Story Elements

Character

1. My character arc would be a tragic one, where the protagonist starts out as a good, hard-working student but ends up as a junkie due to alcohol and drug addictions.

2. I will apply the Peeling the Onion by showing the protagonist slowly falling into the addiction of drugs and alcohol. The protagonist will slowly become a totally different person.

3. The main character will earn Universal Empathy due to the facts that, he is a hard working student who is just looking for an escape from his boring school life, and that he will struggle so much to get his life straight after his addictions. These will earn many empathies from the audience and help them connect to the main character.

4. The Protagonist will be a dynamic character, because his personality and characteristics will change dramatically due to the addictions. 

5. The Antagonist will be a static character, because she will constantly have the mysterious aura and personality. She will stay mysterious and dangerous throughout the film.

6. The minor characters will be flat, because they will be the same friends of the Protagonist who will continue living their lives without any changes.

Conflict

1. The main tension will be the Protagonist's struggle to stay away from the mysterious girl, the Antagonist. The Protagonist enjoys spending time with the mysterious girl, but his friends are telling him to stay away from her, because she is a bad influence. The Protagonist will struggle to choose between his old, boring life or the new excitement and thrill he has been searching for. 

2. For the Character Lock, the Protagonist will change internally, giving in to to the addictions of drugs and alcohol. However, that poor choice will leave his life in ruins, forcing him to try to change once again, to set his life straight.

3. The Forced Action will occur when the Protagonist realizes that there was no mysterious girl to start with, that he was an addict to drugs and alcohols. The Protagonist must accept the terrible reality and get help.

4. The high stake for the Protagonist will be continuing to meet the mysterious girl, because that means he will give up his old life as a hard working student and search for the new thrill in life. 

Plants and Payoffs

1. I will plant the information that the mysterious girl is a bad influence that will drive the Protagonist into struggles and pain. The Protagonist will be obsessed with the girl, and he will even skip school to spend more time with the girl. These menacing actions will hint to the audience that the mysterious girl is the Antagonist.

2. The film's throughline, or the main idea, will be that the Protagonist will slowly fall victim to the mysterious girl, and his life begins to fall apart. 

Plot

1. The catalyst of the film will be when the Protagonist gets invited to a party where obviously the bad things will happen. At this party, the Protagonist will meet the mysterious girl, and become obsessed with her.

2. The biggest conflict will be the Protagonist's struggle to choose between continue his old, boring cycle as a good student or continue his meeting with the mysterious girl, whom everyone calls it a bad influence. 

The Top 3 Qualities Directors Look For When Casting Actors

Podcast and Chat Text of the Live Filmmaking Chat from Monday, December 12, 2011 “The top 3 qualities directors look for when casting actors”:




I would like you to join me for a Live Online Chat on Monday, December 12 from 7:00pm-9:00pm PST. (Los Angeles/Vancouver time.)

TOPIC: “The top 3 qualities directors look for when casting actors.”

Casting is the “bottleneck” of the film industry. It’s a place where both sides of the table have only a few minutes to make choices – choices that can affect all of our careers.

The Casting session (the “audition”) can be a terrifying place for any actor. It takes a lot of guts to walk into a small, windowless room and have 5 – 10 minutes to “show your stuff” in front of complete strangers.

But it’s just as tough for the Director and Producers as well! How can we correctly decide, in less than 10 minutes, who is right for a particular part?

In this live chat, we will discuss the top three qualities director’s look for in an actor during the audition:

1) Do they look the part?

2) Do they have range?

3) Can they take direction?

Casting sessions are also a very useful way to improve your script. When you listen to actors performing a scene in the script, you get a real feel for the words and how they flow when different actors read the same scenes. You can see (or hear) what works and what doesn’t. It is from the casting session that many of your script changes will happen.

To sign in to the chat on Monday night, look at the bottom right of this page and you will see a blue bar that will say “Live Chat – Monday, Dec. 12 (7pm PST)“. Just click on that link and sign up to the chat room by either using your Facebook or Twitter account.

If you don’t see the blue bar when you first arrive at my website, please refresh your browser. If you still cannot see the blue bar at the bottom of the page, please email me at pdm@actioncutprint.com and let me know. I have just started testing this live chat program so I don’t know all the bugs yet. I do know that Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari work well.

So please mark your calendar for Monday, December 12 from 7:00pm-9:00pm PST. I look forward to seeing you there.