Story Development

Story Development -  Three Act Structure

Jean-Luc Godard - "Every movie needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order"

The three act structure is based on 3 criterions

Criterion one – Protagonist – this is the person or thing that stands in for the viewer this can be subtle but there is nearly always one there. Movies normally begin with a basic story to give us an understanding of what is the “norm” in the movie is also introduces the protagonist to help us establish our views. The protagonist is the person who makes a choice that leads us to the main action a prime example of this would be in the movie Avatar…

Jake Sully (the protagonist) was a paraplegic Marine. After finding out that his brother who was involved in an experiment in another world called Pandora but got killed in a robbery. He decides to take his place. In exchange for surgery sully needed to fix his legs he agreed to help gather intel for the military unit.  

Criterion two – Equilibrium – this is where there is balance, this doesn’t always mean it is good but it’s the normal state for the subject, in the middle of the movie this tends to get disturbed and starts a sequence of events, the crisis. In the chosen film this is where jake sully takes on an "avatar" identity and goes through a series of events in order to become part of the Na'vi tribe to get the intel the military are wanting but the restless Colonel moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics, forcing the soldier to take a stand - and fight back in an epic battle for the fate of Pandora

The third criterion is that the 'outer story' is usually accompanied by an 'inner story' in which the protagonist changes or grows emotionally, phycological story. This is sometime formed in some sort of romance or change of view on there outlook on life. This is the case in the movie avatar when Jake starts to make a strong bond with the native tribe and starts to fall in love with the beautiful Neytiri.

In the end the actor comes to rest, balance is restored but in a different situation. Its about getting things back to a sense of order By the end of the film the characters come to rest in a new, different state of equilibrium, Avatar is a prime example of this, after the war Jake gets changed and welcomed into the na’vi tribe as one of them.

Story Development - Character Design:

There is always a lot of thought that goes into designing features of a character the four main aspects being Protagonist, Antagonist, Dialogue and Stereotype. The character I have chosen to analyse is Jake Sully the main character in the movie Avatar.

The three main important features when designing characters:

Appearance

Action

Interaction

This is Jack sully in the beginning. He is human and in a wheel chair after being in the royal marines, after agreeing to take his brothers place to become an avatar everyone doubts him due to his lack of training, all he could think about was getting his legs back.

You see jack character change drastically in the movie as he learns the na’vi way of life and is in with the action to helps save there world, he become this heroic character who chooses to take the life of an avatar.