EMOTIONS: JUST A PERIFERAL LOOK

Through my many readings and experience in watching movies, I realize that we are influenced by emotions during our movie-watching experience. As screenwriters and storytellers, we deal with emotions; and try transport emotions that we intend to transport to the audiences. That’s where creative writers or screenwriters show their mettle and craft. When we really can define the emotion of the story, build it and transport it well to the audience, we accomplish as effective film-makers or screenwriters.

Do we know what are emotions, if we need to build it well in our stories and screenplays and movies? Also, we need to understand here, it’s based on motions that we indentify genres in movie writing or movie making.

Emotion is the complex psycho-physiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience". Emotion is associated with mood, temperament, personality and disposition, and motivation.

The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin ‘emovere’, where e- (variant of ex-) means 'out' and ‘movere’ means 'move'. The related term "motivation" is also derived from the word movere.

No definitive classification of emotions exists, though numerous taxonomies have been proposed. Some categorizations include:

• 'Cognitive' versus 'non-cognitive' emotions
• Instinctual emotions (from the amygdala), versus cognitive emotions (from the prefrontal cortex).
• Categorization based on duration: Some emotions occur over a period of seconds (for example, surprise), whereas others can last years (for example, love).

A related distinction is between the emotion and the results of the emotion, principally behaviors and emotional expressions. People often behave in certain ways as a direct result of their emotional state, such as crying, fighting or fleeing. If one can have the emotion without the corresponding behavior, then we may consider the behavior not to be essential to the emotion.

Neuro-scientific research suggests there is a "magic quarter second" during which it's possible to catch a thought before it becomes an emotional reaction. In that instant, one can catch a feeling before allowing it to take hold.

Robert Plutchik, professor emeritus at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and adjunct professor at the University of South Florida, also a psychologist, is one person who has contributed much to the study of categorizing emotions. Robert Plutchik's psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion is one of the most influential classification approaches for general emotional responses A wheel of emotions he had created is used to illustrate different emotions compelling and nuanced. Plutchik first proposed his cone-shaped model (3D) or the wheel model (2D) in 1980 to describe how emotions were related.

He suggested 8 primary bipolar emotions: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation. Additionally, his circumplex model makes connections between the idea of an emotion circle and a color wheel. Like colors, primary emotions can be expressed at different intensities and can mix with one another to form different emotions.   

  

                             

Here is a deeper list of emotions as described in Les Parrott, III, Ph.D., is a professor of clinical psychology for Seattle Pacific University, author, motivational speaker, and an ordained Nazarene minister, where emotions were categorized into a short tree structure:   
   

Primary emotion	Secondary emotion	Tertiary emotions
Love	Affection	Adoration, affection, love, fondness, liking, attraction, caring, tenderness, compassion, sentimentality
	Lust	Arousal, desire, lust, passion, infatuation
	Longing	Longing
Joy	Cheerfulness	Amusement, bliss, cheerfulness, gaiety, glee, jolliness, joviality, joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness, happiness, jubilation, elation, satisfaction, ecstasy, euphoria
	Zest	Enthusiasm, zeal, zest, excitement, thrill, exhilaration
	Contentment	Contentment, pleasure
	Pride	Pride, triumph
	Optimism	Eagerness, hope, optimism
	Enthrallment	Enthrallment, rapture
	Relief	Relief
Surprise	Surprise	Amazement, surprise, astonishment
Anger	Irritation	Aggravation, irritation, agitation, annoyance, grouchiness, grumpiness
	Exasperation	Exasperation, frustration
	Rage	Anger, rage, outrage, fury, wrath, hostility, ferocity, bitterness, hate, loathing, scorn, spite, vengefulness, dislike, resentment
	Disgust	Disgust, revulsion, contempt
	Envy	Envy, jealousy
	Torment	Torment
Sadness	Suffering	Agony, suffering, hurt, anguish
	Sadness	Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy
	Disappointment	Dismay, disappointment, displeasure
	Shame	Guilt, shame, regret, remorse
	Neglect	Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult
	Sympathy	Pity, sympathy
Fear	Horror	Alarm, shock, fear, fright, horror, terror, panic, hysteria, mortification
	Nervousness	Anxiety, nervousness, tenseness, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, distress, dread

METAPHORS II

. . . Cont'd

It’s the writer/director’s prerogative to choose the symbols and symbolic action; at the same time, one shouldn’t forget that television and advertising has inculcated the present-day audiences to refuse manipulative symbols or over-earnest metaphors for want of conviction and tangibility. Metaphoric settings, acts, and objects need to be natural and drawn from the world in which the characters live. If they are portrayed as forced they seem artificial and distant.

Mostly in cinema the magic lies in the possibilities of expressing the inner experience of central characters through an array of chosen settings, objects and atmospheres. These elements function metaphorically or symbolically as channels to deeper issues. This’s the scope screenwriters have to foresee while developing metaphoric clues and settings.

An amazing example of blending metaphor into cinematic conflict is in Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993): Ada, a young, mute immigrant, arrives with her illicit daughter and her piano in 19^th century New Zealand. Her intention is to marry a person she doesn’t know or probably love; and the man doesn’t much appreciate her piano either. As eventually, the piano is kept at another man’s house, the latter makes her life warm and instills internal promise and solace, and she submits herself to that man, irrespective of her husband existing.

In this particular world of the story the environment is unavoidably cruel, and love strangled by respectability, expression beyond language, and the soul connected with music and censored sensuality. How otherwise can you define a better work of metaphor?

And when characters play metaphorical roles in an allegory, the writer has to show his craft to typify each character and allocate each character with an archetypal uniqueness. These are very efficient to explain character depths and their worlds. Developing the backdrops and the conflicts typified by metaphors will help the writer-director to explain to actors how you want each to play their role and why.

Paul Cox’s Cactus (1985) portrays “the developing relationship between an angry and desperate woman losing her sight and a withdrawn young man who is already blind. The man makes refuge a cactus house, and she visits him there to see what he can tell her about her fate. The cacti are dry, hostile, and spiky, but also phallic, and the setting becomes emblematic of his predicament. In a sexually charged world, he has turned his back on intimacy and intends to survive self-punitively in a place devoid of tenderness and nourishment.”

Coming back to the basic question—metaphoric conflict—my answer is, as long as the metaphor induces the conflict or the metaphor is more inducing than anything else to provoke the conflict better, then metaphoric conflict is the choice. As a Screenwriter, I’m of the opinion that metaphor is NOT more important than conflict, in the screenplay.

METAPHORS I

Today in my Screenwriting session at LV Prasad Film & TV Academy, one of my students, Guru, asked me an interesting question: What if there’s a ‘metaphoric conflict’ in a screenplay? Of course yes; as long as it’s a conflict, I don’t care if it’s a metaphor or not. If there’s no conflict there’s no story.

But do we really know what a ‘metaphoric conflict’ is? I told Guru I’ll write this out in my blog today; though it’s a little tiring to write amid my other screenwriting commitments.

Do we really know what metaphor is? And conflict?

The roots of metaphor are in storytelling. As far back as AD 400 storytellers would explain information and philosophies to villagers by way of stories, using words to inspire the imaginations of the people who rarely saw anything beyond their village. Even Jesus spread his doctrines mainly through parables (metaphoric stories).

Metaphors draw resemblances. Tiger: a ferocious person; Pussycat: a gentle person. Metaphors paint pictures with words and so add vigor to a screenwriter’s range to picture-making-words or picture-writing craft.

Metaphors state that one thing is another thing. ‘Arun leaps around playfully, a young colt in spring’ or ‘he’s is a tough old battleship, battered but still floating’ or ‘there’s mummified twinkle in the dead man’s hand’. You’re not actually saying that the woman is a horse, the man is a boat or the twinkle has gone through the ancient mummification process, but the equivalence still work.

In talking, if a picture paints a thousand words, in screenwriting a metaphor paints a thousand pictures. It’s a word or a phrase which provokes imagery in the mind. The more you make readers ‘picture’ themselves in a situation, the easier it is to draw them into the heart of your story.

Metaphors which have become part of everyday language like “the ball rocketed into the back of the net” are known as dead-metaphors. This term may suggest lifelessness, but in practice, such metaphors, like a set of juggler’s balls, remain in the air.

MIXED METAPHORS combine two separate metaphors into one bold (or somewhat peculiar) statement. This blend of ideas even has its own unofficial name: a mixaphor. If each part of the ‘mixaphor’ relates to the other and if you don’t over do it, it’s worth experimenting with the concept:

Beauty:

For so many years

I was good enough to eat:

The world looked at me

And its mouth watered.

(Randall JARREL, ‘Next Day’)

Brunch – (Breakfast + Lunch)

Brangelina – (Brad Pitt + Angelina)

EXTENDED METAPHORS: An extended metaphor occurs when writing a series of metaphors, one after the other, throughout a piece of story telling. Poets seem to like them, as do lyricists. Here’s an example from Christina Rossetti, where sleep is used as metaphor for death:

Sleeping at Last

Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,

Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,

Cold and White, out of sight of friend and of lover,

Sleeping at last.

No more a tired heart downcast or overcast,

No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover,

Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.

Fast Asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover

Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.

Under the purple thyme and the purple cover

Sleeping at last.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)

There are allegories to cousin metaphors.  It’s actually the ‘next step’ to an extended metaphor. This often gives a moral message by telling the story under the pretext of another subject. Many fairy tales and fables are examples of allegory.

The best way to use metaphor (of any kind) in screenwriting is in passing, rather than focusing too much on its explicit creativity. More often than not, the more you point the reader to an obvious metaphor, the greater the chance of it coming across as joke or even parody of itself. So, like most techniques it’s better to use metaphors wisely and sparingly.

(To be continued  . . .)

SHORT FILMS II

Here are some classic short films compiled with the help of Peter Rea and David K. Irving’s excellent book, Producing the Short Film and Video, Second Edition (Boston: Focal Press, 2001):

Block, Mitchell: No Lies (USA 1972, B&W, 16 Minutes). It looks like a documentary, as the director crudely presses a raped woman for an account of her misfortune, but it’s all acted and for a purpose.

Bunuel, Luis: Un Chien Andalou/The Andalusian Dog (France, 1928, B&W, 20 Minutes). A surrealist experiment in shocking imagery, undertaken with Salvador Dali that avoids any linear story logic.

Davidson, Alan: The Lunch Date (USA, 1990, B&W, 12 Minutes). A deceptive encounter over a salad between a woman and a homeless man at Grand Central Station.

Deren, Maya and Alexander Hammid: Meshes of the Afternoon (USA, 1943, B&W, 13 Minutes). Seminal work in which the mother of American experimental cinema plays a woman who dreams of being driven to suicide by loneliness and adversity.

Enrico Robert: An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge/ La Rivière du Hibou (France, 1962, B&W, 27 Minutes). A soldier in the American Civil War makes a miraculous escape from hanging—or does he? A fine film and a veritable catalogue of judiciously used sound and picture techniques. From a tale by Amrose Bierce.

Godard, Jean-Luc: Tous les Garçons s’Apellent Patrick/All the Boys Are Called Patrick (France, 1957, B&W, 21 Minutes). Two girls find they are dating the same man.

Lamorisse, Albert: Le Balon Rouge/The Red Baloon (France, 1956, Color, 34 Minutes) A lonely boy in Paris makes friends with a balloon, which begins to reciprocate his attentions. No words.

Marker, Chris: La Jetée/The Jetty/The Pier (France, 1962, B&W, 29 Minutes). A film almost entirely in stills about a survivor of World War III, whose childhood memories allow him to move around at will in time. One shot has motion, and Georges Sadoul rightly says “the screen disarmingly bursts into sensuous life.”

Metzner, Ernö: Überfall/Accident/Police Report/Assault (Germany, 1928, B&W, 21 Minutes). A man wins some cash in a beer hall, but it brings him nothing but bad luck. Almost a catalogue of camera techniques.

Polanski, Roman and Jean-Pierre Rousseau: The Fat and the Lean/Gruby i Chudy (France, 1962, B&W, 15 Minutes). This allegory about a fat and thin man explores the relationship and dependency between master and servant, and what  stops the servant from escaping.

Polanski, Roman: Two Men and a Wardrobe/Dwaj Ludzie z Szafa (Poland, 1957, B&W, 15 Minutes). Another allegory in which two men appear out of the sea, struggling with a bulky wardrobe, avoiding humanity and unable to solve their problems.

Renoir, Jean: Un Partie de Campagne/A Day in the Country (France,1936,B&W,37 Minutes ). A Paris shopkeeper takes his family for a day in the country, and his daughter— who already has a fiancé—falls in love with another man. Sadly, the relationship has no future. From a tale by Guy de Maupassant.

SHORT FILMS!

I think short films has grabbed its due respect these days, not just as ‘calling cards’ as it used to be. Though many are produced from Film School backgrounds, the influence and popularity of YouTube has induced many aspiring film makers think prospectively about shorts; and independent low-budget or no-budget shorts are increasingly being made. Another emerging trend I find is TV channels promoting short films (approx 11 and 22 minutes). Short film festivals call for many rewards I this film making segment.

Recently when ScreenWrite.In participants attended a seminar organized by Goethe- Institut Max Muller Bhavan, on ‘Locating South India Cinema in an International Context’, 24/25 August 2010, I remember Ms. Dorothy Werner of the Berlin Film Festival suggesting how German film industry still see short as a director’s medium, a ‘calling card’ demonstrating their abilities to go on to make their first feature.

The whole idea of why I write about this topic comes from my recent involvement with novice writers both at LV Prasad Film and TV Academy and my own ScreenWrite.In, who venture into writing shorts; and probably sharing my thoughts may help them with some little thing or the other in their writing endeavor.

My strong belief from experience is writing for shorter duration movies is more difficult than for longer drama. The writer needs a new outlook to consider the shorter time at disposal (normally shorts span from 5 minutes to 30 minutes). The cleverness with picture-making is more demanding in short-film screenwriting when compared to long feature.

For the same reason the rules and systematic approach (if I may call them so) of screenwriting are of greater significance for shorts. You have approximately five to thirty pages and needs the craft for the same intensity of story telling like any other longer forms; here the brevity and prudence in structure and expression are everything. The imperative is to place the character immediately into the thick of drama, move along a specific incident of his/her life which provokes the viewer to imagine a more elaborate world of the character.

The ideas and its expression have to fit into space of time disposable. A longer story cannot forcibly be compressed to fit the allotted time or a sketch idea artificially stretched. Nor is it a promo for some future envisaged feature – a good tactic if can pull it off (this line perhaps is for Ekta, LVP-FTA).

Last but not the least, for a short the emotion is more precise, and therefore more intense. As a screenwriter, the emotion building is of very high importance as the duration is short. The emotion provoked with a couple of scenes in a longer drama has to meet the target with just a shot or so in the short; that’s the difference, as also the craft required.

Please find a couple of shorts to watch. Would like to get your opinion on these as to the emotion and structure:

Love Field - Short Film

Inside - Short Film

Characters (Part III)

WHAT DOES YOUR CHARACTER LOOK LIKE?

One way of choosing your characters’ appearance is to recollect pictures from your memory or from catalogues, magazines and the Internet. Another way to picture characters is on casting-call for TV or film, and choose actors who could play the parts.

Be careful about taking characters direct from life; this can get you into trouble if people recognize themselves. But you can use the features of A, the hair of B, the quirks of C, and the height of D. Or you can simply see your character in your mind’s eye.

Here are some lists from which you can choose physical features such as hair and eye colour, general looks, inner feelings, where they live and their background. I have included clothes because what people choose to wear these days, says a lot about them. There is a list of hobbies; use this too because having an interest gives a character depth. There is also a list of faults and bad habits, as nobody is perfect, and a flaw makes a character more believable and interesting.

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Hair colours

HAIR COLOURS:

Auburn

Carroty

Conker colored

Copper

Red gold

Titian

Blonde

Ash blonde,

Flaxen,

Golden

Honey colored

Platinum blonde

Wheaten gold

Black

Blue-black

Colour of a raven’s wing

Colour of night

Brown

Mahogany

Mousy

Nut brown

Old people’s hair

Balding

Grey

Salt and pepper

Silvery

Sparse

White

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HAIR STYLES: styles

Afro

Bob

Braided

Buzz cut

Close cropped

Corn rows

Curly

Dreadlocks

Fringe

Flat-top

Long

Pageboy

Plaits

Ponytail

Ringlets

Short back and sides

Skinhead

Straight

Topknot

Wavy

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PERSONALITY:

Personality

Alert

Aloof

Ambitious

Arrogant

Athletic

Brash

Busybody

Careless

Charming

Cheerful

Creative

Curious

Demonstrative

Dreamy

Gentle

Gossipy

Greedy

Gullible

Humorous

Humorless

Imaginative

Impractical

Intelligent

Jealous

Lazy

Loyal

Noisy

Polite

Proud

Quick-tempered

Sensitive

Show-off

Shy

Smug

Sneaky

Stubborn

Suspicious

Whiny

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EMOTIONS:

Emotions

Anger

Anxiety

Apathy

Boredom

Confusion

Curiosity

Despair

Excitement

Fear

Fondness

Forgiveness

Friendship

Frustration

Gratitude

Grief

Guilt

Happiness

Hate

Hope

Hostility

Irritation

Jealousy

Loneliness

Longing

Love

Resignation

Restlessness

Sadness

Shame

Surprise

Suspicion

Sympathy

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HOME WHERE CHARACTERS LIVE:

Apartment

Bungalow

Cabin

Caravan

Castle

Cave

Chalet

Cottage

Flat

Hotel

House

Houseboat

Hut

Palace

Semi-detached house

Town house

Tree house

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PROFESSION:

Accountant

Actor

Airman/pilot

Architect

Artist

Banker

Baron/Baroness

Cab driver

Chef

Clergyman

Dancer

Dressmaker

Duke/Duchess

Earl/Countess

Enchanter

Engineer

Estate Agent

Gardener

Grand Vizier

Hairdresser

Historian

Horseman/woman

Interior Decorator

Journalist

Judge

King/Queen

Prince/Princess

Lawyer

Model

Musician

Nurse

Policeman/woman

Postman/woman

Sailor

Salesman

Secretary

Shopkeeper

Social worker

Soldier

Sportsman/woman

Spy

Stockbroker

Teacher

Undertaker

Waiter/Waitress

Writer

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HOBBIES:	Computer Games	Painting
Acting	Embroidery	Reading
Airplane watching	Fencing	Record Collecting
Archery	Fishing	Scuba-diving
Ballet	Gameboy	Sports
Birdwatching	Jacks	Stamp collecting
Boating/Sailing	Jigsaw puzzles	Trainsporting
Camping	Martial Arts	TV/DVD-watching
Card collecting	Music

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CHARACTER FAULTS

AND BAD HABITS:

Character faults and bad habits

Arguing

Bad table manners

Casual

Cheating

Clumsiness

Impatience

Interrupting

Lying

Nail-biting

Noisiness

Nosiness

Quarrelling

Quitting too soon

Rudeness

Selfishness

Showing off

Unpunctuality

Untidiness

Vulgarity

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HOW DO THEY TRAVEL? How do tey travel?
Airplane	Ocean Liner
Bicycle	Quad bike
Bus	Rocket/Spaceship
Car	Sailing Boat
Coach and Horses	Scooter
Four-wheel Drive Car	Spots Car
Helicopter	Train
Horseback	Van
Lorry	Motorbike
Magic Carpet

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EDUCATION:
Apprentice	High School
Boarding School	Pre College
Comprehensive	University
Governess/Tutor
Home Schooling
Kindergarten
Primary School

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CLOTHES:

Clothes

Bikinis

Blouses

Boots

Caps

Dresses

Dressing gowns

Earmuffs

Fleeces

Gloves

Gym shoes

Jackets

Jeans

Jumpers

Mittens

Overcoats

Pajamas/Nightdresses

Raincoats

Sandals

Scarves

Shirts

Shorts

Swim suits

T-shirts

Ties

Trainers

Vests and pants

Waistcoats

Wellingtons

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Generally, how do you make your readers like the hero/heroine?

(I don’t really want to repeat the theory here. What’s good that we like, and bad that we dislike is judged by a moral condition we consciously accept. A discussion on this can go really elaborate. For the time being, let’s look at it this way):

• You make him do things the reader would love to do but can’t.

• Show thoughts and actions with which readers will sympathize.

• Make him upright, honest, dependable, brave and clever but modest about it; but not all these characteristics at once.

• You make him the kind of person the reader would like to be, someone he envies.

• Don’t make him a goody-goody – a few faults make a person more human (none of us is perfect). But let the faults be endearing. For instance, if you make him unreliable, let it be about time or remembering things, not about something important like keeping promises.

• Give him a sense of humor.

• Once he is established, make life difficult for him: if the odds are against him, the reader will be on his side.

• Focus on him: let other characters like him and say so to each other. • Let the story be told from his point of view.

Generally, how do you make the reader dislike the villain?

• Make him do something loathsome or reprehensible. Being unkind to an animal will set most young readers against a character.

• Make him unreliable or untrustworthy. Let him be caught out telling lies.

• Make him speak harshly to a character you have made the reader like.

• Make him humorless.

• Make him a hypocrite.