Characters in Search of a plot and redundant heroes in ensemble cast films
If you are writing a film that has a large cast all with important parts but without the story jumping back and forth between time frames, you’ll find people referring to it as an ‘ensemble cast film’.
Huge damage has been done internationally to ensemble cast scripts by the fact that they are not recognized as being different from the conventional one hero/one journey model, let alone as forms that have their own structural mechanisms. This results in characters in search of a plot or scripts dominated by redundant and uninteresting single heroes who pull focus away from the heat of the film, namely, the group.
Why? If you work on the assumption that film structure is always about one hero on a single journey towards spiritual improvement, you have only two options when you come to write a story that you know has multiple stories and a group of equally important characters. Either you say that because your ensemble story doesn’t conform to the one hero/one story structure it can work without any structure at all (which results in films that are characters in search of a plot - see the column on the left and the article when character driven means characters in search of a plot).
Alternatively, you can try to force your ensemble story into the standard one-hero model by choosing one character to be 'the hero' - and end up with a dreary hero and your group providing color in the background. Tandem narrative films (same theme, different adventures, see below) suffer most from the ‘characters in search of a plot’ syndrome, while multiple protagonist stories (same team, same adventure, see below) suffer most from extraneous heroes.
Ensemble films are valid narrative forms with their own structural make-up. They are, and have always been used all the time all over the world (including the US) whenever writers want to write about individuals in a social context or about society at large. They appear whenever scripts seek to explore the restrictions imposed by external social factors, as in films about class, race, religion, gender, law, family, peer group and the like. Almost all war films and films about troubled families are ensemble stories, as are almost all films about social minorities—inevitably because such films are about social interaction and about the demands of social roles and social responsibility.
While the spiritual journeys of a sole individual is an important and perennial topic, there is absolutely no reason why all films should be about this, and indeed, in practice they aren’t.
A huge number of films from all over the world are ensemble cast films; indeed, any DVD case photograph that gives equal prominence to three or more characters is liable to be one, and the output of many countries is heavily weighted in favor of ensemble cast stories. Examples include Nashville, Lantana, Little Miss Sunshine, American Beauty, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Revolutionary Road, Love Actually, The Jane Austen Book Club, Traffic, After the Wedding, As it is in Heaven, Caramel, The Full Monty, City of Hope, Monsoon Wedding, Death at a Funeral, In Bruges, The Big Chill, Mike Leigh's films Meantime and Another Year and too many more to mention.
Below, again, are the three type of film often called 'ensemble films, all different in structure and philosophy (for more information, go to The six sorts of parallel narrative' and 'Which parallel narrative structure suits my script?
Tandem narrative. Examples are: Traffic, Lantana, Nashville, Caramel, City of Hope, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Love Actually, Pan’s Labyrinth, Daybreak, Short Cuts and Crimes and Misdemeanors.
A good motto for tandem narrative is: ‘same theme, different adventures’.
Multiple protagonist narrative. Examples are: Revolutionary Road, American Beauty, The Jane Austen Book Club, Mystic River, Little Miss Sunshine, Galaxy Quest, The Big Chill, Monsoon Wedding, After the Wedding, Ordinary People, Love! Valor! Compassion!, As It Is In Heaven, Last Orders, The Full Monty and Saving Private Ryan.
The motto here is: ‘same team, same adventure’.
Double journeys narrative. Examples are: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Brokeback Mountain, The Proposition,The Queen, The Lives of Others, The Lemon Tree, The Departed and Finding Nemo.
The motto here is: ‘two lives in parallel’.
Huge damage has been done internationally to ensemble cast scripts by the fact that they are not recognized as being different from the conventional one hero/one journey model, let alone as forms that have their own structural mechanisms. This results in characters in search of a plot or scripts dominated by redundant and uninteresting single heroes who pull focus away from the heat of the film, namely, the group.
Why? If you work on the assumption that film structure is always about one hero on a single journey towards spiritual improvement, you have only two options when you come to write a story that you know has multiple stories and a group of equally important characters. Either you say that because your ensemble story doesn’t conform to the one hero/one story structure it can work without any structure at all (which results in films that are characters in search of a plot - see the column on the left and the article when character driven means characters in search of a plot).
Alternatively, you can try to force your ensemble story into the standard one-hero model by choosing one character to be 'the hero' - and end up with a dreary hero and your group providing color in the background. Tandem narrative films (same theme, different adventures, see below) suffer most from the ‘characters in search of a plot’ syndrome, while multiple protagonist stories (same team, same adventure, see below) suffer most from extraneous heroes.
Ensemble films are valid narrative forms with their own structural make-up. They are, and have always been used all the time all over the world (including the US) whenever writers want to write about individuals in a social context or about society at large. They appear whenever scripts seek to explore the restrictions imposed by external social factors, as in films about class, race, religion, gender, law, family, peer group and the like. Almost all war films and films about troubled families are ensemble stories, as are almost all films about social minorities—inevitably because such films are about social interaction and about the demands of social roles and social responsibility.
While the spiritual journeys of a sole individual is an important and perennial topic, there is absolutely no reason why all films should be about this, and indeed, in practice they aren’t.
A huge number of films from all over the world are ensemble cast films; indeed, any DVD case photograph that gives equal prominence to three or more characters is liable to be one, and the output of many countries is heavily weighted in favor of ensemble cast stories. Examples include Nashville, Lantana, Little Miss Sunshine, American Beauty, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Revolutionary Road, Love Actually, The Jane Austen Book Club, Traffic, After the Wedding, As it is in Heaven, Caramel, The Full Monty, City of Hope, Monsoon Wedding, Death at a Funeral, In Bruges, The Big Chill, Mike Leigh's films Meantime and Another Year and too many more to mention.
Below, again, are the three type of film often called 'ensemble films, all different in structure and philosophy (for more information, go to The six sorts of parallel narrative' and 'Which parallel narrative structure suits my script?
Tandem narrative. Examples are: Traffic, Lantana, Nashville, Caramel, City of Hope, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Love Actually, Pan’s Labyrinth, Daybreak, Short Cuts and Crimes and Misdemeanors.
A good motto for tandem narrative is: ‘same theme, different adventures’.
Multiple protagonist narrative. Examples are: Revolutionary Road, American Beauty, The Jane Austen Book Club, Mystic River, Little Miss Sunshine, Galaxy Quest, The Big Chill, Monsoon Wedding, After the Wedding, Ordinary People, Love! Valor! Compassion!, As It Is In Heaven, Last Orders, The Full Monty and Saving Private Ryan.
The motto here is: ‘same team, same adventure’.
Double journeys narrative. Examples are: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Brokeback Mountain, The Proposition,The Queen, The Lives of Others, The Lemon Tree, The Departed and Finding Nemo.
The motto here is: ‘two lives in parallel’.
