Bruno Costa

AV script for educational video: Storytelling class. Lesson 3: Character creation. Scene Nr. 1 Visuals Audio Medium shot: The teacher opens on Hello, and welcome to another lesson of our screen. storytelling course. 2 Close-up: The Teacher speaks with a Most of the time when starting to tell stories captivating tone to trigger that we ask ourselves: what do we tell first, do we concern most students have about start with the world or with the characters? the subject. 3 Long shot: A short clip from Star Wars where we see Planet Naboo. What if we decided to start with the world? 4 Medium shot: We see a clip from Game of Thrones , Arya Stark rides on horseback alongside The Hound. How does the world determine the characters? 5 Medium shot: A clip from Aliens. Ellen How does the existence of a world affect the characters' behavior? Ripley puts on the mechanic suit to save the girl from the aliens. 6 1- An animation comes up, it shows us a simple drawing of an anthill. 2- An interactive animation continues to shape the anthill on the inside showing us tunnels. 3- Little ants appear inside the anthill and crawl their way through the tunnels. 7 Ants move slowly through the tunnels. If we think of a simple anthill, we could think that ants are not required to perform complex tasks. 8 1- Animation enlarges the size of the anthill and now there are more tunnels. 2- We see an ant carrying food on its back. 3- The quantity of food the ant is carrying increases. To better illustrate what I want to explain let's think of an anthill and its ants. An anthill has a certain number of tunnels, and the ants move around transporting their food through those tunnels. If instead, we think of a larger anthill with many more tunnels housing a larger colony, that makes it a complex anthill and a complex anthill will require the ants to perform more complex tasks. Therefore, a complex anthill will require complex ants. 9 Medium shot of: 1- A forest and a river. 2- A beaver building a dam. It's the same with every system in nature. A river may be the place for one or more beavers to build a dam 10 A medium shot of: 1- A wider river. 2- Beavers building a bigger dam. and if it is a wide, flowing river it will require beavers to build a more complex dam. A simple animation comes up and shows: 1- A tiger walking through the tall grass, prowling for prey. 2- We are taken to a wider shot of the land. We see the plains, and 6 deer eating grass. 3- Suddeny, 5 of those deer vanish from the screen, only one deer remains. It runs away from the tiger. If we think of a different setting, with predators lurking around for herbivores, we know that this ecosystem works with carnivores preying on herbivores. If there are animals living in a habitat where prey suddenly becomes scarce, 12 Animation: 1- Tiger leaving the jungle. 2- Tiger moving into a human settlement. 3- Tiger attacks a human being. predators will change their usual behavior, possibly hunting prey they would not normally hunt, moving out of their habitat into urban settlements to forage for food, or even being forced to hunt humans. 13 Medium shot: The teacher on screen emphasizes the words COMPLEX CHARACTERS. In a fictional world it's exactly the same. Complex worlds will require complex characters. Close-up shot of the teacher. In a universe where there are great challenges and situations that endanger its inhabitants, the characters that exist in it must have the right set of characteristics that allow them to survive in it. Back to medium shot. Let's have a better understanding of this idea with a practical exercise. 11 14 15 16 An illustration of a cyberpunk world Let's assume that we want to build a comes up. It's a modern, yet decayed, dystopian world set in the future where there city at night. is a lot of smuggling. It's a world where there is a shortage of high-quality goods, the prices of consumer goods are very high so the black market has been increasing. 17 18 19 20 Illustration of a smuggler, but looking There are numerous entities that engage in more sophisticated. We can tell he is smuggling to get high-quality, or at least from some time in the future. decent-quality, goods at a reasonable price. Such a world will probably require shrewd characters who know their way around the black market, who have high negotiation skills and many connections. We see illustrations of: 1- A woman dressed in black leather walking in a dark alley, she has a Catwoman-like appearance. 2- Then another one where she points a gun at two scruffy guys. One of the guys holds an open box on the ground, and on the inside, we see luxury watches and smartphones. They are also characters who have suppressed their sense of ethics in order to survive and are not afraid to get their hands dirty to get what they want, as they'll be willing to corrupt others and fight those who stand in their way. 1- A clip from The Mandalorian. We see the bounty hunter beating other smugglers. As you can see, a smuggling world requires characters with many nuances and complexities, as it is a complex world. Medium shot: The teacher on screen. Obviously we would not expect such a world to have fearful characters, or characters with a strong sense of ethics, as they wouldn't be willing to do anything illegal to survive. Close-up of the teacher. 21 Now I'll leave you with some homework. You'll have to perform the following exercise: A screenwriter has done half of the preproduction work in the storytelling stage of creating a movie. He has completed creating the world but has not yet created the characters. 22 Zoom in to an illustration of dinosaurs The scenario he created is a world where walking among people. dinosaurs still inhabit the Earth and are just as intelligent as humans, making them the dominant species. However, the screenwriter has delegated to you the task of creating the characters in the story. Medium shot of the teacher. 23 As a note, I'll give you a hint to complete this homework successfully: A world dominated by intelligent dinosaurs is a complex world, therefore, your characters will have to be complex as well. 24 Close-up shot of the teacher. Apply all you have learned and I'll see you in the next lesson.