It’s exactly the same. If author doesn’t decide what needs to happen in this scene and set everything up to that’s the case, then you get the meandering scene that goes nowhere.

It all applies in exactly the same way. Writing dramatically is writing dramatically.

I think where the problems with “character driven” movies arise, is when the screenwriter loses sight of the need to tell a story, because they’re too obsessed with making some deeply personal points about human nature.

Anytime a screenwriter sacrifices good story telling for self indulgent character “realism,” then I’m the first person to eject the DVD to go hunt for a good book.

I just can’t see the point of throwing out character development, per se, as a screenwriting tool just because some people use it to justify poor story telling.

Hell, if we eliminated a development technique every time some used it to create a bad scene or even a bad movie, we’d be left with no technique at all.

In my opinion, character development alone won’t create movie, anymore than structure alone will. It’s not an either or choice, a good script needs both.

And let’s face, Arisotle only wrote the poetics because he couldn’t get his screenplays into production! LOL

This scene could go in several different directions.

1. He could rip the rule book to confetti, shouting “Rules! Did Michaelangelo follow the rules?” And build his igloo as the crowd rejoices. His half-brother hugs him.

2. He could go postal, shoot them all, and build his igloo with blood-flecked ice blocks, leaving it as a savage monument in the silent wasteland. His half-brother hunts him down and kills him.

3. He could run sobbing from the contest to collide with a sledge driven by an attractive Iditarod contestant and be nursed back to health in a cabin in the wilderness. Who needs half-brothers when you have True Love?

You know what needs to happen because you have an outline to guide you, presumably. But what if the hero seems to be acting out of character in order to get the outcome you want? Do you ignore this and carry on, or do you modify his character and go back and rewrite previous scenes so they are more in accordance with his modified character?

Of course it’s a chicken and egg issue, of course they’re linked, and of course you do your best to balance the two… but in terms of process, I always find periods where I’m forced to focus on one over the other, and it’s been a long, hard discovery for me to realize that structure really is primary. I think the character-first approach often feels better during the process, because it can feel more organic and surprising (e.g., “the characters just came alive in my head). But the results rarely do.

So, you have your character whose motivation is to prove his father’s design in the igloo contest, but he’s thwarted because the competition organizer’s motivation is to preserve traditional values. Hence the ruling about block shape.

I guess it depends on whether that story is about the character being thwarted by circumstances or whether it’s about being thwarted by other people’s conflicting desires.

Both work, but each is a different story.

So it seems to me that whether the scene is character driven or not, really comes down to the type of story you’re telling.

But actually having that distinction is useful, because I’ll admit I tend to forget circumstances can intervene naturally in a character’s story, as well as other people’s stuff.

I never claimed they were. But I think it’s fair to say that if a writer’s films have grossed said amount it’s a pretty good indicator that he knows what he’s doing. And aspiros should listen and learn. People tend to forget that behind those dollar signs stand people, as in audience members who went to see a film and enjoyed the hell out of it because it was damn well written. Besides, analogies always fall short, but if I had to, was forced with a gun to my head to come up with the food equivilant to BIG FISH, BIG MAC would not come to mind. So shoot me.

Yeah, because as we all know financial grosses are the pure definition of quality. That’s why McDonalds make the greatest food in the world.

R.