Crafting Story Progression: Examining Character Arcs and Themes

1. Lecture 9:Breaking Through Professor Daniel Cutrara The Deer Hunter (1978) Story by Michael Cimino, Derek Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker Screenplay by Derek Washburn

2. Previous Lesson Act Design beyond the 3 Act What makes alternative structures work?

3. This Lesson Designing Progressions Assignments

4. Designing Progressions Lesson 9: Part I Lone Star (1996) Written by John Sayles

5. Progressions • According to McKee: • When a story genuinely progresses it calls upon greater and greater human capacity, demands greater and greater will power, generates greater and greater change in characters’ lives, and places them at greater and greater jeopardy. 5

6. The Importance • Why is it important for your story to progress? • It intensifies the conflict • It deepens the character • It gives greater complexity to the theme 6

7. How to Create Progression • According to McKee, there are four primary ways to achieve this. • Social Progression • Personal Progression • Symbolic Ascension • Ironic Progression 7

8. Social Progression • Personal story takes on social implications • Lone Star • Investigation into a murder leads Sheriff to suspect his own father, and unravel a web of corruption. • Men in Black • A chance encounter between a farmer and a fugitive alien searching for a rare gem slowly ramifies outward to jeopardize all creation. 8

9. Personal Progression • Drives actions deeply into the intimate relationships and inner lives of the characters. • Ordinary People • Father must choose between sanity of his son and unity of his family. The son must choose between despair and life. 9

10. Personal and Social Progression • Chinatown • As a detective investigates his case he becomes personally involved with his client recapitulating a traumatic relationship from his past. At the same time, his investigation leads him to unravel a corrupt land scheme and the incestuous designs of a megalomaniac. 10

11. Symbolic Ascension • Story imagery is given a symbolic charge, in effect, deeper meaning, through the context of the story telling. • As the story progresses characters, settings, and events can represent universal ideas. • The symbolic charge will progress from the particular to the universal, the specific to the archetypal. 11

12. The Terminator - Ascensions • In the future, machines have taken over the world destroying human civilization. There is human resistance, however, the machines have decided to eliminate their leader by sending a Terminator back in time. 12

13. The Terminator - Character • McKee suggests that Sarah progresses from waitress to goddess. For if she survives she will, like the Virgin Mary, give birth to the savior of mankind. 13

14. The Terminator - Setting • McKee suggests that the setting, the streets of Los Angeles become a labyrinth. • Here Sarah, now like Theseus, must defeat the half man/half bull Minotaur, in the form of the half human/half robot Terminator. 14

15. The Deer Hunter - Ascenscion The Deer Hunter (1978) Story by Michael Cimino, Derek Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker Screenplay by Derek Washburn • Watch the 1st clip from The Deer Hunter • What values are at stake in this scene? • What does the hunter, played by Robert DeNiro, want? • What does he need? 15

16. The Deer Hunter - Clip 2 • Watch the 2nd clip from The Deer Hunter • What values are at stake in this scene? • What does he want? • What does he need? • What change do you see for Michael, the Robert De Niro character? • Why? 16

17. The Deer Hunter - Character • McKee suggests that Michael goes from factory worker to warrior to “The Hunter” the archetypal character who kills. In the second clip we see how his character has changed and the choice he makes. • This progression in character gives us a much more complex person. He not only represents himself, he becomes the archetypal hero. 17

18. The Deer Hunter - Conflict • This progression in character affects the plot. • Michael returns to Vietnam to try to save his friend. This ends in a tragic round of Russian roulette. The conflict in this scene is intense. • What it is to be human is at stake here. 18

19. The Deer Hunter - Theme • McKee suggests that the controlling idea for the film is, “We save our own humanity when we stop killing other living beings.” • This progression embodies the controlling idea in a complex, multidimensional way. 19

20. Ironic Progressions • Turn progression on irony • Protagonist gets what he wanted but too late to have it. • Othello • Protagonist is pushed further and further from goal only to discover he/she has been led right to it. • Ruthless People 20

21. Ironic Progressions - 2 • Turn progression on irony • Protagonist throws away what he later discovers is indispensable to his happiness. • To reach a goal Protagonist takes the exact steps that lead away from it. • Tootsie 21

22. Ironic Progressions - 3 • Turn progression on irony • The action the Protagonist takes to destroy something becomes exactly what is needed to be destroyed by it. • The Protagonist comes into possession of something he’s certain will make him miserable, does everything possible to get rid of it… only to discover it’s the gift of happiness. • Bringing up Baby 22

23. Assignments The Terminator (1984) Written by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd Lesson 9: Part II

24. E-Board Post #1 Describe the progressions that you have put in place in your own script. Comment on two of your peers. 24

25. End of Lecture 9 Next Lecture: The Art of Constructive Feedback The Deer Hunter (1978) Story by Michael Cimino, Derek Washburn, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker Screenplay by Derek Washburn