What makes for an interesting film
This is a subject that's been discussed a lot. A lot of books have been written on it. I know, since I've read quite a few. But let's not talk about cinematography, acting, or things like that for now. Let's just focus on the screenplay, the story. What makes a story?
I've read a number of screenwriting books and they all say the same things. You basically need a protagonist who wants to do something, to "achieve a goal". While trying to achieve this goal, he goes through a number of setbacks or challenges. He overcomes these challenges one by one (or fails these challenges one by one), until he comes face-to-face with a major challenge. This is the "critical point" or "turning point" of the film. He then successfully overcomes this major obstacle (or doesn't -- if it's a "sad ending").
There. That's all there is to it. There can be variations on this, but they still adhere to the above outline. You can have more than one protagonist. Or more than one goal (a "secondary goal" or a "subplot"). You can have an antagonist, who is basically another "challenge" for the protagonist in reaching his goal. You can have a "romantic interest" character who can be a "secondary goal" herself/himself, or be a support in reaching the main goal.
Those elements above are "necessary" in a film. What I mean by this is that the quality of a movie is not always determined by the elements above. However, without the elements above the movie will be almost guaranteed to be bad. So you can consider them as the "hanger" or "skeleton" on which you put the interesting components of the movie: the gorgeous visuals, the interesting characters, the funny dialogs, the sexy scenes, the romantic scenes, the heart-pounding action scenes, the scary moments, the great music, etc.
Now the reason I'm telling you all of this is simply as a prelude to telling you one interesting thing that I discovered today. I was watching some old DVDs but then my mind wandered, and I started thinking about old films and TV series that I've seen before. I wondered why I liked certain films and disliked others. For some films the answer was obvious, the story was bad, the visuals was not exciting, it was to slow-paced, etc.
Then I thought about "Starman", the TV series. This was a science fiction series, a genre that I loved. So why didn't I enjoy it that much? It has all the elements, and it had a strong antagonist as well. So what was the reason for my dislike? (Actually I didn't dislike, but I didn't like it as much as I should have).
After more thought I finally figured it out: it's the central character. I didn't like the protagonist. But what was the reason? I thought it was reasonably acted. After thinking about this some more, I realized that the reason was quite simple: the protagonist was too nice. He was a good guy. This made the whole thing uninteresting. You see, you can always count on this guy to do the right thing, so everything becomes predictable, and boring. So I come to the conclusion that this is one thing that is not stressed enough in books on how to write screenplays: you have to give the protagonist some bad characteristics. He has to be selfish to a degree, or even worse than that. Otherwise it would just be too boring. All the interesting films always had heroes that are half-bad. Look at Pulp Fiction, those are all bad people. Look at Goodfellas. Let me be clear, what I mean by "bad characteristic" here is not a certain weakness, for example physical weakness or imperfection. Not at the all. Those things will only make people symphatize with the character more. What I mean by "bad" is to make sure that the main character is not a nice guy. He has to be a bad-ass. He has to DO bad things. He cannot be bland. But it's not enough to make him just witty, or charming, or funny. He has to be BAD. I think the "starman" character was also funny and charming and after a while you can't stand it anymore. You have to make him mean. The guy who can do things because of greed or lust. This will make a better movie. Why? I guess the common reason is that the viewers can symphatize more with the character, because no one is perfect. But I think there are elements in there of the "nice guys are boring" syndrome. People want a measure of excitement and unpredictability in their life. Being "cool" is almost the exact opposite of being "nice".
I've read a number of screenwriting books and they all say the same things. You basically need a protagonist who wants to do something, to "achieve a goal". While trying to achieve this goal, he goes through a number of setbacks or challenges. He overcomes these challenges one by one (or fails these challenges one by one), until he comes face-to-face with a major challenge. This is the "critical point" or "turning point" of the film. He then successfully overcomes this major obstacle (or doesn't -- if it's a "sad ending").
There. That's all there is to it. There can be variations on this, but they still adhere to the above outline. You can have more than one protagonist. Or more than one goal (a "secondary goal" or a "subplot"). You can have an antagonist, who is basically another "challenge" for the protagonist in reaching his goal. You can have a "romantic interest" character who can be a "secondary goal" herself/himself, or be a support in reaching the main goal.
Those elements above are "necessary" in a film. What I mean by this is that the quality of a movie is not always determined by the elements above. However, without the elements above the movie will be almost guaranteed to be bad. So you can consider them as the "hanger" or "skeleton" on which you put the interesting components of the movie: the gorgeous visuals, the interesting characters, the funny dialogs, the sexy scenes, the romantic scenes, the heart-pounding action scenes, the scary moments, the great music, etc.
Now the reason I'm telling you all of this is simply as a prelude to telling you one interesting thing that I discovered today. I was watching some old DVDs but then my mind wandered, and I started thinking about old films and TV series that I've seen before. I wondered why I liked certain films and disliked others. For some films the answer was obvious, the story was bad, the visuals was not exciting, it was to slow-paced, etc.
Then I thought about "Starman", the TV series. This was a science fiction series, a genre that I loved. So why didn't I enjoy it that much? It has all the elements, and it had a strong antagonist as well. So what was the reason for my dislike? (Actually I didn't dislike, but I didn't like it as much as I should have).
After more thought I finally figured it out: it's the central character. I didn't like the protagonist. But what was the reason? I thought it was reasonably acted. After thinking about this some more, I realized that the reason was quite simple: the protagonist was too nice. He was a good guy. This made the whole thing uninteresting. You see, you can always count on this guy to do the right thing, so everything becomes predictable, and boring. So I come to the conclusion that this is one thing that is not stressed enough in books on how to write screenplays: you have to give the protagonist some bad characteristics. He has to be selfish to a degree, or even worse than that. Otherwise it would just be too boring. All the interesting films always had heroes that are half-bad. Look at Pulp Fiction, those are all bad people. Look at Goodfellas. Let me be clear, what I mean by "bad characteristic" here is not a certain weakness, for example physical weakness or imperfection. Not at the all. Those things will only make people symphatize with the character more. What I mean by "bad" is to make sure that the main character is not a nice guy. He has to be a bad-ass. He has to DO bad things. He cannot be bland. But it's not enough to make him just witty, or charming, or funny. He has to be BAD. I think the "starman" character was also funny and charming and after a while you can't stand it anymore. You have to make him mean. The guy who can do things because of greed or lust. This will make a better movie. Why? I guess the common reason is that the viewers can symphatize more with the character, because no one is perfect. But I think there are elements in there of the "nice guys are boring" syndrome. People want a measure of excitement and unpredictability in their life. Being "cool" is almost the exact opposite of being "nice".
posted by Winang at 11:28 PM
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