Motives

Screen writing is fascinating! I don’t think I that good at it, but I am learning all the time, and I love the process. I certainly believe I have improved since I started exploring film making 10 years ago.

What makes a film, and its script, memorable, are the characters. Plots are secondary - characters are what it is all about.

There are two fundamental lessons I learned from my film making friends, and these are:

- avoid exposition ALWAYS - ie, anything that is on the nose, remove it

- characters only speak when they want something - ie, characters need to be motivated

Now, looking at the second point, this is a reflection of reality. When do we speak to other people? When we want something.

If life really does imitates art/movies, then we only ever speak to another person/character when we want something, on screen or off. And what a character says is never as important or interesting as to why they said it. What motivates a character (motive) is what makes us invest in a person and follow them. And non-exposition is what makes what they say interesting – it leaves things to the imagination.

Yeah, next year is film making time!

Posted by Ronnie Apteker