Scriptwriting – Character Development
Subject Overview
Students will be introduced to how characters in a film are made interesting and engaging by discovering various tools that allow writers to create dynamic and interesting characters and by building case studies around various characters. They will learn how to describe characters, their traits (personality), and their appearance. Students will also become familiar with concepts of back-story, character flaws, and character transformation, as well as character ‘wants vs needs’.
Duration
- Contact Hours: 3 hours per week
- Total Hours: 30
- Duration: 10 weeks
Character searching!
Aims
- Explore and develop characteristics within a character to be able to shape them and make them entertaining
- Identify ‘wants vs needs’ characteristics and develop characters who start a story wanting something, unaware of what they need, and then find what they need through the film’s journey
- Discover an issue in the character that they need to transform for them to become the hero, or conversely the issue in the character that they never overcome which turns the film into a tragedy
- Explore the battle between the ‘higher self’ and ‘lower self’, a character’s ‘good’ side and ‘dark’ side, and how the transformation of a character can create great drama
- Recognising the role of the backstory and how it is used to make characters more layered and complex
- Gain a basic insight into ways in which writers can create authentic dialogue through research and role playing, becoming the characters themselves and putting themselves into the situation of the script.