Dramatic action

They soon discovered that the Verona wastes used by Bliss were contaminated with dioxins, a group of chemical compounds believed to pose a health threat to humans and other animals. EPA studies showed that the level of dioxins in the town s soil and water were so high that residents were at risk for development of cancer and perhaps other diseases. In one of the most dramatic actions ever taken by the agency, it decided (in cooperation with the state of Missouri and the Federal Emergency Management Agency) to buy the town and pay residents the cost of their relocation to other communities. 

Actor Albert Finney once said in an interview that he sifted the many plays and film scripts that he was invited to act in by just reading the beginning and end. If the characters were the same at the end as they were at the beginning he assumed that not very much happened in between. Only if the characters showed development did he bother to read the script in hill, expecting then to find some dramatic action. 

Lead is widely destributed in the environment, especially in industrial and urban areas, and it is readily absorbed into the mammalian body where it exerts a number of undesirable physiological effects. Its most dramatic action is the inhibition of human red cell 5-aminolaevulinic acid dehydrase activity71), but it also depresses the activities of many enzymes having functionsl -SH groups. Attempts to remove lead from the body using agents such as dimercaptopropanol can result in the formation of lipid-soluble lead complexes that may be carried to the brain and exacerbate the effects of lead poisoning. 

There should be flexibility in the way a standard is applied to reflect the levels of uncertainty associated with the standard and the consequences of failure. If the consequences of failure are controversial or expensive, it makes sense to demand that failure is demonstrated with high confidence before such action is imposed on the unwilling. This gives the statistical benefit of the doubt to the polluter. If less dramatic action is to be imposed (e.g., a requirement for further studies), we might act on less confidence of failure. Costly action must not be imposed solely because a regulator has chosen not to monitor adequately. 

This Insufficient response has some vivid description of the creature, with big huge eyes in the front and back of his head. It also includes some dramatic action he shot laser beams into my eyes I guess so he could read my mind. The entire lack of punctuation makes it hard to know where sentences begin and end, and so make the story somewhat hard to read throughout. The vocabulary is also rather simple. 

In his treatise known as the Poetics, Aristotle defines dramatic action as "the movement of spirit or psyche that produces a character s behavior." Film and theatre director Elia Kazan, in his notebook for A Streetcar Named Desire, remarks that "finally directing consists of turning psychology into behavior." Substitute the word "screenwriting" for the word "directing," and Kazan s statement would still hold true. A character s desires or needs, that movement of the psyche to which both Aristotle and Kazan refer, can be expressed only by his or her behavior. The accomplished screenwriter selects those few details, out of all that come to mind, that will best describe the essence of the... 

Dramatic action, or "movement of spirit," as Aristotle defines it in the Poetics, is the life force, the heartbeat, of any screenplay.2 Psyche, the word he uses for spirit, meant both "mind" and "soul" to the ancient Greeks—the inner energy that fuels human thoughts and feelings, the underlying force that motivates us. 

The catalyst is the incident that calls the protagonist s dramatic action to life. It is sometimes called "the inciting incident," e.g., the little boy rescuing the magical balloon in The Red Balloon, or the breaking of the rope as the hero is about to be hung in Incident at Owl Creek Bridge. 

The climax is generally the moment of greatest intensity for the protagonist and a major turning point in his or her dramatic action. Even in a fairly short script, the climax is often the culmination of a series of lesser crises. 

We arrived at an answer to this question by a roundabout way. Because Daedalus is a doer, not a dreamer, a desire to escape prison with his son would serve him as a strong dramatic action. We could simply have made... 

Icarus s dramatic action complementary—to escape prison with his father— but it might be more dramatic to follow through on our perception of him as a dreamer, very different from his father. This difference would exacerbate the natural tension between father and adolescent son. 

Thus, it makes sense that, in answer to Question 5, Icarus s dramatic action is to escape his father any way he can. 

What about an ending Because death is the ultimate escape from any situation in life, we can say that Icarus has achieved his dramatic action—to escape his father any way that he can. But at what a cost ... 

In long narrative films, there is time to develop plot as well as subplots, but in most short narratives, there is time only for a fairly simple story line, however complete the characters or experimental the approach. In order to care about what happens to the main character, we need to be engaged as early as possible. We need to see that character in the midst of life, however briefly, before the catalyst occurs, introducing or stimulating the main dramatic action. 

Set up the main dramatic action, showing the protagonist in his or her life before things begin to change. 

Introduce the catalyst, which can be as subtle an occasion as meeting a stranger s eyes across a room, or as violent an event as a car crash. One essential feature of the catalyst is its visible effect on the protagonist, as it results in the emergence of the main dramatic action. 

Develop that dramatic action through a series of incidents in which the protagonist struggles to overcome the obstacle or obstacles that stand between him or her and the "object of desire"—whatever it is they now want. In general, these incidents or crises should be of increasing intensity, culminating in a climax which leads to resolution of the action, one way or another. 

In a sense, the first and last steps above can be thought of as a simple framing device that shows the protagonist before the main dramatic action gets underway, and again, after that action has been completed. Closure is the writer and director s last word on the subject, the image or images they wish the audience to come away with. 

It is the "movement of spirit or psyche," as Aristotle calls dramatic action, that produces a character s behavior. In any of the dramatic forms, the inner life of a character has to be expressed in what that character does, as well as in the way he or she does it. In a good screenplay, both dialogue and physical action flow from a character s dramatic action (or want or need). 

What is the protagonist s dramatic action To escape to the Union lines, at any cost, with the information he has gathered. 

What is the antagonist s dramatic action To prevent any prisoner s escape, by killing him if necessary. 

What follows is a discussion of ways in which character can be revealed in speech, and ways in which speech can be used to further a character s dramatic action. In good screenplay writing, dialogue is as much a form of behavior as any physical action it is also a form of dramatic action. 

Beginning screenwriters often tend to pack their characters speeches with information, both necessary and unnecessary. What is necessary—and, in the short film, it shouldn t be much—can often be given through behavior, or through dialogue whose primary purpose is to forward the dramatic action, as in the excerpt from Thelma and Louise. 

Read your answers to the seven questions from Exercise 2 about your dialogue sequence and then the scene itself. Try to figure out what is going on between the characters and what each of their inner (or dramatic) actions is, or seems to be. If this is unclear, come to a determination of what actions would make the scene work as you would like it to. (The initial four lines given were intended to suggest conflict.) If you want to extend the scene, do so now. 

If you decide to try using a different character as the protagonist, would the same catalyst produce a strong enough dramatic action to carry the script through to its conclusion ... 

Does your protagonist s dramatic action or need produce conflict ... 

If not, why not Could strengthening or shifting the dramatic action of either protagonist or antagonist or both help to achieve this Is your protagonist too passive It is important to always keep in mind that the essence of all drama is conflict. 

The main character and his dramatic action or goal. The main character is a young priest, new to a poor parish. His goal is to be the spiritual leader of the community. What he does not realize is that in a poor community, life is practical and difficult. There is little room here for spirituality. 

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