Do you ever get that helpless feeling about events like the Gulf oil spill? For me the Gulf debacle stirs up stormy emotions including fear and hatred. Not helpful.
So the personal feature today is -- Barry's Numbers.
Number of dollars the Gulf oil spill will likely cost -- 33 billion.
Number of big windmills we could build for that much money -- 73,370.
Number of megawatts those windmills would produce -- enough to supply 10% of the power needed by the whole United States, every year, according to the Alpine Power Company of Oregon.
The Mystique of Movie Characters
Last post I pointed out the prevalence of 3 major characters in Hollywood movies: the Hero, the Bonding Character, and the Villain.
In my study of movies, I discovered that these three characters each have a certain collection of attributes. If we were talking about stage plays, we might say that each character is an archetype.
Over the course of the 100-odd years movies have been in existence, movie characters evolved, and the nature of the three main characters has become more defined. So, like Darwin's description of evolution, the "fittest" story patterns have survived and we find those patterns repeated in wondrous varieties.
The writer who understands these patterns is more likely to write a successful screenplay. Let's take a basic example. In the movies, as in real life, characters have their likenesses and differences. Those disparities appear in the same form in almost every movie.
Question: which character would be most unlike the Hero, the Villain or the Bonding Character?
Answer: See if you can deduce it from this description of the movie Witness.
Harrison Ford plays the Hero, a workaholic homicide detective. Kelly McGillis plays the Bonding Character, an Amish mother, whose husband has just died. Richard Jenkins plays the Villain, a police captain on the take.Harrison Ford (the Hero) With Kelly McGillis (the Bonding Character)
[Next blog: Differences and Likenesses in Movie Characters]
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