lessons from film

I came into the world of film from photography. I had a passion for making pretty images, but knew almost nothing about good storytelling, so during my first semester at USC, one of my favorite classes has been my screenwriting class. In order to learn what makes a strong, engaging story, we need to have a deep understanding of humanity, and this is what I have enjoyed learning about the most.

I won’t be able to go in-depth on all the things we have learned about this semester so I will just focus on the most interesting thing for me: a character’s inner need. When designing a character, we need to understand what their inner need is — a quality they strive for deep down, something that drives their every action. It’s important to establish a character’s inner need because it creates a realistic character, and the reason why it’s realistic is because its foundation is in real people.

We learned in class that research has found that typically a person’s inner need is established by the time they are six years old. These inner needs include things such as: acceptance, approval, belonging, connectedness, control, independence, and self-worth. I will look at a two of these inner needs to share two key lessons I’ve learned through screenwriting.

1. The inner need for control typically comes from that control being taken away from them when they were younger, often from controlling parents for example. Because they had their control taken away from them when they were young, they go the rest of their lives trying to win that control back. From this, we can see how a child can inherit their parents’ traits, even if they don’t intend to. I’ve learned that when encountering people who are controlling, it is important to recognize that they likely didn’t become controlling by choice, but that their behavior is likely a product of their environment. Although someone’s background doesn’t necessarily excuse wrongdoing, I think it’s a crucial first step to understanding and forgiveness.
2. The inner need for self-worth typically comes from someone constantly being made to believe they are not enough—not smart enough, not caring enough, not “good” enough. Aside from learning where a person’s inner need comes from, we also learned about the best ways each inner need can be resolved. A person who lacks self-worth would likely constantly seek that sense of “worthiness” from others, but the true way for someone to heal their need for self-worth is to realize for themselves that they are enough. A similar healing process can be applied for the inner needs of approval and acceptance. We tell stories not just for fun, but to heal. We hope to tell stories about characters that our audience will empathize with, and in showing the character heal, we hope our audience does too.

These lessons have made the screenwriting class not just a class about stories but a class about humanity. In learning about film I’m learning about life, and yet again I am so grateful that I’ve committed to spending my life making films.