Using a Dramatica analysis to direct

[dbareford]

Has anyone on the forums had experience using a Dramatica analysis to steer their direction of a play or film project, and if so, how did it inform your work?

I am slated to direct a stage adaptation of Georgette Heyer’s The Talisman Ring, in which I’ve found a complete storyform that follows the Dramatica model with an almost eerily precision even though the story was penned 50 years before the software (or even computers) was a thing. I’m really excited about the clarity that the Signposts and the Story Driver and MC/IC Problems bring to my understanding of the work, but I wonder if this is knowledge I should keep close to the vest or share with the actors?

An actor’s character, of course, lives in the work and experiences the world of the play from only their perspective, and I don’t know if giving the actor a structural view of the storytelling would help them develop their characters in way that support the story, or if that high-level view would emotionally distance them from fully engaging in their emotional investment in some Brechtian way? Or, should I keep quiet, direct from the knowledge of the storyform without explaining the theory, and simply try to guide the actors to make appropriate choices in innocence without the “Knowledge of Good and Evil?”

I’d love to hear from anyone that has had experience on this front.

Forgive me if this question has been answered before; my searches couldn’t find anything relevant.

Cheers all,
David

[jhull]

I would keep knowledge of the storyform to yourself, and try to communicate the substance of the storyform to your actors in terms and words that they would understand on an intuitive level.

I directed several episodes of the Puss n’ Boots animated television show for Dreamworks TV. While I tried my hardest to work in a complete storyform within some of those episodes, I often found the process frustrating in that some people just don’t get what it take to tell a complete story.

The storyform is the Author’s take on the narrative. If they’ve done their job correctly, then the artists who follow them interpret that storyform and make it an entertaining and engaging subjective experience should likely not know anything about the storyform.

I would think it would be akin to what actors refer to as staying “within their head” - overthinking and second-guessing what should come out naturally.

When working with storyboard artists, who were essentially actors working their way through script pages, I would talk about motivations and the important key “storybeats” of individual scenes and sequences, but I never brought up Throughline Perspectives or Requirements, etc.

I communicated the part of the story that they instinctively understood, and then they took it and made it their own - which is what is great about film, or any other collaborative art - is the combined process of everyone’s natural talents.

When this really works is when the original Author has taken the time to ensure that the narrative is strong and purposeful - getting the narrative first (pun intended) before handing it off to the next wave of artists.

[Prish]

I’ll work to keep this short, and since my brain woke up this morning constructing a tome, I’ll head it off at the pass with a few sentences.

In 2002 I took a college directing drama class, and we could only use student actors who volunteered (for even our final)l, since the school had no money to pay them, that term. I had picked one of the last scenes in ‘Lion in Winter’, and I had attended 3 Dramatica Burbank workshops. With a set of actor volunteers (who had never heard of Dramatica probably), the dynamics were interesting. (like corralling family members to do a gig together) The professor gave me an A, and one thing I had the actors do was unique even for him who had gotten his doctorate at a Scottish university.

I found:

1. The theory points and info was a great store of knowledge… for me… as a way to convince them to do something or why a character was a certain way or dressed a certain way.
2. Keep an eye out on the visuals, since an actor can propose a stage position that will work for something. Volunteers feel very free to suggest, and I was stunned to find out that actors’ instincts on the go, bouncing from director prompts (who is seeing mc/ic/os/), can work together… kind of like using Isadora. Many actors don’t even want to stick to the writer’s words… so, I wouldn’t bore them with theory handouts…haha.

maybe, more later…