How do you approach them?
Personally, I don't care for them too much. Costume, hairstyle, looks - none of that is my job to describe in my opinion.
My job as a writer is to create the character. Yes, their costume, their hair, the way they hold themselves, and even their background or ethnicity will play a huge role in creating the character, but that is the director's (and MUA's, and production designer's, and casting director's etc) input and voice.
If we as writers try to control too much of the process and narrow down everything too much, does it not become too constricting? Especially if the writer is then inflexible about how to bring their vision to life.
I read so many scripts where the character is described down to their eye colour... would the writer then protest if a casting decision was made that went another way?
Of course, if it's hugely important in the story, and some physical attributes are discussed or are a plotpoint, they do need to be there.
What do y'all think?
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"A script where the character has described down to their eye colour..." -- not a script actually made into a film. That's a novel.
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Its always good to see if their presence is conveyed. This can be anthing from a disarming smile to silencing any room they enter. Other characters' reactions to another character can be more telling than just the physical description.
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Ronika, I'm totally with you about character descriptions!
Before I stumbled onto Stage 32, I used to add physical attributes to all my main characters (especially their height ranges). But hanging around this site broke me of emphasizing characters' physical looks...and now, I won't describe a character's looks unless they're vital to the story or are mentioned in it by other characters.
So darn glad you're here on Stage 32...all the VERY BEST to you!
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Example from a visual masterpiece, AVATAR: DOWNANGLE as Jake passes under a tree limb. Invisible to him, draped on the limb like a leopard, is a striking NA’VI GIRL. She watches, only her eyes moving. She is lithe as a cat, with a long neck, muscular shoulders, and nubile breasts. And she is devastatingly beautiful -- for a girl with a tail. In human age she would be 18. Her name is NEYTIRI(nay-Tee-ree)...
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You need to provide the reader with a very basic visual only. Keep the Casting Agent's job simple - they'll love you for it.
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I spend a lot of time on my character descriptions. One reason is a great character description can help an actor decide to join a project (or refuse the project). I focus on a character's personality and age in a character description. I only mention appearance, clothes, and accessories if they're important for the character and/or the story.
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Ronika Merl for me in outlining spec feature script number eight I enjoy getting creative and tailoring the style and tone of the character descriptions a bit differently for each script, not necessarily boxing myself in with visual cues but also trying different types of tangential characteristics that may not fit with the industry standards but satisfy me as a writer.
Usually by the end of the draft I'll go back and rewrite them as by that point I have more nuanced ideas about each character. Sometimes I'll write half a page just for fun and to remain free in the expression and then cut it down to a line or two later on. Whatever serves the story momentum, you are always the authority on your characters and their world until they take over or until someone brings you a wheelbarrow full of money!
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I’m assuming everyone here is familiar with Aristotle’s debate of Story vs Character? It’s kind of like a chicken or the egg scenario if you’re not familiar. What’s nice about the way that characters are cast is that, in my personal opinion, characters are defined by their actions that drive the story forward and a character’s eye color matters less than it used to. Still matters but it’s kind of an exciting challenge to redefine how physical descriptions affect the story or not.
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I agree with you Ronika Merl, I think the action and dialogue are the revelation the writer has at their disposal. If done well, it can reveal the essentials needed to move the story forward. A thin man in a wheelchair with craniognathic fibro-osseous lesions might be a necessary if the plot hinges on it, like Elijah Price in "Unbreakable."
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If eye colour is part of the story, cool, otherwise that may be excessive.
But all the jobs are your jobs until they are taken over by someone else.
Tall, tattooed and muscled is a description. But a bad one because it lacks detail. That is a description of my daughter. A very giggly, feminine, 27 year old. It could also be a outlaw motorcycle gang member.
You have to paint a picture in the readers head. It has to have as much detail as possible, but not too much that it becomes a job for them to picture it. This is the craft.
Craig Mazin says let all the departments know what will be expected of them. The director will have the final say. But even in the early days, pre-director, perhaps wardrobe will be consulted. That’s not me saying that. That is Craig Mazin, so the show runner of the last of us, writer of Chernobyl and counterless movies.
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I started with far too elaborate character descriptions embedded in my first script :D. They have since been severely pared down.
On the other hand, I do think some indication of what the character looks like is crucial for engaging the reader, first of all, but also to give a sense of what kind of person the character is. If you know that a character is 'elegant' or 'heavyset' or whatever, this flavors how you read that person's lines.
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There is a great chance the writer of the original screenplay wont be involved in development, or be on-set, or have any role besides early revisions.
When your partners are corporations, just worry about what you can control
https://twitter.com/danieljseco/status/1573360640634527750?s=46&t=VeYtvw...
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I write a brief synopsis about the characters. Their personality is already set with the story. To create a feeling of suspense I also like to create an opposing personality to characters. One that could contradict what the audience expected.
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@Ronika excellent excellent points, I agree completely! I stick to (age, dominant adjective) and let the rest speak for itself in dialogue and action.
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I’m pretty minimalist in my approach. I’m not writing a novel and so a paragraph of prose in my mind destroys the flow of someone reading the script. I may add something like “dresses like a punk” but won’t go into detail about every item.
I am more likely these days to describe their character traits, the psychology of the character than anything else, because to my mind that is more germane to the narrative thrust of the story I’m trying to tell.