Characters Are What They Do... Not Who They Were - Jill Chamberlain
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- Опубликовано: 11 мар 2024
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In this Film Courage video we ask Jill Chamberlain her thoughts on writing a character's biography or backstory in relation to the screenplay or story.
Jill Chamberlain is the founder of a screenwriting school, a script consultant, a screenwriter, and the author of The Nutshell Technique: Crack the Secret to Successful Screenwriting.
The Nutshell Technique is considered the go-to manual many professionals swear by. It's on the syllabus at film schools all over the world and has been published in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Italian, and in audiobook format.
As a script consultant, Jill has fixed and fine tuned scripts for Oscar-nominated screenwriters, top television showrunners, screenwriters whose movies have made over a billion dollars at the box office, award-winning independent filmmakers, and for many, many spec script writers.
In 2006, Jill founded The Screenplay Workshop with Jill Chamberlain (www.thescreenplayworkshop.org) where she has personally taught thousands of screenwriters feature film and episodic television writing. Complete beginners to Emmy-winning screenwriters and award-winning producers enroll in her classes.
Find out more about her and her script consultancy at jillchamberlain.com.
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Jill is probably the best guest you ever had. Sharp and to the point.
Agree
Yeah. I love the story of the Italian sea captain.
I always find Film courage insightful.
I totally understand the point, but sometimes there is a situation where you're struggling with a character. Digging deep helps you to understand why they do something and behave in a certain way. If you found the reason, there is no need to dig deeper. The character I struggled with has now one of the best artworks in my character sheets.
Digging deep can help, but I think her advice is that this could also lead to a writer not being flexible with that character down the line. Her point was, if I’m l understanding correctly, that if you’re struggling with finding out who a character is, it would help you even more to create an obstacle for the character and then force that character to make a choice. Whatever they choose is who they are as a person regardless of whatever previously made backstory is written for them
@@MrJackarow Plus not weighing the character down with backstory keeps the character more elastic in the reader's mind. You want the character's significant choices to feel constitutionally difficult, near undecidable, and then once made, with the consequences unfolding, that decision should haunt what follows.
I think she was trying to say that sometimes the story matters more than the person behind it.
If I was to make that movie I wouldn’t make a biopic, I would very very briefly go over his life and go straight into the incident and indulge on the peoples lives who passed, how it affected their families, friends, and colleges and how their lives intertwined and affected that character of the incident - along with his life and the people in it that ultimately shaped him afterward. I would much more care about how this person is going to be shaped afterward, more than how he got to where he was in the first place. If this makes sense
Character profiles are far more useful as an actor than as a screenwriter. But motivations are important.
Not even the best actor can rescue the character if the character is implausibly written
And you want to leave room in the character for actors to invent.
“A famous explorer once said that the extraordinary is in what we do, not who we are.”
I don’t know, most people would not do what this man did. So knowing his “why” would be helpful to bring this story to life.
A lot of scripts could be much shorter if they followed this advice.
Indeed, and we would probably see a bit less scripts that (supposedly) 'needed' the flashbacks that their authors felt the need to put in.
Excellent writing advice. Straight to the point. I don't know anything about screenwriting, so I like to learn about it from this channel. Thank you so much Jill and Film Courage.
Jill's book The Nutshell Technique is just as insightful and informative as her appearances on Film Courage. Her views are totally original.
I get what this lady is saying on some points; I've also seen those Character Profile Sheets where the list includes stupid things like 'Favourite colour,' 'Favourite food,' 'earliest childhood memory,' - and yeah, they're useless in terms of defining who that character is. But there have been many times in my stories where the most natural progression from what's already happened is for 'someone' in my cast to do a particular thing - and I need to make sure it's the RIGHT character, doing it for the RIGHT reason. THAT's where knowing at least something about your casts' backgrounds is useful; if one of them is harbouring a guilty secret, or has an emotional demon from their past, THAT might be the thing that makes THEM the right character for the job.
Of course I'll also admit that knowing this stuff about my characters rarely comes for me until I'm deep into writing the story; I certainly don't start with ready-made characters with full backstories before I've even written 'Chapter One' on the page. Rather, I put them into the story setting first and 'watch' what they do, and THEN start to analyse why they might do those things, as opposed to taking some alternative action. THAT's where my backstories come from - it's a retroactive process, letting them do the thing and them working backwards to find out the why.
it's time saver advice. allows you to tell beautifully structured story and add authenticity later .
I agree that backstories or bios/profiles for characters are not often significantly beneficial or necessary.
The danger of arbitrarily requiring backstories for characters is that you risk becoming enamored with a character as defined by a backstory, which is set in stone because it is "finished" while the story you're conceiving has yet to be written. You then hesitate to change such characters from what has already been established in their backstory. This is a problem for a protagonist who is meant to go through a transformative process culminating by the story's conclusion.
The transformative process is usually full of pain and suffering for characters so if you're attached to a character, you're going to avoid actually putting them through a true transformation. This is where a lot of stories fail when they have a protagonist that doesn't have any flaw that isn't superficial to overcome through their journey.
Don't write bios/backstories unless absolutely necessary. Otherwise, you'll likely fall in love with a character and protect it from serving the story's needs.
I really like this perspective, it feels liberating!
I love Jill Chamberlain. During the pandemic I watched her nutshell video multiple times.
I agree that we don't need to do a full biography of the main character but what we do and who we are in the present is shaped by the past, so some idea about how the character came to do what he/she is doing is important. In the example of the captain if we just get that he managed to sink the ship and then fled I would just "Why the heck did he do that?". About over research, totally agree that that may come to bite the writer in the butt.
Knowing more about the character's background doesn't mean we should do a boring info dump somewhere in the story.
Valuable and helpful advice. Thank you, Jill and Film Courage, for sharing.
Sorkin and Mamet have said similar thing about the irrelevance of elaborate back stories.
I write and research at the same time.
It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.
Do you write bios for your characters? How long does it take you?
No, I start with their Enneagram personality...and where they are along the unhealthy, average or healthy level. That determines their behavior and how far I have to go in their character arc to take them from unhealthy to healthy, in an Aristotelian comedy.
I do a bare bones bio. I like knowing certain key things about them: a strong like, a strong dislike, their goal in the story, what they worship (i.e. God, spirituality, money, self, etc...) and what they look like. That's usually about it. The rest gets filled in as I go about writing.
I think different characters require different amounts of backstory, depending on the plot.
For example, in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films, Peter Parker's backstory IS the story, and it informs everything the character does and how he thinks about things. On the other hand, the whole point of Mark Hamill's Joker is that he's just a chaotic villain, and that a backstory would just cheapen that aspect. The "Mad Love" story featuring mocks the very idea of a Joker backstory, with Harley trying to rationalize and humanize a character that is beyond all rationality or humanity. It's enough for Joker to be entertaining us in the present, without burdening him with a complicated backstory. (Well, as least as far as THAT Joker is concerned)
I'm not sure. It depends on how it's done. I'm sure you know "Batman: The Killing Joke" - a cult comic from the 1980s.
It's based around an alternative backstory for Joker, a failing stand-up comedian (that surely rings a bell, huh).
The premise is executed brilliantly.
On the other hand, I don't like the "chaotic villain" trope, because it gives writers too much freedom. You don't need to worry about motivation, you've got your wind-up toy. Why does he do thist? Well, he's a psychopath. And what about that? He's a psychopath, you see. It can become a lazy plot device. A psycho can do anything your plot needs at any given moment.
I was actually kinda intrigued when she gave the entire biography for the italian captain, but lost all interest when she said 'it's just about him being a coward'. How is that even remotely interesting? Yes, I agree, he's a coward. But so what?
Jill is 100% spot on. She is talented the right way..
Agree with this so much. I see those long lists of character background details and my first question is does any of that impact the story or their choices? Oh, and I'm so stealing the obstacle list concept. Love it. Thanks for another great video.
I love her. Such great advice!
But why is he a coward? That's what makes a character full.
Every story should have structure, but the structure should be fluid.
Always tell my ceramics students: Function Follows Form - it IS what it DOES.
Frankly not knowing a backstory about characters’ experiences immediately flaws their existence in the story…”why does brad pits character in Inglorious, have a neck scar…?” Tarantino “ that’s not for you to know, but you cant help but notice such details…?” That’s art…‼️
Jill's advice may save writers much time and frustration.
Character is destiny
She's pushing her course haaaard!😅
The "stop doing research" comment really hit home for me. I'm kinda stuck in that cycle right now 8:37
Actions don't define characters. Their motivations for doing what they do is character.
Interesting.
0:55 That is the worst way of writing a biography film I've ever heard. It's horribly disrespectful to the actual person he's supposed to be representing, too. "Sorry actual person, your real life and experiences don't matter - it's how I, me, the writer, FEELS about you that matters." That explains so much about these awful high budget, horribly innacurate biopics that get greenlit.
Excellent video tho. Very good fiction writing advice.
Biographies are not documentaries.
@@Caleb6000 Yes, and also ethically, they shouldn't outlandish and sensational for capitalist goals. IMO, a fictional representation i.e " inspired by" script should be the course if entertainment is the focus instead accuracy. What's the saying, "Truth is often stranger than fiction"? IJS.
The Weird Al biopic was not written that way, at least.
It was apparently slavishly adherent to reality.
@@Caleb6000 You make it sound like documentaries are the only type of historical film where you can be true to history and true to fact. But why make a movie about real events at all if you're not going to convey them? To stroke your ego? This is incredibly offensive. With the same logic, you can justify any violation of historicity, for example, portraying Elizabeth the Great as a black man. After all, biographies are not documentaries, right?
Word!
The fact that someone would write a biopic script without doing research is extremely irresponsible and helps explain why biopics are such a flat genre :/
Why. People are interested in the mythology of a person just as much as the reality of a person. Trying to fit a whole life into two hours is ludicrous. You need tonfind what people are facinated by and explain where the facination comes from, not every shit they take in a weekend.
Is there a video about the link between psychology and writing on this channel ? For example Is it necessary to know about psychology and understand how behaviors works in order to write a good character ?
Naw... you're over thinking it.
There's a video on the enneagram tool
Jill is great at some things, but listening is not one of them. She gave an example of Italian sea captain backstory and how it was ineffective to telling the story, but she wants writers to focus on the captain that's a coward. Clearly, the interviewer really understood the assignment by connecting backstory and character decisions within the story.
This sounds like a recipe for flat, 2-dimensional characters. A lot of writing in Hollywood movies comes off as boring because it's so flat and everything is so 'samey'. No wonder if some writers think characters are just interchangeable personalityless puppets.
Everyone likes different things you can’t please everyone I guess
😂 When the title of the video is the first line of the video.
6:50
If character are who they are in the present, why not write down who they are right now? 🤔🤯🙄
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Gettin’ back to the CLOSAT days, LoL.
This guy was "shallow" enough . . . Choice of words!
It was not a desire to show off his "peacock feathers" that got his career (and innocent people) killed, as he could have just docked the ship and brought the high school friends on board and given them a grand tour--a great time for everybody. The fact that he didn’t do that, and just tried to go close to them without (presumably) telling anybody, along with his other actions, is him being "shy," the tragic flaw you mentioned in the other video--about tragedy.
From personal experience, sitting with characters through the story you write is how you learn about them. They will reveal character and backstory through their voices, actions and decisions. I would not figure out beforehand because I would not have got to know them yet. Then at one point during writing you will know (and then is probably when you learn your ending and the things you need to shuffle so they are in the right place). Don't know, might just be me though. 😅
George R.R Martin and Boba Fett will have words with you....
... So never let the truth in the way of a good story. Got'cha 😆
This is meta.
I don’t agree with this lady. It’s better to know the full backstory of the person.
Well... Maybe they should because the quality of screenwriting today is no good.
🤣
Nonsense, a character biography doesn’t have to be set in stone.
It’s just helpful to have it.
Yes a character is what they do but they do what they do because of who they were.
Universal truth.
And I want to know the reason why he acts so cowardly. That's in the backstory.
Lmao. I'm never watching a biopic again. Guess Hollywood is just propaganda.
Hmm. I reject this. I agree with David Mamet. Character does not exist. To condemn a person as "a coward" in a dramatic narrative is moralizing, which is not the job of the dramatist. I suppose a dramatic film about the founding fathers should focus on how they were slave owners? How reductive.