Film Courage: Can you give me an example of just showing, whether it’s someone waking
up in the morning and they have back pain…
Peter Russell: Oh yeah…BREAKING BAD, here is this horrible guy, he got rid of his brother-in-law
(we didn’t mind seeing him die), but he ends up ruining his family entirely, Jesse,
etc. When we first see Walter White, actually we first see him in his underwear in the desert,
when we first see him at home waking up, he’s waking up in this awful little bedroom with
a terrible nightstand, he’s got this crappy little exercise machine which he gets up on
which he’s broken after 10 seconds (one of those step things) and then the camera
pans to the wall and we see on the wall that in 1983 Walter White was in line for a Nobel
Prize in Physics (Chemistry). Then we go back to him and see he’s dead, something has
hurt him. What is it? Well we find out much later what it is, that he was betrayed by
his partner, by his love. And then he goes and he slumps down and he is sitting at his
breakfast table and it’s his 50th birthday and he gets soy bacon for his birthday. And
his wife goes “Eat it! You’ll like it!” And then his son comes out and says “Well,
the water heater is not working.” “Well, you’ve got to get up early and be the first
in the shower.” “Why can’t we buy a new water heater?” Right? Well, because
Walter is a loser, right?
Everything about Walter shows us that he’s been horribly wounded by something. What we’re
rooting for is for Walter to get better and so when Walter becomes a badass, I don’t
know about you but I’m on his side. I know he’s hurting innocent people, I don’t
care…”Walter, get ‘em, get ‘em! Get that guy!”
So that is a terrible part of the human soul baby. But it’s the device by which we make
a character sympathetic is to show their wounds because as human beings we’re not going
to be interested in good-looking, perfect people who are making a lot of money and they
are great in everything they do. Who gives a crap? We want to see people that we can
identify with because that’s not us. We’ve got problems, right? I’ve got problems,
right? I want to see my problems and somebody else with problems, dealing with problems,
okay?
And you can say Okay a show like RIVERDALE doesn’t do that, but they do. And there’s
fantasy shows where that’s not the case. But most of the time you do want to see a
wound. That’s what likability really means. “Oh, they’re like me? They’re screwed
up. They don’t have it all together. Wish I did. Maybe they’ll get it all together,
right?
Film Courage: And then that means “I’ll get it together.”
Peter: Uh-huh. How did they get it together? But mostly it’s just like “Yeah, they’re
like me. They’re not perfect, they are like me.”
Film Courage: Well, you’ve been using an acronym for a little bit. And what’s funny
is driving over I was looking through the notes and I think that David [Branin] had
said off camera that BMOC stands for Big Man On Campus in the basketball world which I
was not privy to, I did not know that. For writing what is your take on this acronym?
Peter: Beginning, middle, obstacle and climax. That’s what that stands for. I found this
out years ago analyzing all movies that there was an E = mc2 moment for me. There were four
crescendos in a movie where the hero is asked to change and asked to learn the theme of
the movie and asked to learn how to heal. All the things I talk about, the big things
I talk about, healing, learning the theme, stopping bleeding, all that. There’s four
times in a movie inevitably that that happens at a crescendo. It’s 30 pages in, 60 pages
in, 90 pages in and about a 108 pages in. Those I call the beginning, middle and climax.
The BMOC, right? Now that’s a structure that is in every great movie practically that
you’ve ever seen. It’s not in a [Jean-Luc] Godard movie, okay. If you’re writing a
French Wave movie, I’m sorry I won’t be able to help you. That’s just a French guy
peeing in an alley for two hours and that’s great! I love those movies.
But in a Hollywood film that structure is invariably in the story and if it’s not
there’s usually something missing. It will be superseded some day but that’s what’s
operating now.
That BMOC operates in everything, every movie DUNKIRK, in DEADPOOL, everything. But now
in DEADPOOL (let’s just take an example) which is a great movie again I’m big on
wounds, right? What’s our wound in DEADPOOL? The guy…well he’s wounded because he’s
ugly. He becomes extremely disfigured by a chemical bath right. And because of his wound
I’m ugly and he can’t face his girl. He doesn’t feel lovable. So the big crescendos
(the BMOC) points in that movie are is he going to have the balls or the courage to
believe that his girl will love him even though he’s ugly.
So what he’s got to learn in there to heal his wound is I’m lovable. His wound is “Im
not lovable.” Right? And that’s a wound we can all identify with. A lot of us think
we’re not lovable. So his journey in DEADPOOL, the crescendos in the movie are you going
to realize you’re lovable. The answer for him is “Yes, no, no, no, yes. Yes, no, no,
no, yes.” Because after he gets chemically doused he’s too ugly and it takes him most
of the movie to where he can take his mask off, that’s the climax, right? That’s
the part where he takes the mask off. I use DEADPOOL, I could use a more high-flouted
movie but I want people to understand this pattern of BMOC works in every movie. And
you can say “Wow, that’s great Peter, that’s a tool, so what?” The tool will
help you write your movie, you’ve got to figure out what your theme is, you’ve got
to figure out what your character’s wound is and you’ve got to figure out how they
are going to be healing it. That’s it, those are the three things. So the BMOC does that.
Now the interesting thing is a few years ago I freaked out and nearly lost my stuff because
I thought “Gosh, movies are going to be over. Television is everything, oh my Gosh.
I’m a movie guy, I don’t know what to do?”
So I slowly started tentatively “Does this work? Does this work? Okay, that works? Does
the BMOC works?” Well the BMOC turns out to work in television as well. So this tool
works in drama and comedy and TV as well (because why?) Because what we want to see in a story
is the hero learning to heal and even if he doesn’t heal completely because he doesn’t
in TV, he’s still going to go on a journey to healing a little bit. The critical difference
between film and television is that in TV the hero doesn’t heal but he heals a little
bit and at the end he gets ripped open again. So every week he’s going to heal a little
bit and get ripped open again, he’s going to heal a little bit and get ripped open again,
every week (152 times). But the BMOC works at the exact same place as in a television
hour as it does in a movie, there’s just an extra M because there’s an extra act.
So let’s take a 4-act television structure, it’s B M M O C. The O C (the obstacle point)
is the point where it looks like the hero is going to lose. And in a movie this is right
at the 90-page point, let’s take a movie everybody knows (STAR WARS). Luke gets to
the planet (the last rebel planet), Darth has followed him there with a homing beacon,
he’s got a death star, he’s going to blow up the whole damn thing. There is nothing
Luke can do about it, there’s just a little star fighters and he’s got a death star.
That’s it, the movie is over.
And of course what happens is R2D2 says “Hey, I stole the plans of the Death Star, there’s
a little hole you can fill a missile in if you get close. And Luke you can be the only
one to get that missile in that hole if you use The Force, not your computer. And so the
obstacle point is all is lost and the climax is Luke learns the theme of the story, Luke
will you use the force to rescue the princess and save The Republic. He puts his computer
away, all the other star righters used it. They couldn’t get the missile in, he’s
learned, he hears Obi-Wan say “Luke, use The Force, not the computer!” And he puts
the missile in the hole, climax.
So the obstacle point is “All is lost” and the climax is “Luke you did it.”
In BREAKING BAD, the obstacle point is he’s making bad things in the dessert, Jesse comes
back out with the Crazy Eight and the other criminal, they’re going to hurt them both.
Walt is in his underwear, he has no defense. He’s going to get harmed. But he says “I’ll
teach you, I’ll teach you how to cook my recipe.” And the guy goes “Really?”
“Yes.”
And the go in the RV and Walter throws poison into the thing “Whoosh!” And the climax
is he kills them both and becomes the mass for the next 150 episodes. So that’s the
climax. So the O and the C point (I’m not explaining this well but it’s in my lecture
online), it’s a complex tool but it works great, it’s like a little engine that works
any television structure you want, just like it did in the film. So what did I learn when
I started learning about television, everything I learned in movies works.
Every element that I learned in movies works in television, the structure is just a little
more complicated, that’s all.