Conflict is a pretty simple word and a simple concept. Disagreement, clash, discord, divergence: all of these are descriptive of what makes up a good plot. When I taught Theatre 101 I would tell my students again and again: “Plot is conflict, conflict is plot.” That is all well and good, but what does it really mean?
To put it simply, “conflict” in theatre is two opposing forces vying for the same thing. One is the protagonist (or the hero) and the other is the antagonist (or the “anti-hero”). One then, is the one you root for, the other is the one you do not. This must be made clear. If your audience does not know who is who, how can they know what message you are trying to send?
The conflict should put a question into the mind of the audience, “Who is going to win?” “What is going to happen?” At each plot point, turning point, or what ever you wish to call it, they should ask the central question. (examples of central questions: “Will the boy get the girl?” “Will the boy become a man?” “Will the girl get her brother back?” Every conflict should be so simple it can be distilled into one question in this way.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Exposition
Aristotle in his lectures on dramatic form, The Poetics tells us that Plot (the most essential component of theatre (he calls it Poetry) is “the imitation of the action—for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents… [it is] and imitation, not of men, but of action and of life, and life consists of action.”
So the first thing we need to talk about is the arrangement of the action in your story. What happens in most human videos that I have seen is that there is a deficiency in one of these areas: exposition, conflict, climax, or resolution. Each of these is specifically ordered because that is what will garner the greatest effect on your audience.
This is not to say that you cannot structure your Human Videos in another way. By all means, experiment, test out your theories, but I will guarantee you that eventually you will end up back at this structure because it is time-tested and proved. It just works.
Exposition is the part of the story that sets up the action. One problem that a lot of Human videos have is the lack of set up. The audience is flung too quickly into the action of the story with little in the way of explanation. This can lead to the audience giving up on the story before it has even really begun. Use the instrumental time in your song not just for “cool moves” but for clarification. If you have ever taken a journalism class, they will tell you that the first paragraph should convey to you the answers to the “5 W’s”: Who, what, when, where, why. Some would ass the one “H”: How. I would not include this in your exposition, however, It is what the rest of the plot is for. By the time you reach your Conflict, you should already know who the players in this game are. One good example from an old human video is “The Champion.” In the action you must clearly lay out who is God and who is the Devil. That particular song does it in the lyrics, but that isn’t necessary for good exposition. You can convey as much from one action, look or gesture as you can with lines of dialogue. Use that, and do not rely on the words to do all the work for you.
So the first thing we need to talk about is the arrangement of the action in your story. What happens in most human videos that I have seen is that there is a deficiency in one of these areas: exposition, conflict, climax, or resolution. Each of these is specifically ordered because that is what will garner the greatest effect on your audience.
This is not to say that you cannot structure your Human Videos in another way. By all means, experiment, test out your theories, but I will guarantee you that eventually you will end up back at this structure because it is time-tested and proved. It just works.
Exposition is the part of the story that sets up the action. One problem that a lot of Human videos have is the lack of set up. The audience is flung too quickly into the action of the story with little in the way of explanation. This can lead to the audience giving up on the story before it has even really begun. Use the instrumental time in your song not just for “cool moves” but for clarification. If you have ever taken a journalism class, they will tell you that the first paragraph should convey to you the answers to the “5 W’s”: Who, what, when, where, why. Some would ass the one “H”: How. I would not include this in your exposition, however, It is what the rest of the plot is for. By the time you reach your Conflict, you should already know who the players in this game are. One good example from an old human video is “The Champion.” In the action you must clearly lay out who is God and who is the Devil. That particular song does it in the lyrics, but that isn’t necessary for good exposition. You can convey as much from one action, look or gesture as you can with lines of dialogue. Use that, and do not rely on the words to do all the work for you.
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