Protagonist Main character

Read Dead Letters Don t Lie, in Appendix B.8 Then look over all four scripts again in each of them, try to locate the catalyst that sets things moving in a new direction for the main character or characters. In order to do this, you must first try to determine which of the characters is the protagonist. (Short films often begin and end with a focus on the protagonist.)... 

Protagonist, meaning main character, is a word that comes from the Greek words for "first" (protos) and "struggler" or "combatant" (agonistes). So the protagonist is the main struggler in the story. 

Before considering this question, it is important to note once more that most short films or tapes work best with a single protagonist there simply is not enough time for an audience to identify with more than one. The exception is with certain kinds of comedy—slapstick, parody, or satire, for example— where a writer may not want the audience to identify with the main character but to maintain a psychological distance from all the characters. (Think of how one views W. C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, or the main characters in... 

Consider the character in the story who appeals to you, the one with whom you can most readily identify. In writing narrative of any kind—except farce or parody, where one doesn t necessarily have to identify with the main character or characters—identification is really more important than whether you approve of the character. One often identifies with characters or finds them appealing even if one doesn t approve of them (Richard III, for example). When you have decided, take that character as your protagonist. Now think about whether you would like the script to take place in the present, at some period in history that particularly interests you, or in the mythical time in which it was originally set. If you can t decide at the moment, choose the last option, at least for your first rough draft. 

The main character, or protagonist, the subject of your story, is the reason for your film story and should be situated in the middle of the action. The story, or plot, gives the main character the opportunity to overcome his or her dilemma. 

I think it s not so much a genre, but a question of the tone of the film that you re doing. In Philippe s case, the tone is set by the protagonist, the main character, and how he sees himself, how he presents himself It s a very important part of the story. So Man on Wire does have this heist movie kind of stmcture, and indeed elements that feel more fictional than a conventional documentary but that emerge from the theatricality of Philippe s personality. It felt like a very good extension of how he told the story, to construct the film that way. 

In any drama, the main conflict is the struggle between protagonist and antagonist—again, whether the antagonist is another character, a man-made disaster, a force of nature, or simply an aspect of the protagonist s own character. The more there is at stake, the more dramatic—in every sense of the word— the conflict. 

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