“As a kid, I was so moved by these things,” said author Christopher Vogler about the world of cinema. “What made stories so exciting? I followed that trail to Film School at USC, where I encountered some of the ideas of Joseph Campbell.”

Vogler’s Professor encouraged him to further explore the mythological signs that stood out to him, which led him to Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This collection broke down the “universal motif of adventure” that runs through essentially all storytelling.

“This is what I was looking for,” said Vogler. “The secret code. The algorithm for creating stories and the human desire to be good or be better.” Not long after this discovery, the writer got a job evaluating scripts for big studios.

“I got to test this at a little bit of a distance because I wasn’t writing [screenplays], I was evaluating them, so it gave me a unique perspective. I could test out these ideas, see the variations, see the psychology, and then I could address modern stories.”

Christopher Volger

Vogler turned this idea into a 7-page memo that summarized the “Hero’s Journey,” explaining how to use Campbell’s ideas in modern storytelling. “That went viral, by primitive means at the time, by fax machines, but it went all over Hollywood.”

The memo led Vogler to a job at Disney working on The Lion King. “It seemed new and fresh to them, so that was good timing for me.”

Break the Formula

While Disney quickly adopted the idea, many other studios were weary of the formulaic approach. “Some people are leery of any kind of system or structure or set of rules, and that’s good, because in your creative process, you tap all of those possibilities.”

Vogler believes it’s a good idea to be hesitant and use formulas and break the rules or paradigms when possible, but also encourages writers to understand the models because the audience inherently understands the models. “The audience wants you to break it somehow. In every scene, you should be aware of what the audience is trained to expect from cookie cutter examples, so you subvert that somehow. Do it differently. Leave out something. Double up. Subtract something. Make them see it for the first time.”

In some cases, filmmakers are constantly tracking these models and working with or against them. Then, it’s time to let go and get creative. “You want to be in a state of writing where you’re following the story and characters, but at some point, it’s appropriate to come back and check the map.”

Pi

In one example, Vogler brought up writer/director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Mother!). “As an independent filmmaker, you would think this is a guy with no rules because he’s groundbreaking, but he’s actually a student of the hero’s journey. We’ve talked quite a lot about these patterns, but he uses them how I’ve described.”

Specifically, Aronofsky uses the Hero’s Journey for his rough outline, then he forgets about it, and comes back later to see if the audience will be subliminally reminded of the journey by these given points.

Characters and Rules

Whether it’s Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker, within the world, there should be a hero, a mentor, a guardian, a herald, a shapeshifter, a shadow, an ally, and a trickster. Vogler adds, “You have to tell me what’s at stake. You have to tell me what the hero wants. You have to let the audience know the polarization of the world. What are the forces in the hero’s world and inside the hero?”

Along the journey, there should be an ordinary world, a call to adventure, refusal of the call, the mentor introduction, the first threshold, tests and enemies, the innermost cave, the ordeal, the reward, the road back, the resurrection, and the triumph where the hero returns with the elixir.

“As a consultant, what I try to do is look at what they’ve done so far and figure out what they’re trying to do. Maybe they’re creating a spooky tone, but missed the mark or missed opportunities. That’s a lot of what I do.”

“You’ve got this unknown force approaching the hero, but then you sort of forgot about it. Sometimes this means fishing with the writer to figure out their expression. People get lost in the process of writing and lose sight of intentions.”

Over the years, Vogler has worked on films like 101 Dalmatians, Fight Club, Courage Under Fire, Volcano, and The Thin Red Line, among others. 

Writing Subgenres

The Hero’s Journey changes within genre. “Some genres subvert the ordinary rules,” he added. “Certainly horror does that because we’re trained that the hero will beat the monster or solve the problem, but one branch of horror says if you believe that, you’re doomed to be killed by the monster. You flip the expected pattern on its head. Comedy can do that too. It can be the opposite where you expect one end and then get something else, or the hero is expecting to be one thing and in her own mind, she’s something else.”

Mike Myers (Nicholas Castle) & Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in Halloween Kills

In the Halloween movies, in another example, it’s more of a two-hander, where both Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) are on their own journeys. “I think a lot about the actors because I did some acting early in my career, but I feel it’s a rule that even the smallest role has a journey.”

Vogler went on to say that if an actor is simply handing someone some change in a scene, the movie isn’t about a hero overcoming the odds, but about this one character handing someone change. “It’s the whole reason they’re there that day, so they bring a story into it, no matter how small their part is.”

“In a two-hander, the writer is leaving it to the audience to decide who the movie is about. The writer may be even-handed between the villain and hero. Is the story about Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) or Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster)? It’s really about the clash of those two together, but there’s a struggle of power.”

Culture Iconography

“There’s a fancy term from Campbell called iconography, which means that simple one-frame pictures can communicate a whole story.” This is why movie posters work, such as when we see a fireman carrying a child to safety. We create our own story to connect with this image.

This goes back to cave drawings. “You are supposed to provide your own context, because of your knowledge of myths. You look at a single frame and you construct a beginning time before that and a follow up after it. We’re good at interpreting that. I love that in films.” This is also true on the page or when an actor makes a choice to turn a line of dialogue into a single smirk. “With that shot, you get the equivalent of eight pages of dialogue.”

“There was a thriller years ago called Red Rock West (Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper), and the opening scene had a drifter going to work on a construction site and he’s left alone in the office and he sees the cash register is open. You just see him look at it. He doesn’t do anything. But you know from that look that he probably just got out of prison, or was a thief, or was tempted, but now he’s trying to go straight. There’s no dialogue, but it comes to you.”

The Lion King

Vogler said he rarely “turns over the wagon” in terms of helping with a full rewrite, but his main goal is to find missed opportunities. In one example, in the beginning of The Lion King, when Rafiki holds up Simba, Vogler suggested they add a “shaft of light” as if the heavens are welcoming the protagonist. The same was true for the decline of the land (portrayed as a dried up watering hole) once Scar took over the land (a version of this even made it to Broadway).

Long Hero Journeys

“It is a little annoying to watch a film with me,” joked Vogler. “I do follow the clues, like how the Director lights the character so I might know this guy is a suspect if not the killer, but what thrills me is when I confront something and I know there are only four ways to get out of the problem and they do the fifth thing.”

Vogler brought up The Sopranos when Tony (James Gandolfini) killed Christopher (Michael Imperioli). “He’s Catholic. He wants to be a good guy. He must confess. So he’s going to confess to? His wife? His priest? His son? His therapist? And, in the end, he goes into the desert, gets high, and confesses to the sun. That blew me away.”

Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) and Tony Soprano (James Galdofini) in The Sopranos

The elements here surprised Vogler because the path was true to character and yet still surprising. “The pattern works from the smallest level of a single frame and can tell you where we’re coming from, where we’re going, but you can see it through a whole season. It’s flexible, like an accordion.”

For writers looking to implement the journey into a five year TV series journey, it’s a good idea to have general plot points for the entire journey, like Breaking Bad. But then you can go deeper and deeper into categories of the larger world, such as The Wire.

“People were suspicious of the journey, but also tended to get it right away, for certain genres like adventures,” he concluded. “I maintain, very strongly, that this is a universal pattern everyone recognizes. It takes different forms for different genres, but it’s something that’s so adaptable that I see it everywhere.”

This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here.