From the course: Creating a Short Film: 02 Writing

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Adding more humanity

Adding more humanity

From the course: Creating a Short Film: 02 Writing

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Adding more humanity

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- In the last movie, I mentioned the scenes from Lars and the Real Girl, where Ryan Gosling's character was seeing the therapist and added or removed layers of clothing based on how exposed he felt. This works not because it's symbolic or something, but because this is how human beings actually work. Now, typically we don't like this. Human beings generally hate feeling that their motivations and innermost thoughts are discoverable, or, even worse, predictable. But they are. As a writer, it's important to understand the oneness of humanity. We have a bad tendency to lump the "Other Team" into a massive, faceless pile. Conservatives. Liberals. Corporations. The 1%. Or group people by gender, religion, or race. It's much easier to denigrate a group than an individual. But these groups are all made up of people just like you and me. They're trying to figure out life as best they can. As a writer, you need to see the humanity in everyone, even the bad guys. And even the people that belong…

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