WRITING CHARACTERS WHO ARE EMOTIONAL VS. PASSIONATE

   *Note: when I use the word passionate, I am not referring to the romantic variety.

   If you ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you I'm not a very emotional individual. I'm pretty mellow, never lose my temper, and I can't really remember the last time I was at any emotional extreme. That said, I am a very passionate person. I become veritably manic when working on a project or pursuing some goal or such. One of my sisters on the, other hand, is VERY emotional. Several highs and lows are reached in any given day. But as far as passion goes, she's pretty even on that scale.

   Now what does this have to do with writing characters?

   There are lots of different types of people in the world, some are passionate, some are emotional, and some are a mix of both (there are also logical and insane character, but lets not worry about those right now). In my writing, most of my characters start out leaning more towards the passionate and less towards the emotional side of things. That's fine for first draft, but then I have to go back in and pick out who's going to be my emotional characters and 'fix' them. Writing emotions is not an easy thing for me, as it's never featured much in my own personal experience (watching people being emotional is not the same as feeling emotional). To fill in my experience gap, I always find someone who fits the character(s) I'm fixing and have them take a look at it ( hurray for beta readers).

   What I discovered while going through this process surprised me. Both groups, the emotional character and the passionate characters, do things for different reasons (not a surprise) but that there are a lot of times when their actions aren't all that different from one another.

   Both Passionate and Emotional characters can behave irrationally, and will often act on impulse. However, the emotional character will be driven by external motivators (Person A did something I did/didn't like, and so I feel the need to do something about it) whereas the passionate character will be driven by internal motivators (I want a certain outcome and Person A will/won't help me so I feel the need to do something about it).

   Often, emotional characters are less concerned with the right or wrong of a situation and are more concerned with their own self. Passionate characters will generally adhere to some kind of moral code (not necessarily a good one) and will defend it to a fault.

   So what are you? Are you emotional or passionate?

I WATCHED HUGO

   I finally watched Martin Scorsese's film "Hugo" the other day. For those of you who haven't seen it, don't worry, I won't be spoiling much here. Oh, and I recommend watching it.

   The film made me think back to my film history days when we were learning about the rocky transition from silent to talking pictures. The silent movies were really becoming quite astounding (with a few exceptions) in their visual storytelling, and the talking pictures were (with a few exceptions) a huge step backward as far as the art of movie making was concerned. One of the main reasons for the loss in quality was the restrictions of the new camera and audio set up. Cameras of the day were noisy, and so had to be placed in a large soundproofed room with a glass wall to film through. The actors couldn't move around or turn their heads or else the audio recording would become useless.

   These restrictions frustrated most of the great silent film era film makers and, sadly, most of their careers didn't survive the transition. It took a couple of decades before movies could claw their way back to the quality of storytelling they had before the advent of sound.

   So go watch some late era silent films and early era talking films and let me know what you think. And while I always recommend watching "The Jazz Singer", it doesn't count for this exercise because it's mostly a silent movie with a few talking/singing scenes.

TEACHING ONCE MORE

   Once upon a time, I taught...a lot of things. I taught at an elementary school, I taught at a university, I taught at a middle school. I did a lot of teaching. I like teaching. However, I didn't get a teaching degree, and various rules and laws about teaching prevented me from pursuing a career in education after I graduated with my BS.

   Years passed, I went into film making, ended up getting an MFA, and suddenly I've found myself back in the world of education. I just finished teaching a Summer teen program and I'll be wrapping up an Intro to Editing course later this week. Neither of these classes are long term positions, and I am not planning to stop making movies in order to teach full time. Rather, I'm excited about the prospect to share with others, from time to time, my experience and knowledge of film making with others.

   I've heard it said that "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach". To me that is a terrible phrase. Don't get me wrong, I've known plenty of people who fit that description, but personally, I think those who can should also teach. They are the ones with the most to offer to their students, the most experience and success to share.

   Not everyone has the ability or desire to teach, and I understand that. It just seems wrong to me that there are so few working professionals in the film business who take the time to teach. Yes, they're busy making movies, but that doesn't mean they can't teach a class here and there.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

     Okay, so now I should be getting back on schedule...finally. Post-Production on "Merlin in Love" and "Scream for the Whisperer" has been going well, but taking up a lot of my time. I can't wait to show them to you. In addition to that I've been teaching some courses at the Seattle Film Institute (more on that tomorrow with my regular update) and having a blast. Now that things have calmed down a bit, I should be able to get back into a regular schedule once more...until mid-september, as that's when my wife is due...at which point all bets are off.

POETRY: THE LONG DRIVE

The path goes onward

Sometimes paved and sometimes not

But forward I go

*

Tired feet, sore bones

Life takes its toll on us all

Night comes,will I sleep

*

Can I rest a while

Would that break some unknown rule

Where does the road go

*     *     *

Still getting back into the swing of things: new job, new house, almost a new baby. I'm hoping to get more posted next week and get everything caught back up to speed.

POETRY: SLOW (re)START

Long breaks make weary

Old habits fade, new ones form

Reassert my will

*

Lazy Summer day

Sit outside, lie in the grass

Must I work today?

*

Imagination

Whole worlds are inside me

Yet gathering dust

*     *     *

     My break from writing is coming to an end, but I'm having a hard time breaking out of the inertia. Still, I'm getting there.

SORRY FOR THE DELAY...

   Moving, filming, and lots of other things have happened recently that have kept me from writing my usual posts. But no one likes to hear excuses, so let me just tell you about how the 48 Hour Film Competition went.

   We made a musical comedy and a cut of the film got submitted to be viewed in competition. That's the good news.

   Here's the bad. We were late (like last year so we can only be considered for the audience awards), people got mad, and eventually the team broke apart due to threats and violence. It's always really sad when the stress of the competition gets to people in that way. I think that's why it's so important for teams to know one another very well before going into something like this, because miscommunication is poison and when a team is unfamiliar with how everyone works, it increases the likelihood of bad vibes.

   If/when I do this or any other film competition,I'm going to be the Director (I was just the writer the last time), and I'm going to hand pick my team.

   Still, overall, I had a good time and learned a lot.