Structural Constellations
What is it about? (Includes video presentations)
The entire European industry agrees that, for economic growth and cultural diversity within the audiovisual industry, creative development remains crucial.
On the other hand, competition within the European market is getting so strong, that the only way to succeed is to have strong stories that have local appeal with a universal message.
To get to that point, it is important that the roles of the members of the development team are clearly defined. But they must also be able to unite for the benefit of the project. In short, the producer represents the interests of the investors and the audience, the author-director fights for his idea and the scriptwriter interprets both interests in his own words. This paradoxical dynamic can damage the project or favor it if the process is run properly.
Objectives of the Master Class
- Reframing the participants’ projects with regard to the story / the scenes / the characters
- To strengthen the skills of the participants in order to improve, from a market perspective, the quality of their scripts and therefore reach a larger audience.
- To enhance cooperation within the team (screenwriter, director or transmedia designer, producer, consultant) during script development to identify/define and support their common creative vision.
- To experience and learn a technique that can be used to solve problems in scriptwriting and in team collaboration.
Structural Constellations offers a unique, shared creative experience for those professionals who are concerned with the major artistic decisions of any production. Upon completion of the two Modules, the participants will have acquired precise expertise on their projects and practical monitoring skills they can use for the benefit of their current and future projects. This intensive European Master Class which has been elaborated by widely recognized specialist Matthias Varga von Kibéd, proposes an interactive and pragmatic approach among peers.
Methodology on the participants’ projects
The Structural Constellation of a film or a transmedia script is a process whereby a group of participants, through spontaneous movement and the communication of the resulting change in their perception, reveal surprising discoveries about the structure and the shift in dynamics of the characters of the project, the scene or the story they represent/perform. The problems are also examined from the perspective of creative blocks and personal development. The Structural Constellation can be applied to feature and documentary films and transmedia projects. It can also be used to solve conflicts within the development team.
In other words, the participants will "stage" the representation of the problem by placing representatives in space. They will thus take a "meta" position to what they want to solve, they will become observers of their own script or team. We know how difficult it is for a producer or an author who has his nose in the script to keep a clear, neutral and objective vision of the project and then to find solutions. The Constellation allows the participants to temporarily remove themselves from this environment and thus give them different perspectives on the problem under analysis.
Matthias Varga von Kibéd helps the team to interpret and understand this shift and the new points of view. Theory and practice are linked – the order of the theoretical inputs is subject to the questions raised by the teams.
The theoretical inputs will frame the following themes:
- Main characters
- Character traits of a main character
- Relevance and potential over-exposure of characters
- Production of consistent lead-ups
- Character development
- Interaction of producer, director and other professionals involved
- Orientation of a story according to different target groups
- Multi-perspectivity (balance between different perspectives)
- Remakes
- Casting questions
- Rewriting existing drafts
- Possibilities and (multiple) effects of reframing a story.