Dramatica Users Group (DUG)
Minutes for June 10, 1998

The DUG began shortly after 7:00 p.m. led by Chris Huntley. The film analyzed was "In The Company Of Men."

About 7:10 p.m., the DUG began its analysis of the film, "In The Company Of Men" [See related article In The Company Of Men for a detailed story analysis].

We began the analysis by asking two of the Plot Dynamics questions because they seemed to be obvious in the film: Story Limit and Story Judgment. An easy consensus was reached for both questions. The Story Limit is a Timelock of six weeks, the length of the company project. The Story Judgment is Bad--whoever the Main Character (MC) is, it sure felt like there was a LOT of angst left over at the end of the film.

The group then went on to identify the four throughlines. Identifying the Objective Story (OS) throughline proved to be difficult. The following are some of the proposed OS descriptions: doing the project; playing roles in the work environment; power; manipulation; and others including the "game" being played to get back at women. We left that unresolved and went on to the Main Character. (It's important to note that there was some consensus that Chad, the good-looking company man, appeared to be the protagonist in the OS.)

Most everyone agreed that Howard, the nerdy, bespeckled guy was the MC. There was very little discussion about this.

Identifying the Obstacle Character (OC), however, proved a bit more difficult. There seemed to be two clear cut candidates for the OC: Chad and Christina (the deaf woman). Pretty strong arguments were made for both so that was left unchosen and we moved on to the Subjective Story (SS) throughline.

We determined two different, potential SS descriptions. If Chad was the OC, then the SS might be described as the "dating game" Howard and Chad were playing with Christine. If Christine was the OC, then the SS would probably be described as the relationship developing between Howard and Christine. We left both options open to be determined at a later time when we had a better idea what the throughline Domains were.

There followed a fairly long debate over the Main Character's Resolve, Change or Steadfast. Choosing different aspects of Howard's life/personality affected how we might answer the Resolve question. Howard had problems with women at the beginning of the story, and he clearly had problems with women at the end of the story which led some to believe he was Steadfast. Ultimately, it was determined that HOW he interacted with women was more clearly tied to his personal issues than just interacting with them. At the beginning of the story Howard was irritated and avoids direct confrontations with his ex-girlfriend. At the end of the story, Howard was highly confrontational with Christina about their relationship (or lack thereof). This indicated that Howard was a Change character.

We pretty much skipped the MC Growth, Stop or Start, question. No clear consensus was reached so we moved on to MC Approach, Do-er or Be-er. By nature and preference, Howard appeared to be a Be-er. His reaction to being slapped at the opening of the film a solid indicator of this. It was also determined that he had a Male Mental Sex which, in some ways, blinded him to Chad's behind the scenes machinations.

The remaining to Plot dynamic questions were determined quickly. Feelings were that the story was driven forward by Decision (Story Driver). The decision to put Howard in charge of the project over Chad was the impetus for the story's goings on. The ultimate decision to demote Howard and promote Chad wrapped the story up.

The Story Outcome was determined to be Success. This was selected after we determined that the Objective Story domain was most likely in Psychology. From the list of possible OS descriptions, we connected a few of them to come up with something like, "Manipulating others by playing roles in order to gain power in a corporate structure." Chad played them all like chumps and got his promotion: Success.

By choosing Psychology as the OS domain, that put Howard squarely in the Mind domain because of his Be-er status. That also put the SS domain in Physics and the OC domain in Universe.

We turned our attention to the Obstacle Character in an effort to choose between Chad and Christina and found an interesting coincidence(?). The defining aspect of both characters seemed to be Universe (situation) related. Christina was deaf which was both external and unchanging. Howard was promoted over Chad and made Chad's boss so that Chad was no longer on even ground with his friend but now Howard's "inferior." The deciding factor came when determining which character had a problem with his or her situation, and which character did not. Though Christina was deaf, there were no indications that this created much grief for her personally. By all indications, Christina had come to terms with her deafness years ago. Chad, on the other had, was pissed off by being passed over. Ever the status conscious, Chad heavily resented Howard's promotion--even though it was temporary.

The Subjective Story, defined by its Physics domain, clearly fell in line with the "dating game" Chad and Howard decided to play.

Determining the Concerns, Issues, and Problems/Solutions proved to be a laborious task--too much so for this brief description of the DUG. There were, however, several interesting points of discussion. Here are a several of them.

WHO'S THE MAIN CHARACTER?

Many members of the group felt that the MC was not easily identifiable until late in the film. For some of them, this made it difficult to determine the MC's concerns and issues. It also made it difficult to determine the meaning and importance of the behavior of the principal characters (Howard, Chad, and Christina) until late in the story--and only then in retrospect. Some didn't like this, others did, and to others it didn't make much difference.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU, AS AUDIENCE, "ADD" TO THE STORY

There was a healthy discussion as to the meaning of Christina's headphones--the ones she wears as she types. One interpretation was that it indicated she was uncomfortable with her deafness and used it as a visual "don't bother me" flag. Others thought that it indicated that Christina used it as a way to prevent people speaking to her without getting her attention first. Hearing people would be less surprised when she did not respond to them if they thought she might not hear them over some music she was listening to. Still others thought that Christina wore the headphones in a effort to conceal her deafness so as to not make her hearing co-workers uncomfortable because of her handicap. There even began a discussion of company etiquette.

Chris warned about reading things into a story that are not illustrated. Based on what was in the film, most of those interpretations could work, but should not be strongly considered when trying to identify the underlying storyform--the author's intent.

IDENTIFYING THE DOMAINS BY LOOKING FOR THE SOURCE OF CONFLICT

Identifying the Obstacle Character could only have been done by seeing the OC domain in terms of problems and/or conflict (see above). One person having difficulty in identifying the Objective Story domain described the throughline as, "A project has to be completed within six weeks." From that, he was unable to determine which class best described that. Though the objective story certainly involved said project, it was essential to determine what about the project was the source of conflict: Was it the situation (Universe) of being in a new building space? Was it a particular activity associated with the project (Physics)? Was it a specific clash of mindsets or attitudes (Mind)? Or, as it turned out, was it due to role playing and manipulations (Psychology) by co-workers?

[See In The Company Of Men Storyform for the Dramatica story engine settings.]

Next month's film, "In The Company Of Men."