The Worst Thing That Could Happen
Fri, May 1st 2009, 11:24
I think one of the most valuable lessons a screenwriter can learn is that the worst thing needs to happen. I don't mean the writer's fingers fall off... I'm talking about story. I think I made a common mistake when I first started writing and that was liking my characters so much I didn't want anything bad to happen to them. But think of any of your favourite films or TV series and you'll usually find that the thing the protagonist really didn't want to happen... happens.
In ET, Elliot is separated from ET and ET appears to die.
In Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie thinks she may have killed the person she loves.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Joel realises too late that he doesn't want his memories to be erased.
Only once it's happened, does the protagonist realise they're going to pull their socks up and do something even more extreme and dramatic to rescue the situation. I think this rule particularly applies to the mythic adventure stories that Hollywood thrives on. Often it's represented as the antagonist getting what they want for a few moments - think of any Bond film. There's always the bit where the bad megalomaniac presses the World Destruct button. He seems to have won, and Bond's job suddenly becomes even more difficult, but the hero still overcomes. From a viewer's perspective, this is much more dramatic and therefore much more satisfying.
Which is one of the reasons the Transformers film that came out a couple of years ago is so unsatisfying. There's this All Spark thingamabob that gives life to machines and the bad dude Decepticons really want it. But they never get it. We never get to see what they'd do if they got it. As a result the film suffers from a lack of tension. There's just this big fight where you're not really sure who's who or what's going on because of all the shaky camera, so you don't really care. (This is only one of the problems with the film along with overwordy scenes, an off kilter sense of humour, scenes that could be trimmed at the ends, and a massive hole in the character identification department, especially with regard to the Transformers themselves).
With our latest short film The Moon Bird we're trying to create a more traditional narrative tale and trying to crack that way of storytelling. One of the crucial elements therefore has to be that our antagonist Experimentia (a witch) has her moment of triumph.
