Year One, The Making of a Webseries: CHARACTER CREATIONISMING

Year One, The Making of a Webseries: CHARACTER CREATIONISMING: Every film maker, actor or writer always wants to create the most interesting, deep, engaging, complex yet believable characters for their p...

CHARACTER CREATIONISMING

Every film maker, actor or writer always wants to create the most interesting, deep, engaging, complex yet believable characters for their piece. In attempting to do so many things such as… the story… gets lots. This is yet another misstep that is made by people trying to do what they believe is best for their project. Unless the project is a character piece, don’t all the characters to get in the way of the story. Characters should enhance the story. So at first, keep them simple!

I have studied characters such as Zastrozzi, Shakespeare’s Richard the Third and Berone, Billy Bones and Ben Gunn amongst many many others. These characters are all vastly different from each other and are fairly timeless but they all have one thing in common… they are archetypal characters. Go ahead type “archetypal characters into google to get a quick definition on them so I don’t have to go into extreme detail on what that is or click the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype … no it’s okay… really…I’ll wait…

Welcome back! In writing YEAR ONE the characters were the second phase of development. Even though I am an actor by training, when it comes to writing I need to have a clear picture of the world I am writing for and then I can people it appropriately. YEAR ONE is set in a post apocalyptic North America. This is a near lawless society and for me the best bet on characters was to look at the animal kingdom of present. The main archetypal characteristics you see there are predator and pray, alpha male and underlings all of which have the fight or flight instinct ruling their lives. So I set out to make all of my characters work within this model. Of course we humans operate within this same frame work but the cushiness of present life and the rules that govern our lives don’t always give us the need to tap into these core instincts.

The main protagonist group that we follow through YEAR ONE is made up of five characters. Why five? Because it’s uneven! Why is uneven good? Because that can be an obstacle! Why are obstacles good? Because no one wants to watch a bunch of people getting along for 10 minutes accomplishing anything that comes up with little to no possibility of catastrophic failure that’s why!

The jock, the amazon, the nerdy girl, the smart guy and the all knowing quiet guy who probably has a checkered past but no one dares ask him about it because it would be like opening Pandora’s box and we have enough problems to deal with already at the moment make up the group. Now that last guy seems to be a wee bit more complex then the others and seems to go against what I’ve been saying about archetype. Well you’re right but that’s because he is the most developed. I didn’t do all the work though! You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The wheel works fine just the way it is so instead use the wheel. After I created the world I decided I wanted a character like Batman in the story. Batman is smart, crafty, combat specialist, troubled character and depending on whose eyes you’re looking at him through is either a villain or a hero. Now who doesn’t want a character like that! So instead of spending hours trying to figure out how to make a character like that, I simply said “how would someone like Batman live in a world like this?” Comic book characters are a great example of archetypal characters and much like the YouTube 10 minute rule comics are quick to get through. Only a few pages long, they get you right into the action and once the characters established you don’t need to spend tons of time talking about the character, the character instead gets to just live in the story.

Living in the story is important. A lot of people in the pursuit of super complex brand new character tell us way too much, they open Pandora’s Box and we find out that the stuff inside isn’t all that great! I knew I wanted this Batman character in the story, I made a really fantastic back story for him and where he came from and why he is here now. What was the next thing I did you ask? I said “only one other character is going to know any of this outside of the character himself and I’m not planning on revealing it for a long while!” This allows my characters to grow and have some where to go. I know all the juicy secrets about this character and why he is the way he is so now I know how he would detail with certain situations and react. Also as the series progresses things might change and I might go a completely different direction with that characters story but if I laid it all out on the table in the first two seconds of the series I have to live with it. That’s like asking someone to marry you before you even meet them!

Once you have a solid character you’re also able to see who that character needs around him to create conflict and obstacles. Remember obstacles equal drama! There are two characters I have in the story presently that I know jack all about. I know I like them and they are necessary but their dialogue has changed several times in its tone and phraseology within the same draft! This is okay and it happens to everyone. You will never have all that characters crystal clear in your head, this is where you’re friendly neighbourhood actors come in. I have been in many auditions where the casting director and the director have had no idea where this character was going but upon reading the side (portion of script you audition with for film and TV) certain things stuck out and they liked my characterization and I end up with the part. So when I get stuck I send stuff to my actor finds and have them read it and tell me what they think about the character. If I like what I hear… that’s where the character goes!

Also a tip for people who are purely interested in film making and writing for film and TV… READ SCRIPTS FOR PLAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plays are ONLY about the characters and if you’re having a hard time writing solid characters READ PLAYS! I highly recommend Zastrozzi by George F Walker. It’s a small cast and they are pure archetypes it will be very illuminating on everything I am talking about and the characters in that play are COMPLEX! 

PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS

The number one misstep a lot of people make when trying to make their own work is bad dialogue mixed with bad audio!

Keep it short and to the point!

My background is classical theatre. I am very good at speaking epic text that goes on forever while staying on my argument and making sense of it all. However, that is theatre! Not to mention people like, oh I don’t know… SHAKESPEARE kinda knew what they were doing.

TV and Film (or webseries) are a visual media so play to that. When writing YEAR ONES first season I made sure I didn’t omit anything from the dialogue. Passages of text were long and everything was just blatantly put out there. I did this with the thought in mind that most of this dialogue (particularly from the main character Mayne) would get removed and done with looks and body language.

It goes without saying that several drafts of each episode must be done. You want to constantly refine the story. What we are working on with YEAR ONE is an action drama. We need a good balance of both to keep the viewer engaged. So in the writing of your early drafts you should have just as much if not more description as you do dialogue. Now a sitcom on the other hand is all about people in situations discussing how they got into them and how they are going to get out of them. This is heavy on dialogue as is a straight up drama such as Law and Order.

For us an action drama is the best way to go. I categorize shows such as The Walking Dead as an action drama, high stakes and lots of action! This is what we feel people want to see if they are going to spend time on a serious YouTube channel. If we wanted to we could sit down and write a great drama but less people are inclined to view that and it will take longer to write that drama then something more action based.  Which brings me to the next point, bad audio!

This is a production killer. I am sure many of you have watched something on YouTube or a similar site and said “the CGI was great, picture looked awesome but dear lord these people can’t act!” The main culprit of this is bad audio capturing! I’m not letting actors off the leash here because there are a LOT of bad actors out there who have no idea what they are doing but you can take a great actor and if they are captured on a bad mic, the production will sound amateur.

So if you don’t have good audio, then keep it visual. This is much harder for the actor (if theatre based) but overall your production will seem more solid. This is another lesson Adrian and I learned off of the medieval film. Granted he learned this in film school but in discussing what the King in our piece should say, we wanted to keep it short, to the point and what would resonate the most with the audience. We have a fantastic actor to play the king but we don’t want to be undone by audio as his voice over plays throughout the whole piece. 

Another area of strengths involves who you have available. Luckily for us we have more fantastic actors then I can cast and know a lot of production people who know there stuff and have got the gear. So that is a big relief for us. If you are an aspiring director and don't really know the people just a few actors, ask them! A smart actor keeps a catalog of people they have worked with, people they would like to work with again in case they come up with their own project. If you can create the prefect storm of good story, good equipment and good people you're on road to success and you will be surprised how fast all of this can be found, just ask people. 

JAMES WE NEED CONTENT!

Adrian and I planned to make a feature during the summer of 2011. We felt ready for it, posses the skill and ability to pull it off and have the drive. However things don’t always go as planned. After weeks of meetings and story discussions two things happen. Adrian needed surgery on his wrist to remove some steel plates (he’s apparently not as cool as Luke Skywalker) and I ended up getting cast in a play that took up two months of my life smack dab in the middle of or shooting schedule.

So we kept working away on this medieval project that has just taken forever to do. From this we learned lots and also decided “the next thing we do… no freaking CGI dragons!”. Adrian is a wizard when it comes to CGI and technology but seeing how small our team is (two people) and one of them (me) has no clue how to use any of that stuff, it really can slow production down when we’re both already wearing a million hats.

We had no idea what our next project was going to be, but we knew we wanted it to be high end. We both sifted through all of our ideas from the pre summer meets (over 64 different movie concepts… ya I know right! Were concept machines), we tried mashing up concepts (who doesn’t like the idea of Indiana Jones with laser beams!!) but still nothing was triggering the “JAMES YOU’RE A GENIUS” reflex… or Adrian… but mainly James… hehehe (I’m going to hear about this) 

Then… IT HIT ME! After playing many an hour of Fallout New Vegas and Batman Arkham City an old idea I had from high school flew into my head! I started readjusting and reshaping the idea and I texted Adrian right away about the story I had set in a post apocalyptic North America. After I went through “The Bible” (shows background, character info, where it’s going and so forth) I got the “JAMES YOU’RE A GENIUS” response… which turned out to be more of an “interesting… I like it”

You might be asking yourself “why is it relevant that you were playing those video games James?” Well I will tell you!

The YouTube attention span is roughly five to ten minutes for the average person. I myself to like to watch shows that are upwards of an hour long but generally people go there for a quick fix of something. Dialogue in video games and the over all “acting” seen in each quest or story line is basically the same, the rest of the time people are playing the game. However video games story telling (particularly in those two titles) is fantastic. So I reshaped the feature film idea I had into a webseries format. This keeps the audiences attention for the “golden time frame” as I call it and we also don’t get bogged down with extra story bits. So we trim the fat and get the viewer right into the good stuff.

This hidden back end advantage of this format for all your aspiring film makers is you don’t have the daunting task of working on the entire films edit all at once. This can be the number one project kill factor. You see all the work a head of you and no real feedback for months and you say “its not worth it”. However in this format, although everything will be shot at once (or close to it) we only need to worry about the edit for the episode we are planning on releasing. Once its released we start editing the next episode, all the while people will be viewing the content that is out there. This provides us with people wanting more, wanting to see the next chapter in the story while we are busy working away at editing that next chapter.

The formula will look like this

Shoot season, edit, release, edit, release, edit and so forth until the end of season one! All of a sudden you have a TON of content on your YouTube channel, a fan base and the famous show biz adage “leave’em wanting more!!”

Every Story has its Beginning

Welcome Readers! If you’re looking at this page you might be here for a couple of reasons:

A. you are an aspiring film maker

B. you are an aspiring actor

C. you have heard of or seen our work

or

D. we posted this on your facebook and told you that if you did not read it death would be swift!

Either way we’re glad you are here!

In this weekly blog we will log our journey from the initial stages of concept, writing, casting, pre production, production, post production and finally releasing of a webseries.

If you don’t know who we are, allow me to introduce us. My name is James Patrick Pettitt, a Canadian actor, teacher, and fight director (Spitfire Films) and my business partner Adrian Laurie, film maker, director, CGI, editor amongst a million other titles (Filmlore Productions). Fairly small team some might say… I say we’re just “concentrated awesome”!

Although both Adrian and I work professionally, as is the nature of the beast, there are dry spells that everyone in this industry goes through, especially if you’re not a house hold name. This mixed with that fact that Adrian and I are two extremely creative and driven people who want to tell our own stories and not just work for other people’s visions all the time, we decided to start producing our own work.

Today the entertainment industry is completely and totally different then it was even 6 years ago… its even drastically different then it was last year! Many of you might have just come from watching your favourite TV show or movie online from one of the many free websites that host them. This is the way TV and film will be viewed. People don’t like being a slave to the “boobtube” instead they like the YouTube! Watch what you want when you want!

Now I don’t think movie theatres are going to disappear but TV might because of the sheer connivance of the internet, especially now that LCD TV’s hook up to your computer. This is what has driven Adrian and I to make a high quality YouTube webseries! 

I am sure many of you reading this have had things resonate with you. Whether is creating your own work, trying to make your mark, the way the industry has changed or that it’s reassuring to know that someone else is trying to do the same thing as you! Hopefully along the way on our journey to the first episodes release we might answer some of your questions, put to rest some fears or shed some light on how to do this through our trials and tribulations!