Motivation Determines Behavior
(c) Peter D. Marshall
The Oxford Dictionary defines motivation as “the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.”
When it comes to the emotional directing and physical blocking of actors, I believe the 3 most important words are: Motivation Determines Behavior!
For actors to perform organically and believably, they need to know what really motivates their character before they take any action.
This motivation will then determine how and when they perform an action; how and when they say their lines; which will ultimately affect how you block actors on set.
Motivation – Determines – Behavior
Let’s break this down:
Motivation (Our inner world)
Determines (Controls)
Behavior (Our outer world)
Now let’s break this down even further:
What our needs are (Motivation)
Will decide (Determines)
What action we will take to fulfill our needs (Behavior)
And if we break this down into Super-Objective and Objective:
Motivation: The Super-Objective (Character Subtext) (Main Need)
Determines: Will decide how an actor plays… (Main Actions)
Behavior: The Scene Objective (Script Text) (What they Want)
In other words, the overall story Super-Objective of a character will always influence how an actor plays their Scene Objective.
REVIEW: Character Super-Objectives, Objectives and Actions
(From March 12, 2019 issue – Character Analysis-Part Three)
One of the main responsibilities of a Director is to help actors achieve a realistic performance and one of the keys to getting a realistic performance is by understanding the character’s overall story super-objective, their scene objective and what actions they take to achieve that scene objective.
The Super-Objective (Spine) is what the character NEEDS most out of life; it is their primal motivation, goal, desire or dream in the story.
The Scene Objective (Goal) is what the character WANTS most of all in a scene. This is usually something they want from another person which will help the character achieve their overall Super-Objective.
The Main Actions are what the character DOES (Scene Action) to get what he/she WANTS (Scene Objective) to fulfill his/her NEEDS (Story Super-Objective.)
For example: if we have an actor playing a bully in a film, here’s how we could break down the objectives of this character:
Story Super-Objective (Because they need to have power over people….)
What are the main needs of the character?
What is the primal motivation of the character?
This is the character’s subtext (what they really think and feel.)
Scene Objective (…they want to dominate everyone they meet…)
What does the character want?
What are her active choices to achieve the super objective?
This is the character’s text (what they do.)
Main Actions (…so this is what they do to each person they meet.)
What the character does… (Actions)
To get what she wants… (Scene Objective)
To fulfill her needs! (Super Objective)
To find out what a character is trying to achieve in a scene, actors must ask (as the character) ‘What do I want?’ and this specific character objective drives the character through that particular scene.
Copyright (c) 2019 Peter D. Marshall / All Rights Reserved
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