Ⅰ. Story Circle
- A character is in a zone of comfort
- They want something
- They enter an unfamiliar situation
- Adapt to it
- Get what they want
- Pay a heavy price for it
- Returning to their familiar situation
- Having changed
Story Circle of YES MAN
1.You [establish protagonist]
At the beginning of the film, a small scene leads to the protagonist—— Carl, a depressed middle-aged man, whose career has not improved, and love has no results. Always say no to friends’ party invitations. He lives like a living dead every day. He fears being rejected from the bottom of his heart, so he simply chooses to reject others first.
2.Need
By chance, Carl participates in a course called YES. The rule is to say yes to everything (obviously a brainwashing organization). Carl agreed to the tutor’s request under the pressure of the group. From then on, Carl Just says yes…
3.Go
On the night Carl left the course, he met a homeless man. In order to fulfil the promise that he only said yes, he agreed to the homeless request, drove him to the mountain and gave him all his money. But on the contrary, he also met love on that day.
4.Search
Carl started trying to say yes to things he usually refused. As a bank lender, he approved more than 200 loans, accepted all sales, learned how to play the guitar, Korean and even fly a plane…
5.Find
Since Carl started saying yes to everything, life has slowly improved. He was promoted and raised, and he gained friendship, love and career, even save people’s life with music. His life is getting better, but at the same time, there is a potential crisis…
6.Take
By chance, his behaviour was discovered by his girlfriend. As a result, her behaviour of yes was not accepted by his girlfriend. He lost his love.
7.Return
He was very unwilling and wanted to cancel the “contract” with the person in charge of yes. After a car accident, he suddenly realized something important.
8.Change
He no longer only said yes to anything, and no longer rejected anything, he pursued his girlfriend with sincerity and finally reaped love successfully.
Ⅱ.Story Arcs
Ⅲ.Types of characters
- Protagonist: Protagonist is the main character in the story, but not necessarily all positive characters, such as the Walt·White in Breaking Bad.
- Antagonist: Antagonist refers to one or more characters that oppose the protagonist. In the same way, Antagonist is not necessarily a negative character.
- Dynamic: Dynamic refers to the film, some characters have experienced some type of important internal changes.
- Static: Static means that some characters have little internal changes in the story. They often did not learn important lessons and did not make any important changes.
- Round: Round means that some characters are rendered lifelike in the film. These characters have real emotions, conflicting emotions and multiple characteristics.
- Flat: Flat is the opposite of Round. These roles are usually one-dimensional. They lack some emotional expression. The audience’s knowledge of these characters may be only part of the character’s characteristics. For other information, the audience cannot know.
Characters of YES MAN
Ⅳ. Characters Archetypes
- Hero (Protagonist or central character)
- Mentor
- Threshold Guardian
- Herald
- Shapeshifter
- Shadow
- Trickster
- Allies（sidekicks）
In the character design, we let the character include these 8 archetypes.
Ⅴ. Timelines and backgrounds
Timeline：It can be more intuitive to show what happened at what time, using time as the axis to introduce the beginning, development and end of the story. At the same time, you can insert story fragments into the timeline by inserting and flashback.
Ⅵ. Background
The background of the story refers to the historical situation or real environment that affects the characters and events.
The background, or the scene, can be extended to all works of art. It is often a contrasting relationship with the subject it represents, a master-slave relationship. It can promote the development of the storyline and characterize the character.