Planning

Line: "You come from a family of thieves and now like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history" 

Scene Analysis = At first glance and listening to the voice, you know it's a male voice and sounds like a gangster talking to somebody else. (For me, I had to go beyond the obvious and try to see how we could relate to the dialogue)  

Layout = Decided to frame the scene using: 

• 2x over the shoulder, slightly low angle medium-close-up shots

Empathy Value (You must have atleast 5 out of 9 for the audience to connect - Eric Edson The Story Solution - 23 Actions All Great Heroes Must Take (Book includes story analysis of Pixar's film UP)

Scale of 1 to 5 (1 being no empathy. 5 being more chance of empathy) 

(Dialogue on its own) 
"You come from a family of thieves and now like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history" 

Empathy Analysis

1. Courage= 3 (it might take a bit of courage to say something like that to someone)
2. Funny= 1 (the dialogue is serious)
3. Hard Working= 2 (from the dialogue, it sounds almost as though he has had some experience, as though he was once a guilty man)
4. Caring= 4 (he might be caring for the person he talks to by saying this)
5. Cared by Others= 2 (The person he's talking to might care about him)
6. Skill= 2 (from the dialogue alone you assume he may have some skill in something)
7. Obsessed= 2 (he might be obsessed with the protagonist and his future)
8. In Danger= 4 ("you try to rewrite your own history" might be hinting some kind of danger in the future)
9. Unfair Injury= 3 (it is possible that in the past the character was traumatised by something: Family of thieves)

Overall Empathy Score: 4/9 (You must have atleast 5 for empathy)

(Dialogue with Context)

A psychic is held hostage by a thief (Anti Hero)... and in order to live must say something accurate:  

Psychic: "You come from a family of thieves and now like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history" 

We zoom out and see a hand holding a gun.


1. Courage=4
2. Funny=4
3. Hard Working=4
4. Caring=3
5. Cared by others= 3
6. Skill= 5
7. Obsessed= 5
8. In Danger= 5
9. Unfair Injury= 5

Overall Empathy Score: 6 to 7/9 

Where would the dialogue fall in the Three Act Structure/Character Arc?

Act 1 (Empathy/Inciting Incident =Trauma causes hero to pick up Shield)
Turn 1
Act 2 (Express/Battle/Overcome = Hero learns to let go of shield)
Turn 2
Act 3 (Obligatory Scene/Resolution = Hero faces Trauma and defeats it once and for all or not)

The dialogue: "You come from a family of thieves and now like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history" 

Sounds like it belongs in the "express" part of a  film. The beginnings of Act 2 along the character arc.

Hero may have been traumatized by "family of thieves" and now "rewriting his own history" is his SHIELD he must learn to let go, before facing his family in Act 3. The character off screen naturally has more empathy than the secondary/supporting character who is talking.

Inspiration
The videos below are more related to the type of character I was going for, the psychic/magician, the reason why I chose to make the character a psychic was to try and increase empathy and by increasing empathy there's more connection with the character. Making the character a psychic in a way increases empathy value, we connect and are intrigued by skill:




I did manage to capture Video Reference, I chosen not to show it here but it helped me plan out the scene a bit more, on how to stage the scene, but also helped me figure out a main storytelling pose. I ended up with a pose where one hand is circling around the crystal ball and the other hand is close to the head. 

The animation is of a secondary character talking to an Anti Hero.

Before video reference I did do a quick rig test to check if the Malcolm Rig from AnimSchoolPicker could work and was expressive enough. http://www.animschool.com/DownloadOffer.aspx


Turned out to be a good rig to use.

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