For years, screenwriters searched for new ways to put the protagonist or hero into jeopardy to drive the plot forward. It’s so common that many writers lost track of the one key element that makes it effective – Making sure the audience cares about the hero first.

People will flock to see Will Smith’s latest action and adventure film, After Earth, because his films consistently bond the audience to the main character. This bonding technique helps the audience to care about the character to the point of being emotionally invested in his outcome — An overflow of a well developed character.

Back to the Future, a Michael J. Fox vehicle, endeared the audience to the main character enough to drive a trilogy. In fact, it was the first Sci-Fi film I remember seeing that made the audience care deeply about the hero and raised the stakes to the point where the audience was emotionally invested in the story.

Once this bond is set in place, the screenwriter can use the same seven ways to raise the stakes in their movie, which I discovered while studying Back to the Future: Instinct to Survive, Need for Safety/Security, Desire to Love and Belong, Lifting Self-Esteem, Desire to Quench Insatiable Curiosity, Need for Balance in Life, and Expression of Self-Realization.

Instinct to Survive

Life against death is the baseline for the survival scenario. While most films don’t push the extreme, many find a way to put the hero in a form of jeopardy that would dramatically change their life to a point where they might not survive. In Back to the Future, the mere sending of Marty back in time was sufficient. He found himself not relating to the things we take for granted.

When Marty found himself in the diner needing to order a drink, he asked for a TAB. The server pointed out that he couldn’t have a tab (or bill) until he ordered something. Marty then asked for a Pepsi Free, but was met with resistance when the server stated that if he were going to order something he’d have to pay for it. Reluctant to ask for anything else specific, Marty asked for something without sugar and received a cup of coffee.

It didn’t take long for Marty to realize that he needed to be careful about his comments and what he shared with others in order to survive his stay in 1955. Most of those mistakes were based on common practices of the audience’s day in 1985, causing them to bond with him all the more. They understood how easy it would be to make the same errors.

However, a stronger survival mechanism was put in place to drive the action plot. It was demonstrated with a picture of Marty’s family slowly being erased because his time travel caused his mom and dad to never meet or kiss for the first time, bringing an end to him and his sibling’s existence. Marty had to get his future mom and dad to meet and kiss the night of the dance or his very existence would disappear – A powerful point of jeopardy driving the film.

Desire to Love and Belong

Another universal point of jeopardy is associated with our longing to be loved and accepted. We will go to great lengths to secure our love for another and we’ll fight anything that tears us away from belonging to something important or someone special. This can be in the form of a sense of community, team spirit, romantic interests, or traditional family.

The key is to paint a picture that others can also hope for or have sampled at some point in their life. Marty experienced this sense of family while bringing together his mom and dad, working on time travel with Doc Brown and his love interest with Jennifer.

Lifting Self-Esteem

Most individuals want to be looked up to by somebody. They want to be recognized and respected among their peers. There is an ingrown desire for us to be recognized for our skills, talents and contributions in life. We want to be somebody.

A healthy form of self-respect or self-esteem would allow George to win the love of Lorraine regardless of what Biff might attempt. This innate drive is significantly different than our need to belong or be loved. It is the inertia that causes us to take action for something we desire or believe in. Putting the very essence of this gut felt understanding of whom we are in jeopardy, drives the hero into action in order to protect himself or the one he loves.

In Back to the Future, Marty had to work diligently with George to raise his self-esteem in order for him to ask Lorraine to the dance, saving his life from being erased from existence. He had no choice but to work with George, even though he seemed beyond help.

Desire to Quench Insatiable Curiosity

No matter how often we try to stuff it or coax it, some form of curiosity always drives us. We have an unending need to know and understand who we are and how we fit together with others. Deep within us is a natural instinct to figure out how things work and to comprehend how things piece together in our lives. We need to make sure all the pieces of our life fit harmoniously together in who we are.

Doc Brown found watching himself on television enticing. It drove a secondary plotline that allowed him to save his own life in 1985 after reading a letter written by Marty in 1955. His curiosity drove him to risk messing up the timeline continuum and ended up altering history. This form of jeopardy brought a surprise finish to the film and set up several comedic situations.

Need for Balance in Life

Balance is found in the people who are secure, confident, and experience love. They hold a sense of balance in their lives and are connected to someone greater than himself such as a mentor, wise counselor or God. When this line of connection is broken, the main character feels a dramatic sense of foolish unbalance in his life, ripe for shifting the plotline at a moments notice.

In act 1 of Back to the Future, we find that Marty is a kid who seems to be misplaced in the wrong home. This cool kid is living among a negative family who seems to be from another planet. The family is out of balance or dysfunctional at best. It sets up many plot points for exploration, as Marty struggles to find harmony within his life. By the end of the film and after a few history-changing events, Marty finds himself in a home with a cool, affirming and positive family.

Expression of Self-Realization

Everyone wants to know ourselves and be who we are. This inner spirit plays out through self-expression and the actualization of our talents and abilities. We find our lives filled with moments where we can hone our skills to match who it is we see our self to be. A comedian has to be funny and entertaining. A doctor has to be logical and methodical. A musician or actor needs to excel at their craft and please their audience.

In act 1 we learn that deep within Marty’s soul is a musician waiting to come out. When this form of self-expression is put in jeopardy, the story takes some interesting turns. Marty finds himself delaying his return to 1985 so he can play one more song in 1955. He had to do it because of who he was. This escalates the risk factor of him being able to get home and drives the film to its climax.

Raising the Stakes

Any of the above areas will raise the stakes of the show, but it will only grip the audience if they can relate or bond with the character in those moments. Hooking the audience with a more universal stake, gives a greater opportunity for driving the plot forward. This can also be accomplished by keeping the character’s goal just barely out of his reach, causing the audience to strain on his behalf in hopes of subconsciously helping him achieve it.

The more the audience experiences the main character’s goal, the more they will connect with him and the easier it will be to drive the plot forward with interesting twists. Playing with the related emotions of the character then allows you to play with the audience’s emotions as well. Both will find themselves on the same journey. Pulling on these emotional strings will then heighten the jeopardy or raise the stakes for the audience, making the pay-off at the end of the climax of greater value.

Article Copyright © 2009 by CJ Powers

Photo Copyright © 1985, 2005 Universal Studios

Since Kodak released the first consumer camera, they have promoted the use of the Golden Rule of Thirds to improve amateur photography, thereby selling more film. Millions of novices took to the streets with their newest compact cameras and shot to their hearts content, only to realize that they either had no taste in composition or that there was still a huge difference between their attempts compared to that of professionals.

What most would be photographers didn’t realize was that professionals didn’t use the Golden Rule, but instead used the Golden Mean or the Golden Ratio. The main reason for this difference was due to the complexity involved that amateurs had no passion to learn. The professionals on the other hand were now competing with a slew of amateurs and needed to distinguish their work through excellent composition.

Kodak promoted the Golden Rule because it was fast and easy to learn, especially on a camera using a 4:3 format ratio. The Photographer looks through the viewfinder, imagines that it’s divided equally into 9 boxes (3 across and 3 down) and aligns the picture so the most important element is at one of the intersections.

Golden Rule of Thirds

The Golden Mean is more difficult to understand and allows the photographer to use it with any format ratio. It is not only mathematical, but also very present in nature – The natural spire of a seashell, the rectangular layering of triangles perpendicular to each angle, or the rotated rectangles inside of rectangles. This divine composition mathematically works out to a 1:1. 618… ratio.

Here is the formula…

Cinematographers choose the Golden Mean over the Rule of Thirds, but seldom have time during a shoot to address the math in order to frame and capture the perfect composition. Instead, they get a feel for what looks good by practicing the proper framing so often that their eye goes right to the Golden Mean points without any calculation.

Golden Mean

I was first taught the Golden Mean when I was shooting a documentary for CBS back in my early 20s. I struggled with the math until a more experienced pro took me under his wings and shared his secret to capturing the right composition on the fly. His trick was so easy and effective, that I won several awards for composition. I was also able to use the technique for still work and won prestigious composition awards from Kodak and Polaroid.

Instead of attempting the math, the pro told me to divide the screen by 5 units followed by 8 units, or 8 units followed by 5 units, both vertically and horizontally. This meant that the entire frame had 13 vertical units and 13 horizontal units. The place where the two ratios intersected was the golden composition point. This allowed me to memorize the placement of the composition points based on the size and shape of the frame.

If I was shooting at 1:2.35, I could find the composition point just as fast as I did shooting at 1:1.85 or any other frame size. With this new form of composition, the sizing of the frame did not matter, nor did the perf pull down system. It no longer mattered if the frame was single perf, 4 perf or even 8 perf. This also meant it transitioned quickly to HD regardless of the sizes or dimensions of the digital censors or the 16X9 relative fields from RED, SONY, ARRI, etc..

Golden Mean

The Director of Photography is always concerned about the format, lense, lights and composition. Each element helps capture the director’s vision onto the media of choice. And, because movies are pictures in motion, the other factor that concerns DPs is the camera movement.

The good news is that the Golden Mean can quickly be reset during dolly, crane, or steadicam shots. A well-practiced camera movement that ties in with the actor’s blocking might have a series of focus changes and shifts in composition. Using the Golden Mean allows for the constant changing of the composition on the fly and looks great on screen.

Copyright © 2013 by CJ Powers

The most successful stories are those where the main character becomes the hero by the climax of the film. The hero walks through a path of change and growth that the audience can follow. The process itself creates a bond between the character and the audience, which develops into emotional support through the second act and emerges with some form of the audience cheering on the rising hero by the climax.

Avatar’s simple hero story structure was key in integrating the incredible effects and new technologies into a motion picture worthy of $2.78B (at the time this article was written) in box office receipts. Due to its huge success and the rising buzz of Avatar 2 due out next year, I thought I’d review the hero portion of the film’s story structure.

The hero starts out as a non-hero who lives a straightforward innocent life. He lives in a mundane world where he functions in a typical fashion that might make the average person yawn. This soon to be hero has a desire to be or experience something more, but continues to live his mundane day-to-day life.

In Avatar, Jake lives a non-adventurous life due to a spinal injury that restricts him to a wheel chair. His legs were well atrophied, yet the desire of his heart was for adventure.

Toss in a Catalyst: Before the audience gets too turned off by the non-hero’s life, the writer adds a catalyst to the mix. This ingredient can come in many forms, but always pushes the hero into an extraordinary adventure. It breaks the mold of the mundane and sets the hero on a path that will continue to escalate until the climax.

Jake learns that his identical twin brother Tommy, who was set to be an avatar user, was murdered for the paper in his wallet. Since avatars are based on exact DNA matches, Tommy’s avatar becomes available for use by Jake.

Reveals His Hesitation: Many films die during the second act because the audience doesn’t understand the growth the hero must accomplish in order to face his adversary in act three. To set up the contrast in act one, the writer reveals the hero’s uncertainty, fears, or any other form of reluctance that could hold him back.

Jake finds himself in a terrifying set of circumstances during his first visit to the rainforest. He encounters many new and weird creatures, but all fear breaks lose when he finds himself in between a six-legged Hammerhead Titanothere and a Thanator with an ear splitting roar. Within a few minutes, Jake realizes that he is not cut out for the adventure and wants out.

Introduce the Mentor: The Archetype or hero’s mentor is introduced to share a few wise words, give perspective or a little nudge to get the hero moving into the adventure. The initial movement sends the hero into a sort of training that develops what he will need to win or overcome by the climax of the film.

In Avatar, this role is split up between Grace and Neytiri. Grace helps Jake to appreciate the scientific perspective on the Na’vi culture and Neytiri teaches him the ways of her people.

Turning Point Sends Hero into Obstacles: At the end of act one, the hero is catapulted into act two through a twist in the plot that sends him in a new and unexpected direction from his goals. He finds himself in a new world that is the antithesis of his mundane world. This transition kicks off the hero’s transformation into whom he needs to become in order to fight the eminent battle in act three.

Jake is captured by the Na’vi and is brought to Mo’at who wants to observe him. She determines that Neytiri will train him in their ways. Colonel Quaritch agrees to Jake participating in the program in hopes of learning how to control the natives. Jake finds himself with numerous obstacles to overcome in learning how to live like a Na’vi.

Plagued by Obstacles: The hero is inundated by a series of obstacles that get worse with each mini-victory and forces the hero to step up to another level, eventually bringing him to a place of confidence with the higher skills needed for the final battle just before the climax.

Jake must learn archery, tracking, riding, language skills and how to bond and tame a banshee. Jake must fulfill the Na’vi warrior’s required right of passage – Bonding with a banshee and becoming an Ikran Makto (One who rides mountain banshees).

A Night of Despair: The obstacles rise to the point where the hero faces a dark night of the soul and desires to give up – All hope seems lost.

By the time Jake’s love interest grows with Neytiri and he has been accepted into the tribe after accomplishing his right of passage, he plays a unique role that brings death and destruction to the people he learned to love. He loses everything and is not welcome among the humans or the Na’vi.

Resurrected Hope: The third act kicks off with a redemptive moment, as the hero’s soul rises to the ultimate challenge. He decides to step up to seize the moment and capture the prize. He enters battle with a cheering audience spurring him on.

Jake turns to Grace and his other human friends to help him get back to the Na’vi in his Avatar. They mobilize the chambers and take one up into the heights where radio signals and tracking devices won’t work. Jake gets another chance and warns the Na’vi of the pending battle. To get their attention, Jake realizes that he will have to do something that only a few Na’vi had ever attempted throughout history; capturing and bonding with the Leonopteryx, the king of the mountain banshees.

The Enemy Rises: The moment the hero’s enemy realizes that he is stepping up, the chase begins and the enemy sets out to destroy the hero in a full out battle.

Colonel Quaritch deems Jake as a traitor and orders a full out attack on the Na’vi and their sacred grounds.

The Hero Wins: The hero uses all he learned in act two to overcome the enemy and win the prize. The enemy is destroyed or sent away until the sequel and the hero returns home to his once mundane life, but no longer as a frustrated person – He is now a full fledged hero.

Jake leads the army of the Na’vi and several other clans into battle against the humans. He uses his knowledge of both cultures and tools to win the battle.

Content Copyright © 2010 by CJ Powers. All rights Reserved.

Photo Copyright © 2009 Fox and its related entities. All Rights Reserved.