Richard Tierney Interviewed Vancouver based Writer/Producer Marlene Rodgers who allowed her script, and herself, to be the subject for the Constellation Worskhop at SWF'08.
Richard Tierney: How did you first hear about Constellation work?
Marlene Rodgers: I was fortunate enough to have my feature film script work shopped at the Screen Writer's Festival in 2008 using a methodology I had not heard about known as "Script Constellations" The process, drawn from a therapeutic practice that is often applied to family and other systems, was incredibly useful and surprisingly resonant.
RT: Did you get to understand what constellations were all about?
MR: The idea underlying this work is that groups - whether family groups, business groups, or even the cast of a dramatic story - tend to be structured with relationships to one another. Those relationships can be physically embodied through positioning the individuals or characters involved in spatial relationship to one another.
RT: And how does that work in practice?
MR: In a Script Constellation session, the work begins with the writer taking a group of people who will represent the characters in the drama, and arranging them in space, in relationship to one another. Some may be closer together, some further away, some facing one another, others not, etc. The people who enact the representations are not called upon to act - they simply "stand" for the characters. Before this "positioning" begins, the writer is asked to articulate the basics of the story to those who are representing the characters, and to articulate a question about the story that will focus the workshop.
RT: All clear, but what use is it to you?
MR: Once the writer has positioned the characters in a "constellation" that represents their relationships at the beginning of the story, each character is asked how they feel. It is quite uncanny how the simple physical positioning of the characters immediately elicits an emotional response in the individuals that mirrors the situation in the story. The character representatives then are asked at various intervals to move to new positions - ie. the half-way point of where they would like to see themselves - with the character who is the protagonist being given the most opportunity.
RT: And how does that help you in writing the next draft of your story?
MR: The reactions of the individuals, who may know very little about the script and the characters, are surprisingly helpful and provocative - in part because there is something universal that emerges from putting people physically together, and asking them to respond to how they feel. This process is concrete, physical and emotional, rather than intellectual and verbal. As the workshop progresses, and the constellation keeps changing and regrouping, a narrative emerges that will mirror the narrative that is being workshopped - and will also challenged that story or move it in alternative, and thought-provoking, ways.
RT: What's the punch line? What do you take away from the process?
MR: The writer emerges from the workshop with an insight into the emotional experiences of individuals who have been placed in a parallel situation to the characters in the script - from this spring a myriad of story possibilities to consider.