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Audience Complicity

Every episode covering Audience Complicity.

"It’s not trying to hide what the characters are feeling. It’s doing quite the opposite. It really wants us to be involved in the character’s emotional state."

— Chas Fisher  |  DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

KEY IDEAS

Declaring Wrongdoing Without Endorsing It

"This film somewhat amazingly tells you coming in that they're murderers and then you're sitting around watching how they commit murder and then you're stressed wanting them to get away with murder and ultimately you're like oh kill again because that's the only way you're going to keep getting away with murder this film yeah makes you feel that way as an audience member absolutely without ever endorsing this is good this is right."

— Chas Fisher (00:52:27) · DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir

Audience Complicity in Moral Compromise

"I want to look at main characters and protagonists doing things - despicable horrific things - and how the audience is carried along with them, compelled by them."

— Chas Fisher (00:03:31) · DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir

Discomfort as Emotional Contract

"... I go, well, that's what I want you to feel: I want you to feel uncomfortable."

— Chas Fisher (00:04:02) · DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir

The Betty Crocker Problem

"How much work do you let the audience do? How much work do you demand of the audience? How far do you guide them? And how much do you tell them? Because at a certain point, it's the Betty Crocker cake with the powdered egg inside. There's no interest for the audience. They're not engaged because you're doing all the work for them. There has to be space for them to come in and bring their egg and feel part of it."

— Alice Fraser (01:30:22) · DZ-83: A Very Thematic Stand-up Special!

DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir

What can Film Noir teach us about character arcs and audience engagement?
AI✦Double Indemnity makes you stressed wanting the murderers to get away with murder, and Chas notes the film accomplishes this ‘without ever endorsing this is good this is right.’✦
⏱ 1h 22m
31 DEC 2025
Listen if you want to write morally compromised characters without endorsing their choices.
▶ More Info
In this two part series, Mel and Chas use Noir (the genre) as a lens to interrogate flawed characters. How can characters doing reprehensible things still engage audiences? How can you ensure representation isn’t endorsement? And whether these characters undergo transformative arcs, or simply reveal their true natures… →

DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

How is the effect of breaking the 4th wall different to voiceover?
AI✦Breaking the fourth wall involves the audience in the character’s emotional present by establishing a direct relationship where we--the viewer--become the recipient of the character’s gaze and narrative control.✦
⏱ 1h 52m
31 JUL 2024
Listen to understand how breaking the 4th wall directly involves the audience in a character's emotional present.
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As part of our series on how filmmakers can directly communicate to the audience, we finally examine the most blatant tool of them all: when character look directly down the barrel of the camera… and thus look directly at us, the viewer. Chas, Stu and Mel take the craft tools/levers they identified in previous episodes and use them to examine the tv-version-of HIGH FIDELITY (“Top Five Breakups”), ABBOTT ELEMENTARY (“Attack Ad)”) and - of course - FLEABAG… →

DZ-92: Insightful Recognition in Powerful Endings

How can endings prompt an audience to reflect on your story?
AI✦Chas and Stu discover that the most powerful endings aim anagnorisis at the audience itself, prompting viewers to ask ‘What was that all about?’ rather than leaving the moment of recognition solely with characters.✦
⏱ 1h 26m
29 SEP 2022
Listen if you want to write endings that make audiences pause and ponder (in a good way, obvs)
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Stu & Chas set out to explore what makes certain endings powerful, in particular those of LA LA LAND, INCEPTION, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and TURNING RED. The lens they bring to those endings is Aristotle’s moment of “anagnorisis” (don’t worry - we can’t pronounce it either), traditionally when a character moves from ignorance to knowledge (particularly of self)… →

DZ-83: A Very Thematic Stand-up Special!

What can screenwriters learn from the storytelling techniques used by stand-up comedians?
AI✦Alice emphasizes that live stand-up requires the audience to ‘feel like they are necessary for the journey of the show’ and that comedians construct intimacy by giving close-up emotional moments and then pulling back so the audience loads in their own personal experiences.✦
⏱ 2h 31m
8 SEP 2021
Listen if you want to understand how stand-up comedians grip audiences and build emotional arcs (and what narrative tools screenwriters can borrow from comedy)!
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Standup comedians can keep audiences gripped to their every word for over an hour, and often bring them to emotional climaxes by the end. So how do they do it and what tools can apply to scripted narratives… →

DZ-66: The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker - Audience Knowledge vs Character Motivation

How does audience knowledge affect your character's motivations?
AI✦Chas, Stu, and Mel examine how fan service operates by weaponizing external knowledge -- what the audience knows outside the show -- to shape how characters are perceived and what they’re expected to do.✦
⏱ 1h 45m
17 MAR 2020
Listen to understand how fan service weaponizes external knowledge against character logic.
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By Order 66: Chas and Stu are joined by special guest - filmmaker Mel Killingsworth - to talk all things Star Wars. Well. Focusing on The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker and wherever else our tangents take us… →

DZ-53: Antagonists! 5 - vs Audience

What if there is no antagonist?
AI✦The episode’s central mechanism is how these films engage directly with the audience through lying, misdirection, and direct address to keep viewers compelled without traditional antagonistic forces.✦
⏱ 2h 26m
26 AUG 2018
Listen to turn narrative uncertainty itself into the engine that keeps viewers compelled.
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It’s time. The Epic Deep Dive(TM) into Antagonists has reached its shuddering conclusion. And for this Part V - by choosing films that have no obvious singular antagonist (and in some cases no obvious narrative either) - Stu and Chas realised there was indeed a final category of antagonists: the films themselves. Where the film (and the filmmaker) are engaging directly with the audience. Where the films are... VERSUS AUDIENCE… →

DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling

How does Film Noir show us terrible people doing terrible things without endorsing it?
AI✦Mel and Chas examine how noir puts you in the shoes of characters committing reprehensible acts--not to endorse them, but to ask ‘can you understand why they would do that?’✦
⏱ 1h 10m
30 JAN 2026
Listen if you need audiences to root for characters who do terrible things
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DZ-111: Unreliable Narrators and FIGHT CLUB

How does the unreliability of a narrator impact the way a story is told?
AI✦Jack’s unreliability implicates viewers in his deceptions and blind spots, forcing them to recognize how they’ve been manipulated by following an untrustworthy narrator.✦
⏱ 55h 26m
2 JUL 2024
Listen to learn how unreliable narrators shape storytelling through voiceover, structure, and control.
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In this episode, Stu and Mel (sans Chas!) take a deep dive into FIGHT CLUB and its use of the unreliable narrator. This is a bridging episode between our previous episode on VOICEOVER and our forthcoming episode on TALKING TO CAMERA as Fight Club does both.… →

DZ-59: Avengers Endgame - Ending Character Journeys

Do you want your audience feeling with or for your characters?
AI✦By asking whether you want the audience feeling with or for your characters, Chas and Julio examine how much you implicate the viewer in the character’s moment-to-moment experience.✦
⏱ 1h 14m
1 JUL 2019
Listen if you're interested in how to dramatise character change, position your audience in relation to characters, and explore the difference between empathy and sympathy in screenwriting
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One day, Chas saw Avengers: Endgame for the second time and wrote a review on Letterboxd. In particular, he had issues with how little he perceived the characters of Cap and Tony changed within the film, their big finale (spoiler). Then friend and patron of the podcast Julio Olivera vehemently disagreed in the comments. He was egged on by Stu. And there in the comments began a debate that looked a lot like an episode of Draft Zero. So we decided to make it one… →

DZ-25: Coincidences, Contrivances & Giant Eagles

How do screenwriters get away with using coincidences in their stories?
AI✦The central question is about getting the audience to buy into moments where story intrudes over character or logic, which requires understanding what audience members will accept as a deal.✦
⏱ 1h 40m
15 SEP 2015
Listen when you need to know which coincidences earn trust and which ones feel like cheating.
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Remember that time in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS when Bruce suddenly - magically - returned to Gotham, and you were like “WTF?!” Well, it turns out that many of the best films have moments that are just as coincidental or contrived (or a flock of Giant Eagles) and yet get away with it. Does Pixar’s “rule” that it is ‘cheating to use coincidences to get your characters out of trouble’, always apply… →