Character Driven
Believable Characters and Authentic Dialogue
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Character Driven Believable Characters and Authentic Dialogue
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Character Consultations can range from a
singular character's reactions in a scene, to the dialogue that would be
natural to them, right on up through congruent plot and action
sequences, and interactions with other characters. Working with
you during rehearsals can expose continuity issues, as well as ensuring
realistic and authentic interactions. To maintain a character's integrity and believability, depth and complexity are only the beginning. We all have core ego-structures that become somewhat fixed by the time we are 3-5 years old. This core becomes both a filter and an amplifier, affecting how we take in and process the world around us. We see what re-enforces our beliefs, and often are blind to that which doesn't fit our preconceptions. Furthermore, and this is key to a character's believability, our perspective shifts under great stress and also when we are feeling confident and secure. When a character doesn't shift perspective in accordance with certain stimuli, we feel in our heart, our gut, our head, that something's wrong. The character is "flat." Of course shifting to any arbitrary perspective will break the illusion even more abruptly. There is a natural set of patterns that we can use to "flesh out" characters, and make them seem more realistic.
Let's look at an example of a character's
"flow" through their reactive palette. Someone who is highly
driven by a sense Conversely, were the same person to be in a position of comfort, confidence, and security, their polarized, good-or-bad, black-or-white worldview would open wider, taking in a multitude of options. A marvelous metaphor for this characterological shift is when Dorothy Gale opens the door of her black-and-white Kansas farmhouse to reveal a vividly colorful world of Oz, first in 1933, and again more famously in the 1939 Technicolor masterpiece. When a character moves dynamically along the paths we intuitively and instinctively know as real, that character becomes real for us.
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of ethical righteousness will inevitably possess a certain level of
anger as well. The conflict between how things "should be" and how
they are will be a focus of attention for them. As they contend
with powerlessness in righting the wrongs they perceive, their anger
will eventually be pushed down and suppressed. This suppression of
anger naturally results in a more emotional, melancholy, and sometimes
even depressed state of mind.