Screenwriting : Noun of the above by Ben Trebilcook

Hey 32-ers, Ben here. Day 3 of the 'RB Content Challenge'. Yesterday I posted in 'Transmedia'. The title of this post refers to the names of characters, places and things. I just thought I'd be my usual quirky, oddball self about it, which often means me thinking - probably a little too much - about the naming of stuff. Today's post was going to be something completely different, however I woke up thinking about where I teach and recalled a question that was asked of me the other day by a pupil of mine and I thought that I would answer that instead. The question was simple: How do you go about naming people and stuff in your scripts and books? Character names: I don't have a set way in naming my characters. My girlfriend would say otherwise, stating that I am a man of routine. If she's referring to the way I go about it all, she's bang on the money, pending on the genre and where it's set, etc. I was recently commissioned to write an action movie for a Vietnamese production company and with it being set in present-day Saigon. For this, I Googled Vietnamese boys and girls names and naturally a huge number of sites appeared, with lists of exactly what I was seeking. To quote Bruce Willis' character 'Butch' in Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction' "I'm an American, honey, our names don't mean shit." Indeed, Western first names tend not to mean much at all any more, however elsewhere and for this instance, Asian names - Far East and India -do mean a whole lot more than a simple "it sounded different, so I named my kid, Tinky Winky". My Vietnamese names were plentiful and most offered a translated explanation. The names I chose also described the character. A sort in-joke in a sense. For example, a male name for a possible leading man could be 'Hung', meaning 'spirit of a hero / brave or I for a villainous name, I could have 'Quan', which could be translated to mean 'soldier / warrior'. For a character who has to be of a certain age, say 40 and a place, I would search for 'popular names of 1975 in... (wherever the location was). I like to make things that little bit more authentic. With that said, a current project of mine, a martial arts vehicle I'm also producing, is completely different. It isn't set anywhere in particular. The characters are all a little unhinged in. It is by no means a fantasy picture, but has fantastical elements in it. For the lead characters, I wanted them to have Western names, for the villainous opponents, I wanted names that would stand out and sound badass. Every character in that script has a name associated to (drum roll)... a Tom Cruise movie! 'Charlie' from Rain Man is my leading lady. ' I also have my 'Frank', 'David', 'Bill', 'Joseph' and 'Vincent', but for villains I have a 'Kovic' and a 'Jaxx'. Company names: If you're going to make up a company, be sure it doesn't already exist. One of my novels has an electronics firm called 'Robotic Elk Industries'. Robotic Elk is simply an anagram of my surname 'Trebilcook'. Another has a private defence contractor called 'October Kil', once again, an anagram of 'Trebilcook'. I love anagrams and play around a lot. My screenplay version of a movie 'Easter Egg' as it were. Sometimes they're coded clues to the plot or in-jokes or MY tip of the hat to something or someone I admire. Why am I posting this? It's an insight into another writer's way of how they work. Will you get anything from this? Perhaps, perhaps not. You may want to stick with the tried and tested, heroic, butch-sounding typical 'John' (McClane, Rambo, Matrix) or 'Jack' (Bauer, Traven, Burton, Sparrow, Skellington, Ryan, Slater) or you may want to name a character after your fave author, people you admire, people you know or even a pet or none of the above. Everything I write, a character, a place or a thing has meaning to me. Cheers RB for the platform and thanks for reading. Ben Twitter.com/BenTrebilcook - @BenTrebilcook