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Internal Journey

Every episode covering Internal Journey.

"It feels almost though like an internal monologue the way that rob is talking how things are phrased talking about her process the way that she likes to list things"

— Mel Killingsworth  |  DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

DZ-119: Final Character Choices & Great Endings

How do you dramatise a protagonist's internal journey through their final decision?
AI✦The episode’s central question asks how to dramatize a protagonist’s internal journey through their final decision, using examples like Marlon’s choice in Finding Nemo to show how the most difficult decision reveals what a character truly values.✦
⏱ 1h 52m
18 JUN 2025
Listen if you want to understand how to better dramatise a character's internal journey
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In this episode, Stu and Chas focus solely on the final choices made by protagonists and how that reflects their character journey and successfully, or not, dramatises the internal… →

DZ-50: Antagonists! 2 - vs Self

How can characters be their own antagonist?
AI✦By focusing on ‘vs self’ stories, the episode investigates how internal change operates as the primary dramatic engine when the protagonist is their own antagonist.✦
⏱ 1h 47m
19 APR 2018
Listen if you want to understand how protagonists can serve as their own antagonist and how antagonistic forces shape a character's journey
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In Part Two of our Five Part Epic Exploration™ into antagonists, Chas & Stu take a look at “vs self” stories. Stories where the protagonist (or main character) serves as their own antagonist as well as the antagonist for those around them… →

DZ-122: Escalating Antagonism Across Genres

How can you apply horror ideas to action and comedy?
AI✦In Meet the Parents, the manifestation sequence works because Greg’s every mistake stems from insecurity; the film’s escalation is internal made external, which is why the omens and transgressions feel so intimate.✦
⏱ 1h 44m
1 OCT 2025
Listen to learn how thinking of your hero as the horror (for your villains) makes your script dynamic.
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In this episode Chas, Stu and guest Kim Ho continue their exploration into the power(s) of antagonism and how focusing on them can develop story… →

DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

How is the effect of breaking the 4th wall different to voiceover?
AI✦The hosts frame Fleabag’s fourth-wall breaks as intrusive thoughts and defense mechanisms that eventually break down, meaning the absence of camera looks in the finale signals her movement inward rather than outward, mapping her internal arc through the device itself.✦
⏱ 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-56: Character Motivations 2

Workshopping ways to fix character motivations.
AI✦Understanding why a character wants something requires seeing their internal state, and the workshopping here reveals how a character’s inner life either justifies or undermines their external choices.✦
⏱ 2h 16m
30 MAR 2019
Listen if you want to understand how character decisions can break a screenplay and how to fix them
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In this second part of their exploration of character motivations, Chas and Stu dive into what makes “BAD” screenplays NOT work. They examine at moments where they (and maybe you, dear listeners) did not believe a key decision being made by a character and so were taken out of the movie. In a departure from the Draft Zero format, they apply the tools they developed in Part 1 to workshop potential fixes to these beats… →