Who’s Got the Problem Now?
How to use “Who’s Got the Problem Now?” (and its corollary “Who’s got the Power Now?”) as tools for managing point of view in cinematic storytelling.
What’s it about?
“Who’s Got the Problem Now?” is a tool that helps you focus your writing by examining the shifts in power in a scene or sequence.
There’s more than one way to skin this cat; you can also explore the same process through The So…, But… Chain, and Cinema: Truth or Reality.
Whatever floats your boat. It’s often useful to have more than one tool to do the same thing, depending on you and on the project.
W.G.T.P.N is explicitly a director’s tool (‘Who’s the camera looking at now?’), but also implicitly a writer’s tool (‘Where is the focus of my storytelling now?’)
The tool has two primary functions:
- It reminds us that, without shifts in power, there is no story.
- It helps us decide where to focus the story, often by momentarily shifting point of view.
Keeping asking yourself the question throughout your story helps remind us that:
- Almost always, at least one character in a scene or sequence has a problem, that
- They are actively trying to get rid of,
- By giving it to someone else.
These shifts in power are what give your writing drama, movement and dynamism. Without them your storytelling becomes flabby and illustrative.
They also help you decide on the point of view of the story.
How does W.G.T.P.N work?
Almost always in a well-told story, at least one character has a problem they’d rather not have. So they actively set out to get rid of it.
Some characters prefer to solve a problem themselves, while others prefer to hand it off. In well-constructed stories, the character who prefers to solve it themselves discovers they need the help of others, while the character who would rather hand it off discovers that they need to take personal responsibility.
Drama always forces a character to do the thing they most want to avoid. That’s where the most emotional heat is, so that’s where the heart of the story is.
Sometimes, when a character tries to get rid of the problem it bounces straight back. In this case, no point shifting point of view in your storytelling, the problem basically stays where it is.
But other times another character takes it on. In that case, it’s sometimes worth going with the new character for a while, especially if it means the problem eventually comes back to our protagonist, only bigger. Or changed into something more important.
POV in cinema
Point of View in cinema is both a literal thing, as captured by the POV Sandwich (here is who is looking, this is what they see, and this is what it makes them feel or do), and a more general expression of narrative focus (this is whose story we are telling at this instant).
Unlike other narrative forms, point of view in cinema is naturally quite fluid. Some novels use multiple points of view, but usually as a significant and noticeable device. Cinema changes point of view so fluidly that most audience members don’t even notice it happening.
The overall protagonist usually stays the same (with some exceptions like PSYCHO, which used the change of protagonist as a major audience shock), but within the story, POV can temporarily change quite easily.
Most movies set out to establish a baseline reality of time, space and social order early in the story. This baseline reality acts as the objective framework of the story. Once the storytelling has established that, it can start to explore the perceptive reality of the characters through POV.
Witnessing the murder in WITNESS
There’s a clear transfer of problem and power in WITNESS (Peter Weir, 1965) in the scene where Samuel witnesses the murder in the toilets on which the whole story hangs.
Samuel and Rachel are stuck at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. We have been seeing the story through Samuel’s eyes, first on the train journey, then in the station.
Then he goes to the toilets, but a man is washing his hands. So, feeling a bit shy, Samuel goes into a stall and shuts the door. Two other men enter and brutally murder the first man. The sound of the struggle alerts Samuel, so he opens the door to the stall a crack and witnesses the victim’s last seconds.
At this point in the story, Samuel has the problem. (Well, the victim also has a problem, but not a very long-lasting problem.)
So, Samuel retreats back into the stall, horrified and scared, while the men clean up. But in his shock, he makes a tiny guttural sound, which the murderer hears.
Now McFee (the murderer) has the problem. Is there a witness to the killing? Briefly, the story shifts to McFee’s POV: but McFee hears a sound. So he decides to check all the stalls.
As he does so, he moves from being the person with the Problem to the person with the Power. Which pushes the Problem back to Samuel, but amplified.
The brief shift in POV to McFee adds to the pressure on Samuel. It heightens his problem. He goes from simply having to stay unnoticed to actively hiding.
SHORT CUTS – another detailed breakdown
For a detailed breakdown of how the problem shifts—and how that shift drives emotional power—read Case Study: Who’s Got the Problem Now?
It traces the moment-by-moment transfer of the problem in a pivotal scene from Short Cuts and explores how subtext emerges through dialogue and structure.
Who’s Got the Power Now?
As we saw in both examples, WITNESS and SHORT CUTS, two-handed scenes are often complementary: whoever has the power, the other person has the problem.
But that’s not always true when you have multiple characters in a scene.
The person with the power may not even be interacting with the person with the problem, who may be completely silent, doing no more than observing. But we need to understand that they are the heart of the scene, because they have the problem.
So, given that they say nothing and do little, how do you write that so it’s clear, only using what we can see or hear? And without giving the actor performance notes in the script?
Here’s one way.
INT EMBASSY BALLROOM NIGHT
A room full of glamorous frocks and snappy tuxedos. Conversation battles to be heard above the band.
By now, CHARLIE is feeling a bit tipsy. He pushes towards the bar to ask for a glass of soda. He sees ADAM, at the other end of the bar, being served one rum and Coke, and one plain Coke, hold the rum, and heading off back into the melee, holding his drinks aloft.
Charlie leaves the barman still pouring his drink and follows Adam.
Adam claps BRIAN on the shoulder, hands him the rum and Coke. Raises a toast. Downs his Coke in one. Burps. Laughs. Brian follows suit. Splutters a little. They laugh.
Adam leans in to whisper something in Brian’s ear.
A poncy man in a tuxedo and cummerbund, bow tie askew, inserts himself in front of Charlie.
PONCY MAN
Charlie. My good man. Haven’t seen you in yonks.
Still batting number eight, or have you slipped down another position?
(He guffaws)
Did you hear? I took five-for at the President’s picnic.
Didn’t see you there.
Blah, blah, blah…
Charlie nods politely, looking over Poncy Man’s shoulder at Adam and Brian, deep in conversation, trying to overhear what they’re saying.
Early in this scene, Adam has the power, and later, Poncy Man has the power. And as far as we can tell, Brian never has the problem, because he’s oblivious to the subtext of the scene.
But, even though Charlie hardly speaks, and mostly seems to be reacting rather than acting, he is the emotional core of the scene because he always has the problem.
That’s what the script is telling us. And that’s what the coverage should capture – Who’s got the problem now?
Flipping the order
Stories usually start in the objective reality, to establish the benchmark.
But creative people are always trying to find new ways to do things, so some stories begin in a character’s subjective reality, before flipping to the story’s objective reality. But we’re conditioned to accept what we see first as the ‘truth’ so either we suddenly realise that the character is operating on a misunderstanding, which creates suspense by putting them in unseen jeopardy, or creates identification by making us share the character’s realisation that she was mistaken.
