Angles in Fiction (P1)

Note:

The term 'angle' is not often used in the context of fiction scripts, but it remains relevant. It is used to refer to the 'take', 'perspective', 'attitude' or 'approach'.

Character Development

- Author Robert McKee argues that character development is the story of any narrative. Any story worth telling is that of a character's (or characters') development over time.

- Character development involves a given character changing throughout the course of their story, learning a lesson or generally growing as a person.

- John Yorke discusses character development in terms of want and need.

    - A good example of this is Ebenezer Scrooge.

    - He starts the story wanting money and to be left alone.

    - He ends the story regaining his emotional involvement in others.

- Want: At the start of the story, a character is typically defined by what they want in life.

- Their characterisation is dominated by a façade: a set of behaviour suited to achieving what it is they think they need.

- This is what triggers the conflict and action of the story. These behaviours will not help them as they think they will, but will instead threaten to be their downfall.

- Need: The character's true lack or flaw.

- Throughout the story, the character's need overtakes their want and the qualities needed to accomplish it start to take shape.

- Around the midpoint of the story, this character's need and want are roughly in balance. The character often briefly rejects the need in an attempt to return to the want.

- In a story with a happy ending, the need qualities will overtake the façade, with the character learning how to make use of them, in turn achieving what they truly needed all along.

Character Development in Horror

- In The Babadook, the protagonist learns to face and deal with her grief, as symbolised by The Babadook itself.

Themes - the big ideas with which a story grapples, which run through the story as threads in relation to the core narrative.

Values - core human values such as 'courage' or 'love': qualities and concepts which we, as people, generally hold to be core important elements of human natures.

Messages - what the narrative of the film appears to say, through its handling of its themes and values.

A film's message is often expressed through the opposition (similar to Claude Levi Strauss' binary oppositions) of different themes or values.

- Love vs Hate

- Courage vs Cowardice

- Loyalty vs Betrayal

- Truth vs Lies

The climax and subsequent resolution of the story often sees one value triumph over the other. This results in a message, such as 'love always conquers hatred in the end', or even a negative message such as 'lies can corrupt even the most honest person'.

- Robert McKee also says that a good story must push its core values to the furthest possible point, what he calls 'the negation of the negation'.

- A good horror example of this is It Follows, in which the protagonist finds herself pursued by a face-changing demon used to represent STIs.

Representation

- This is everything to do with the ways in which a media text re-presents the world.

- This is often looked at in terms of how groups of people are represented in a script.

- For instance, the attitudes presented towards:

    - Age groups

    - Ethnic groups

    - Genders

    - Sexualities

    - Regional identity

    - Ability and disability

- We can begin by thinking about stereotypes and countertypes used in the product.

- We can consider how we, the audience, are 'positioned' by the text: what attitudes the text seems to expect us, the audience, to hold about the subject matter.

- One example in this area is Dawn of the Dead, in which the zombies are represented as a comment on consumerist culture, as they wander mindlessly around a shopping centre. This acts as a comment on capitalist America.

Creating Perspective

- A film can give a particular character's perspective through the use of:

    - POV camera work to physically show what they are seeing.

    - A narrating character.

        - Voice-over.

        - Speaking directly to the camera.

    - The narrative following one character and their experiences.

- A good example of this is The Blair Witch Project.

    - The film which popularised the 'found footage' sub-genre.

    - The use of hand-held cameras creates perspective.

    - It shows the audience what they do and don't see.