Transcript
So the point of obstacles or challenges in a story brings us again back to the grade of identification. Now, if I have managed as a writer, as a storyteller to create a character that I can identify with, then I as a viewer, I will go on a journey with that character and make the journey as a high learning level as possible.
If I put my character a little bit through turmoil, to challenges and to obstacles, I as the viewer will start really rooting for this character, will again start really getting emotionally involved. So this is a very good way of putting the focus and really getting the viewer attached to the character.
In terms of how to integrate the conflict, I do believe again that there are different approaches to the topic, but for me it should be coming out of the character. So first you really have to think about your character and design it and design the character traits. And then when you go on with your story, then really find obstacles or challenges that come out of the character.
So probably a very simple example would be if you created a character and this character has a huge fear of water, so you’ll have to find a way now to integrate that in your story. And at some point just put the obstacle of whatever water does she think can there be in front of that character. And then when I, the viewer, I watch him and, or her and I want to, really solve the situation. So I get very emotionally attached to that. And of course, there are very different ways of building these obstacles or finding them. This was just a very simple example in order how to get there and how to get your character really going through. And you can, you know, you can build a dot, a little bit of water in the beginning and then a little bit more water. And then in the end, I don’t know it is a huge flood wave or something like this, you know, to really to, really get the challenges and the obstacles to your viewer also.
So how can gender change perspective? That is a very huge question and I think it involves a lot of certain perspectives and certain factors. I think that we do live in a world at the moment where many creators and many producers come out of a male perspective that it’s not saying that, you know, they wouldn’t understand the female perspective or something like this. But I think that there is like an imbalance at the moment and when it comes to telling stories, showing worlds, I think we have to shift that.
Now, you could argue, well, you know, we can just make it like this. You have any scripts in the world or stories in the world that you have. And then you just swap the genders and the story should, you know, function the same way. I think that it’s true to a certain degree. Still it’s not really happening out there. And I think this would only solve half of the problem because there are differences between us and I do believe that it’s a good thing that there are differences, but we just have to find a way to show that and to address that and not be afraid of addressing that.
I want to give you an example of a film that I’ve just recently seen where I really thought about how gender can change a perspective. So I watched System Crasher, it’s a film about a little girl. She has anger management problems and this is why she absolutely cannot integrate into society or family or school or whatever. And it was very rare for me to see her as a girl being a character like this. Because normally what we know is, you know, the boys are the troublemakers and then we follow them. So what happened in this film? Because it was a girl, I don’t know why, but the overall situation was that I was more and more also engaged in the environment of that girl. Why is she like this? Why isn’t there help? And if there is help, why are they not succeeding in what they are doing?
So it was a very different way of telling a story over a character and also, you know, getting the environment into it as opposing to another example, the Joker that I just watched recently. And it’s not a similar story, but there is a guy and he gets into trouble and he gets very frustrated and in the end he changes into a troublemaker. This film has only very short pieces where the outside world comes in and it’s always then when it helps the plot to develop. But we don’t really see what is really going on in his world. Why is he like he is and what is making him doing these things? There are only very focused on him as a male character to get to that point where it, sorry, spoiler alert.
In the end he’s going to turn into Joker. So just to see how gender can change perspective. And funnily enough, the director of System Crasher was a female and the director of Joker is a male. So, you know, it’s always not good and easy to just spill it out there. But I think there is a difference on how we approach and how we tell the stories and the characters. And there is so much work to do here from both sides, I do believe. Because we cannot just turn it around and make it a black or white into white or black thing, that’s not what we should be doing, but to, to give the characters more space to breathe. And also more of the surrounding to include more of the surrounding because just one character is never just like that. It’s always about the environment.
So talking about recognition of a difference between a female and a male character or between a female and a male approach to a story. I think we have to start the conversation talking about the fact that maybe there are different ways of telling a story. I don’t want to use the words male and female, but at the moment we have a situation where we all know how to tell a story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. You have a hero or heroine that you’re going to follow and you know, they’re going to go through obstacles. And in the end the solution is there. What if there are different ways of telling stories. I want to give you an example with the virtual reality project that we’re doing right now, we’re also doing a lot of testing to understand, you know, what’s the difference in the awareness and male and female perspectives.
And I read about to test where you had a room full of people and you would put women in that room. And first of all, they would try and find a spot to observe the place and to see who is here, who is interacting with who, and then start approaching and men start interacting while men would go into that room, try and find the best spot where they think they are visible and then start to draw the attention on them. So that tells us something in a different approach, of how we observe and how we approach situations in life. So what if there’s also a difference in how we’re telling stories. What if there is a way of telling stories, for example, that is less solution-based and rather more observing, rather it is a little bit more about what’s actually going on.
Maybe a little bit more about the inner conflicts, maybe a little bit more female-ish, so to speak in that way. And I think what is the problem at the moment is the situation that there are not brave enough people out there who are taking the money in their hands and you know, and just trusting these female creators of these stories because they’re afraid they won’t get the audience. But as long as we’re not going there and as long as we’re not trying it, then we’re never going to figure it out. And there is data that shows us, you know, from our behavior and from how we approach life that it definitely can work.
So yeah, that would be my wish. Again, so that we do more tell the stories, the truthful and authentic stories of also how it comes out of us and not let us being told how to tell the story. And this has something to do with male or female at some point. Based on that because we also had the topic of challenges and obstacles and conflicts before. There is something I shortly want to address is when we speak about conflicts within storytelling, it is many, many times the outer conflict, meaning a character has a problem with something and reacts on it and we can see that, so to speak. I don’t know, a guy has a problem, he goes into a bar, starts a fight.
Everybody can see that conflict going on. What happens with the percentage of the world, namely female people who live a life where they have a lot of inner conflicts but they cannot go out and to a bar and start to fight or they won’t do it because maybe it’s not their natural way, you know, of dealing with the conflict. So it’s a difficult question because how do you make that visible on the screen? Because the outer conflict is a moment, you know, it’s a bang or it’s a reaction or something. And an inner conflict is something that takes time for you, the viewer, to actually really understand what’s going on, to actually really see what’s going on there.
There is a reluctance right now for people to really go into the female inner conflict situation because they’re also afraid of what if this is boring? No, no, it’s not boring. I want to give you an example of a film I’ve seen many, many years ago. I forgot the title of it, but it was a situation where you saw two young women in their teenage years and one of them was raped. Later on then she had to, you know, get rid of the baby and the girls they would set apart because this whole thing ot kind of was too big an inner conflict basically. And so you’ve seen many, many scenes where you just saw them in their daily life, whatever. And in the end of the film, the two women came back together and you, the viewer realized that one of the girls has seen the scene out of a completely different perspective than the other one.
And there was a revelation, you know, within the characters. And there was also a revelation for you as the viewer. But it was only there because for a long, long time you thought differently. And this way the inner conflict of the character really got visible and also on the viewers emotional part. But it took the time that it needed. And it wasn’t a boring film at all. It was just a different kind of way to tell the story. So I just want to see more of films like this out there. That’s all.
