Is my script big enough to be a movie, Part 2: Characters
The first question we asked: Is my script’s story concept big enough? Now another question:
DOES MY SCRIPT HAVE BIG ENOUGH CHARACTERS?
It’s easy to look at Indiana Jones, Rambo, and “Dirty” Harry Callahan and figure that they’re ‘big enough’ to deserve film treatment. But what about Red and Andy in The Shawshank Redemption, Malcolm Crowe and Cole Sears in The Sixth Sense, or Crash Davis and Annie Savoy in Bull Durham? Why are they ‘big enough’ characters to work on The Big Screen?
In the case of both Red and Andy, and Malcolm and Cole, it’s the plot, driven by the underlying story concept, which helps to make them big: In the former, a pair of convicts, one of them innocent, who manages to escape; in the latter, Cole sees “dead people”, one of which turns out to be Malcolm. But Crash Davis and Annie Savoy are just two characters in a ‘small’ Rom-Com set in the world of minor league baseball. Not major league baseball, mind you, which might be ‘big’, but minor league.
What did writer-director, Ron Shelton, do to make this pair of characters ‘big enough’? He created what I like to call “atypical typical characters”.The typical part are those aspects of a character with which the reader / audience can identify, the part of who we are represented on the page / the silver screen. The atypical part are those aspects of a character to which the reader / audience might aspire, we wish we were that smart, that talented, that insightful. So even though the character is someone whose typical-ness we can relate to, their atypical-ness transforms them into larger than life.
Consider Annie Savoy. She’s a baseball fan. How many people do we know, including perhaps yourself, who are sports fans? That’s rather typical. She lives in a modest home in a modest city. Again, typical. And yet Annie has a unique world view, a life-philosophy based upon and infused with her passion for baseball. She is, or at least likes to think of herself, as a sage, a wisdom figure of sorts, interpreting reality through baseball tinted glasses. Oh, and there’s the sex thing: Every season, she chooses one new minor league baseball player to partake in her wisdom as well as her body. Decidedly atypical.
We hear a woman’s voice in a North Carolina accent.
ANNIE (V.O.)
I believe in the Church of
Baseball.
(beat)
I’ve tried all the major religions
and most of the minor ones — I’ve
worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma,
Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms,
and Isadora Duncan…
PAN AWAY FROM THE SHRINE across the room. Late afternoon
light spills into the room, across fine old furniture, to a
small dressing table. A WOMAN applies make up.
ANNIE SAVOY, mid 30’s, touches up her face. Very pretty,
knowing, outwardly confident. Words flow from her Southern
lips with ease, but her view of the world crosses Southern,
National and International borders. She’s cosmic.
ANNIE (V.O. CONT’D)
I know things. For instance —
(beat)
There are 108 beads in a Catholic
rosary. And —
(beat)
There are 108 stitches in a
baseball.
(beat)
When I learned that, I gave Jesus
a chance.
(beat)
But it just didn’t work out between
us The Lord laid too much guilt
on me. I prefer metaphysics to
theology.
(beat)
You see, there’s no guilt in
baseball…and it’s never boring.
Now consider Crash Davis. He’s spent the better part of 15 years playing baseball in the minor leagues. Not typical you say, but the way Crash carries himself, baseball, at this point in his life, has evolved into a job. And what started out with such promise has lost its sheen. Can any of you relate to that emotional place regarding a line of work you’ve been in for any length of time? Crash Davis stands in the tradition of Willy Loman, the indefatigable salesman, whose product they’re hawking is their Self — and like Willy, Crash sees the writing on the wall and the future doesn’t look pretty. That experience is very typical for many moviegoers. But then, Crash gets brought in to train crazy rookie phenom, Nuke LaLoosh. Furthermore, he gets involved in a mangled romantic triangle with these two off-beat characters. And just to round out the character set-up, Shelton gives Crash his own life-philosophy, also grounded in baseball, but of a more cynical sort, interwoven with romanticism. Not typical.
Crash at the door. Annie’s question is slightly taunting.
He stops, and speaks with both aloofness and passion:
CRASH
I believe in the soul, the cock,
the pussy, the small of a woman’s
back, the hanging curve ball,
high fiber, good scotch, long
foreplay, show tunes, and that
the novels of Thomas Pynchon are
self-indulgent, overrated crap.
(beat)
I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald
acted alone, I believe that there
oughtta be a constitutional
amendment outlawing astro-turf
and the designated hitter, I
believe in the “sweet spot”, voting
every election, soft core
pornography, chocolate chip
cookies, opening your presents on
Christmas morning rather than
Christmas eve, and I believe in
long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses
that last for 7 days.
So are your characters ‘big enough’? If not, perhaps you should dig into them more to create atypical typical characters.
Tomorrow another question: “Does my script have big enough set pieces?”