Character Objectives - What do you want, need or desire?

Hair is yellow as corn, the slipper is pure gold. And uh, in this video, I want to talk about objectives. What are they? Why do we need them? Why are they important for an actor? And how to decipher which objectives you should choose for your character. More in just a second.

Hey everybody, I'm Doug Fall. This is Augmented Actor, helping you augment your acting career with tips, tactics, and tech. So basically, an objective is something that the character needs, wants, desires. It's their goal. It's their, their through line. It's the thing they're moving toward.

So I was reading Hoggins' chapter on objectives from her book, Respect for Acting. The link is down below if you want to, if you're interested in that. And she talks about having three different objectives. You want an overriding objective for the whole story, the whole script. Something a long-term goal that the character is striving for. That might be peace, that might be family unity, that might be living in a new house, that might be success in their job or career. So it's something that's driving them forward.

So you have the overriding objective. Then you have an objective for each scene. Because along the way, your character has to deal with conflict and objections and obstacles that are put in their way. We'll talk more about obstacles in a future video. Basically, you're going to have to take care of some business in order to get to your end goal. And that's so you need an objective for each scene.

So those kind of objectives would be like, to confront a person about something so that you can get what you want, or to eliminate a, a person from the conversation, to say something to a person, uh, remind them of your feelings. For instance, if you want them to fall in love with you. You know, there's all sorts of little mini objectives.

Then you also want an objective for each moment in the scene. And this kind of translates into tactics. What tactic is the character taking to get that objective for the scene? So they're going to try several different things, and they might fail at several different things until they get what they want. So those are little mini objectives. Like, um, those might be things like, "I'm gonna compliment the person." Then I would expect a response back. And if I don't get the response I want, then I might try insulting the person. So my objective is to insult them. And then if I don't get what I want, or that doesn't go the way I want, or brings up another thing, then I have to map out the next objective.

So those are called beats in a script. Little segments where your thought process is focused on one thing you need to do. And then those change over time. So anytime your thought process changes, or your tactics change, that's a new beat. That's a new objective.

You want your objective to match the storyline. Uh, that's that's being out there. So the script is going to dictate a lot of what a character's objectives are. But within that storyline, there can be different ways of looking at an objective.

There's a, a Hollywood acting coach named Warner Laughner, who wrote The Warner Laughner Technique. Also linked down below. And she recommends developing a base human emotion for your character. So this is sort of like, not so much an objective. It's not a goal that the character sets, but it is a fear or a need. An overriding fear or need that the character developed early on in their childhood that sort of dictates how they will respond to stimuli.

So for instance, you might have a need to, to have companionship, or a fear of being alone. And whether you play the need or the fear will change how your character reacts to certain things. So for instance, if you have a fear of being alone or abandonment, and somebody leaves you, you're going to react horribly to that. But if you have a need for companionship, you might play something as clinging onto a relationship. I did another video about Warner Loft Laughner and this very concept. So you might want to check that out for more details. That's kind of how you play your character.

But an objective is similar. And you can change your objective, and your character's objective can change throughout the plot. So for instance, they might be starting off wanting to unify their family, but along the way, they might discover that their family doesn't like them, and they abandon that whole objective along the way. That's okay, as long as it's supported by the script.

Any objective you pick should work. And when you want to shift things up and try things out in rehearsal, choosing a slightly different objective, especially for a scene or for a moment, will help you play the scene a little bit differently and discover some unique ways of playing it.

So let's look at an example of an objective. I'm going to take the play Into the Woods. The Baker and his wife, their overall objective of the story is to have a child. At least for Act One, they want a child. Okay? So that's their goal, and everything they're doing is going to lead to that end result. "We must get the child."

Then within each scene, they are given little mini objectives. So for instance, the Witch, their conflict, uh, tells them that they need to get a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair is yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold. So in each scene, they are trying to get that, that cape, or that, that hair, or that cow. And the cow runs away. And so then they've got another objective. They've got to catch the cow. And, you know, the, the hair is something that can't be touched. And so they have to find another way of fixing that objective.

So your objectives change as conflict happens, as obstacles get in your way. You approach things differently, and you use those tactics. So the Baker uses tactics in each given moment, like, "How do I get this boy to give me those magic beans?" Okay, well, I'm gonna trade the cow, or I'm gonna berate him, or I'm gonna try to seduce him, or whatever. You know, those are all little tactics that they use to get the thing in the scene, to get the baby.

So that's objectives in a nutshell. You always want to give your character a series of objectives. And think about that, even if it's just a scene you're shooting for a self-tape audition. Stuff. What do they want out of this scene? Why are they saying the things that they're saying? What are the tactics that they're using to get to that? And what are the things that are in the way of getting that? And once you can map those things out, the scenes will play themselves.

So objectives are very important. I hope you have a better understanding of them now. If you don't, please ask some specific questions down in the comments. I'll be sure to answer them. And if you like this video, please hit that like button. It's super simple to do, and it really, really helps me out. I will see you next time. There's some videos on your screen. We'll talk to you later. Bye.