Day 1 What I learned …

[Claudia Wolfkind]

Creating powerful introductions will pull in both actors and producers/directors.

[Deb Johnson]

What I did to improve my scene:

I made my hero’s introduction more powerful and compelling by aligning it with his core traits and character arc. I included some subtle actions that reflect his military background. I have him demonstrate more empathy, even though he is impatient and doesn’t like the person he’s with. I made his dialogue terser to convey a sense of urgency. I inserted another character (via text) that will be important in his character arc throughout the story.

[Isti Madarasz]

I think what makes this character intro great that it immediately draws us into the action. We learn where we are, what is the situation with this man Jack, we only see what he sees, we discover the “world” (the setup) with him – and so we immediately develop a sense of identification with him. We not only get to know the character, but he becomes our hero. And will remain so until the very end of the series – so it was a successful character intro.

It also helps that after he explores the environment and gives us, the audience time to understand where we are, what is it we’ve got ourselves into – he takes immediate action, he helps the wounded and you can tell by his movements that he knows what he’s doing – maybe he’s a doctor. He is not busy helping himself, he is helping others – so he is a good person. Everything he does describes the kind of person he is.

So what I learned is that I better put my main character in immediate action and make him busy in a way that all his action become a little character description.

[Mary Dietz]

I learned that I needed to reveal more of the character traits of my main character. She is a child so I added more dialogue that shows how trusting she is. Trust is a main theme for the script. This character’s trust will take some battering later.