Using the integral distinctions opens up many interesting ways to approach a project. This is a focus on story and working with actors.
To start the reality of the story and character world can be reduced from the four quadrants to 2; the interior and the exterior.
Conventionally, characters are created from the inside out. The psychology, the values and belief systems, the interior, of the character are created in the screenwriting process. Then the character begins to take on an exterior life as the screenplay develops, the director interprets, the other creative crew members design the art and look of the character, and finally the actor inhabits the character. The process moves from interior to exterior. Which, of course, is fine, a perfect way of developing character.
Another way to approach this is the method of Mike Leigh and similarly but to a lesser extent John Cassavetes. Leigh creates the exterior first creating a loose idea of the story and working out some identity of the characters. Then the actors are brought in and given a few guidelines of who they will be playing. The actors then spend up to 2 months working with only the director to create the exterior life of the character. They develop the behavior, look, habits, and location of the character. Only then do they begin to develop the interior life of the character. What this allows is for the actor to really find in themselves the psychology and feelings and thoughts of a person who looks, acts and does what the particular character looks like, acts like and does. The actors do not even work together at first so as to not influence the organic emergence of the interior life of the character.
The benefit to this method is the level of authenticity that comes across in the characters. If you watch a Leigh film you can see. The story also takes on a level of authenticity as the major story arcs and events are developed as the characters are developed. The down side can be the time this can take and the threat it may be to some directors and screenwriters who need to own and control the creation of the story and characters.
Yet this process can easily be tweaked according to the time available, as long as the director/writer is comfortable looking into their own life to find the inspiration for where the story needs go next and is comfortable doing so and writing fast.
Again the interior/exterior distinction allows us to see other ways to develop our work that open up more ways for authenticity and complexity to emerge.
