How to Develop a Protagonist in a Movie Script

Video Transcript

"Okay, now on your note pad what I want you to do is turn to a fresh page. We're going to talk about some of the characters in your movie. There are two basic lead characters, are your protagonist and your antagonist, these are your two leading characters. These are the two people the audience is going to focus on throughout the whole movie, this is what the story is about. These are the people that we feel with and we either hope or despise. The protagonist is the person who hopes to achieve something by the end of the story. The antagonist, of course, being the opposite of that, is the person stopping or blocking the person from achieving their goals. What is the main goal of our protagonist? What is the main goal is something you have to answer before you begin to write. And what clever ways will they use to get there? The opposite of course is what is the methods use by our antagonist to stop him or her. Just a word about co-stars and supporting actors. I mentioned that there is four to six people so this is one and this is two of course and you may have characters three and four who are co-stars. You may have one supporting the protagonist and the other supporting the antagonist. It's an idea. They don't have to do those functions but that is a clear way to use them. These people help push the story forward and they do that by bringing in new ideas to both characters. They bring in new ideas. They make them go in different directions and they guide them through the story rightly or wrongly. They help them get in or out of trouble. They pull the character in different directions. Those are the functions of your co-stars. Or another way of saying co-star maybe supporting characters. However, support character usually refers to someone of a lesser role than a co-star, not always. "