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Relationships

Every episode covering Relationships.


"You don’t need it. You could just have her leaning on his shoulder, and that says everything about the emotional event. They have come closer, but I do think what it is that Bond has actually offered her that allows her to be closer to him is his complete absence of judgment of her."

— Chas Fisher  |  DZ-108: The Emotional Event with Judith Weston


KEY IDEAS

Relationships as Plot Lines

"Your quote unquote plot lines are just relationships. I think that is a really great way of, if you were to break it down, reading the script and seeing how those plot lines come in and out."

— Mel Killingsworth (01:09:32) · DZ-125: Oscars One-shot - BLUE MOON

Gestures as an Emotional Event

"You don't need it. You could just have her leaning on his shoulder, and that says everything about the emotional event. They have come closer, but I do think what it is that Bond has actually offered her that allows her to be closer to him is his complete absence of judgment of her."

— Chas Fisher (00:56:18) · DZ-108: The Emotional Event with Judith Weston

Secondary Romance as Midpoint Support

"a lot of rom-coms in the 30s and 40s had a secondary or tertiary romance that helped carry that midpoint through. And a lot of romances now, a lot of rom-coms are starting to do the same thing because that's super helpful and it helps both break it up and also can parallel and can cause other events."

— Mel Killingsworth (00:16:10) · DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?

Discovering World and Relationships in the Pilot

"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."

— Mel Killingsworth (00:21:21) · DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?



DZ-108: The Emotional Event with Judith Weston

How and why should every scene have an emotional event?
AIThe entire episode rests on thinking about scenes through relationships rather than plot, asking how a scene alters the connection between two characters instead of how it advances story.
⏱ 1h 37m
31 MAR 2024
Listen to understand why a scene's power lives in what shifts between characters, not what happens to them.
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DZ-125: Oscars One-shot - BLUE MOON

What craft tools make a low-budget, contained, period drama riveting?
AIChas identifies how Larry’s complicated dynamics with Rogers and Elizabeth function as emotional barometers: the way these people feel about Larry is how the audience is meant to feel about him, making relationship texture do plot work.
⏱ 1h 18m
26 FEB 2026
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…


DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

How is the effect of breaking the 4th wall different to voiceover?
AIThe Backmatter deep dive takes up how breaking the fourth wall fundamentally changes the relationship between viewer and character, making it a relational rather than purely mechanical device.
⏱ 1h 52m
31 JUL 2024
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-63: Tools for Better Dialogue 2 - Hook and Eye

How can you create flow and contrast in your dialogue?
AIThe hook and eye technique and contrast between characters are fundamentally about how dialogue maps relationship--what affinity or antagonism exists beneath the words.
⏱ 1h 58m
31 DEC 2019
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-20: Writing Strong Secondary Characters - Trinity, Bechdel and a Bamboo Killer

How can the Trinity Syndrome help you write better secondary characters?
AIThe Bechdel Test’s emphasis on female characters talking to each other about something other than men becomes a proxy for examining the relational depth and mutual significance of secondary female characters.
⏱ 1h 18m
2 APR 2015
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…


DZ-11: Adventure for the MacGuffin!

Is the MacGuffin truly interchangable, and how does it impact on your character writing?
AIThe core insight that emerges is that the protagonist-MacGuffin relationship functions as the emotional spine of adventure stories, and that dynamic can teach you something about character writing applicable across all genres.
⏱ 1h 49m
30 JUL 2014
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…


DZ-8: Status Transactions

How does a shift in status or power reveal character?
AIStatus and power are relational forces that live between characters, and the episode uses this lens to show how dynamic character relationships become more compelling through hierarchical shifts.
⏱ 1h 32m
10 JUN 2014
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…