I recently watched the 1940’s classic ‘Casablanca’ starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Seeing as many including the Writers Guild of America have voted this as having the best screen play of all time, and the studio I’m in happens to have a lot of screen play writing in it, I figured I’d give it a watch. Coincidentally it was the film we had to watch this week for Popular Cinema… Anyway, its interesting to see the development of character within this script. You’ve got Rick, cool with a tough exterior but ultimately sentimental deep down. You’ve got Sam. Cool piano player, cool dude with loyalty and integrity to his pal Rick. You’ve got Ilsa, she’s cool too. My point is that, as all these characters collaborate, it flows. You believe their story a little more than you tend to believe others, the character each one plays is flawed yet have integral qualities. Casablanca was one of the biggest movies in its year, winning Best picture, tripling its larger than usual 1942 budget of $950,000 domestically. It has some of the most memorable characters and lines in film history.

Now, some of the most memorable movie characters like Luke, Han and Leia, Indiana Jones, Marty McFly, Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf to name a few from my childhood, all are complex, fun and characters with integral qualities which make a movie click, just like in Casablanca. These are all from the last 40 years within cinema (more if you count the books.) But more modern, we’ve had different movies with characters who are cool on different kinds of levels.

We’ve got Katniss, who is cool based on her being a tragic survivor, one who’s been through a lot but keeps on going for what’s right. We’ve got Captain America, and Thor, and to be honest a lot of the superheroes who are constantly on the screens, who have been through a lot but keep on going and doing the right thing and being superheroes. You’ve got Elsa and Anna who aren’t you’re everyday princesses, Woody and Buzz who aren’t your everyday Toys. You’ve got Shrek, who’s not your everyday, villainous ogre. The cool thing about today, is that kids have got a broad range of characters to watch, many of which are cool and memorable. Making good characters within a film is important for everybody watching them, not just kids.

And perhaps this is something I want to do. In the best movies I’ve seen its been a lot about the characters, as well as the way the film has been made, how it’s music is etc and of course the story. But again, seeing as this course is about being creative in writing a script and adapting that to film, I’ll focus on whats written for now. I think it’d be something I’d like to have is write about and film cool characters. I realise its not the main focus for this course, as it probably would be for the character studio, but I think its important to think about the elements of the script which people will be experience the movie with. The characters. And watching a movie like Casablanca, where they are written to a high quality, its some inspiration to try to make a better script thus a better movie. Using creative decisions above this, like camera angles, editing and music all elevate this, but I figured it’s good to focus on the basics too and helping audiences enjoy through characters.

REFERENCES:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv