What: Character Rubrics Part One

You need to create character rubrics to guide you in your story telling.

These are not character histories, familial relations, etc.  This is not a character profile (although you will need something in mind along those lines in order to do proper casting).  These are guidelines to help you with character choices you will make in the outlining stage, on set, and in the editing room -- all the way to the end.

Rubrics generate character tendencies -- traits, but only in a very generalized way.  They will influence not what each character does or says, but how they say it, what they lie about, etc.  They have to be defined enough to be useful, yet malleable.  This is nothing new to film making -- Mike Nichols did this all his career.  You create a character rubric, then place it in a context for possibility and play out the choices you made.

Since I only had one experienced actor, it was important that I know who all the characters were and what's driving them at any point in the story.  This allowed me to be totally present to the moment for the actors playing those roles.  I could then give direction and feed lines, if necessary, while I was shooting.

Here are some rubrics I used that have to do with the theme of middle-aged male lunacy.  Mr. Bhati, The Russian, and Graham all want (different than what they need) a new life (and/or a new wife, as it were) for different reasons.

Among other things, Holiday is a story about men hitting middle age.  It is an age where one first senses Death somewhere out there -- not all that real, but a presence pushing in.  A thought that had never been given much consideration before.  This moment informed the creation of rubrics for the three main male characters.

Mr. Bhatia -- wants to own a young beautiful wife.  This is full onset of middle-aged craziness fueled by a world viewed from the point of view of a lack.  You can't get a young woman like Anne to fall in love with you, but you can purchase one and keep her in an ivory tower lost in the chaos of Mumbai.  Having fought his way up from the slums to corporate overlord, his character will always lie, cheat, and fight to get a better deal, regardless of the consequences for those around him.

The Russian -- wants to be with a young beautiful woman who is gone.  Nostalgia fuels his destructive rage against Graham.

The Russian is Death -- someone Graham has been cheating for a long time.  Graham can feel him closing in -- and once he sees the Russian's gunman, he knows it is only a matter of time.  Of course the abduction of Anne is all a ruse, a Trojan horse to lure Graham to meet Death face to face.

This is Death -- not riding on a pale horse, but in the back of a black limo.  The rubric used with the Russian: anyone he or his gunman come into contact with -- in person or by phone -- must die (at the marina Graham sees the gunman, but the gunman doesn't see him -- ironically, the gunman, due to his contact with the Russian/Death must die, as well).

Neither Graham nor Anne are seen by Death or his assassin so in the end they escape and Death is left stranded, impotent for the moment.

But he'll meet up with them again one day.