PRODUCTION: Characterisation

CHARACTERISATION 

Characters have always been the focus and heart of my writing approach, I fully believe if characters are believable and interesting, I could watch them write a shopping list. "Character is the beating heart of every great idea, every great story, every great script. " (BBC Writers Room) If stories are gripping, but the characters are dull and hard to invest in or relate to, audiences won't care. But well-written and considered characters can do something trivial but it already has the potential for strong entertainment. 

Each character acts as an antagonistic force for Sarah in some way. While the overall antagonist IS Sarah's own internal struggles, these struggles are reflected and contrasted through her housemates. "Conflict between how we wish to be perceived and what we really feel is at root of all character" (Yorke, J) - Sarah CLEARLY wants to study and do well, but has created a persona and ideology she's trapped in. Jack is as nihilistic as Sarah and the pair are always able to act as an enabling force for the other, however Jack smokes to relax after work and to help them access a more creative (and productive) headspace for their artwork, whereas Sarah smokes with minimal need for reason. Natalie's religion helps her find an inner peace and provides her with a purpose, larger than university or relationships and while Sarah doesn't believe in religion, it's the idea of order, structure and openness that mostly annoys Sarah, because she's aware of its importance to her, but her own lack of each. 

 Beth is perhaps Sarah's most obvious antithesis: hard-working, personally motivated and only drinks in small amounts and when work is done. She encapsulates everything Sarah isn't. While she was originally intended to be a shier character, dealing with social anxiety. However, moving the show to an almost solely internal set-up affected this dramatically. My original plan was to show her as smaller and more nervous when out of the house, struggling with seemingly 'easy' tasks, talking to strangers or being somewhere she's not fully comfortable with, and contrasting this to the Beth seen in the show, smart, confident and outspoken - once in the safety of the home. Unfortunately, I only noticed this, what I considered too late into production when it would have been more difficult to fix. However while I first considered the Beth that ended up in the script almost the opposite of what I'd intended, confident and initially quite confrontational, I quickly realized that she was the comfortable Beth at home, I'd always wanted and that her upfront honesty really set her out among the other housemates and helped avoid cliché of quiet, bookish characters. 

The "Circle of Being" is an idea raised in Definitive Guide to Screenwriting (Field, S 2013), which asks the writer to "uncover some kind of an incident or event in your character's life that emotionally parallels and impacts the story" He insists it should between ages 10-16. According to psychologist Erik Erikson, the stage of life between ages 12-18, is when a person will undergo the ' Identity vs. Role Confusion' crisis (SimplePsychology) during which time "The adolescent mind is essentially a mind or moratorium, a psychosocial stage between childhood and adulthood, and between the morality learned by the child, and the ethics to be developed by the adult " (Erikson, 1963, p. 245).  According to Erikson, this is when an adolescent begins searching for sense of individuality, exploring personal beliefs, values and goals. This makes sense as a timeframe for an incident to occur in a character's life which will impact their future, for example in Thelma & Louise (Scott, R. 1991), Louise is raped and unable to claim a sense of justice and its this event that leads to the shooting of rapist Harlan and powers the entire story. I was not aware of the process of 'circle of being' when I began designing the characters, but instinctively included such a factor for the characters of Sarah and Jack, Sarah and her mum left her father and Jack's mum died. It is these events that my character's claim desperately to have no interest in, yet consistently refer to - revealing that despite their uncaring facade, they obviously care very deeply and require personal forms of closure. By further exploring this idea of a Circle of Being and trying to relate my ideas into it more was very beneficial, not only in ensuring me I was a on a right track characterisation-wise early on, but I also believe it helped bring depth to my characters, strongly defining their points of view, attitudes and aiding in bringing conflict into the series. 

 BBC Writers Room, 'Characters Bring Your Words to Life' Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/resources/scriptwriting-essentials/5-characters. Accessed 21/5/2020) 

SIMPLY PSYCHOLOGY, ' Erik Erikson' Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html Accessed: 21/5/2020) 

Scott, R. 'Thelma & Louise,' 1991, US, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 

Yorke, J (2014) Into The woods. Lonon, Penguin Publishing.  

Erikson, E.H. (1963) Childhood and Society. 2nd Edition, Norton, New York.