After every meeting, a homework assingment was given to the actors. The point here was to make the actors reflect their own thoughts into the theme. We all already hold stories inside us. There is no need for a screenwriter to "make the story up". The job of the writer is to perceive interesting things happening around him/her and then to oragnize these perceptions in a way which makes a consistent whole. So what I was going for was to search a group of interesting and motivated people and just perceive them in a way which could bring forth the elements needed for the story.

 

1. The actors were asked to perceive their lives as if they didn't know themselves. Then, write a few descriptions of that person from an objective, matter-of-fact point of view.

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2. The actors were asked to give this character a name different from their own, an inner desire (objective) and a inner block that is in conflict with the desire.

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3. Based on these objectives and the impressions that the actors had given, the director gave all of the actors an archetype as articulated in the work of Christopher Voglers "The Writer's Journey". These archetypes include The Hero, The Mentor, The Shadow, The Gatekeeper, The Trickster, The Shape-Shifter and The Ally. (More about the archetypes in the page 'The Crew".)

After this orchestration (if needed), the objectives were then re-formed to fit to the dynamics that started to form between the characters.
 

4. Based on the inner objective, an outer objective was written. The actors were asked, what needs to be done in order for his/her character to achieve this goal?

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5. What is the history behind these characters, how long have they known each other and how has the relationship changed (if it has)?

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6. How does the character act in front of others and how does he/she actually feel about them? What does he/she hide from others?

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7. What would be the most horrible thing that could happen to your character?

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A Dramaturgy Is Formed

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After all of these questions, we had a lot of material coming up and new ideas started to merge. All of the actors used some little details from their own lives, their talent and life experience to spice up the story, yet as we started to write, we had to think about the structure also. Not all of the background material could be included into the story.

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I broke down all of the material to a simple rule. Everything must be related to the main theme of the film: every scene, every line, every action is in some way either a exposition, a development or an result to which all of the former lead.

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We used the classical three act struture as the basis for the plot. In each of the scenes, a main plot event was written first, the substance to which all of the preceding action leads into. Then, a conflict between a thesis and a antithesis is written to develop through the characters into this plot point.

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What we found out was that most of the scenes sprung out of the characters pretty naturally after the objectives had been defined. When we all were on the same page from the beginning, it was really easy to come up with ideas.

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