I’ve been script doctoring a couple of interesting projects recently, a short and a feature both due to be shot next year. And I find, time and again, that what I come back to is the emotional impact of the script. Sure, it might express itself as a structural issue, a need for zingier dialogue, or higher stakes in a particular scene, but more often than not those specific requests are aimed at heightening emotions.

And really, that’s no surprise. The reason we go into a dark room to watch pictures play before us on a screen is so that those pictures, and the sounds that accompany them, inspire feelings in us. Without feeling, cinema is a dead experience. It’s for that very reason that there’s a distinction made between film and art installations using film or video: in an attempt to legitimise the latter’s typical lack of emotional affect, they are defined as being a different art form judged by different criteria.

Even at the simplest level, a story is about emotions: specifically those raised by a protagonist’s success or failure at achieving their goal. The other day I set out for Heathrow Airport, carrying with me everything I thought I needed to get to Australia. Arriving good and early to the flight desk, I started to check in my luggage, only to be asked for my Australian visa. My what? I had no idea I needed such a thing. (Desire: get to Australia. Obstacle: need for a visa. Character revelation: lack of preparedness. Get it?)

Then the lady at the check-in told me I could get a visa at the airport, and that Australia is one of the few countries to offer such a service. So I hopped over to another desk, and the woman there got the system loaded up — only for it to crash a minute later. Great: a technical problem impacting on me now…and the clock is ticking before my flight departs. Embarrassed, the woman said she’d try sending a telex and that the reply was likely to come in ten minutes: how about I get a drink while waiting?

Sure enough, I found somewhere to get a bagel and a latte and when I came back, the visa was there. Again, what would this tell us if this were a film? That your protagonist has a happy-go-lucky attitude maybe, instead of raging against computer failure cheerly going for a coffee and bite to eat instead of snarling at the woman who was getting the visa sorted out. That optimistic outlook paid off when I was presented with the visa, enabling me to check my luggage in and get the plane. Point being less about me as an ill-prepared traveller but about the revelation of character through incidents that, in their small way, provoke some measure of empathy. Geddit?

One way to change the scale of emotion is to change the size of incident. Let’s say that the whole computer network went down, and that instead of a telex being sent and the system righting itself, things really went kerplooey. Then, I’d potentially be faced with being more resourceful to achieve my objective. And in the process demonstrate my character. Would I buckle under pressure? Turn on the charm and call on influential contacts? Get fellow travellers to sympathise and organise a sit down strike so that no one boarded the plane until I got to go with them? Each of these is a different story pointing to different facets of personality being highlighted, creating different emotional responses in the audience. Engagement is everything. Without it, all that remains is dust motes floating in front of projected light.

So, here I am, in Australia. I’ll be here a month, and as well as continuing to write about film, creativity and more here, I’ll also be creating a separate vehicle for general writings about my experiences here, under the name Ozblog, which you’ll soon be able to access from the top of the page.