The Heroic Fairy Tale Villain

Home , False hero, Vladimir Propp

The Heroic Fairy Tale Villain Application of Vladimir Propp’s formalist schema to the creation of a revisionist cinematic fairy tale in which the traditional villain is transformed into an anti-hero.

Scott Hamilton B.E., Dip. Film & Television Production.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts (Research).

School of Creative Practice Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice Queensland University of Technology 2021

Keywords

Screenwriting, screenplay structure, feature film, revisionist fairy tale, character, archetype, hero, anti-hero, villain, protagonist, antagonist.

Abstract

Recent trends in the Hollywood film industry have seen a rise in revisionist fairy tale films in which the traditional literary story villain has been transformed into a cinematic anti-hero. Although many of these commercial blockbuster films have been financially successful at the box office, they are often criticised for their reliance on the Hero’s Journey structural approach of Christopher Vogler, which is a mainstay in Hollywood hero-origin style narratives. This creative practice-led research analyses this character transformation construct and addresses this criticism by formulating a new approach to screenplay structure. This is achieved by utilising the formalist schema of literary Russian fairy tales outlined by Vladimir Propp in Morphology of the Folktale—which has thus far primarily been used within Film Studies academia as an analysis tool of pre-existing film texts and not as a screenplay development tool—and mapping it to Syd Field’s three-act structural paradigm, which is the dominant narrative structure in mainstream Hollywood cinema.

Transformation of the villain to anti-hero and application of this new structural approach was used in the writing of this exegesis’ creative work The Devil’s Symphony, a feature-length dramatic screenplay based on the fairy tale The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Analysis of contemporary Hollywood revisionist fairy tale films informed the iterative process of script development alongside the application of Propp’s 31 narrative elements. These elements were mapped to Field’s notion of the three-act structure for feature film screenplays. The Devil’s Symphony was submitted to various international screenwriting competitions to test the efficacy of the creative practice. The screenplay placed highly in a number of well-regarded screenwriting competitions, including winning the prestigious PAGE International Screenwriting Awards in the action/adventure category. Reflecting on the iterative process of preparing the screenplay for different competition entries revealed how Propp’s morphology can be effectively mapped to Field’s three-act structural paradigm to create a new approach to the revisionist fairy tale screenplay, and its advanced application for facilitating potential franchises.

Table of Contents Keywords ...... i

Abstract ...... ii

Table of Contents ...... iii

List of Figures ...... v

List of Tables ...... vi

Statement of Original Authorship ...... vii

Acknowledgments...... viii

1. Introduction ...... 1

2. Contextual Review ...... 5

2.1 Understanding the Roles of the Characters ...... 5 2.1.1 Archetypes: Heroes, Anti-Heroes, and Villains ...... 5 2.1.2 Protagonists and Antagonists vs. Heroes and Villains ...... 7 2.1.3 Anti-Hero Protagonists vs. Villainous Protagonists ...... 7 2.1.4 Heroic and Anti-Heroic Allies ...... 8

2.2 Structural Approaches to Screenwriting ...... 9 2.2.1 Syd Field: Three-Act Structure...... 9 2.2.2 Christopher Vogler: The Hero’s Journey ...... 11 2.2.3 Vladimir Propp: Morphology ...... 14 2.2.4 Story Structure Similarities: Propp vs. Vogler vs. Field ...... 19

2.3 Comparative Analysis of Pre-existing Texts ...... 20 2.3.1 Maleficent (2014) ...... 21 2.3.2 Pan (2015) ...... 24 2.3.3 Frozen (2013) ...... 26

2.4 Summary and Implications...... 28

3. Methodology ...... 29

4. Discussion of the Creative Approach ...... 31

4.1 Transforming the Villain into an Anti-Hero ...... 31

4.2 A Tale of Two Villains: the False Villain and the True Villain ...... 33

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4.3 Establishing the Hero Protagonist ...... 34

4.4 Mapping Propp’s Morphology to Field’s Paradigm ...... 34

4.5 A Proppian Approach to Plot and Structure ...... 37

4.6 Iterative Screenplay Development ...... 41

5. Creative Artefact: The Devil’s Symphony ...... 45

6. Conclusion ...... 45

Bibliography ...... 48

Appendix A: The Devil’s Symphony: dramatis personae ...... 56

Appendix B: The Devil’s Symphony: morphological outline ...... 57

Appendix C: The Devil’s Symphony: screenwriting contest placements ...... 60

Appendix D: The Devil’s Symphony: screenplay...... 61

List of Figures Figure 2.1. Syd Field’s Paradigm (Field, 2005, p. 21)...... 10 Figure 2.2. Christopher Vogler’s The Hero’s Journey (Vogler, 2007, p. 8)...... 12 Figure 3.1. Action Research Methodology...... 29

List of Tables

Table 2.1. Functions of Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey Archetypes...... 13 Table 2.2. Vladimir Propp’s 31 Functions and Designations. Adapted from Morphology of the Folktale (Propp, 1968, pp. 26–63)...... 15 Table 2.3. Propp’s Spheres of Action of the Seven Dramatis Personae. Adapted from Morphology of the Folktale (Propp, 1968, pp. 79–80)...... 17 Table 4.1. Proposed Alignment of Vladimir Propp’s Functions to Syd Field’s Elements...... 35 Table 4.2. Propp’s Sphere of Action First Constituents aligned to Field’s Act I Elements. ... 36 Table 4.3. Distribution of Propp’s 31 functions when Function XIX (Liquidation) is mapped to Field’s Plot Point 2 in a Single Move Tale...... 36 Table 4.4. Main Story Elements of The Devil’s Symphony...... 37 Table 4.5. Morphology of The Devil’s Symphony Cold Open/Action Prologue Sequence. .... 40 Table 4.6. Updated Main Story Elements of The Devil’s Symphony...... 44

vi Statement of Original Authorship

The work contained in this exegesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the exegesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signature: QUT Verified Signature

Date: 7th July, 2021.

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Acknowledgments I wish to extend thanks to both the academic and general staff of the faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at Queensland University of Technology. Special thanks are due to my primary supervisors, Dr. Susan Cake and Sorin Oancea, as well as to mentoring supervisor, Associate Professor Sean Maher. Additional thanks are due to Dr. Chris Denaro, Peter Hamilton, Andrew Hilton, Michael Lucker, Craig Proudley and Erin Tribble. Professional editor, Dr. Rebecca Hazleden, provided copyediting and proofreading services, according to the guidelines laid out in the university-endorsed national ‘Guidelines for editing research theses’.

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1. Introduction

This exegesis examines the creative practice-led research involved in adapting a fairy tale for the screen in which the traditional literary villain is transformed into a cinematic anti-hero. Within this villain-as-anti-hero construct, the research explores the formulation of a new screenwriting paradigm based on Vladimir Propp’s analysis of literary Russian fairy tales. This new screenwriting paradigm can be used as an alternative structural approach to the most commonly used screenwriting paradigm in mainstream Hollywood cinema, the Hero’s Journey, as developed for screenwriting by Christopher Vogler. This chapter outlines the background context for the research problem and the research objectives.

For as long as storytelling has existed there have been fairy tales, and ever since Walt Disney made his first feature-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937, there have been regular cinematic adaptations of well-known fairy tales. There is an enduring quality to these stories, ones that teach us morals and life lessons, and have the ability to transcend language barriers, but also reflect the values and ideals of specific cultures and members of society (Zipes, 2012, p. ix). The universal appeal of fairy tales provides a continuous source of inspiration for filmmakers, and with Hollywood currently dominated by material based on pre-existing IP (intellectual property), which offers brand awareness, name recognition and existing fan loyalty, as well as spin-off and series potential, there has been a significant increase in the production of cinematic content based on well-known fairy tales. Quite often, these cinematic adaptations change intrinsic narrative elements of the original literary story to not only generate renewed interest in the familiar source material, but also provide new resonance and meaning for modern audiences. In an interview with Variety (Kroll, 2011), producer Joe Roth (Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), Maleficent (2014)), said that “the symbolism is still alive with these stories, and it’s our job to find the best way to retell that story”, and that audiences “don’t want a remake, they want something that feels fresh … something original that has a nostalgic feeling to it.” This sentiment is also held by producer Jennifer Killoran (Red Riding Hood (2011), Robin Hood (2018)) who also told Variety that the aim of these revisionist films is to exploit new elements to create something more than just an average fairy tale film (Kroll, 2011). It is not just a matter of re-telling the same story in a new medium; instead, contemporary filmmakers are actively changing specific elements of the story to present new values and themes to their audiences. These new variations are commonly known as ‘revisionist’ fairy tales, and

according to Duggan et al. (2016, p. 5), they have undergone “a process of critical adaptation in which the new version implicitly questions, challenges, or subverts the story on which it is based by incorporating new values and perspectives.”

As a creative practitioner and a Hollywood-hopeful emerging screenwriter, I have always had an interest in adapting classic stories for the screen, and have previously written a feature- length screenplay adaptation of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves as a civil-war era American western. In the case of that script, the geographical setting and time period were drastically changed, and while the characters’ professions were also changed to reflect this altered historical setting, they maintained their traditional archetypal roles and functions within the story. Although successful on the Hollywood screenwriting competition circuit, including winning the highly-regarded Script Pipeline 1st Look Project in the adaptation category, a recurring piece of feedback from the US industry (contest judges, managers/agents, and studio executives) was that, although well written, the story was too reliant on the narrative structure of the original tale and didn’t offer enough new twists and surprises in relation to both plot and character. What I had done was a technically competent adaptation, but it did not add that ‘something extra’ to elevate the material above a solid writing sample. Zipes (1994, p. 9) states that “revision for the sake of revision is not necessarily a change for the better or stimulating” for the audience, and that the essence of a revision is qualitative transformation, not just duplication which does not critically examine or alter the values in the original works:

The purpose of producing a revised fairy tale is to create something new that incorporates the critical and creative thinking of the producer and corresponds to changed demands and tastes of audiences. As a result of transformed values, the revised classical fairy tale seeks to alter the reader’s views of traditional patterns, images, and codes. (Zipes, 1994, p. 9)

One of the more popular revisionist trends to emerge in recent cinematic adaptations is the transformation of the traditional literary fairy tale villain into an anti-hero. Not only is this a significant departure from the original literary material, in that the attributes of a key character are changed, but it also reinforces broader cultural notions that there are no longer heroes in the traditional sense of the word. These attitudes echo a changing worldview about good and evil:

Stories of pure innocence versus pure evil, of totally good guys versus totally bad guys, tend to be unconvincing because they are gross distortions of what everyone knows about the complexities of life. (Skwire & Skwire, 2010, p. 37)

This revisionist trend is in opposition to the traditionally held view of good and evil characters in fairy tales, in which “complex characters are rare, and the distribution of villainy and virtue is not muddied by ambiguity” (Warner, 1995, p. xviii). Whereas literary fairy tales, and many earlier film adaptations of them, were often considered the realm of the morally incorruptible hero, these new revisionist fairy tale films eschew this type of traditional hero in favour of the morally ‘grey’ anti-hero. An anti-hero exhibits both positive and negative traits, and is often considered selfish, unlike a traditional selfless hero, but is nonetheless never seen by the audience as truly evil. According to Woolf (1976, p. 257), anti- heroes reflect the nature of our reality much more than the traditional heroic figure does, and as Zipes (2012, p. ix) states, one of the purposes of fairy tales is to reflect the values and ideals of the society of the time period in which they are written. In order to maintain levels of cultural currency, the shifts in social and cultural perceptions of good and evil, and the heightened ambiguity of what constitutes them, need to be reflected in contemporary fairy tale films.

The three films examined in the contextual review of this exegesis, Frozen (2013), Maleficent (2014), and Pan (2015), provide contemporary examples of the villain-as-anti-hero construct. This research underpinned the approach to the feature-length screenplay that is the creative component of the creative practice-led research. The creative artefact, The Devil’s Symphony, based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Children of Hamelin (more commonly known as The Pied Piper of Hamelin), is a 110-page feature-length screenplay in the fantasy/adventure genre, which transforms the traditional villain of the Pied Piper into an anti-hero.

Aside from implementing the villain-as-anti-hero construct, the screenplay employs a modified version of Vladimir Propp’s formalist structure of Russian fairy tales from Morphology of the Folktale for the screenplay structure, instead of the more popular (and arguably the most widely used) schema in mainstream Hollywood cinema, the Hero’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler. The rationale behind using Propp over Vogler was that the Hero’s Journey is often criticised as producing predictable and/or derivative screenplays, whereas Propp’s work has had comparatively little application to screenwriting thus far. Therein lies the key objective of this research—How can Vladimir Propp’s formalist schema

can be utilised in the creation of a revisionist cinematic fairy tale within the current trend of villain-as-anti-hero construct.

In academic screen scholarship and Film Studies, Propp’s work is used almost exclusively as an analytical tool applied to pre-existing texts rather than as a development tool for the creation of new screenplays. A modified version of Propp’s schema was formulated during iterative drafting cycles during the creative practice, mapping his 31 Functions to the widely accepted three-act narrative structure, pioneered by Syd Field, for normative commercial screenplays. As the scope of this research is limited to the narrative conventions underpinning mainstream Hollywood cinema, since this is the domain of these cinematic revisionist fairy tales, the term ‘normative screenplay structure’ used throughout this exegesis refers to the commercial three-act structure as established by Field.

The application of Propp’s work was a logical approach, considering the nature of the adapted work is a fairy tale, the subject of Propp’s analysis. The inclusion of research into Field’s three-act paradigm, and the mapping of Propp’s 31 functions (31 specific narrative elements) to this form, was determined by industry conventions and expectations of the base- structural form of commercial screenplays. Similarities clearly exist between Propp’s morphology and Vogler’s Hero’s Journey, with Vogler (2007) acknowledging that Propp influenced some of his thinking. However, the findings of this research are significant in arguing that Propp’s schema mapped to Field’s three-act structure offers a stand-alone and far more flexible alternative structural paradigm. This blended approach can assist screenwriters to adapt fairy tales into more engaging cinematic stories, characterised by complex, layered characters, with the potential to appeal to modern audiences. Advanced application of this approach can further be used in the facilitation of establishing direct sequels within the initial storyline, instead of closed, single-narrative films.

The contextual review chapter provides an overview of the established character archetypes and the normative structural approaches of commercial screenplays. Propp’s schema for literary fairy tales is examined for its potential adaptation to cinematic narratives, and a comparative analysis of three pre-existing texts that utilise the villain-as-anti-hero construct provide insight into existing cinematic adaptations of fairy tales. Chapter Three outlines the creative practice-led methodological approach, and Chapter Four discusses the developmental process of applying this research to the creation of a feature-length screenplay and its overall efficacy based on industry feedback. The final draft of the screenplay, which incorporates the

industry feedback, is presented in Chapter Five, and it is recommended that this should be read before the conclusion in Chapter Six.

2. Contextual Review

The purpose of this contextual review is to provide an understanding of the archetypal traits of the hero, anti-hero and villain, and their relation to the cinematic functions of the protagonist and antagonist. The two most prominent screenplay structural techniques in commercial screenwriting, Syd Field’s three-act paradigm and Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey, are compared with the schema developed by Vladimir Propp in his analysis of Russian fairy tales in Morphology of the Folktale. Three pre-existing cinematic texts which follow the villain-as-anti-hero theme are also examined to identify potential industry approaches that can be taken to modify the underlying source material in order to accommodate the transformation of the villain to anti-hero. The contextual review underpins the creative choices that informed the development of the feature-length screenplay The Devil’s Symphony. Iterative screenplay drafts and reflective practice led to the development of an alternative structural approach applicable in the creation of new revisionist fairy tale films. To facilitate this development, it is necessary to firstly recognise the functional roles that specific character archetypes perform within fairy tale narratives.

2.1 Understanding the Roles of the Characters

Central to this research into the process of transforming literary fairy tale villains into cinematic anti-heroes is the need to understand the base character traits and functional roles certain archetypes play within the narrative development and their relationship to each other. In the realm of commercial screenwriting this is especially important, as there are established norms and story requirements that industry executives look for when evaluating material, regardless of any other creative approaches taken. The following section outlines the three main archetypes which are integral to this research and their functional roles within cinematic narratives. Understanding these factors is an important step in the process of their modification to reach the desired creative outcome.

2.1.1 Archetypes: Heroes, Anti-Heroes, and Villains

When most people think of traditional fairy tales they conjure up images of handsome, courageous princes, beautiful princesses, evil stepmothers, and wicked witches; clean-cut

divisions of pure good vs. pure evil, in which good always triumphs and everyone lives happily ever after. These conventional depictions of fairy tale characters, however, are clichéd stereotypes, not universal archetypes, which are “recurring patterns of human behavior, symbolized by standard types of characters” (Vogler & McKenna, 2011, p. 71) and which perform specific functions within the narrative:

The archetypes are an infinitely flexible language of character. They offer a way to understand what function a character is performing at a given moment in a story. Awareness of the archetypes can help free writers from stereotyping, by giving their characters greater psychological verity and depth. The archetypes can be used to make characters who are both unique individuals and universal symbols of the qualities that form a complete human being. They can help make our characters and stories psychologically realistic and true to the ancient wisdom of myths. (Vogler, 2007, pp. 79–80)

The clean-cut division of good and evil of fairy tale characters is the key aspect that contemporary revisionist fairy tale films seek to change and exploit for entertainment. By stripping away the popular stereotype, and going back to the archetype’s base functional role, these revisionist fairy tale films attempt to offer more complex, multi-layered heroes who are more ambivalent in terms of good and evil. This is evident, for example, in Maleficent (2014) in which the story’s narrator (Janet McTeer) states in the opening line that this is a revisionist fairy tale; “Let us tell an old story anew” (Stromberg, 2014, 00:00:31), and concludes the film stating that Maleficent was an anti-hero, with the line “In the end, my kingdom was united not by a hero or a villain as legend had predicted, but by one who was both hero and villain, and her name was Maleficent” (Stromberg, 2014, 01:28:00). Although the term anti-hero is not used here, its omission is likely intended to avoid confusing younger audiences, who may more easily understand from the terms ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ that Maleficent was in fact both good and evil at times. According to Hollywood screenwriter, established film critic, and screenwriting podcast host C. Robert Cargill (Cargill & Chen, 2019), “a really good anti-hero is going to be villainous in some way, shape or form.” That somewhat villainous character trait, coupled with the ambiguous-sounding term ‘anti-hero’, can cause confusion with the term ‘villain’, as it invokes a sense of opposition and/or a meaning opposite to that of ‘hero’.

Anti-hero is a slippery term that can cause a lot of confusion. Simply stated, an Anti-hero is not the opposite of a Hero, but a specialized kind of Hero, one who may be an outlaw or

villain from the point of view of society, but with whom the audience is basically in sympathy. (Vogler, 2007, p. 34)

For Vogler, the anti-hero is still a hero because they perform the same functional role as the hero archetype in the narrative, yet they are not the classical ideal of what society deems a ‘real’ hero. Anti-heroes occupy a morally grey area possessing both good and bad traits, and while they have some negative attributes that the audience can accept, they do not represent pure evil. Another key element of the cinematic anti-hero is that they usually experience a redemptive arc over the duration of the story, changing from a selfish anti-hero to a selfless hero. This redemptive trait can be observed in pre-existing cinematic texts that use the villain-as-anti-hero construct, and will be discussed in more detail in Section 2.3 of this exegesis.

2.1.2 Protagonists and Antagonists vs. Heroes and Villains

It should be noted that when using the term ‘hero’, both Propp and Vogler are referring to the story’s main character, also known as the protagonist. Similarly, they use the term ‘villain’ (or sometimes ‘shadow’) when referring to the character who actively opposes the hero, also known as the antagonist. The protagonist and antagonist, regardless of what story character inhabits the roles, play very specific functions within normative screenplay structural schemas, which cannot be changed and must be present. However, through comparative analysis of pre-existing texts, it can be seen that the characters inhabiting the hero protagonist and villain antagonist functional roles can be changed, provided that certain other character and narrative changes simultaneously occur. This will be discussed in more detail in Section 2.3 of this exegesis.

2.1.3 Anti-Hero Protagonists vs. Villainous Protagonists

The anti-hero and purely villainous protagonist, although appearing similar, are distinct forms. Purely villainous protagonists differ from the anti-hero in that they have no redeeming heroic and/or moral features and are inherently bad. While the anti-hero may be morally ambiguous, and perform unjust deeds, they still display heroic traits and are ultimately good. Although the villainous protagonist is the central character of the story, their morally reprehensible actions are not justified within the narrative and they often fail to achieve their goal or meet a tragic demise, as well as having no redemptive arc. This type of character is

seen in films such as A Clockwork Orange (1971), Scarface (1983) and American Psycho (2000). There still is an opposing force, an antagonist, in these villainous protagonist stories, mostly represented by some form of law enforcement, so the villain archetype and their functional role within the narrative are still fulfilled.

Making this distinction between villainous protagonists and anti-hero protagonists is a contentious topic, with some screenwriting experts (Vogler, 2007, p. 34) arguing that a villainous protagonist is just a variation of the anti-hero, and others (Myers, 2010) arguing that it is a separate character type. In the case of this research of converting the fairy tale villain into an anti-hero, it is necessary to consider them as separate character types, as the presence of a redeeming character arc is a key component in contemporary revisionist fairy tale films. As demonstrated in the comparative analysis of Frozen (2013), Maleficent (2014), and Pan (2015), the filmmakers are not simply telling the same story from the evil villain’s point of view and showing their downfall. Instead, they are changing intrinsic character traits and narrative elements in order to give the traditional literary villain, now a cinematic anti- hero, justification for their reprehensible actions and also to provide a journey of redemption. This will be discussed in more detail in Section 2.3 of this exegesis.

2.1.4 Heroic and Anti-Heroic Allies

To add further confusion, other characters can exhibit heroic or anti-heroic qualities, and yet not be the story’s protagonist. When considering the most well-known cinematic use of the Hero’s Journey, Star Wars (1977), we can see that the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi displays all the characteristics necessary for society to deem him a hero, yet he is not the protagonist of the story and only fulfils Vogler’s mentor archetype (an ally variation). Likewise, Han Solo, who displays all the characteristics of the anti-hero, and goes through a redemptive arc into a selfless hero, only functions as Vogler’s ally archetype to the protagonist, Luke Skywalker. Yet either of those characters, Obi-Wan Kenobi or Han Solo, could inhabit the role of the hero protagonist with alterations to the narrative. For this research into revisionist fairy tales we will not be limiting ourselves to only the transformation of villains into anti- hero protagonists, but will also examine their possible transformation into anti-hero allies of hero protagonists.

2.2 Structural Approaches to Screenwriting

In the realm of commercial screenwriting, two structural schemas have emerged as the most prominent in the construction of feature length screenplays; Syd Field’s three-act paradigm and Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey. Analysing these two schemas is essential to this research, as character functionality and the inclusion of specific narrative elements are implicitly linked within these schemas. Modifying the function of a specific character by transforming the villain into an anti-hero has a causal effect on how certain narrative elements, and other characters’ functionality, are handled in the development of the screenplay. Film industry executives are accustomed to Field and Vogler’s schemas, expecting the inclusion of their defined character archetypes, along with specific narrative elements within designated act breaks. These are considered industry norms in commercial screenplays intended for mainstream audiences. However, the schemas devised by Field and Vogler, along with many of their contemporaries (Hauge, 1989; McKee, 1997; Snyder, 2005; Truby, 2007), have been criticised for being overused, too formulaic, and leading to predictable storylines.

In order to expand the repertoire of screenwriting tools that can be used alongside the standard industry norms that dominate screenplay-based storytelling, Vladimir Propp’s schema, derived from structural analysis of literary Russian fairy tales, will be explored as a possible alternative approach to structuring screenplays, the intention being to avoid the potential for the derivative narratives that the conventional schemas produce. Using Propp’s schema in this way presents an innovative approach to the development of a screenplay, as it has been used primarily as a resource for academic analysis of pre-existing texts (Fell, 1977; Harriss, 2008; Hunter, 2014; Levitskaya, 2019; Turner, 2006). This review has identified a gap in the form of the application of Propp’s schema to creative screenwriting practice. In the following sections, the main structural approaches supporting the development of the creative artefact are outlined to provide a basis for adapting Propp’s schema to the screenwriting form.

2.2.1 Syd Field: Three-Act Structure

One of the seminal books on screenwriting, Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting applied Aristotle’s concept that all stories have three parts—a beginning, a middle and an end—to the writing of movie screenplays. This notion of the three-act

structure, which Field called the ‘paradigm’, forms “the spine, the skeleton of the story” (Field, 2005, p. 21), and has become one of the most conventional and enduring ways of structuring screenplays.

Figure 2.1. Syd Field’s Paradigm (Field, 2005, p. 21).

According to Field (2005, p.3), to construct a film narrative, “you have to set up your characters, introduce the dramatic premise (what the story is about) and the dramatic situation (the circumstances surrounding the action), create obstacles for your characters to confront and overcome, then resolve the story”. Field further states that Act I: Set-up comprises the first quarter of the screenplay (approx. 30 pages), Act II: Confrontation comprises the middle half of the screenplay (approx. 60 pages), and Act III: Resolution comprises the final quarter of the screenplay (approx. 30 pages). The number of pages per section varies, depending on the overall length of the screenplay, with standard feature-length screenplays falling between 90–120 pages, where 1 page of script equals 1 minute of screen time. Field describes ‘Plot Point 1’ and ‘Plot Point 2’ as “any incident, episode, or event that hooks into the action and spins it around in another direction” and is “always a function of the main character” (Field, 2005, p. 26), with Plot Point 1 being the “true beginning of the screenplay”, which “swings the story around into Act II” (Field, 2005, p. 45).

In later revisions to the three-act paradigm, Field further adds that within the first ten pages there must be an attention-grabbing sequence, or what he calls the ‘Inciting Incident’, “which sets the story in motion” (Field, 2005, p. 129). This always leads to the ‘Key Incident’, also occurring in Act I, which reveals “what the story is about, and draws the main character into the storyline” (Field, 2005, p. 129). Field (2005, p. 134) considers these two incidents essential elements of the set-up, and makes note that “many times the key incident and Plot

Point 1 are the same”. Further development of the paradigm appears in his later book, The Screenwriter’s Workbook, in which Field discusses the secondary concepts of the ‘Mid- Point’, ‘Pinch Point 1’, and ‘Pinch Point 2’, which are story progression points designed to keep the story on track and moving forward (Field, 2006b, p. 222). These were not considered in the story outline and first draft stage of writing The Devil’s Symphony as only Field’s original revised text, which does not include these concepts, was used; however, during the iterative research and development stages, an alignment between these elements and Propp’s work became apparent. This will be discussed in more detail in Section 4.6 of this exegesis.

When it comes to the characters that populate a screenplay, Field takes a somewhat reductive approach and eschews the use of traditional archetypes, like those used by Vogler and Propp, and instead uses the term ‘main character’ for the role of hero/protagonist, and refers to all other characters as ‘major characters’. Although he does not list a series of specific plot functions for the protagonist to perform apart from the previously mentioned Plot Point 1 and Plot Point 2, Field (2005, pp. 46–51) does state that it is the actions taken and choices made by the main character that drive the story forward, and that it is important for a writer to understand the emotional forces affecting the characters and to allow them to evolve over the duration of the story. This broad focus on character as one of the main elements in the foundation of every screenplay is evident in Field’s summary of his paradigm: “screenplays are usually about a key incident, and the story is the character acting and reacting to it” (Field, 2005, p. 44). It is clear that, for the purposes of normative commercial screenplays, the underlying concept of character motivation provides a driving force for the narrative and the creation of the plot. But in Field’s paradigm, character motivation on its own cannot address the nuances of the numerous character archetypes and their individual functional roles that are present in myths and fairy tales, whose transformations are a key factor in this research.

2.2.2 Christopher Vogler: The Hero’s Journey

An alternative structural approach to Syd Field’s paradigm is Christopher Vogler’s the Hero’s Journey, which he derived from Joseph Campbell’s seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces and the concept of the ‘monomyth’, which outlined the universal patterns found in all mythic stories and the character archetypes that inhabit them. He says, “All stories consist of

a few common structural elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams and movies. They are collectively known as The Hero’s Journey” (Vogler, 2007, p. xxvii).

Much like Field, Vogler (2007, p. 19) refers to the Hero’s Journey model as a “skeletal framework that should be fleshed out with the details and surprises of the individual story”, leading to infinite variation. The popularity of the Hero’s Journey model, and the variations it lends itself to, is widespread in mainstream, commercial cinema, having provided the basic structural elements of numerous blockbuster films, such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix, among countless others.

Figure 2.2. Christopher Vogler’s The Hero’s Journey (Vogler, 2007, p. 8).

Vogler maps his 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey to Field’s three-act structural breaks and the page counts associated with them, commenting that Field’s work in that area plays a big part in his thinking (Mythology Channel, 2020, 22:10), and while he draws attention to Stage 5: The First Threshold and Stage 10: The Road Back as being act-break turning points, he is more interested in the specifics of those 12 individual stages and their meaning for the character archetype of the hero, the story’s protagonist, as a way of developing the narrative. He states (Mythology Channel, 2020, 22:24) that one of the distinctions of the Hero’s Journey from Field’s paradigm is its accommodation of emotional, psychological and spiritual development of the hero, whereas Field’s paradigm is more mechanistic in nature. Since transformation of the hero lies at the heart of Vogler’s schema, this suggests that their

character arc is valued as much as the plot, and/or that the two are intimately linked. As such, Vogler summarises what constitutes a complete tale as events from the hero’s perspective:

1. Heroes are introduced in the ORDINARY WORLD, where 2. they receive the CALL TO ADVENTURE. 3. They are RELUCTANT at first or REFUSE THE CALL, but 4. are encouraged by a MENTOR to 5. CROSS THE FIRST THRESHOLD and enter the Special World, where 6. they encounter TESTS, ALLIES, AND ENEMIES. 7. They APPROACH THE INMOST CAVE, crossing a second threshold 8. where they endure the ORDEAL. 9. They take possession of their REWARD and 10. are pursued on The Road Back to the Ordinary World. 11. They cross the third threshold, experience a RESURRECTION, and are transformed by the experience. 12. They RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR, a boon or treasure to benefit the Ordinary World. (Vogler, 2007, p. 19)

Although this is seen as the most common order of events, Vogler (2007, pp. 19–20) states that this is “only one of many possible variations” and that “the stages can be deleted, added to, and drastically shuffled” allowing greater story flexibility. Within the Hero’s Journey, Vogler identifies eight basic archetypes, which provide psychological and dramatic function within the story. These archetypes are outlined in Table 2.1 below.

Archetype Function Protagonist Hero Character who is willing to sacrifice their own needs to help others. Antagonist Shadow 1. Villain who the hero must defeat, or: 2. In the absence of a villain, the dark side of the hero themselves, which must be confronted and overcome. Supporting Roles Herald Character who offers the hero a challenge. Mentor Character who teaches, and bestows gifts to, the hero. Ally Character who helps the Hero. Threshold Guardian Character who opposes the hero at important turning points. Trickster Characters who are mischief-makers. Shapeshifter Characters who can change appearance and personality. Table 2.1. Functions of Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey Archetypes.

Although using the same character archetypes as Campbell, Vogler (2007, p. 24) interestingly credits Propp for the way he looks at archetypes as being “flexible character functions, rather than as rigid character types”, which allows characters in the story to “manifest the qualities of more than one archetype”. Focusing on the hero archetype, Vogler (2007, pp. 31–37) says that they come in a variety of forms—willing and unwilling heroes, anti-heroes, group- oriented heroes, loner heroes, and catalyst heroes—yet they all display the same important base traits of character growth and self-sacrifice on behalf of an ideal or a group. Within the story structure, all of these hero variants perform the same function and journey through the 12 Stages, but their emotional inner journeys, or character arcs, will be different. This combination of disparate character arcs, and the flexibility that means any story character has the ability to assume the functional role of any archetype, is especially important to this exegesis, because it is here that lies the basis of this research. The transformation of villain to anti-hero is in effect a change of functional role for that story character within the narrative, provided they also exhibit signs of character growth and selflessness throughout the screenplay. However, this character arc for the villain will require the writer to create it, as it is not traditionally present in the source material.

2.2.3 Vladimir Propp: Morphology

Russian Formalist Vladimir Propp presents a schema that focuses purely on form and function. Propp found, after analysing a selection of 100 Russian fairy tales, that there are 31 basic narrative elements, which he called ‘functions’, that typically exist in their narratives. While Propp’s schema relates to literary fairy tales, it presents a valuable and under-utilised alternative to the Hero’s Journey as a method for cinematic revisionist adaptation. Propp further states that not all 31 of these functions are required in the narrative, but the ones that are included need to stay in correct invariant ascending order (Propp, 1968, p. 22). This is known as syntagmatic analysis (Dundes, 1968, xi), which is concerned with the linear surface structure of the text. Vogler presents the opposite view in his paradigmatic analysis, which is concerned with the thematic elements embedded in the text, allowing any stage of the Hero’s Journey to appear anywhere within the narrative (Vogler, 2011, p. 234). Table 2.2 on the following page presents the 31 functions of Propp’s morphology and his definition of each element.

Propp’s Function Propp’s Definition (Designation) 0. Initial Situation. Initial Situation (ɑ) I. One of the members of a family absents from home. Absentation (β) II. An interdiction is addressed to the hero. Interdiction (ɣ) III. The interdiction is violated. Violation (δ) IV. The villain attempts reconnaissance. Reconnaissance (ε) V. The villain receives information about his victim. Delivery (ζ) VI. The villain attempts to deceive his victim in order to Trickery (η) take possession of him or of his belongings. VII. The victim submits to deception and thereby Complicity (θ) unwittingly helps his enemy. VIII. The villain causes harm or injury to a member of a Villainy (A) family, OR OR VIIIa. One member of a family either lacks something or Lack (a) desires to have something. IX. Misfortune or lack is made known; the hero is Mediation, approached with a request or command; he is allowed to go the connective incident (B) or he is dispatched. X. The hero agrees to or decides upon counteraction. Beginning counteraction (C) XI. The hero leaves home. Departure (↑) XII. The hero is tested, interrogated, attacked, etc., which The first function of the Donor (D) prepares the way for his receiving either a magical agent or helper. XIII. The hero reacts to the actions of the future donor. The Hero’s reaction (E) XIV. The hero acquires the use of a magical agent. Provision or receipt of a magical agent (F) XV. The hero is transferred, delivered, or led to the Spatial transference between two whereabouts of an object of search. kingdoms, guidance (G) XVI. The hero and the villain join in direct combat. Struggle (H) XVII. The hero is branded. Branding, marking (J) XVIII. The villain is defeated Victory (I) XIX. The initial misfortune or lack is liquidated. Liquidation (K) XX. The hero returns. Return (↓) XXI. The hero is pursued. Pursuit, chase (Pr) XXII. Rescue of the hero from pursuit. Rescue (Rs) XXIII. The hero, unrecognized, arrives home or in another Unrecognised arrival (o) country. XXIV. A false hero presents unfounded claims. Unfounded claims (L) XXV. A difficult task is proposed to the hero. Difficult task (M) XXVI. The task is resolved. Solution (N) XXVII. The hero is recognized. Recognition (Q) XXVIII. The false hero or villain is exposed. Exposure (Ex) XXIX. The hero is given a new appearance. Transfiguration (T) XXX. The villain and false hero are punished. Punishment (U) XXXI. The hero is married and ascends the throne. Wedding (W) Table 2.2. Vladimir Propp’s 31 Functions and Designations. Adapted from Morphology of the Folktale (Propp, 1968, pp. 26–63).

Propp defines function as “an act of a character, defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action” (Propp, 1968, p. 21) and he uses them to describe what constitutes a basic fairy tale:

Morphologically, a tale (skázka) may be termed any development proceeding from villainy (A) or a lack (a), through intermediary functions to marriage (W*), or to other functions employed as a dénouement. Terminal functions are at times a reward (F), a gain or in general the liquidation of misfortune (K), an escape from pursuit (Rs), etc. This type of development is termed by us a move. (Propp, 1968, p. 92)

From Propp’s description, we observe that a basic fairy tale can be quite simple and short, incorporating only a small number of the possible 31 functions. In fact, Propp (1968, pp. 102, 53) states that the only obligatory element of a fairy tale is Function VIII/VIIIa (Villainy/ Lack) which is a paired element with Function XIX (Liquidation). However, Propp (1968, p. 92) further states that fairy tales can consist of several moves, where each move is created by a new act of villainy or new lack (Function VIII/VIIIa), and that these moves can occur either sequentially or interweave with each other. Within these new moves there is the allowance of repeated functions, usually in truncated form compared with the first move, until the new act of villainy is resolved, leading to more complex narratives (Propp, 1968, p. 93).

Propp’s schema contains ambiguities in relation to contradictory groupings of functions into smaller sub-sets, the allowance of inverted sequences, which change the order of functions, the ability to relocate certain paired functions in specific instances, which also disrupts the linear order of functions, and the use of repeated functions in multi-move tales, which allows earlier functions to appear again later. Propp’s detailed explanations for these contradictions are outside the scope of this exegesis, but they are acknowledged here to demonstrate the flexibility in Propp’s morphology. This suggests that his rigid syntagm can be viewed as a flexible paradigm in the same way as Vogler’s Hero’s Journey, and that Propp’s 31 functions may be reordered to better serve a cinematic narrative. Viewing Propp’s morphology in this manner addresses the criticism that his schema is a static taxonomy that is too rigid in its reliance on the temporal order of events to be useful outside of the Russian fairy tales he analysed (Bordwell, 1988). Vogler’s mapping of Campbell’s work to Field’s three-act structure also suggests the potential to map Propp in a similar manner, transforming a tool for analysing pre-existing texts into a tool for developing and creating new screenplays. This is discussed further in Section 4 of this exegesis.

The character types that inhabit Propp’s schema are based on the functions they perform in the plot “independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled” (Propp, 1968, p. 21). Propp distributes these functions into groups, or ‘spheres of action’, among his seven dramatis personae, or character types (Propp, 1968, p. 79). These groups of functions and their corresponding character types are outlined in Table 2.3 below.

Narrative Role Sphere of Action Functions Protagonist Hero Beginning counteraction and departure on a search (C↑); reaction to the demands of the donor (E); wedding (W*). The first function (C) is characteristic of the seeker-hero; the victim-hero performs only the remaining functions. Antagonist Villain Villainy (A); a fight or other forms of struggle with the hero (H); pursuit (Pr). Additional Antagonist False Hero Beginning counteraction & departure on a search (C↑); reaction to the demands of the donor (E); present unfounded claims (L). Supporting Roles Donor The preparation for the transmission of a magical agent (D); provision of the hero with a magical agent (F). Helper The spatial transference of the hero (G); liquidation of misfortune or lack (K); rescue from pursuit (Rs); the solution of difficult tasks (N); transfiguration of the hero (T). Princess (a sought- Assignment of difficult tasks (M); branding (J); for person) and her exposure (Ex); recognition (Q); punishment of a Father second villain (U); marriage (W). The princess and her father cannot be exactly delineated from each other according to functions. Most often it is the father who assigns difficult tasks due to hostile feelings towards the suitor. He also frequently punishes (or orders punished) the false hero. Dispatcher Dispatch/mediation (connective incident, B). Table 2.3. Propp’s Spheres of Action of the Seven Dramatis Personae. Adapted from Morphology of the Folktale (Propp, 1968, pp. 79–80).

In Propp’s schema, the hero is only described in association with specific functions:

The hero of a fairy tale is that character who either directly suffers from the action of the villain in the complication (the one who senses some kind of lack), or who agrees to liquidate the misfortune or lack of another person. In the course of the action the hero is the person who is supplied with a magical agent (a magical helper), and who makes use of it or is served by it. (Propp, 1968, p. 50)

This is a somewhat reductive way to look at the hero, but as Propp (1968, p. 78) points out, “one may observe in general that the feelings and intentions of the dramatis personae do not have an effect on the course of action in any instances at all”, and that while motivations can provide unique distinction to each tale, “the majority of characters’ acts in the middle of a tale are naturally motivated by the course of the action” (Propp, 1968, p. 75). Through Propp’s formalist lens, the characters execute dramatic action solely in order to meet the next established plot function. This is a marked contrast to both Field’s and Vogler’s structuralist approaches, which consider the psychological elements of the protagonist to be essential elements of a screenplay, and prioritise character motivation as the means of advancing the plot and achieving specific goals.

Propp suggests that there are only two types of heroes—seeker-heroes and victim-heroes— which he only differentiates through the way in which plot Functions IX (Mediation) and XI (Departure) are resolved: the hero leaves on a search (seeker) or is banished/driven out (victim). This simplicity of character type is also is evident in Propp’s further discussion of the villain where their actions “are not in any way motivated by the tale” and if motivations exist, the tale says nothing about them (Propp, 1968, p. 76). By viewing the dramatis personae as base functions of plot, instead of fully formed characters, Propp allows considerable flexibility in how they are distributed among the story’s central characters:

1. The sphere of action exactly corresponds to the character. 2. One character is involved in several spheres of action. 3. A single sphere of action is distributed among several characters. (Propp, 1968, pp. 80–81)

This flexibility, that any story character can perform the functional role of any character type of the dramatis personae, is significant to this creative practice-led research as it creates the opportunity to change the literary villain into a cinematic anti-hero by assigning that character a different set of functions to perform within the narrative. However, since understanding the character’s motivation for their actions is a key component necessary for the audience to empathise with the anti-hero (Tucker, 2016, 03:46), these motivations carry more significance for a cinematic revision that utilises the villain-as-anti-hero construct than they would under a strict Proppian analysis of a literary source that contains only traditional hero and villain character-types. Character motivation should be considered an essential element in the screenplay, which is an opposing mindset to Propp, and highlights one of the

limitations of his analysis from a story creation perspective. Instead of submitting to this limitation, character motivation will play an integral part in formulating the base narrative before the application of Propp’s functions as specific plot points. Through these motivations we can also show character growth and a redemptive arc, which are essential parts of the anti- hero’s journey, which require further narrative changes to the base source material when transforming the literary villain to cinematic anti-hero.

Additionally, application of Propp’s 31 functions of morphology as the basis for plot formulation, instead of Vogler’s well-worn 12 stages of the Hero’s Journey, may provide a unique structural approach and avert the common criticism of Vogler’s paradigm as being derivative and formulaic (Farquhar, 2017; Hull, 2010) which has plagued some of the more recent revisionist fairy tale films (Bell, 2015; Bradshaw, 2015). Propp’s character type of the ‘false hero’, which has no corresponding equivalent in the Hero’s Journey, and the allowance of secondary main villain antagonists, also present intriguing new elements that can be modified and exploited in a more effective way. This will be discussed in more detail in Section 4 of this exegesis.

2.2.4 Story Structure Similarities: Propp vs. Vogler vs. Field

There exists a gap in the literature relating to the application of Propp to screenwriting. Extant research (Fell, 1977; Harriss, 2008; Hunter, 2014; Levitskaya, 2019; Turner, 2006) has been primarily concerned with identifying Proppian elements within pre-existing texts and not with investigating it as a potential development tool for the creation of new creative works. These analyses focus on the inclusion of Proppian functions and associated dramatis personae with little concern about how they relate to normative screenplay structure. Murphy (2015), however, has observed that specific complete Proppian plot structures of certain fairy tales, which he calls ‘genotypes’, reoccur in many contemporary feature films of a non-fairy tale variety. In his analysis, he notes that similarities exist between Propp’s Function VIII (Villainy) and Function XIX (Liquidation) with Field’s Plot Point 1 and Plot Point 2 as key moments in the story, and proposes they are corresponding elements. While these two functions are integral to the story, and would form major elements in any screenplay, it is this researcher’s belief that they do not align specifically to those two plot points, and that a more nuanced parallel exists between Propp and Field. However, Murphy’s work does highlight a promising similarity between the two structural approaches and will be discussed in more detail in Section 4.

From an industry perspective, only Vogler has mentioned Propp’s influence on his own screenwriting theories, having come across Morphology of the Folktale when he worked for Disney Animation in the early- to mid-1990s (Vogler & McKenna, 2011, p. 121). Contemporary industrial screenwriting texts (Hauge, 1989; McKee, 1997; Snyder, 2005; Truby, 2007) attribute either Aristotle or Campbell, or sometimes both, as having informed their structural approaches, or apply their own variations directly to Field’s three-act structure. In their comparative analysis, Vogler and McKenna (2011, pp. 122–146) noted that there were many interesting parallels between the functions of Propp’s morphology and the stages of Vogler’s Hero’s Journey, building upon it to offer an alternative blueprint for story structure. However, in attempting to map the 31 functions of morphology to the 12 stages of the Hero’s Journey, Vogler and McKenna were forced to duplicate stages in order to make Propp’s functions ‘fit’. The creative practice-led research of this thesis has revealed that mapping Propp’s 31 functions directly to Field’s three-act structural paradigm creates a more useful approach than as an amendment to the Hero’s Journey. This process of discovery is discussed in more detail in Section 4 of this exegesis.

2.3 Comparative Analysis of Pre-existing Texts

As part of the research process, three Hollywood-produced, revisionist fairy tale movies will be analysed to identify how the traditional literary villain was changed into a cinematic anti- hero. Each film handled this in a different way and received different levels of commercial and critical success. The chosen films are: Maleficent (2014), Pan (2015), and Frozen (2013). When analysing these films, three questions will be posed:

1. What archetypal role does the traditional literary villain character now inhabit in the cinematic revision? 2. What additional narrative and character changes have been made to the original story? 3. What structural approach/schema(s) does the screenplay utilise?

While the films chosen for analysis are aimed at a PG to M audience, my creative practice draws on darker influences of traditional literary fairy tales that often include gratuitous violence. This is a personal preference, but acknowledges that within the context of commercial film production the final decision regarding depictions of violence will be in the control of other creatives such as the producer and director. This does not affect the focus of

this research, which is the structural approach of mapping of Propp’s 31 functions to Field’s three acts.

2.3.1 Maleficent (2014)

Disney’s Maleficent (2014), directed by Robert Stromberg from a script by Linda Woolverton, is a revisionist take on the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. The original story is usually attributed to Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, or Giambattista Basile; however, it is important to note that there is no definitive version of this fairy tale, as there are many notable differences between these three well-known sources. In an interview with Interview Magazine (Brown, 2014), Woolverton comments that, as a Walt Disney production, Maleficent was based on Disney’s own original interpretation of the fairy tale, as seen in the animated film Sleeping Beauty (1959), and therefore, for the purposes of this comparative analysis, this will be considered the source fairy tale. It is arguably also the version audiences are most familiar with.

In this new version, the traditional fairy tale villain antagonist, Maleficent, is now the anti- hero protagonist. She is an anti-hero (as opposed to a traditional hero) because, while she is noble and altruistic as protector of a peaceful magical kingdom, as seen in newly created backstory sequences that expand the timeline of the original story, she also commits an evil deed when she curses an innocent child. But in this version of the story, her act of evil is given an understandable, though not just, cause—it is done in vengeance for horrific crimes committed against her, the amputation of her fairy wings in an act of betrayal by her lover, who turns out to be a truly evil man. As Donnelly (2016, para. 2) states in relation to contemporary fantasy films, archetypically evil characters are “redefined primarily by the telling of their backstories, which is intended to provide a rationale for their behavior and to evoke sympathy or pity from the audience”. These newly created backstory elements in Maleficent, which are not a part of Disney’s original Sleeping Beauty narrative, present the motivations for Maleficent’s actions, allowing the audience to empathise with her, and by seeing that she was once good, the audience hopes that she will redeem herself by the end of the film and save the cursed Princess Aurora.

However, to facilitate Maleficent’s archetype transformation from villain antagonist to anti- hero protagonist, screenwriter Woolverton also had to change the function of one of the fairy tale’s supporting characters, King Stefan, from a good, noble ally to an evil, treacherous

antagonist who must be defeated for there to be a ‘happily ever after’. In the realm of normative screenplay structure, every protagonist, either heroic or anti-heroic, needs an opposing antagonistic force to generate conflict, which drives the story and must be overcome. In this case, King Stefan is the one who commits the horrific crime against Maleficent, and who thus in this story generates less empathy from the audience. As Donnelly says:

[In Maleficent] society and the actions of its members seem more malevolent than the characters traditionally consider[ed] villains … Maleficent elicits a different response to the presumed villainess than Sleeping Beauty, for the audience understands her justified initial rage and desire for revenge and recognizes that Stefan is the real villain of the story. (Donnelly, 2016, para. 19)

What this highlights is that, in certain revisionist fairy tale films such as Maleficent, the original story villain antagonist is simply replaced with a new villain antagonist, who is considerably worse, thereby allowing the audience to side with the new anti-hero version of the original villain character despite any character flaws they may possess.

With this new protagonist–antagonist relationship established between Maleficent and King Stefan, another major archetype change needed to occur in relation to the character of Prince Phillip. In Disney’s animated film Sleeping Beauty, Prince Phillip is the hero who opposes and defeats Maleficent, whereas in Maleficent he is sidelined to a mere supporting role so his involvement does not impact Maleficent’s role as the protagonist. Once all these character changes have been implemented, this new cinematic story positions Maleficent as anti-hero protagonist with her goal being to defeat the evil king, save her lands and people, and undo Princess Aurora’s curse. Through this redemptive arc, the audience comes to view Maleficent as the hero and not the villain. Audience acceptance of her character change is also helped by another screenplay structural element of note: the use of third-person narration which bookends the film. Instead of Maleficent narrating her own story, Woolverton cleverly assigns this task to Princess Aurora.

The intent here is to elicit sympathy, to make Maleficent's villainy more palatable and to rehabilitate her image. If the story were told first-person by Maleficent, whom the audience has been traditionally taught to condemn as an archetypal evil enchantress, her motives and truthfulness would be questioned. Having an accepted member of the human community who

has witnessed her actions first-hand is essential to credibly challenge the villainous label that has been ascribed to Maleficent. (Donnelly, 2016, para. 25)

In a study on the effects of narrative perspective in literary fiction, van Lissa et al. (2016) found that when it comes to morally and ethically ambivalent or deviant characters, readers may be less inclined to trust them when they are also the narrator of the story, as they might be lying or attempting manipulation, but that trust increases when there is an authoritative third-person narrator who can validate the protagonist’s perspective. In terms of Maleficent, Princess Aurora is the most authoritative voice in existence, as not only is she universally adored as being kind, she’s also a central figure in Maleficent’s redemption story, and is recounting the story from a future time as the beloved queen of the unified kingdoms. The audience would never consider her to be untruthful when describing past events, so her description of Maleficent as being good is validated in their minds.

Regarding the narrative structure, although there has been historical use of both Vogler’s Hero’s Journey and Propp’s morphology at Disney (Vogler & McKenna, 2011), in a Scriptnotes podcast (August & Mazin, 2018) Woolverton states she has never read a screenwriting book, but does admit she works in the three-act structure. Elements of both the Hero’s Journey and morphology appear to be present in Maleficent, but neither schema is completely utilised, which makes for a disjointed, uneven feeling at times, especially in Act II. This was a sentiment echoed by a number of critics.

While Maleficent was the film that originally drew me to this area of research, it provided only a partial solution to the problem of creating a revisionist fairy tale, because changing King Stefan into a purely evil villain antagonist, a move which is known to the audience from the start of the film, does not offer up enough surprises for the audience. While seeing the fresh twists on original plot elements did provide some enjoyment, there was something missing: the story was a little too obvious and the ending a little too simplistic. If this method had been applied to my own creative artefact, The Devil’s Symphony, the Pied Piper would have been presented to the audience as an anti-hero protagonist from the start, and a new villain antagonist would also appear from the start, whom the Pied Piper would ultimately defeat. While that might potentially be enjoyable for the audience, it seemed the safe and easy way to approach the screenplay instead of experimenting with the narrative form to offer something new but still familiar. This idea of new-but-familiar has been discussed by Snyder (2005, p. 21) who quotes a studio executive’s demand to “give me the same thing … only

different!”. Merely copying the structural approach of Maleficent would provide a serviceable screenplay, but one that might be seen as too derivative and might struggle to attract industry attention. However, this realisation that more narrative innovation is required, along with the identification of not fully realised Proppian elements in the screenplay, provided a solid foundational building block to start from.

2.3.2 Pan (2015)

J.M. Barrie’s story of Peter and Wendy (more commonly known as Peter Pan) is given the revisionist treatment in the 2015 feature film Pan, directed by Joe Wright from a script by Jason Fuchs. It is important to note that while Peter Pan is not a fairy tale in the traditional sense, i.e., a story that was passed down through generations orally before being committed to written form, academic scholars such as Zipes (2002) do classify it as an original literary fairy tale and as such it is examined through the same academic lens.

In this cinematic iteration, Captain Hook has been given the anti-hero makeover, but he is not the film’s protagonist, instead filling the role of ally to Peter Pan, who still inhabits the hero protagonist role. Thus, the traditional literary villain only needs to be given anti-heroic traits and does not have to be the protagonist in this style of revisionist fairy tale film. Hook’s character here is one that, while helping Peter escape danger and find his mother’s tribe, is self-serving, in that his own selfish needs (personal freedom and a reward) are met in the process. These are traits that are more akin to those of a modern anti-hero than a classic mythic hero. In fact, Hook’s storyline and character arc echoes very closely that of one of the most iconic cinematic anti-heroes, Han Solo (Star Wars), even down to copying his major heroic moment of appearing out of nowhere during the end battle to save the hero protagonist from the villain antagonist after initially refusing to participate, on the less-than-noble grounds of self-preservation.

With Hook established as an anti-hero ally, the story needed a new villain antagonist, which is facilitated with the creation of the new character, Blackbeard. While Blackbeard is thoroughly evil, leaving no doubt in the audiences’ mind of his true nature, there is not the same pressure to portray Hook as being less evil in comparison, as is the case with Maleficent and King Stefan, as Hook never performs any truly evil deed. When Hook puts his own interests first, they never directly impact others in a way that causes them physical harm— instead, they just show his self-centred nature. Facilitating this change of character trait is

helped, in part, by Pan being a prequel/origin story to Barrie’s novel, so the original series of events, and the well-known conflict of Hook vs. Pan, are not present in this revisionist take, with the film presenting a completely new story. This was a unique approach among the films analysed, and allowed the screenwriter to take more creative liberties with the plot as they were not restricted to merely retelling the original events from a different point of view and/or changing character motivations. However, the downside of this is that the audience is robbed of the possible enjoyment of seeing how the original plot elements are given a fresh spin and/or twist, which was something director Stromberg considered very important for audience enjoyment of Maleficent (Walt Disney Company, 2014).

Pan’s story structure follows the traditional Hero’s Journey paradigm, from Peter’s perspective as hero protagonist, with screenwriter Fuchs saying in an interview with Collider (Weintraub, 2015, 02:52) that Joseph Campbell shaped the way he looks at storytelling, and that the opportunity to take that approach in Pan was exciting. This is not a new approach for a Hollywood blockbuster film—as previously mentioned, the Hero’s Journey is the most commonly used paradigm in these types of film—but in this screenwriter’s opinion, the story felt very predictable and derivative because of that standard hero-origin story template. This sentiment was also echoed by numerous movie critics. Commercially considered a flop, Pan was the only one of these three case study films whose proposed sequel was abandoned due to poor box-office performance.

Considering the obvious anti-hero parallels between Hook and Han Solo, the simplistic creation of a new villain antagonist in Blackbeard, and the overly predictable use of the Hero’s Journey structural paradigm to create an origin story, the method employed by Pan to create a villain-as-anti-hero revisionist fairy tale film failed to entice this researcher to see this method as a viable option for the creative artefact of this research. Additionally, I agree with Maleficent director Robert Stromberg (Walt Disney Company, 2014) that part of the enjoyment comes from seeing how the original plot elements are given a fresh spin, so the idea of a prequel story for The Pied Piper, in which the audience sees how he obtains his magic pipe and becomes the piper, instead of seeing the events concerning the rats of Hamelin, appeared to be of less interest to the audience, as it was for me. Analysing this film through this academic research lens highlighted the fact that a more unusual approach needed to be formulated than the one used here.

2.3.3 Frozen (2013)

Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen is the basis for Disney’s Frozen (2013), directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee. The film features an extensively re-worked plot compared with the original source material, with the film credits stating the film was only ‘inspired by’ the original literary fairy tale. Listing all the narrative changes is beyond the scope of this exegesis, but important to this discussion are the modifications to the original literary villain. In the original fairy tale, the Snow Queen is presented as a purely evil villain (and the story’s antagonist) who kidnaps the best friend of the story’s protagonist, Gerda. In Frozen, newly appointed Queen Elsa (the Snow Queen) is presented as a misunderstood villain who is feared by the townsfolk of Arendelle because of her magical abilities and for accidently plunging the kingdom into a never-ending winter. Elsa is not a bad person, and is never portrayed as a truly evil villain, yet she is the film’s antagonist, and it is her spell that must be broken by the protagonist, Princess Anna.

Interestingly, Elsa started out in early drafts of the screenplay as a more “straightforward villain”, according to screenwriter Jennifer Lee in an interview with Den of Geek (Harrison, 2013), and was “pure evil” according to producer Peter Del Vecho in an interview with Entertainment Weekly (Hibberd, 2017). In the final act of the original script, the self- proclaimed Snow Queen attacked the heroes with an army of snow monsters, and although she redeemed herself in the end by saving the kingdom from a surprise worse act of villainy committed by ally-turned-villain Hans, Del Vecho felt the ending was not satisfying enough for the audience, as they would have no emotional connection to the purely villainous Elsa (Hibberd, 2017). Buck and Lee also felt this way, saying in their interview it was important for the film to have characters that were genuine and relatable with interesting flaws (Harrison, 2013).

As they developed Elsa away from being a purely villainous antagonist, giving her complex motivations more akin to those of an anti-hero, one narrative element they did not change was the third-act twist of Hans (who in the first two acts appears to be a heroic ally to protagonist Anna) turning out to be another villain of the story. Hans is presented in a way that has similarities to the false hero of Propp’s dramatis personae, in that he presents ‘Unfounded Claims’ (Function XXIV) and ‘Must be Punished’ (Function XXX). This is not surprising, given the historical use of Propp’s morphology by Vogler at Disney Animation. In Frozen, Hans lies to the town’s elite, claiming that not only was Anna killed by Elsa but also that he

married Anna, thus making him next in line to be king. His punishment for these acts forms part of the film’s denouement. Additionally, Hans performs another act of villainy when he attempts to kill Elsa, making him the villain antagonist, in what Propp would consider a ‘second move’ to the tale. Through the Proppian lens of story structure, Elsa still functions as the villain in the film’s first two acts (the ‘first move’), as she commits the act of villainy that must be liquidated, but her motivations mean that the audience does not see her as a villain in the true sense of the word. This revisionist fairy tale fared the best with critics of the three films analysed, though some commented on the somewhat simplistic and formulaic plot.

Of all three films analysed, this was the most intriguing method in regard to the research question. The use of Propp’s false hero and additional ‘second move’ villain provide an unexpected and enjoyable twist to the narrative which would not be present in a plot strictly following the Hero’s Journey paradigm. However, I realised there was a way to further build upon this technique and provide a new experience for the audience, giving them the desired “same thing … only different” (Snyder, 2005, p. 21). What was evident in Frozen was that Queen Elsa was never seen by the audience as truly evil, as her action of accidently plunging her kingdom into a perpetual winter was not a malicious act meant to harm others but one of a scared girl unable to control her powers. Since the audience understands this from the start of the film, there is no surprise twist-ending relating to her character’s motivations, only the reveal that Hans was evil. That felt like a missed opportunity, as “the twist ending permits the normally simplistic and unselfconscious characters of fairy tales the potential for psychological complexity, which is highly useful for enriching the story” (Aronson, 2001, p. 27).

While Hans is offered that opportunity of psychological complexity in Act III, a good twist ending questions the underlying assumptions of the fairy tale (Aronson, 2001, p. 25). In the case of Frozen, this twist would be stronger if it were revealed in the final act that the good prince is evil and the wicked witch is good. In the case of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, the underlying assumption, from a character perspective, is that the Pied Piper is evil, as his crime can never be condoned, and the townsfolk are good. For The Devil’s Symphony, I wanted to create a stronger twist ending than that of Frozen—one that would force the audience to question their initial assumptions about the characters, and re-evaluate their pre- conceived notions of what constitutes good and evil. I wanted the audience to truly believe at the start that the Pied Piper was evil and the story’s villain antagonist, and to reveal later,

when a new act of villainy commences and the true villain antagonist is unmasked, that he was actually a false villain and a misunderstood anti-hero. This would provide a stronger, double-twist ending, which is something that could be achieved with modification to the villain character-type in Propp’s dramatis personae, and the selective use and modification of specific functions of Propp’s morphology. This will be discussed further in Section 4.

2.4 Summary and Implications

The concept of literary villains being transformed into anti-heroes in cinematic revisions of fairy tales is an established trend within the current Hollywood landscape of IP-based films, and continues to be a focus for studio investment, with sequels to both Maleficent and Frozen released within the last fourteen months. This highlights the enduring popularity of this type of revisionist film, and with the abundance of fairy tales in the public domain which have not received cinematic adaptations, makes for a worthwhile avenue for screenwriters to consider pursuing. After a comparative analysis of pre-existing texts utilising this thematic construct, it is proposed that an alternative structural approach to the typically employed Hero’s Journey paradigm would be more effective in the creation of future feature-length screenplays within this genre. This new structural paradigm, in conjunction with a new variation on how the villain’s transformation is executed, attempts to maximise audience enjoyment and minimise narrative criticism. It is proposed that utilising the structural schema formulated by Vladimir Propp during his analysis of Russian literary fairy tales, in conjunction with modification to his identified character-types in those stories, but mapped to Syd Field’s three-act paradigm, which is the dominant base-structural approach for normative commercial screenplays, will produce the most effective results. This research addresses an existing gap in academic literature relating to the application of Propp to screenwriting, as current research primarily identifies Proppian elements within pre-existing texts, and does not use his work as the basis for formulating a potential development tool for the creation of new creative works. I argue that using his analysis in the process of creative work could be beneficial to aspiring screenwriters approaching this type of material and thematic construct. This new structural paradigm was refined over an iterative drafting and feedback process, which is discussed in the following section of this exegesis.

3. Methodology

This exegesis is a screenwriting practitioner’s account of the exploration of the research question gained through a combination of research and creative practice, resulting in the formulation of a new screenwriting approach that aligns Propp’s morphology to Field’s three- act paradigm, and the creation of an accompanying feature-length screenplay, The Devil’s Symphony, which utilises the villain-as-anti-hero theme. This evolved over a number of iterative drafts of the screenplay and their associated research and development stages. To facilitate this, an action research methodology was utilised, alternating between research, creative writing, industry feedback and critical reflection, and repeating the process until the desired final outputs were achieved.

Figure 3.1. Action Research Methodology.

The benefits of this approach stem from the reciprocal relationship between “research and creative practice in which each feeds on the other” to provide a superior outcome (Smith & Dean, 2010). In this regard, the completed screenplay is an important research artefact, and its development an integral component in the success of the research outcome. This type of reflective approach has been defined as ‘reflexivity’:

Reflexivity is one of those ‘artist-like processes’ which occurs when a creative practitioner acts upon the requisite research material to generate new material which immediately acts back upon the practitioner who is in turn stimulated to make a subsequent response. (Haseman & Mafe, 2009, p. 219)

This parallels what Robert McKee (1997, p. 22) describes as the screenwriter’s daily process towards the mastery of their craft: “you write, you read; create, critique; impulse, logic; right

brain; left brain; re-imagine, rewrite.” Utilising this cycle of creative process, in combination with academic research, led to key insights into alternative character and narrative techniques, and how they could be effectively modified and applied to normative screenplay structure. In this way, the creative practice as research had the most significance as “through research there is also the potential to broaden, deepen and innovate both the narratives themselves (content) and the ways in which they are developed (process)” (Batty et al., 2016, p. 154).

The concept of character transformation was key to this approach, in which a traditional, established narrative was examined from an alternative perspective, and with the motive of devising this type of revisionist fairy tale. This process of changing character types directly impacted intrinsic narrative elements of the source material, as they are intertwined components and one affects the other. Facilitating these changes in a unique way, for increased audience enjoyment, led to the development of a new structural approach. How these changes to character types influenced the approach to structure are discussed in Section 4 of this exegesis.

A comparative analysis of pre-existing texts which utilised the literary villain as cinematic anti-hero construct was carried out in conjunction with research into the alternative structural schema of Vladimir Propp and how it could be mapped to the normative screenplay three-act structure as pioneered by Syd Field. This research then informed the outline and initial draft of the creative research artefact, the feature-length screenplay The Devil’s Symphony. Industry feedback from script consultants and screenwriting contest judges was sought to gauge the overall effectiveness of the completed screenplay and to test the efficacy of the narrative and character changes as well as the structural approach. This feedback process formed part of the reflection, analysis and evaluation stages of the action research process, and led to further development and refinement of the concept in subsequent drafts of the screenplay. This type of iterative, cyclical process of alternating between action and reflection lies at the heart of both creative writing and practice-led research. Screenwriting thus “becomes a way of generating and disseminating new knowledge; and, crucially, a way of generating new ways of practising, usually evidenced by reflections on the process of writing the screenplay and/or by the screenplay itself” (Batty & McAulay, 2016, p. 2), which is evidenced in this exegetical component.

4. Discussion of the Creative Approach

This section examines the creative approach to the research question—how Vladimir Propp’s formalist schema can be utilised in the creation of a revisionist cinematic fairy tale within the villain-as-anti-hero construct—embodied by the iterative process of writing the feature-length screenplay The Devil’s Symphony. The process firstly involved the determination of which method to employ in transforming the literary villain into a cinematic anti-hero. This was an essential first step, as the outcome of that stage directly influenced the creation of new antagonists and protagonists, as well as influencing narrative changes that needed to be facilitated due to the changing functional roles of these key characters. This led to modification of Propp’s dramatis personae. With the character transformations established, the next stage involved mapping the functions of Propp’s morphology to Field’s paradigm to facilitate its use as a screenplay development tool. Further modifications were then made to Propp’s morphology in order to facilitate more engaging storylines and potential franchise building. Finally, a reflection on the industry feedback about the effectiveness of the creative approach is presented, and how that feedback informed further refinement of this proposed new structural schema.

4.1 Transforming the Villain into an Anti-Hero

The initial screenplay development stage was the determination of the best approach to implement the character transformation of literary villain into cinematic anti-hero for the chosen fairy tale, The Children of Hamelin (more commonly known as The Pied Piper of Hamelin) by the Brothers Grimm. In the basic plot of the original fairy tale, a magical piper is hired to rid the town of Hamelin of their rat infestation. After completion of the task the townsfolk renege on their deal and only pay the piper a fraction of what he was promised. In retaliation, the piper kidnaps all the town’s children and they are never seen again. Like all written fairy tales that began as oral stories, variations have emerged from different writers, but the basic plot remains the same. The Brothers Grimm version is used as the basis for this research. An important distinction that differentiates this particular fairy tale from others is that there is an historical context to the story. There is a real town of Hamelin where 130 children possibly did mysteriously disappear around the 13th century. Regardless of this historical aspect, it was treated as a purely fictional fairy tale for the purpose of adaptation when structuring the screenplay. The historical context may explain why this fairy tale does not follow the standard structure or contain the basic character types of the majority of

traditional literary fairy tales. Even the Pied Piper himself is ambiguous in character, as he first appears to be the anti-hero protagonist, in that he agrees to save the town from rats (the antagonist) but only if he is paid to do so, and yet he becomes villainous when the townsfolk refuse to pay him the full amount and he kidnaps their children. This is a case where, although the reader can understand his desire for revenge, they cannot accept that the punishment fits their crime, so the Pied Piper is seen as a pure villain and is remembered as such at the conclusion of the tale. This moral ambiguity, however, makes for an interesting character, and is an element I wanted to maintain within the screenplay, but with a slight change, such that audiences feel the Pied Piper is more akin to an anti-hero at the end of the screenplay/movie than to a villain.

If adopting the character transformation methods employed by Maleficent, the Pied Piper would be an anti-hero protagonist, and therefore a new (more evil in comparison) villain antagonist would have to be created to oppose him. While Maleficent originally drew me to this line of research, I felt that following that approach would lead to an obvious and predictable storyline. However, the literary source’s villainous act (Maleficent cursing Princess Aurora) was an enjoyable retention in Maleficent’s narrative, and influenced part of my approach for The Devil’s Symphony.

If using Pan’s methodology, the Pied Piper would become an anti-hero ally— a change that requires the creation of both a new villain antagonist as well as a new hero protagonist. Where Pan was unsuccessful was its reliance on the Hero’s Journey paradigm, which meant that its derivative hero-origin focus on Peter did not allow for enough excitement in its portrayal of Hook as a new anti-hero ally. Pan’s use of villain-as-anti-hero ally instead of villain-as-anti-hero protagonist was a core element in the approach to The Devil’s Symphony, but that ally aspect was further influenced by the method taken in Frozen, as discussed next.

If emulating Frozen’s method, the Pied Piper would be initially a (misunderstood) villain antagonist but turn out to be an anti-hero ally. This requires the creation of both a second villain antagonist (revealed in Act III of the screenplay) and a new hero protagonist. It was Frozen’s observed use of Propp’s false hero and second act of villainy which provided an intriguing starting point to build from. The flaw in Frozen’s method, as I saw it, was that the twist ending could have been stronger if Elsa had been revealed as good at the same time as Hans was revealed as evil, instead of her inherent goodness being known to the audience from the start of the film. In order to facilitate this approach for The Devil’s Symphony, the

Pied Piper would need to be seen as evil in the eyes of the audience at the start of the film, a true villain, but revealed to have (anti-)heroic virtues at the end of the film.

4.2 A Tale of Two Villains: the False Villain and the True Villain

One of the reasons for selecting this particular fairy tale was its darker tone and the horrific element of child abduction. Instead of removing that element and having the Pied Piper not commit that villainous crime, I needed to give him a justifiable reason for this action, adding layers of complexity to his character, so the audience could ultimately empathise with him when the reason is revealed later in the story. The solution: he took the children to protect them from the far worse fate of being sacrificed in a cult ceremony overseen by the town’s mayor. This approach also provided the new, more evil, villain antagonist that the story needed so that the Pied Piper’s actions were seen as less evil in comparison. In order to maintain an anti-heroic quality to the Pied Piper, the decision was made to make him initially complicit in the mayor’s plan for selfish reasons, but through a growth of character and redemptive arc, finally oppose the plan for selfless reasons. Until this act of selflessness is revealed in the script’s final act, the Pied Piper fulfils the function of the villain (antagonist) in Propp’s schema and the corresponding sphere of action. For this reason, I have coined the term ‘false villain’ as an amendment to Propp’s initial seven dramatis personae as a way to describe this role. The false villain is a character who initially appears to be the villain antagonist in the eyes of the hero protagonist, and performs Propp’s functions of the villain in their sphere of action, but is not truly evil. Once the ‘true villain’ (my term) is revealed, after a second act of villainy is committed, the Pied Piper assumes the function of an ally (Propp’s ‘helper’) to the story’s hero protagonist and contributes to the requirements of that sphere of action. Although Propp allows for story characters to appear in different spheres of action of his dramatis personae, his schema does not make allowances for the villain of the first move of a tale to appear in another role for the second move; they are always a villain. In Propp’s original schema, all villains are punished. I propose that a false villain escapes punishment due to the redemptive arc that accompanies the new character type. Although an antagonistic force, Propp’s false hero character type is not a true villain, because its functional role differs from that of the second move villain. However, since according to Propp a story character can inhabit multiple spheres of action, the same character can inhabit both functional roles, as observed with Hans in Frozen. For reference, the full dramatis personae is in Appendix A.

4.3 Establishing the Hero Protagonist

For the Pied Piper to exist as this newly created character type of the false villain, he could not also be the hero protagonist of the story. One of the things that drew me to this particular fairy tale was the mystery: children were abducted, led into a mountain, and never heard from again. I always wanted an answer to that mystery, to that unsolved ending, as it was not the norm for fairy tales. An interesting discovery made during research into alternative structural approaches of fairy tales from a cinematic perspective was that detective/film-noir movies are one of the most suitable genre types that lend themselves to Proppian design (Fell, 1977). Harriss (2008) likewise proposed that television procedural dramas such as Homicide, CSI, and The X-Files, which are considered variants on the detective/mystery story, also appeared to follow Proppian structure. This informed the decision to make the hero protagonist for The Devil’s Symphony a police detective trying to solve the crime of the missing children. Since no such detective character exists in the traditional literary story, or anyone referred to by name who could be turned into this detective, it meant having to create a new character. An additional benefit to this protagonist approach is that the story is now told from an authoritative narrative perspective, which, as discussed earlier in regard to Maleficent, helps suggest that what the audience is seeing is the truth, and not a fabrication from an untrustworthy or manipulative character.

4.4 Mapping Propp’s Morphology to Field’s Paradigm

In his research on Proppian plot genotypes, and their existence in pre-existing non-fairy tale films, Murphy (2015) proposed Propp’s Function VIII (Villainy) corresponds with Field’s Plot Point 1, and that Function XIX (Liquidation) corresponds with Plot Point 2. While I initially agreed with the correlation between Function XIX (Liquidation) and Plot Point 2, a different association was uncovered during later research cycles, which will be discussed in more detail in Section 4.6 of this exegesis.

Research undertaken during the literature review further showed that Function VIII (Villainy) does not align specifically to Plot Point 1, and that a more nuanced parallel exists between Propp and Field when considering Field’s Inciting Incident and Key Incident, which Murphy did not factor into his research. Propp’s Function VIII (Villainy) more accurately aligns with Field’s Inciting Incident, Propp’s Function IX (Mediation, the connective incident) aligns with Field’s Key Incident, and the combination of Propp’s two functions, Function X

(Beginning Counteraction) and Function XI (Departure), align with Field’s Plot Point 1. This alignment of Propp’s functions to Field’s elements are illustrated in Table 4.1 below.

Field’s Inciting Incident Key Incident Plot Point 1 Paradigm Propp’s IX. Mediation, the X. Beginning Counteraction (C) VIII. Villainy (A) Morphology connective incident (B) XI. Departure (↑) Table 4.1. Proposed Alignment of Vladimir Propp’s Functions to Syd Field’s Act I Elements.

Field (2005, p. 129; 2018, 01:01) uses detective and murder-mystery films as one example that highlights the differences between the Inciting Incident and Key Incident, stating that the initial murder is the Inciting Incident, which is what sets the story in motion, which then leads to the Key Incident and the arrival of the main character (protagonist), the detective who must solve the case. Propp states that Function VIII (Villainy) is where “the actual movement of the tale is created” (Propp, 1968, p. 30), and Function IX (Mediation, the connective incident) “brings the hero into the tale” (Propp, 1968, p. 36), which offer a much closer alignment with Field’s Inciting Incident and Key Incident. Field also states that the Inciting Incident always leads to the Key Incident, so they can be considered a linked pair, and likewise Propp states that Function IX (Mediation) is a connective incident to Function VIII (Villainy), so we can also consider them a linked pair, thus supporting the alignment of these Proppian functions to Field’s elements. Field (2005, p. 26) also ascertains that Plot Point 1 is always a function (his words) of the main character (the hero protagonist) which has a stronger correlation to Propp’s Function X (Beginning Counteraction) and Function XI (Departure), which is where the hero decides on a course of action to defeat the villain and sets out on the journey, as opposed to the act of villainy itself (Function VIII). Propp (1968) highlights that these four functions (VIII-XI) constitute what he calls the ‘complication’ section of the story which contributes the most significant part of the initial set-up and is essential in establishing a number of the main characters in the story, a sentiment that Field (2006b, p. 150) agrees with in regard to the importance of setting up the story and characters in Act I. The parallels between these specific functions of Propp and elements of Field also reveals an interesting discovery regarding the first constituent of the sphere of action (grouping of functions) of three of Propp’s dramatis personae; the Villain, the Dispatcher, and the Hero. Each of those character types’ first constituent functional element aligns with Field’s three Act I essential elements, as shown in Table 4.2 (next page), thus strengthening the validity of this grouping.

Propp’s The Villain The Dispatcher The Hero Dramatis Personae Propp’s IX. Dispatch/Mediation X. Beginning counteraction & Sphere of Action VIII. Villainy (A) (connective incident, B) XI. Departure on a search (C↑) First Constituent Field’s Paradigm Inciting Incident Key Incident Plot Point 1 Act I Element Table 4.2. Propp’s Sphere of Action First Constituents aligned to Field’s Act I Elements.

According to Propp (Propp, 1968, p. 53) Function XIX (Liquidation) is where “the narrative reaches its peak” and it is a paired element with Function VIII (Villainy), highlighting its importance in the tale. The importance of this pairing led Murphy (2015, p. 27) to consider Function XIX (Liquidation) as compatible with Field’s Plot Point 2, and while broadly there is correlation, this only offers a part-solution for mapping to a three-act structure. The issue arises when you take Propp’s assertion that Function XIX (Liquidation) can be a terminal function of the story (Propp, 1968, p. 92), and/or that many fairy tales end on Function XXII (Rescue) (Propp, 1968, p. 58) with the remaining 9 functions (Functions XXIII–XXXI) being unused. This can result in very simple stories, that may be suitable for literary endeavours, but are not particularly suited to feature-length cinematic applications. Aronson (2001, p. 26) points to this issue when using literary fairy tales as the basis of new, original movies, saying that “modern film requires much more plot than a normal fairytale, which usually has very simple second and third acts.” For Function XIX (Liquidation) to work as Plot Point 2 at the end of Act II, either a significant number of Propp’s remaining 12 functions must be present, and/or some combination of those 12 functions with the inclusion of an additional ‘move’ (created by a new act of villainy) and its repeated functions, to facilitate a solid Act III. If we consider a basic screenplay that consists of all 31 functions, and only one ‘move’, under this refined concept we can see the following distributions of functions in Table 4.3.

Act I Act II Act III Single-move Tale Functions I–XI Functions XII–XIX Functions XX–XXXI Maximum Number of 11 8 12 Functions per Act Table 4.3. Distribution of Propp’s 31 functions when Function XIX (Liquidation) is mapped to Field’s Plot Point 2 in a Single Move Tale.

A possible issue arises when grouping these functions in this manner; Act II, which is the largest section of the screenplay consisting of half the total page count, has potentially the

lowest number of functions associated with it (not all functions have to be present in Act I & Act III). This could result in a weak Act II unless it is populated with Propp’s additional ‘auxiliary connective’ elements, ‘motivations’, or additional ‘moves’ created by new acts of villainy which would allow for a number of repeated functions. Another possible issue might arise in regard to Act III if all 12 functions and/or the inclusion of a second act of villainy, as is the case with The Devil’s Symphony, are required, as a longer page count might be necessary. This will be discussed in more detail in Section 4.6.

4.5 A Proppian Approach to Plot and Structure

The next major step was to outline the four essential narrative elements, using Propp’s morphology mapped to Field’s three-act paradigm, which provided the main framework for the screenplay. Also designated in the outline was where the placement of the second act of villainy (repeated Function VIII), and twist reveal of the Pied Piper as anti-hero not villain, would occur. Once this was completed, the remainder of Propp’s functions were utilised to further develop the plot. The basic outline of key narrative elements is outlined in Table 4.4 below, with the full morphological outline of the final draft of the screenplay in Appendix B.

Pied Piper revealed as anti-hero,

having saved the children from

being sacrificed by Hamelin’s Functions XX–XXXI Mayor. and/or Act III Repeated Functions VIII–XIX Hamelin’s Mayor revealed as true (additional moves) villain, attempts to sacrifice the children once more. (see Appendix B for more details)

Table 4.4. Main Story Elements of The Devil’s Symphony.

The alignment of Function XIX (Liquidation) with Plot Point 2 and the distribution of the remaining functions will be discussed in further detail in Section 4.6 of this exegesis, as this evolved over a number of subsequent drafts. The table above indicates the alignment used for the initial story outline and first draft of the screenplay, based on the initial research undertaken which informed the creative practice. The process of industry feedback, critical reflection, and redrafting of the screenplay, then led to further structural discoveries which refined the proposed new screenwriting paradigm.

Another consideration during plot development was that, in establishing this revisionist version as a crime/detective story, the narrative was now repositioned as occurring after the events of the literary source material, essentially making it a sequel story (of sorts); the crime of the abducted children (which was the end of the original fairy tale) has already occurred before the screenplay commences, and this new story focuses on the solving of the crime. The benefits of this approach were that it allowed more creative freedom within the narrative, as with Pan, and also allowed the inclusion of a fresh spin on known events, which was something Pan was not able to capitalise on, being a prequel story, but which Maleficent was able to achieve, and which director Stromberg (Walt Disney Company, 2014) believed increased audience enjoyment. These key moments from the original fairy tale, the Pied Piper taking the rats, being cheated out of money by the town, and taking the children, are included in fragmented flashback sequences as the police inspector pieces together the clues, with the full truth behind all the events revealed in the final act. Delaying the disclosure of the truth until Act III was essential for the twist-reveal of the Pied Piper as anti-hero, along with the true villain reveal of the Mayor, to function effectively. However, from a Proppian perspective, these flashback sequences do not align with any of the 31 functions. According to Propp, they would be considered ‘auxiliary elements’, which are additional scenes/sequences that connect functions together, or ‘motivations’, which are additional scenes/sequences that provide the reasons behind characters’ actions. This aligns with Field’s view of flashbacks as a device to reveal character information or move the story forward (Field, 2006a, p. 232). The necessary inclusion of some of these sequences affected the subsequent alignment of certain Proppian functions to Field’s elements and will be discussed in further detail in Section 4.6.

During the outline process, and prior to writing the first draft of the screenplay, a significant decision was made about how Functions I–VII were applied, leading to a proposed new

interpretation of Propp’s schema for cinematic franchise-building films. These first seven functions are mainly concerned with the villain antagonist and their victim, with only slight reference to the possible inclusion of the hero (as possible victim in certain functions). From a cinematic perspective, it is not the norm to spend more time with the villain antagonist at the start of the story than the hero protagonist, so these functions would either typically be absent or only account for a small number of script pages/screen time. Additionally, in keeping with established tropes of murder-mystery films, the audience is typically never visually aware who the killer is at the start of the narrative, negating the use of those first seven functions. However, this leaves Act I a little underdeveloped in both plot and character development, which from a screenwriting perspective is problematic, as scripts are often judged on the strength of the first ten pages. Propp allows for the first seven functions to be absent, but as a creative practitioner, I felt it prudent to incorporate them into the story in a way that provided a more engaging introduction to the world and the hero protagonist character.

Inspiration on how to achieve this came from the James Bond franchise. Those films often start with 007 completing a previous mission before the commencement of a new mission that serves the backbone of the film. These types of opening sequences, often referred to as ‘cold opens’ or ‘action prologues’, create an attention-grabbing start and introduce us to the main character. As a police inspector in The Devil’s Symphony, the hero could also have a previous case he was working on before being dispatched to solve the mystery in Hamelin, and that previous case would have its own villain who could be substituted into those first seven functions, before being defeated. Since most current fairy tale movies are part of the fantasy/adventure genre, this action-oriented introduction provided a more compelling opening to the story. However, it was considered important that the inciting incident should occur at the very start of the screenplay, as per Field’s intent, which required reordering Propp’s functions, such that Function VIII (Villainy) occurred prior to Functions I–VII which are the hero protagonist’s introduction. The morphological outline of The Devil’s Symphony cold open/action prologue is presented in Table 4.5 (next page).

Propp Function Designation Story Element I. One of the members of a family Absentation (β) Two children (Hansel & Gretel) are absents from home. missing in the forest. II. An interdiction is addressed to the Interdiction (ɣ) The police inspector’s horse is hero. spooked and refuses to go into the forest. III. The interdiction is violated. Violation (δ) The police inspector continues on foot. IV. The villain attempts Reconnaissance (ε) A witch, disguised as a sweet old reconnaissance. lady, asks what the police inspector is investigating. V. The villain receives information Delivery (ζ) The police inspector tells the witch he about his victim. is looking for two missing children. VI. The villain attempts to deceive his Trickery (η) The witch tempts the police inspector victim in order to take possession of to eat poisoned gingerbread. him or of his belongings. VII. The victim submits to deception Complicity (θ) The police inspector eats the and thereby unwittingly helps his poisoned gingerbread. enemy. ** As per the established norms of the cold open/action prologue, the villain is defeated, even though there is not a corresponding Propp function to align this with. Table 4.5. Morphology of The Devil’s Symphony Cold Open/Action Prologue Sequence.

Adapting Propp’s schema to incorporate structural devices from detective genre films that are familiar to audiences has the potential to affect how fairy tales are adapted, especially ones that attempt to be franchise-building entities, which is a key driving force behind a lot of Hollywood produced content (Lomax, 2019). In the case of The Devil’s Symphony, the cold open/action prologue is an alternative origin story of Hansel & Gretel, thus establishing the police inspector as a central character in multiple cinematic iterations of fairy tales, which is not an established convention for their literary counterparts. Although not specific to the central research question of changing literary fairy tale villains into cinematic anti-heroes, adapting Propp’s schema to expand its reach and original purpose of categorising singular fairy tales into a tool that could facilitate new, unique fairy tale franchises was worth pursuing further from a commercial perspective.

During the time of undertaking this MFA, sequels to both Maleficent and Frozen were released in cinemas, illustrating that producers are looking at known fairy tale IP to build franchises. This led to the inclusion of additional references in The Devil’s Symphony to past cases the police inspector had solved, such as Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood, which could be used for potential prequel movies, and the ‘sequel hook’ ending of the police

inspector being dispatched to solve the case of Rumpelstiltskin after a new (off-screen) act of villainy (Function VIII) leads to a repeat of (on-screen) Functions IX–XI (Mediation, Counteraction, Departure ) at the conclusion of the screenplay.

Although the inclusion of these four repeated functions (a new complication) deviates from Propp’s normal terminal functions present in the denouement, their presence in the screenplay does not diminish the feeling of closure of the primary narrative, and may provide additional excitement for the audience as it introduces the larger franchise world within this first film, something that Maleficent and Frozen were unable to accomplish in their closed, singular narratives. This new ending would allow the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale to form either the main backbone, or more fittingly, the cold open/action prologue of a sequel script much in the same way Hansel & Gretel does for The Devil’s Symphony. The villain-as-anti-hero theme could also be continued throughout all subsequent films within the franchise if so desired by the producers and studio investors.

4.6 Iterative Screenplay Development

The industry response to The Devil’s Symphony has been extremely positive, with the screenplay winning the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards in the action/adventure category, and placing in the top three in the sci-fi/fantasy category of Final Draft’s Big Break Screenwriting Contest (see Appendix C). These two contests are considered among the most prestigious international screenwriting contests, which lends a level of credence to the validity of the structural approach taken. Industry feedback also praised the story’s twist of the Pied Piper as anti-hero ally instead of villain antagonist, the complex natures of the characters and the motivations that drive them, the effectiveness of the opening prologue sequence, the solid use of three-act structure, and the franchise potential.

Although commended for the overall efficacy of the screenplay, and the clever deployment of the villain-as-anti-hero construct, one of the major industry notes regarding the initial draft of the screenplay was its length of 117 pages, which was considered too long. Following the industry guideline that one page of script equals approximately one minute of screen time meant the produced movie would be approximately 1hr 57mins long (excluding end credits). This was noticeably longer than the similar films which had been used for comparative analysis; 1hr 37mins for Maleficent, 1hr 42mins for Frozen, and 1hr 51mins for Pan (including end credits). Although The Devil’s Symphony fell within the acceptable range of

between 90–120 pages for a commercial screenplay (Trottier, 2014, p. 160), there is a general preference in Hollywood for certain genres to fall within specific run-times, e.g. comedy, action and family 90–100 mins, thriller and drama 100–110 mins, sci-fi 110–120 mins, and event/spectacle franchise films 120+mins (Myers, 2019). Although there are exceptions to this rule, the majority of films fit within the run-time requirements of their genre. A fairy tale fantasy/adventure would ideally be 100–110 mins from an industry perspective, and a ‘spec script’, i.e., one written on speculation of a sale and not on commission from a producer, should be 100–110 pages as an industry guideline. This guideline for spec scripts is meant to help industry executives weed out scripts that are either lacking in character and story development (too short), or are overwritten with unnecessary dialogue and scenes (too long), not because of how complicated the plot lines are.

In order to facilitate the twist-ending reveal of the Pied Piper as an anti-hero not a villain, along with the appearance of the false hero and true villain within Act III, a longer page count was required. The industry feedback on the extended length identified an interesting tension when creating an industry-facing screenplay within the academic confines of creative practice as research. Reflecting on the screenplay’s performance in competitions and the judges’ feedback led me to reduce the page count to align with industry expectations. The iterative process of refining the screenplay led to some interesting findings, discussed next.

The second act of villainy, which is also linked to the inclusion of a number of additional subsequent functions, is an essential narrative element for the ending to work. To maintain that narrative conclusion, I searched for non-essential elements of the script that could be removed to reduce the page count to a more acceptable limit. I identified several of what Propp calls ‘auxiliary elements’ (additional scenes/sequences that connect functions together), and motivations (additional scenes/sequences that provide the reasons behind characters’ actions). These were either scenes involving the police inspector gathering clues (providing ‘auxiliary elements’ between functions), flashback scenes about the police inspector’s past (providing his character motivations), or flashback scenes concerning the Pied Piper’s abduction of the children (providing his anti-hero motivations). These were ranked in importance, with the motivations of the Pied Piper deemed essential to the story, as they are the key to audience empathy and the overall success of the villain as anti-hero transformation change. Those sequences were kept, and a number of scenes relating to the police inspector’s motivations and auxiliary elements were either trimmed or removed.

Refinement over the course of two screenplay drafts successfully brought the page count down to 110 pages, while still maintaining narrative coherency, meeting the desired industry requirement for a spec script in the fairy tale fantasy/adventure genre. The reduction of page count also improved the narrative flow, tightening up the previously slow-moving Act II.

By removing non-essential elements, Function XIX (Liquidation) moved away from its position as Plot Point 2 to occur earlier in the narrative. Its new position has a similar page location to Pinch Point 2 of Field’s updated paradigm, which is a stabilising sequence that keeps the story on track (Field, 2006b, pp. 221–222). Additionally, the new act of villainy (repeated Function VIII) commencing the second move was now repositioned to Plot Point 2 (see Table 4.6). This was an interesting finding, as it deviates from Field’s intention of Plot Point 2 as always being a function of the main character (Field, 2005, p. 26), because it is now a function of the new villain (as per Propp). Yet it still performs Field’s basic intention of spinning the action around in another direction as it creates a new complication and twist ending that must be resolved. Within the cause–effect logic of screenplay structure, this amendment to Field’s paradigm can be rationalised, as a repeated Function VIII (Villainy) will likely prompt a response from the protagonist.

During this revision process, Function XV (Spatial Transference/Guidance), where the hero journeys to the location of the missing object, was also repositioned and aligned approximately with the Mid-Point of the screenplay. In the initial draft of the screenplay, the Mid-Point only aligned with an auxiliary element. Field (2006b, p. 203) introduces the importance of the Mid-Point in his updated paradigm, stating it is an incident that can be used as an anchoring point in the screenplay. Its function acts as “a link in the chain of dramatic action” of Act II, moving the story forward towards Plot Point 2 (Field, 2006b, p. 205). The importance Field places on the Mid-Point suggests closer alignment with one of Propp’s designated functions, instead of a non-essential auxiliary element. In the case of the most recent draft of The Devil’s Symphony, there is no corresponding Propp function with Field’s Pinch Point 1 (Field, 2006b, p. 222), which is another stabilising sequence that keeps the story of track, and occurs prior to the Mid-Point. Instead Pinch Point 1 is an auxiliary element. However, this auxiliary element is still significant, as it marks the first physical appearance of the villain for the audience. The new alignment of Propp’s functions to Field’s elements are outlined in Table 4.6 (next page).

Syd Field Vladimir Propp The Devil’s Symphony Act # Paradigm Morphology Story Element Functions I–VII See Appendix B. Inciting Incident Function VIII Pied Piper kidnaps the children. Berlin Chief of Police informs Act I Key Incident Function IX Police Inspector of the crime. Police Inspector takes the case and Plot Point 1 Functions X–XI departs for Hamelin. Functions XII–XIV See Appendix B. First physical appearance of Pied Pinch Point 1 N/A Piper. Police Inspector heads to Pied Mid-Point Function XV Piper’s lair. Functions XVI–XVIII See Appendix B. Act II Police Inspector rescues the Pinch Point 2 Function XIX children from the Pied Piper. Functions XX–XXIII See Appendix B. Hamelin’s Mayor drugs the Plot Point 2 Repeated Function VIII children and prepares to sacrifice them.

Pied Piper revealed as anti-hero, Functions XXIV–XXXI having saved the children from and/or being sacrificed by the Mayor. Repeated Functions VIX–XIX Act III (additional moves) Mayor revealed as true villain, and attempts to sacrifice the children Repeated Functions VIII–XI once more. (sequel hook ending) (see Appendix B for more details)

Table 4.6. Updated Main Story Elements of The Devil’s Symphony.

As part of the iterative screenplay development, subsequent drafts of the screenplay included this new placement of the repeated Function VII (Villainy) as Plot Point 2 and tighter pacing of Act II and Act III. The revised version of the script placed more highly in subsequent screenwriting competitions (see PAGE Awards in Appendix C), which suggests the new distribution of the number of Proppian functions assigned to each of Field’s Acts aligns more closely to industrial perspectives of screenplay structure.

In order to offer more universality to this structural approach, and allow its application to both more and less complex narratives (compared with The Devil’s Symphony), it is also proposed that in single-move stories where a second act of villainy (repeated Function VIII) is absent from the narrative, Function XXV (Difficult Task) would be positioned as Plot Point 2, which can be viewed as an additional complication and/or reversal of fortune for the hero

that must be resolved in Function XXVI (Solution). Propp (1968, p. 102) states, however, that it is rare for the linked pair of Function XXV (Difficult Task) and Function XXVI (Solution) to appear along with the linked pair of Function XVI (Struggle) and Function XVIII (Victory) in single-move tales, and they are most often associated with second, or further repeated, moves. In more complex multi-move stories (two moves or more), the screenwriter has the ability to use either a repeated Function VIII (Villainy) or Function XXV (Difficult Task) as Plot Point 2, depending on the requirements of the narrative.

The refined paradigm of mapping Propp to Field can be experienced through the creative artefact, The Devil’s Symphony, which I recommend should be read next.

5. Creative Artefact: The Devil’s Symphony

Logline:

In order to save over a hundred children who have mysteriously vanished from a plague- infested town, a paranormal detective must uncover the town’s dark secret, defeat the ancient supernatural creature responsible, and expose the sinister true origins of the fairy tale The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Screenplay:

For formatting ease, the full screenplay of The Devil’s Symphony is located in Appendix D.

6. Conclusion

In creating a villain-as-anti-hero character type in a screenplay that updates and adapts a traditional fairy tale, this research project has demonstrated that a modified version of Vladimir Propp’s analytical schema of literary Russian fairy tales, when successfully mapped to Syd Field’s normative screenplay structure, provides significant opportunities for innovating and improving conventional narrative development tools. The more commonly employed screenwriting tools designed to enhance key structural and narrative elements in mainstream, commercial screenplays are found in the Hero’s Journey, as developed by Christopher Vogler. Although challenging these established conventions, the structural and character transformation techniques outlined within this exegesis are not intended to replace

existing screenwriting methods, but to exist alongside the many unique approaches already available within the industry.

The feature-length screenplay, The Devil’s Symphony, developed and completed for this research, has proven the creation of the new character-type, the ‘false villain’, represents a significant variation to the conventions underpinning the transformative character that is essential in these contemporary, revisionist fairy tale films. Additionally, the use of Propp’s morphology as a structural plot-generation device has proven to be an effective alternative to the more established Hero’s Journey, provided that specific mapping of Propp’s functions to narrative events within Field’s normative three-act structural paradigm occurs. These aligned elements are: Function VIII (Villainy) with the Inciting Incident, Function IX (Mediation) with the Key Incident, the combination of Function X (Beginning Counteraction) and Function XI (Departure) with Plot Point 1, and Function XV (Spatial Transference/Guidance) with the Mid-Point. The iterative research and feedback cycles revealed cinematic iterations of fairy tales required more complicated narratives compared with their literary counterparts, necessitating the inclusion of a secondary complication within the screenplay, represented as either a repeated Function VIII (Villainy) or Function XXV (Difficult Task). This secondary complication must be positioned as Plot Point 2 at the end of Act II within normative screenplay structure, which is an integral element designed to drive the narrative into Act III and towards the final climax/resolution. The careful analysis required to map Propp’s morphology also identified additional commercial potential of this approach to adapting literary fairy tales to contemporary cinema.

Propp’s morphology can be effectively modified to facilitate franchise-building film series by utilising Functions I–VII as a ‘cold open/action prologue’, along with repeating Functions VIII–XI after the closure of the primary narrative as a ‘sequel hook’. These are not established conventions in the literary source material, nor have they been observed in pre-existing film texts within this sub-genre of fairy tales, which are primarily concerned with closed, singular narratives. Adapting and utilising Propp’s functions in this manner enables the traditional closed narrative to be expanded, thus offering greater commercial appeal to an industry that is increasingly prioritising existing IP and franchise building.

The Devil’s Symphony placed highly in a number of well-regarded international screenwriting competitions, winning the prestigious PAGE International Screenwriting Awards in the action/adventure category, and placing in the top three in the sci-fi/fantasy category of Final

Draft’s Big Break Screenwriting Contest, validating at an industry level this character transformation and structural approach. The cyclical action research methodology was effective in the initial development and subsequent refinement of the presented structural paradigm, with competition placement proving an effective instrument to test the efficacy of the creative practice. Further, it is proposed that this new morphological paradigm is not just limited in its application to villain-as-anti-hero revisionist fairy tales, and could be applied to any hero-origin style narratives that are customarily written within the Hero’s Journey construct. This offers screenwriters multiple narrative approaches that still retain the sense of familiarity that audiences and studio executives desire for commercially based studio productions.

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Appendix A: The Devil’s Symphony: dramatis personae

Narrative Role Sphere of Action Character Protagonist Hero Inspector Swann False Villain The Pied Piper st Antagonist Villain (1 move) True Villain Mayor Von Schulze (2nd move) Additional Antagonist False Hero Baron Huber Donor (1st move) Gypsy Woman Donor (2nd move) The Pied Piper Helper (1st move) Matteo, Grimm, Anya, Elsa, Kruger Helper (2nd move) Matteo, Grimm, Anya, The Pied Piper Supporting Roles Princess (a sought- The missing children, and the town council (on for person) and her behalf of parents). Father Dispatcher Chief of Police

Appendix B: The Devil’s Symphony: morphological outline

Act # Propp Function Plot Element 0. Initial Situation N/A. Start of First Move VIII. The villain causes harm or injury Anya informs the townsfolk of Hamelin that to a member of a family. the Pied Piper kidnapped the children. I. One of the members of a Two children (Hansel & Gretel) are missing family absents from home. in the forest. II. An interdiction is The investigating police officer’s (Swann) addressed to the hero. horse is spooked and refuses to go into the forest. III. The interdiction is Swann continues on foot. violated. IV. The villain attempts A witch, disguised as a sweet old lady, asks Cold reconnaissance. what the police inspector is investigating. Open V. The villain receives Swann tells the witch he is looking for two - information about his missing children. Action Act I victim. Prologue VI. The villain attempts to The witch tempts Swann to eat poisoned deceive his victim in order gingerbread. to take possession of him or of his belongings. VII. The victim submits to Swann eats the poisoned gingerbread. deception and thereby unwittingly helps his enemy. IX. Misfortune or lack is made known; Berlin’s Chief of Police informs Swann of the the hero is approached with a request or missing children in Hamelin and assigns him command; he is allowed to go or he is to the case. dispatched. X. The hero agrees to or decides upon Swann takes the case. counteraction. XI. The hero leaves home. Swann leaves Berlin. XII. The hero is tested, interrogated, Swann is attacked by bandits on his journey attacked, etc., which prepares the way to Hamelin. for his receiving either a magical agent or helper. XIII. The hero reacts to the actions of After defeating the bandits, Swann meets a the future donor. helpless Gypsy Woman. XIV. The hero acquires the use of a Gypsy Woman gives Swann a candle which magical agent. is instrumental in defeating the Pied Piper. Act II XV. The hero is transferred, delivered, Swann’s investigation leads him to the lair of or led to the whereabouts of an object of the Pied Piper and the location of the missing search. children. XVI. The hero and the villain join in Swann fights the Pied Piper. direct combat. XVII. The hero is branded. Swann is stabbed. XVIII. The villain is defeated. Swann defeats the Pied Piper. XIX. The initial misfortune or lack is The children are rescued from the Pied Piper. liquidated.

XX. The hero returns. An unconscious Swann is taken back to Hamelin. XXI. The hero is pursued. N/A. XXII. Rescue of the hero from pursuit. N/A. XXIII. The hero, unrecognized, arrives N/A. home or in another country. Start of Second Move Repeated VIII. The villain causes harm The Mayor drugs the children in preparation or injury to a member of a family. for the sacrificial ceremony. XXIV. A false hero presents unfounded Hamelin’s Mayor lies; tells the townsfolk claims. their children must be kept overnight in the monastery as health precaution, and tells the townsfolk that Baron Huber, not Swann, rescued the children.

Baron Huber lies; tells the townsfolk that the Pied Piper may come back for revenge (although he is safely locked in prison). Repeated IX. Misfortune or lack is made Swann is made aware of the truth about the known to the hero. Pied Piper and the Mayor. Repeated X. The hero decides upon Swann goes to save the children. counteraction. Repeated XIV. The hero acquires the Swann has access to the Pied Piper’s pipe. use of a magical agent. XXV. A difficult task is proposed to the N/A. hero. XXVI. The task is resolved. N/A. XXVII. The hero is recognized. N/A. XXVIII. The false hero or villain is The Mayor and Baron Huber’s true plan is Act exposed. exposed. III XXIX. The hero is given a new Swann transforms into a demonic entity due appearance. to the power of the Pied Piper’s pipe. Repeated XVI. The hero and the villain Swann fights the Mayor and his followers. join in direct combat. Repeated XVIII. The villain is defeated. Swann defeats the Mayor and his followers. Repeated XIX. The misfortune is The children are safe from sacrifice. liquidated. Start of Third Move Repeated VIII. The villain causes harm The Raven Creature spreads the plague to the or injury to a member of a family. children, Grimm, and Rautenfeld. Repeated XVI. The hero and the villain Swann fights the Raven Creature. join in direct combat. Repeated XVIII. The villain is defeated. Swann defeats the Raven Creature. Repeated XIX. The misfortune is The children, Grimm, and Rautenfeld are liquidated. cured of the plague. XXX. The villain and false hero are The Mayor, his followers, and the Raven punished. Creature are dead. Baron Huber is imprisoned. XXXI. The hero is married and ascends Swann leaves Hamelin with Anya. the throne.

Repeated VIII. The villain Rumpelstiltskin kidnaps a child (off-screen) causes harm or injury to a member of a family. Repeated IX. Misfortune is Swann receives word from Chief of Police of made known; the hero is Rumpelstiltskin’s crime. Sequel approached with a request or Hook command. Repeated X. The hero agrees to Swann decides to take the Rumpelstiltskin or decides upon counteraction. case. Repeated XI. The hero leaves Swann leaves Hamelin in search of home. Rumpelstiltskin.

Appendix C: The Devil’s Symphony: screenwriting contest placements

Appendix D: The Devil’s Symphony: screenplay