Ron Howard

Director

Films Discussed 3

Draft Zero Episodes 2

DZ-129: Steadfast Character Arcs - Agents of Change

How do you write a satisfying story when your character never changes

Do characters need to change for you to have a satisfying story? That’s a question we’ve been asking since, like, episode five of this podcast. And we’re finally talking about them - whatever you call ’em: steadfast, resilent, or flat arcs… →

1 AUG 2026

Character · Structure · Audience

Listen to learn how to move an audience with a character who never changes.

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Films: Moana (2016) , The Dressmaker (2015) , Apollo 13 (1995)

Character: Character Arcs , Relationships , Character Agency

Structure: Emotional Event , Setups & Payoffs , Stakes

Audience: Emotional Impact

DZ-56: Character Motivations 2

Workshopping ways to fix character motivations.

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… →

⏱ 2h 16m

30 MAR 2019

Character · Process · Audience

Listen if you want to understand how character decisions can break a screenplay and how to fix them

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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)

Character: Character Motivation , Character Agency , Internal Journey , Subtext

Process: Craft Tools

Audience: Audience Sympathy