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Status

Every episode covering Status.

"You can absolutely change how a character, if a character is a villain or a hero, by bringing in someone higher status or lower status than them and having the way that they interact with that new person change. So you can have someone who’s seemingly lovely and then they treat a serving person badly and you know they’re a villain. Equally, you know, you can have somebody who seems in control and is very reassuring and comforting and then someone comes in who’s higher status than them and you see them behaving as a sycophant and you immediately lose respect and they can never regain that status."

— Alice Fraser  |  DZ-83: A Very Thematic Stand-up Special!

Start here

DZ-8: Status Transactions

How does a shift in status or power reveal character?
AI✦Stu and Chas center their entire analysis on status as a source of dramatic revelation, examining how shifts in character status function as a storytelling engine independent of plot mechanics.✦
⏱ 1h 32m
10 JUN 2014
Listen to make your character relatinships more dynamic.
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Stu and Chas explore an idea they both came across studying theatre: status and by extension (or juxtaposition) power. Is a story where a character changes status or experiences loss (or gains) in power more compelling… →

KEY IDEAS

Status and Character

"You can absolutely change how a character, if a character is a villain or a hero, by bringing in someone higher status or lower status than them and having the way that they interact with that new person change. So you can have someone who's seemingly lovely and then they treat a serving person badly and you know they're a villain. Equally, you know, you can have somebody who seems in control and is very reassuring and comforting and then someone comes in who's higher status than them and you see them behaving as a sycophant and you immediately lose respect and they can never regain that status."

— Alice Fraser (01:58:36) · DZ-83: A Very Thematic Stand-up Special!

Even More

DZ-108: The Emotional Event with Judith Weston

How and why should every scene have an emotional event?
AI✦Status transactions--the moment-to-moment shifts in power between characters--form the backbone of how Judith and the hosts read emotional events within scenes.✦
⏱ 1h 37m
31 MAR 2024
Listen to understand why a scene's power lives in what shifts between characters, not what happens to them.
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DZ-31: Tools for Better Dialogue 1

How does dialogue serve to reveal character?
AI✦Chas and Stu analyze how dialogue shifts the power dynamics between speakers, using scenes from ANALYSE THIS and NOTTING HILL to show status moves in real time.✦
⏱ 2h 5m
10 APR 2016
Listen if your want your dialogue to individualizes characters, reveal characterization, and shift status!
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Chas & Stu are joined once again by the renowned script developer and producer, Stephen Cleary. In the first part of our series on writing better dialogue (there will be more!), we take a close look at how dialogue serves character: individuating characters, revealing characterisation, shifting status, and much more… →

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

What can screenwriters learn from the storytelling techniques used by stand-up comedians?
AI✦Alice identifies status as a precise tool in stand-up: you must play high status but puncture it or let people in, and you can flip how audiences read a character entirely by changing the status dynamics with other characters in a scene.✦
⏱ 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-63: Tools for Better Dialogue 2 - Hook and Eye

How can you create flow and contrast in your dialogue?
AI✦The episode shows how dialogue reveals status relationships between characters, using scenes from the analysed films to demonstrate this dynamic at work.✦
⏱ 1h 58m
31 DEC 2019
Listen when you're rewriting dialogue and want to create connection between characters.
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A full three years after the first instalment (and one of our most popular), Stu and Chas have kidnapped Stephen Cleary to once again develop some craft tools around dialogue. It would be fair to say that - in that time - all three have learnt a lot more about dialogue than they knew in 2016. It would be also fair to say that Stephen perhaps learnt a little more through his research into “genderlect”… →

DZ-32: High-Tension Sequences

How can you recreate the feeling of cinematic high-tension on the page?
AI✦Stu and Chas analyze status transactions within these high-tension sequences, showing how power dynamics on the page generate the physical responses readers experience.✦
⏱ 2h 23m
12 JUN 2016
Listen if you want to evoke fear and tension using only the written word (without relying on camera, lighting, music, or sound).
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Chas & Stu take a close look at sequences of high-tension - the ones that make you lean forward in fear, or jump backwards in terror. Without camera angles, lighting, music or sound, how can screenwriters can evoke those emotions in readers using only the page? These sequences can be found in any genre of film, not just thriller or horror. To that end, Stu and Chas dive into high tension scenes from NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, ZODIAC, ROOM, and THE BABADOOK. We cover their use of shifting POV, Dramatic Irony, Status Transactions, White Space, Sound FX, and many more… →

DZ-30: Oscars revisited - Spotlight and Carol

What makes a script so compelling that it ends up with an Oscar nod?
AI✦Status transactions between characters drive the dynamics in both scripts, and Stu and Chas track how these shifts in power and hierarchy generate dramatic momentum.✦
⏱ 1h 43m
28 FEB 2016
Listen to learn how catharsis, world-building, mid-points, and status transactions elevate great writing
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In this episode Stu and Chas return to their first ever episode by tackling two Oscar-nominated screenplays. But this time - instead of exploring the rigid structures laid down by gurus - they use it as an opportunity to explore what they’ve learned in the last three years and apply them to the phenomenal writing in SPOTLIGHT and CAROL (with slight digression towards THE EXPANSE and GAME OF THRONES (which has possibly replaced Star Wars as the de facto reference point for anything.)… →