The basic idea of the “coin method” of character development is simple. Often times creators fall in love with their characters and have a tendency to focus more on their characters’ positive attributes more than their characters’ flaws. This tendency toward creating near-perfect characters can make them feel less believable. ‘Believability’ is not about whether or not what the character does is realistic, but rather it’s whether or not the character behaves like a the rest of us ‘highly flawed’ humans while doing it.

If on one side of the coin, your character is stingy, then the other side of the coin can’t be that the character is also generous. Generosity and stinginess are two different coins, not two sides of the SAME coin. An example of two sides of the same coin is if the character is generous, then a negative aspect of that trait might lead to the character also being an irresponsible spender.

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One question that has become popular for executives to ask screenwriters is, 'what is your personal connection to the material?'. The question is misguided in the assumption that writers need to be able to verbalize or explain why they are "authorized" to write the tings they write. In this episode I talk about why that question is wrong and should be avoided.

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Everyone online is panicking about Netflix buying Warner Bros.
“Hollywood is dead!”
“Monopoly!”
“Goodbye movie theaters!”

But… what if we’re all looking at this the wrong way?

In this video, I break down why the Netflix purchase of Warner Bros might actually help the movie theater experience recover — and why streaming absorbing legacy IP could open the door for more original films to return to the big screen.

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