PERMA MODEL

In his book called “Flourish”, psychologist Martin Seligman listed a series of conditions that need to be fulfilled for a person to experience true happiness.  These conditions are: positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment/achievement. This is known as the PERMA model.

Film producer Lindsay Doran who came across this model is now proposing scriptwriters to apply it to the stories. She says audiences respond better to mood elevating films. This doesn’t really mean that the stories need to have a typical happy ending. It could either end with the lead character developing a positive relationship with another character or finding some meaning in life. You could also present a character that experiences a loss but instead of being defeated by it, writers can make this tragedy help him connect deeply with someone else.

In addition to this, Doran puts emphasis too in the fact that even if we make a character succeed in the end, we must always have him share this success with someone else. No success has meaning without the recognition of the “Other”.

I think this is something that microbudget filmmaker should keep in mind if they want to have successful productions. When you are a microbudget filmmaker you must overcome many difficulties. First, when a film is made independently without the sponsor of a big production company, then it’s a film that won’t count right away with a distribution contract. The success of a micro budget film depends usually on positive mouth-to-mouth promotion. When a film is made by a big studio then the quality of the film is not a decisive factor on whether it will get distributed or not. When you make a microbudget film you don’t get an instantaneous and direct exposure to the audience. This is why if you chose to make a film that leaves the audience displeased then your chances of getting them to help you promote the film and have it picked up for distribution are slim. If your story is engaging and the audience leaves the screening room feeling happy then your chance of success increase.

As a way to understand why keeping in mind the PERMA model may work for scriptwriters, let’s analyze the reasons behind the decline of the TV show House MD in his eight season. Gregory House, the main character of this TV series is supposed to be a genius but misanthropic doctor. His personal motto is that “people never change”. Sadly this is a statement that the writers of the series seem to have taken too much into heart. The result is a TV show with a character, which also never changes despite the multiple tragedies that seem to happen to him. For the past 7 seasons, the audience of this show had waited patiently for the moment when the PERMA model would finally apply to the character. Because, every audience as Lindsay Doran states, wants to see that lead character they cheer after achieve some level of happiness. The last season of the show, the writers had established a relationship for the character, which seemed to be finally moving the story towards the PERMA model. But, by the end of the season they decided to have the character crash his car in his ex girlfriends house and destroy any chance of the character of achieving happiness. This dramatic decision has driven the audience away and dropped the series ratings.

The only exception that I could point out in Doran’s argument is that the PERMA model might not apply to all types of stories. Horror films, for example, don’t usually have a happy ending. In the case of The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, which were both successful independent films, we have stories that end in despair. No character ends up alive or achieving any level of happiness. Maybe then the PERMA model could apply to other moments of the story. Maybe in horror films it works in a reverse mode. Characters start happy and have some form of positive relationship and the secret for the success of the film is seeing how the characters happiness is ruined.