Soon after I first watched this movie, I had the fortune of meeting with composer David Raksin. He told me an anecdote that teaches us a thing or two about the issues that even seasoned filmmakers face. It also shows the power of the composer.

Preminger wanted to show how the main character – a detective – was falling in love with Laura. Or rather, he was falling in love with Laura’s portrait. She herself had been murdered. The critical scene didn’t work, and without it, the entire movie would fail.

The director asked the composer to fix it, by writing a suitable music cue.

Raksin struggled under the pressure. He lacked inspiration, as he was in a dark space. His girlfriend had just broken up with him … in a letter.

About to throw in the towel, Raksin sat down at the piano, and put the letter on the music rack. He read it again, while improvising a melody.  Raksin ended up composing what would become one of the most recorded love themes in cinema history.

Was it all a dream?

The story is that of Detective McPherson, who investigates the murder of Laura Hunt. In the process, he realises he is more than just intrigued with the victim.

About forty minutes into the film, for the first time McPherson is alone in Laura’s flat, and while he is admiring Laura’s portrait on the wall, the famous love theme plays.

This moment sits right at the movie’s mid point, and it could have had everything of a traditional love scene, if it weren’t for the inconvenient fact that the lover is in fact … dead.

At the end of the scene, the detective has a drink and falls asleep, which has spurred some to claim that the rest of the movie could be interpreted as merely a dream.

In an alternative cut of the film, the ending had a character suggest that the whole story had been imagined.

As you may know, both options are among the worst possible ways to end any story, so the original cut was restored.

In love with a painting

While McPherson gets more and more familiar with Laura, her surroundings and her entourage, a knock on the door introduces Waldo Lydecker, a close friend to Laura, and a potential suspect in the murder case.

If Raksin’s love theme didn’t already communicate what was going on between McPherson and the painting, Lydecker states it in his own acerbic manner: “You better watch out, McPherson, or you’ll end up in a psychiatric ward. I don’t think they’ve ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse.”

The entire film abounds in spectacular, quotable dialogue, the type Robert McKee would urge you to cut.

Admittedly, the film was made over seventy years ago and today, the lines sound theatrical. In particular the character of Lydecker boasts a language that you would now only hear on the stage. Yet it sounds sharp, to the point, and appropriate for this character, a writer of short stories – and a narcissist.

Preminger deserves the credit for bringing this delightful character to the foreground, against the wishes of the original playwright Vera Caspary.

More proof that the last thing a movie adaptation needs to do, is honouring the original.

A remake of Laura has been announced, and before you panic: the writer is James Ellroy, genius behind Black Dahlia and LA Confidential.

-Karel Segers

https://ozzywood.wistia.com/medias/oxfmpvfmwt?embedType=iframe&seo=false&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=1080

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Joel Schumacher

An adolescent in the 1980’s, I felt as if St Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys and Flatliners were made just for my generation (and a bit for Kiefer Sutherland, too). Because of their relatively high concept, some of these medium budget movies had a massive impact, and director Joel Schumacher could just keep going on. He was given the Batman franchise with the Akiva Goldsman scripted Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, which weren’t necessarily great movies, but they still made their blockbuster budgets back. Well, just.

St Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys and Flatliners
were made just for my generation.

With Tigerland he entered more serious territory, and put Colin Farrell on the map as a lead actor. Its budget and shooting schedule would be a challenge for any indie director.

Schumacher has always been flexible in the material he picked. Teen angst, fantasy, war or thriller, he usually delivers a satisfying and cinematic result.

Joel Of All Trades

For more anti-hero examples, check out Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth, a project that rested on Hitchcock’s shelf for a long time. With Schumacher at the helm, and favourites Farrell and Sutherland (only briefly) in front of the camera, the script was updated and delivered to the screen with dazzling style and dialogue, belying its humble budget. With Colin Farrell as yet another anti-hero example in the role of Stu Shepard, I have always found Phone Booth an inspiration, and a true celebration of audience-driven independent filmmaking.

I have always found Phone Booth an inspiration,
and a true celebration of audience-driven independent filmmaking.

Schumacher – now in his seventies – has remained agile, moving with the taste of the times. Some of his more recent credits saw him join the dignitaries on the directing stable of Netflix’ House Of Cards.

City Of Demons

In Falling Down (1993), recently retrenched defence worker William “D-Fens” (Michael Douglas) goes out of control on a sweltering day in L.A. It shows Schumacher just as comfortable shooting on the streets of New York in Phone Booth, as in the suburban sprawl of Los Angeles, where our anti-hero’s tragedy plays out. In fact this is one of my favourite nineties movies when it comes to portraying the city of angels, often using gorgeous long lens shots, against an ominous soundtrack. Only Michael Mann would top this two years later with Heat.

This is one of my favourite nineties movies
when it comes to portraying the city of angels.

Los Angeles may be cinematically sexy in this movie, it is surely not a happy city. Protagonists and antagonists all fight their own demons. Robert Duvall plays the proverbial fin de carrière cop, who will catch the baddy at the end. However, before the hero vs. anti-hero finale in the climax, he will pay a heavy price.

Falling Down starts from an interesting premise, in that the hero is not the protagonist. Central to this movie is the anti-hero of D-Fens, played by Michael Douglas, who turns in a landmark performance.

The Devil’s Advocate

D-Fens is the devil’s advocate. Why do we empathise with this anti-hero? Because he represents the disgruntled Angelino who is mad as hell, and he is not going to take it anymore. Only, D-Fens’ anger is of the not-so-pc kind.

In our movie moment, a Korean store owner refuses to break a dollar for his customer’s phone call, and D-Fens explodes like a nail bomb in slow motion. As his rage builds, D-Fens reveals his revenge strategy against this city… The poor dude won’t die at his hands. But he will suffer. While taking the shop down, D-Fens hurls insult after insult at the poor shopkeeper, who is hiding behind the counter.

The poor dude won’t die at his hands.
But he will suffer.

The shopkeeper, who now believes D-Fens is after his money, tells him to take it. D-Fens replies:

“You think I’m a thief? Oh, you see, I’m not the thief. I’m not the one charging 85 cents for a *stinking* soda! You’re the thief. I’m just standing up for my rights as a consumer.”

Plummeting Down

This is an important scene in the movie, as it feels like the first watershed in the anti-hero’s steep downward descent, referenced in the movie title.  The scene opens with the Korean topping up the till, proving he definitely doesn’t lack small change. However, he may be sick of customers entering his shop without buying. So don’t push his buttons… Which leaves us with the dramatic question for this scene: “Who of these two men is more p***ed off?”

– Karel Segers

[vimeo 120000828 w=900 h=389]

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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by K.M. Weiland

The antagonist is usually a physical entity, something standing in the way of our protagonists’ ability to achieve their physical goals and perhaps even threatening our protagonists’ lives or their physical well-being.

Consequently, it can be easy to forget that antagonists are just as important in driving your character’s personal arc as they are the plot’s conflict.

The Two Halves of Story: Outer and Inner

Every story is made up of two integral halves:
1. The protagonist’s pursuit of his outer goal, which is the physical aspect of the story (i.e., the stuff we see happening).
2. The protagonist’s pursuit (willing or not) of his inner goal, which is the emotional and spiritual aspect of the story (i.e., the stuff happening on an intangible plane).

Some stories will emphasize one of these halves over the other, but the best stories balance them.

How the Antagonist Drives the Plot

On the external or physical plane, your antagonist is an obviously essential player. He’s the obstacle that creates conflict. Your character makes a move; your antagonist makes a countermove. Bing bang boom.

That one’s a no-brainer. Even if your antagonist is non-human, it will be a force opposing your protagonist and forcing him to keep coming up with new ways to overcome the problems that lie between him and the ultimate conquest of his story goal.

It can be easy to forget that antagonists are just as important in driving your character’s personal arc as they are the plot’s conflict.

How the Antagonist Drives the Character Arc

Equally important is the antagonist’s affect on your protagonist’s inner journey. This, however, is often something we overlook. When we construct our character’s arcs (if we consciously construct them), we’re too often inclined to create traumas and troubles that have no direct connection to the antagonist.

Maybe George is trying to get a job in the circus and is opposed by the circus owner’s son, who happens to be courting the girl George is in love with. Sounds like a decent plot with a plausibly motivated antagonist. But if we’ve decided that George’s character arc is about proving his worth to his apathetic father (and thereby to himself), then we’ve created a character arc that has no direct relationship to the antagonist. Sure, the circus owner’s son will probably prod George along in his discovery of his self-worth, but that’s only tangentially affecting the character arc.

Two Ways the Antagonist Ties Together Plot and Character Arc

The best way to create an antagonist who is just as organic to the character’s inner arc as he is to the outer conflict is to do it on purpose, right from the start. Before you ever begin writing, take a moment to consider your story’s outer conflict and your character’s inner conflict. Does one grow from the other? If not, how can you craft the one to better reflect the other?

In George’s case, we might want to consider either switching out the antagonist to better inform his character arc, or changing the character arc to better reflect the antagonist’s mode of attack.

Equally important is the antagonist’s affect on your protagonist’s inner journey.

Choosing an Antagonist Integral to the Character Arc

If we’re sold on keeping the character arc as is, we might find a better catalyst for inspiring George to find his own self-worth by forcing him to do direct battle with the father he’s trying to impress. Maybe his father is the owner of the circus and is the one bent on keeping George out of the family business, because he doesn’t believe good ol’ George is up to the challenge.

Choosing a Character Arc Born of the Antagonist’s Attack

If, however, we decide we like the outer conflict with the circus-owner’s-son-slash-rival-lover better than we do George’s current character arc, we might get rid of the judgmental father altogether and focus instead on a weakness that is directly challenged by the circus owner’s son. Perhaps George’s new arc is still about self-worth, but now that self-worth centers on his belief that he’s not worthy of the girl he loves.

Sometimes we can employ more than one antagonist to create different forces of opposition (e.g., the dad drives the inner arc, while the circus owner’s son drives the outer conflict). But consolidating the power of your main antagonist into a catalyst for both halves of your story is a powerful way to bring cohesion to both plot and theme.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

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_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie Campbell and Brooke Trezise.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

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_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie Campbell and Brooke Trezise.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by K.M. Weiland

The antagonist doesn’t have to be a person. It could be weather, circumstances, or the protagonist’s inner self. But, more often than not, the antagonist takes the form of a person. And crafting that person into a memorable and compelling character in his own right is vital to the success of your story.

Your antagonist needs to summon up reader emotions that are just as strong as those felt for the protagonist. Hateable bad guys will deepen reader sympathy for your protagonist. But, beyond even that, bad guys with whom the reader can identify to at least some degree are bad guys who will make him squirm even more.

Let’s a take a look at several categories into which your antagonist may fall, so you can choose the best one for your story.

Your antagonist needs to summon up reader emotions.

The Immoral Antagonist

This is easily the most popular form of antagonist. The bad guy is one readers will have no trouble hating. He is usually set in clear contrast against the good-guy hero. The lines are drawn in varying shades of black and white, and readers have no problem choosing whom to root for.

Hypocrite:

The hypocrite is an antagonist who feigns goodness. He may be guilty of all sorts of treachery and evil, but on the surface he’s all honey and sunshine.

He puts a righteous face on his misdeeds (perhaps even accusing the protagonist of hypocrisy to disguise his own), but the reader knows the truth: this guy is not just bad, he’s a fake. And we hate him all the more for it.

Psycho:

A mainstay of horror stories, this guy is just evil all the way through. He has no excuses, no thread ofgoodness leading him back to redemption. He’s just bad. And crazy on top of it.

Serial killers, genocidal world leaders, and sadists fit the bill to a T. Not only do readers hate psycho bad guys—they’re scared to death of them.

Regular Person Forced to Do Bad Things for an Illegitimate Reason:

Most antagonists—in life as well as fiction—aren’t mustache-twirling, maniacally laughing whackos.

Most of them are just regular Joes who have let their weaknesses get the better of them. Lust, greed, and hatred can drive even ordinary people to do extraordinary evil.

The bad guy is one readers will have no trouble hating.

The Moral Antagonist

In the moral antagonist we find a more complicated—and often more compelling—character, since he presents more parallels than contrasts with the protagonist.

This is a person who is doing the right thing—as he sees it—and usually for the right reasons, but who has nonetheless been forced to do battle with your hero, thanks to the requirements of your story’s overall conflict.

Good Guy on the Opposing Side:

Not all stories are going to offer an epic battle between good and evil. Sometimes the conflict will allow good people with opposing views to appear on both sides of the battle lines.

Lawyers fighting each other for causes in which they each believe passionately, football teams competing for a championship, two love interests trying to win the same girl—none of them have to be inherently bad. Stories of this nature can provide all kinds of interesting possibilities for exploring the gray areas of life, relationships, and morality.

Crusader:

The crusader can be an insanely scary bad guy in his own right. This is someone who fiercely believes he is doing the right thing, and indeed he may well be fighting for a good cause.

He may be someone who believes he has to choose between the lesser of two evils in his decisions. Or he may be someone driven to fanaticism—and thus dangerous decisions—by his passion for his cause. In fact, he may be just plain out right, while the protagonist is the one who’s wrong.

Regular Person Forced to Do Bad Things for a Legitimate Reason:

Sometimes even essentially good people end up doing bad things because they feel they have no choice.

A character who robs a bank to pay for his wife’s operation or to save himself from the Mafia’s threats may be a hero in his own right—or he may be a compelling and relatable antagonist to the detective protagonist who has to go after him.

The possibilities for your antagonist are every bit as vast as they are for your protagonist. The more time you spend creating a character who can properly oppose your hero, the stronger and more compelling your story will be.

Antagonists should be just as well-rounded and believable as your heroes. Don’t settle for anything less than brilliant!

 He may be just plain out right, while the protagonist is the one who’s wrong.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Photo Credits: Stock XChng, K.M. weiland

by Steven Fernandez

Some writers may try to defend the use of unheroic protagonists under the excuse of trying to be “gritty”, or “realistic”, or “un-American”.  Others may resort to the excuse of being intellectually “sophisticated” and/or post-modernist.  I say that excuses are all these rationales ever are.  And feeble ones at that!

In the first two essays of this series, I have decisively refuted all these standard excuses.  Go back and re-read those essays if you today think any of the standard excuses have merit.  In addition, I will repeat what I said in essay two:  Compelling stories come from making a stand.

Now, your story won’t make a clear stand if your protagonist is wishy-washy or substanceless.  Why?  Because viewers will experience your film through the lens of your protagonist.  If your protagonist is flimsy or lacking in any praiseworthy qualities, then the viewer will be drawn to the conclusion that your film makes no real stand.  And they will conclude this even if you, as the writer, did in fact have a concrete stand in mind.If your protagonist is flimsy or lacking in any praiseworthy qualities, then the viewer will be drawn to the conclusion that your film makes no real stand.

 Viewers will experience your film through the lens of your protagonist.

A second important point about flimsy and unpraiseworthy central characters is that they are not likeable!  Which means that few people will truly enjoy your film when it screens.  And so word of mouth (which is always the best form of advertising) will go against your film.  Which won’t make your producer interested in your next film!

So the first requirement of any protagonist is that they have some praiseworthy qualities.  In short, that they are at least part-way heroic!  For anyone out there who is right now writing or rewriting a funded screenplay, I command you:  Stop perpetuating the local convention of having a loser or a dubious person as a protagonist!  You are not being either clever or “artistic” by doing that.  You, instead, are just fooling yourself.

The need to make your protagonist heroic should not be interpreted to mean that this character must be some saintly figure.  Nor does it mean that he or she must be some super-skilled person who can take on a CIA mission that has hopeless odds of success.  All it means is that the character possesses some virtues after all.  Even if those virtues are not immediately obvious to the casual viewer.  Let me give you three examples to make this point concrete:-

1) A drug-taking street girl might have a strong sense of social justice.  Perhaps she even participates in peace and environment rallies.  And she has this sense of justice despite (or, perhaps, because of) the grim and dire conditions she lives in.

2) A dismissed and shunned nerd-boy might have the inner qualities of courage, integrity, and chivalry.  And this fact might only be hinted at until, say, he rescues a cat being chased by grunt schoolboys.

3) A sexually confused young artist might sleep around and be minimally employed.  Yet, at the same time, he may have a selective code of honour where he, for instance, never deserts a friend in need.  Alternatively (or, even, additionally), he may possess a superb work ethic when it comes to his own art.  Such that he is prepared to do whatever it takes to deliver the very best of his painting talent to a client.

None of these characters are all-perfect.  Yet each have a heroic streak in them.  And this is exactly the way it should be with the protagonists that you, yourself, create in your own screenplays.

By the way:  None of the three characters, above, are either boring, superficial, or stereotypical.  Which smashes a preconception I have sensed from some local writers.  Namely, that virtuous characters are necessarily boring ones.

Apart from inner virtues, a protagonist should also have a goal that is engaging.  In fact, preferably a goal that is noble as well.  This is another aspect of the protagonist that Australian films typically fall flat about.

Apart from inner virtues, a protagonist should also have a goal that is engaging.

Too often in local films the protagonist has either no clearly discernable major goal, or a major goal that is lame.  For example, a male protagonist who just wants to camp out with his drinking buddies does not have a major goal worth speaking about.  Unless, I suppose, this goal is just his initial goal … A goal that will lure him into an impending upheaval that will happen at the campsite.

For the major goal to be engaging, it must be one that the protagonist must step right out of his comfort zone to attempt.  It also must be a goal that will be not at all easy for him to accomplish.  For example, a young man who is afraid of heights might briefly meet an attractive girl at some party.  After asking all his friends, he might discover that she is a skydiving instructor.  Suddenly the man has a taxing goal:  Will he succeed in pretending to be a skydiving student so that he can begin a relationship with her?

It is also advisable that the protagonist’s major goal is noble (or at least praiseworthy).  While I won’t go as far as to say that this is an unbreakable rule, I will point out that few protagonists elicit viewer sympathy more deeply than ones with noble intentions.  Even if those protagonists are seriously flawed, hopelessly misguided, or comically incompetent.

No matter how ‘corny’ you may think it is for a protagonist to have a noble goal, it is inescapable that viewers sympathise the most with such characters.  In contrast, the typical Australian film protagonist is an invertebrate bore.

To sum up, Australian feature film stories need to start presenting central characters that have some praiseworthy (if not noble) qualities in them.  Even if those qualities are not immediately obvious to the viewer.  On top of that, the protagonist needs to have an engaging major goal that will tax him or her.  And, again, it is preferable that this major goal is noble, or at least praiseworthy.

Photo Credit: Antoine Hubert – Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel – Adam Bailey

-Steven Fernandez

Steven Fernandez is a writer-director of short films and theatrical shows in Sydney, Australia.

He is currently writing Human Liberation – an epic novel and screenplay package set in mythic ancient Greece.

]]> https://www.thestorydepartment.com/why-protagonists-must-have-some-virtues/feed/ 2 21800 https://www.thestorydepartment.com/25114/ https://www.thestorydepartment.com/25114/#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:38:50 +0000 https://thestorydepartment.com/?p=25114 Read more]]> Killing Them Softly: How A Screenwriter Murdered His Own Protagonist

Character Analysis by Jamie Wynen

Andrew Dominik’s (The Assassination of Jesse James, Chopper)  latest film is an adaptation of the novel 1973 crime novel Cogan’s Trade, starring Brad Pitt as the excitingly dangerous Jackie Cogan, Animal Kingdom veteran Ben Mendelsohn, and the implausibly named Scoot McNairy. No really, that’s his actual name. It sounds like the punch line in a dirty limerick, but you’ll recognize him from TV land (Bones, The Shield). Unfortunately, despite a variety of strong characters, the story has more cogs missing than a clock tossed into a minefield.

If you’ve got a powerful, flawed, empathetic protagonist, why would you introduce him well into the second act?

After two junkies stage a daring heist on the local crime syndicate, the crime lords decide to fix everything by the expedient method of wholesale murder. Pitt, looking as though he stepped off the set of Fight Club by way of a boutique leather fetish store, plays a professional hitman with an aversion to people begging for their lives, which is about as blatantly ironic as you can get. Yet Pitt creates a compelling, mysterious, and ultimately empathetic character that I wanted to see more of.

Which is the first problem with this script. If you’ve got a powerful, flawed, empathetic protagonist, why would you introduce him well into the second act? I spent the first thirty minutes thinking it was the trainwreck junkie Mendelsohn’s story, which is just bad writing when you’ve got Brad Pitt tearing through the city firing off twelve-gauge shotgun rounds and pithy one-liners like a homicidal Jerry Seinfeld. This is an extreme case of failing to enter the scene as late as possible – we’ve entered the entire film far too early, at the expense of a well fleshed-out third act.

But this amazing protagonist is still further mistreated – by which I mean he is indulged. Cogan has got everything under control, identifying problems and avoiding all conflict with smooth, masterful manipulation. When he does choose to step in and get his hands dirty, his strikes are surgical and precise, as calm and routine as a day at the office photocopying contracts. Sure, there’s more blood and teeth lying around afterwards, but Cogan is never challenged, never given the stimulus to grow. He never leaves his ordinary world. Not once did I feel like Cogan was in danger. The character would’ve been so strongly improved by the addition of just one powerful confrontation at the climax. Instead, he gets his way, almost every time.

The strongest major conflict in the film never comes to a head, and is resolved offscreen.

Obstacles, instead of being presented through powerful visual metaphor, are delivered via dialogue. A spokesperson for the crime syndicate blandly mumbles his way through exchanges that should have been burning with tension. The strongest major conflict in the film – a potential challenge from another assassin – never comes to a head, and is resolved offscreen. We only find out through dialogue. This is the kind of epic, tense clash of titans that cinema was meant for! Instead we’re watching characters sit in cars and tell us about it. Cinema is a visual medium, with dialogue functioning best when giving action contrast, context and reinforcement. When vital conflicts are occurring in quiet, bloodless conversation, your audience is going to drift off and miss it.

But how can obstacles be important if there’s no reason to overcome them? Cogan doesn’t seem to want anything, except to kill a bunch of guys for money. That’s not compelling, because there are no stakes. The only people with stakes are his prey, the soon-to-be-corpses who exhibit the understandable but ultimately futile wish to keep their blood inside their bodies. By contrast, what has Cogan got to lose? What has he got to gain? What makes us side with him? All he has to gain is money, which is fine as an intermediate goal but is pretty dull and uninteresting as a long-term desire.

Even the most realistic film is still a story being told…

Desire and need drives a film, and Cogan can’t supply those things because he doesn’t have a character arc. He’s not going anywhere except murder town. Though Cogan shows flashes of a human soul beneath the calculating murder-robot façade, it’s never expanded on, and that’s garment-rendingly frustrating.

Having said all that, I actually loved Killing Them Softly. The world is rich, devastated, and tragically beautiful. The characters are nuanced and well-directed, the fighting shockingly visceral to behold. This is a dark film, with aspirations of grittiness, realism, and the experience of living with despair. But even the most realistic film is still a story being told, and whatever cinema magic is to be found in this film didn’t come from the script.

Killing Them Softly is out 11 Oct 2011.

-Jamie Wynen

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:: The Dark Knight Custom-Made Batcave Theatre
:: Interview: ‘Klown’ Writers/Stars Frank Hvam & Casper Christensen
:: 10 Films to look out for at the Toronto Film
:: 8 Tips For Becoming a Good Warm-Up Guy
:: How They Write A Script: Wendell Mayes
:: Your Favorite Films from your Favorite Film Makers
:: More Your Favourite Filmmakers’ Favourite Films
:: Awesome People Reading
:: My Favourite Hitchcock: Rebecca
_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie Campbell and Brooke Trezise.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

:: Three’s a Crowd: Multi-protagonist Stories
:: 10 Secrets to Creating Unforgettable Supporting Characters
:: Great Character: Arthur Edens (“Michael Clayton”)
:: Screenplay Review – Norm The Movie
:: Act Structure By Minute? 

Script Perfection

:: Screenwriting Tips: “Write What You Know” Doesn’t Mean…
:: Breaking In: Are Screenwriters “Born This Way”?
:: Dialogue and Dialog
:: “Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?”

Pitching & Selling

:: Is the Hollywood Remake Dead?
:: New Line Hires Relative Newcomer to Pen ‘Rampage’ Movie

Best of the Rest

:: The Best Drama on TV
:: Django Unchained is About Half Way Done
:: Can Film-makers Ever Play it Fair When it Comes to Depicting War?
_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie C.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au