affects others, right? So, that's their steadfast in the belief... The most common example (and it's actually where I first heard of this terminology( is in the Hunger Games because Katniss' belief changes others. It's not that she changes her belief, her belief is able to change others."

"What makes this work story-wise and keeps compelled is that it has emotional events regardless. And I think Apollo 13 has emotional events between the characters. If anything, the only thing that changes is the relationship between characters. I don't think they change the world. They don't come back and be like, we found water on Mars. You know, it's kind of, and maybe that's true of all survival stories, or maybe they don't, they're just compelling because the external stakes are so high."

"I think you need internal and external challenges and I think the external challenges should be both friendly and non-friendly; which you get in Moana. Like you need a multitude of challenges to, not just prove the steadfastness but to show it in in a dynamic and interesting way and you get that in this you have the fact that her, right at the start her dad's like no you're not going to do this right and then she goes off and she finds a frenemy... who also challenges her ability to do that... and then she finds agiant crab that is like aha you know and then she finds a range of different friends, frenemies, and enemies who challenge it, and that keeps it interesting and shows the resilience and steadfastness while also keeping it dynamic."

"It is at that lowest point that the story world punishes her so dramatically that it reinforces and puts her back into the mental position that she was at the beginning of the film. Even though we're saying it's fairy tale and it's funny and there are, lots of those kind of elements to it, I just found it interesting that they had her steadfastness be the reason why the mission almost fails."

"There are two layers to the character's arc, or three really, which is what happens to the character: do they change? Or not change? For the better or worse? What is the character's experience of that or belief of that? Do they believe they've changed for better or for worse? And then the third is what is the audience perspective on that? So a character can change, that's the first kind of filter: have they changedm have they not? Then there's the judgment layer from the character which is: do I believe this is for the better or for the worse? And then there's our perception of that."

"I think one of the things I'm coming into with arcs is how are you creating contrast? Not just the contrast over time or forward from the character that they go from, they're hateful, now they're loving, which is, we'll go into the specifics of that, but how we even understand that as a thing. How do we understand that these characters' values exist is about contrast, that we, in that point of time, understanding that this person has underdog values, to use the Michael Hauge term, because he's talking about character arcs when he's talking about the philosophical stakes or the values. Oh, this is underdog value you have to have contrast around it."

"I think, very, very explicitly, and I can point to a couple of specific shows and movies and whatever, that when I was young, that film and television were my way out of a very bad situation. And it wasn't a conscious thing, but it was very much that through learning about these outside experiences, these experiences completely outside of my own even conception, you know, as a child and a teenager, I was able then to finally manage to A, see that the situation I was in was sub-ideal, and B, see an alternative and see characters that I didn't. Idealized or even aspects of them, if not specific, oh, I want to be like them. Oh, but I want that stubbornness or I want that, you know, zest for the truth, or I want that fight or I want that whatever specific aspect of this character to follow."

"Character arcs whether you have them or not can reveal the value system of the characters and whether that's punished or rewarded can reveal the value system of the world that they're in. And by extension, what it is that you as the filmmaker is trying to say one way or another."

"When or how did the film (and I'm using film shorthand for film and television) teach us as the audience to expect whether characters will change or not? Because... I think it's so important I think the story will set us up in a way, to expect characters to change or not and then either subvert that expectation or not. But I think it's an important tool for us to look at these stories that we're going to be diving into and go, how have they set us up to what are the expectations? That the film, that the story is setting up for us in the beginning?"

"He refuses the call."

"he has realized that okay well the system is it doesn't just not serve me it is out to get me and therefore all i could do is survive and and that's what his decisions are based on his decisions to continue to cover up for mouse his decisions to like you said not do anything with those photos"

"I think the two main things that I find really need fixing when I hit the end of my first drafts is that I've updated the character sheet, but now I realize the whole first half, everything they're doing makes no sense. The other thing is that if you have an ensemble piece, all of the characters sound quite the same."

"For me, as I start writing the pilot, I'm figuring out a little bit about the world, about how the character, not just the characters, but how their relationships work."

"What I call this is, I think there's a subplot and both Eve and Rayon are part of this, is it's the battle for Ron's soul. They're his antagonists for being a good person."