Understanding great characters
Miami Vice Season one disk one
If you want
to know how to introduce your characters start with this disk. It works for any type of writing but it
especially works for character development in the novel and the screenplay.
Why?
You have to
be willing to sacrifice your supporting characters. I sacrificed a great character in Siolam. I would have liked to keep him around, but
the character had to go to literally to spur the protagonists onward.
The same thing happens in Miami Vice the pilot. We open
with Tubbs sitting in a car, parked on the wrong side of the street. That should have been a warning to those who
wanted to car jack him. (though that
term didn’t exist in 1984).
He tells the
punks to beat it via a shotgun. But his
real motive is to kill someone so he bribes a waiter to dump expensive
champagne on someone we will later learn is Calderone (the late great Miguel
Pinero). The audience doesn't know he is a cop, we only see flashbacks of his brother being killed and a drug deal gone bad.
The writer
introduces us to his first protagonist, opening credits, and we find ourselves
with the second protagonist, clearly an undercover cop Crockett. Note the name Croc, he owns a crocodile and they live together on a boat.
In the first
scene of the second protagonist, his partner is killed.
The writer
then introduces us to the supporting cast, Gina, Trudy and the Lt.
More on this
tomorrow.
If you want
to see how I did it in Siolam, check it out here.
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