Each of our lives has a beginning, middle and end; we relate to stories because we are ourselves stories. Once a moment in our lives has passed, our instinct is to preserve it and share it with others, contributing to the greater collective consciousness.
Writing has always been about answering questions.
How do we discover ourselves through self-expression? Through random acts of individual intention that make sense to another observer. Before we converted our picture stories into words we were locked into our tribal traditions. Even in contemporary daily news we can recognize the mythical elements of storytelling.
Ancient books like the Bible consist of legends and myths like Noah’s Ark, collections and repetitions of much older stories, handed down from generation to generation.
The story of King Arthur was first recorded in 1470 by a soldier of fortune Thomas Malory. He was arrested many times for theft, extortion, rape and abusing the clergy as he travelled England and Europe, joining in tournaments and territorial wars.
Malory based his writing on hundreds of years of literature that can be traced back to the 6th Century; in post-Roman Britain, blacksmiths lived in the mountains and forests, working in secret to forge sword blades from the four elements.
Ironically, Malory was an educated man who could read both English and French, the languages of his reference sources. His own writings reveal that he was a prisoner when he completed his literary tour de force Le Morte D’Arthur. These heroic ideals were exemplified in the early Elizabethan era and were rewritten and adapted in The Sword In The Stone and The Once And Future King by T.H. White in 1939.
Malory's writing spawned the cult of chivalrous Knighthood, its code of honour expressed in a sense of duty to one’s lady and public exhibitions of prowess with weapons. They invented the system of Heraldry to graphically indicate their locations on the battlefield, like team emblems/numbers on the sports field or icons on a computer.
“In times of radical change, it’s the mutants that make the difference.
Hackers can save us.”
from Viva Zapata,
a 24 hour action by electronic disturbance theatre Floodnet.com
WRITING: In its control over audience attention, film resembles the literary arts, which are also embedded in the matrix of time, and require that specific fragments of information be absorbed in a given sequential order. Film is also like literature in the freedom with which it operates in time and space, instantaneously transporting the reader from one point to another, eliminating intervening distances and moments, acting with the speed and fluidity of our thoughts.
There are obvious differences between visual and verbal mediums - Literature is confined to a one-dimensional linear scheme, in which objects, conditions, actions, ideas or phenomena can be presented only by listing the details separately. In contrast, film offers ideas and sensory stimuli at one and the same time.
Light, colour, perceptions of plane, volume, mass, density, and texture, movements and stasis, sound and silence, even different types of space - all appear simultaneously, creating a chord in which the tenor of one part is modified by all the rest. In its chordal character and its rhythm of change, interval and duration, film is very much like music.
Writing for film (or any moving image) requires us to have an understanding of the filmmaker's materials - SPACE, TIME, LIGHT and SOUND - and the methods for organising them into complex structures. Movement through space and time is what gives the film medium its extraordinary language and characteristic plasticity.
The principles of colour and tone, themes, structure, continuity, harmony and contrast are some of the most expressive tools in the vocabulary. All of these tools, methods and languages can be appropriately applied to interactive design.
Monday, July 21, 2008
SPACE:
Film confronts us with two kinds of space; first, the IMPLIED SPACE of the setting and the things within the image, which the filmmaker can reveal all at once, through continuous movement or in separate views.
This is broken into three distinct planes; foreground (FGD), middle ground (MGD) and background (BGD) in every shot. These simple image levels can be used to great dramatic effect and should be carefully considered.
The second is FILMIC SPACE. The frame (the four sides that contain the subject matter) is the picture's boundary of reality. While causing people and things to move within the frame, or moving the camera - the filmmaker modifies the position and quality of the frame itself; the angle of vision, relative proximity, the shapes of objects, the relationships of forms to each other, composing visual material into patterns, comparable to those in paintings and still photography.
Here's an example: Actors in motion operate in two ways; they embody the character by acting in whatever way the human being can, through voice, expression, attitude, gesture and movement. Besides being people, actors are also forms - planes, shapes and volumes, parts of a pattern.
The viewer's response to a visual image is conditioned by the overall PATTERNING OF FORMS, which can be made to articulate expressive content by using different formats (frame proportion), angles of vision, proximity and proportion, etc.
RELATIVE CLOSURE is a type of structure of forms in the picture that suggests a closed pattern; e.g. verticals and horizontals together, wheels and circles, exemplify this closed composition.
The camera can 'move' through space in four ways:
• The camera is fixed but the lens is altered - changing the focus plane and using zoom lenses.
• The camera moves from a fixed point - pan, tilt and swish pan.
• The camera moves on a travelling support - tracking, dolly shot, crane shot, steadycam, etc.
• Movement is simulated or created with special effects - fades, supers, dissolves, etc; or in CGI.
This is broken into three distinct planes; foreground (FGD), middle ground (MGD) and background (BGD) in every shot. These simple image levels can be used to great dramatic effect and should be carefully considered.
The second is FILMIC SPACE. The frame (the four sides that contain the subject matter) is the picture's boundary of reality. While causing people and things to move within the frame, or moving the camera - the filmmaker modifies the position and quality of the frame itself; the angle of vision, relative proximity, the shapes of objects, the relationships of forms to each other, composing visual material into patterns, comparable to those in paintings and still photography.
Here's an example: Actors in motion operate in two ways; they embody the character by acting in whatever way the human being can, through voice, expression, attitude, gesture and movement. Besides being people, actors are also forms - planes, shapes and volumes, parts of a pattern.
The viewer's response to a visual image is conditioned by the overall PATTERNING OF FORMS, which can be made to articulate expressive content by using different formats (frame proportion), angles of vision, proximity and proportion, etc.
RELATIVE CLOSURE is a type of structure of forms in the picture that suggests a closed pattern; e.g. verticals and horizontals together, wheels and circles, exemplify this closed composition.
The camera can 'move' through space in four ways:
• The camera is fixed but the lens is altered - changing the focus plane and using zoom lenses.
• The camera moves from a fixed point - pan, tilt and swish pan.
• The camera moves on a travelling support - tracking, dolly shot, crane shot, steadycam, etc.
• Movement is simulated or created with special effects - fades, supers, dissolves, etc; or in CGI.
TIME:
Beyond the obvious scripted flashbacks and flashforwards, film causes time to become an elastic and malleable element, and the filmmaker can either imitate time as we measure it or create a new experience of time altogether.
In film, time can be modulated in two ways:
• Changing the frame rate - slow motion, fast motion, high speed and lapsed time.
• Editing the images and sounds - into shots, montages, scenes and sequences.
During editing, TRANSITIONAL devices like cuts, dissolves, fades, wipes and freeze frames can be used to emphasize content and duration. The time it takes for an event to be completed can be shortened or lengthened. Acceleration and deceleration of the cutting rate modify the pace of a film and the spectator's experience, but they do not necessarily contract or expand time.
That said, the tempo and cutting rate can give a mundane act greater dramatic intensity, and by accelerating the cuts between images we can lengthen or compress time and add TENSION.
SIMULTANEOUS TIME: A series of shots can describe simultaneous action, transforming into sequential action incidents in different locations; e.g. the classic chase scene; cutting back and forth from pursued to pursuer, so that the rhythm of alternation and rapid cutting rate augments the forward thrust of filmic movement, injects suspense and enhances excitement.
The cutting rate accelerates as the distance between them closes, the rhythm developing until the last shot when it all comes to a rapid conclusion, with both figures in the same frame.
Aside from the frame rate and editing, time can also be manipulated by the content of the shots and the movements occurring within them, and so by implication the spatial configurations represented - both movement and spatial patterns effect our experience of filmic time.
In film, time can be modulated in two ways:
• Changing the frame rate - slow motion, fast motion, high speed and lapsed time.
• Editing the images and sounds - into shots, montages, scenes and sequences.
During editing, TRANSITIONAL devices like cuts, dissolves, fades, wipes and freeze frames can be used to emphasize content and duration. The time it takes for an event to be completed can be shortened or lengthened. Acceleration and deceleration of the cutting rate modify the pace of a film and the spectator's experience, but they do not necessarily contract or expand time.
That said, the tempo and cutting rate can give a mundane act greater dramatic intensity, and by accelerating the cuts between images we can lengthen or compress time and add TENSION.
SIMULTANEOUS TIME: A series of shots can describe simultaneous action, transforming into sequential action incidents in different locations; e.g. the classic chase scene; cutting back and forth from pursued to pursuer, so that the rhythm of alternation and rapid cutting rate augments the forward thrust of filmic movement, injects suspense and enhances excitement.
The cutting rate accelerates as the distance between them closes, the rhythm developing until the last shot when it all comes to a rapid conclusion, with both figures in the same frame.
Aside from the frame rate and editing, time can also be manipulated by the content of the shots and the movements occurring within them, and so by implication the spatial configurations represented - both movement and spatial patterns effect our experience of filmic time.
LIGHT:
We are a species that seeks shelter, living in an urban society in which light is regulated; we move from box to box inside boxes, to work with boxes. Access to sunshine requires outdoor locations, and we venture out cautiously equipped with shades and sunblock - like moths to a flame. Humanity’s relationship with light is about control, and the writer should exploit this fact. Light conveys information in regard to form, space, colour, tone, patterning, texture, movement, etc; and assists in the determination of MOOD and ATMOSPHERE.
Being a medium of light and dark, the filmmaker's art is clearly revealed in the way structures in space and time 'come to light' by exploring two variables, HARMONY (likeness) and CONTRAST (difference). These elements can appear in any dimension of the film - in spatial relationships, patterns, movement, metaphors, time intervals, emotional/intellectual content, colour and sound.
Being a medium of light and dark, the filmmaker's art is clearly revealed in the way structures in space and time 'come to light' by exploring two variables, HARMONY (likeness) and CONTRAST (difference). These elements can appear in any dimension of the film - in spatial relationships, patterns, movement, metaphors, time intervals, emotional/intellectual content, colour and sound.
SOUND:
An extremely dynamic means of manipulating an audience, sound can be internal, external, synchronous and asynchronous. Reproduced from any source and synchronized with the film images, it can evoke and intensify emotion, commenting on and paralleling the dramatic content and formal rhythms of the film. Visual CONTINUITY is reinforced by what we hear, so consistent sounds in a scene help to join the shots and sequences together.
We can modify sound and make it function in many different ways, to the extent that it can change our perception of image and meaning. Sound can be simply descriptive, composed entirely of natural sounds identified in the action. It can also articulate space, establishing distance, position, direction of movement, openness and closure by its volume, tone and echo.
COUNTERPOINT permits infinitely variable and subtle shades of meaning by placing one or more unrelated or contrasting sounds with an image, augmenting the filmic tension. Even the simplest contrast between sound and visual image will have the effect of making one the foil of the other, thereby heightening the effect.
The soundtrack can also decorate or embellish a film by adding audible delight to the visuals, a sensuous feast for the ears, whether by sound effects or music. Remove Bernard Herrmann's legendary orchestra music from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and the tension disappears in many scenes. In short, when the sound has aesthetic integrity, apart from its space-articulating or descriptive functions, it is decorative.
Sound can also lull a writer into a dull reliance upon dialogue, rather than moving pictures, as their prime channel of communication. Writers tend to over-write, creating talky 'expositional' scenes that lack visual power. In the film Point Blank (1967) director John Boorman cut a whole scene of Lee Marvin's dialogue to intensify his ex-wife's verbal confession.
The actor Lee Van Cleef, who played Angel Eyes in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1967) would read the script, redline his dialogue and confer with director Sergio Leone, suggesting ways to deliver the essence of the material (boredom, anticipation, menace) with a mannerism or expression, the result being a series of riveting close-ups, usually of the actor’s eyes.
In film, actions speak louder than words, making dialogue a secondary priority. When disencumbered from the task of sustaining narrative through EXPOSITIONAL DIALOGUE, spoken words can serve more realistic, abstract or poetic ends.
However, dialogue would be ridiculous if it were reduced to muttering only profound thoughts. Some of the most effective human sounds are inarticulate but vividly expressive of grief, rage, joy; e.g. groans, screams, laughter, etc. Words are then no longer simply the vehicle of specific information, but an aspect of characterization, mood and aesthetics.
Some immediately recognizable 'iconic' voices can represent periods in history, like those of Frank Sinatra and Winston Churchill; talented mimics imitate them because their voices are as powerfully suggestive as the incidental sounds of chainsaws or gunshots. Like sound effects, music can be used as a signaling device to create drama, the arrangement of melody and rhythm changing as visual states occur; e.g. the music on the weather channel changes for the seven-day forecast, bringing a distracted viewer’s attention back to the screen.
Sounds and music can establish style, mood and emotions quickly, and are capable of actually influencing the physical state of the audience, enhancing the image's ability to touch the senses.
As a general rule in film and multimedia, if text or dialogue is allowed to persistently overwhelm imagery, the results can be very mediocre. Words and pictures make an uneasy mix, but this can be positively exploited in the form of contrasting elements and counterpoint; e.g. by using a navigational graphic or character, the interactive user may visually 'see the light at the end of the tunnel', quite literally leading from ignorance to wisdom about an actual topic.
For specific information (WORDS) to operate effectively, it has to be translated into images (ACTIONS) in the storyboards. Writers and artists should see the flow of visual information as their principal task. To use text or dialogue as an extension of the ACTIVITY is approaching the ideal.
“The best word is one that isn’t spoken”
Sicilian Proverb
We can modify sound and make it function in many different ways, to the extent that it can change our perception of image and meaning. Sound can be simply descriptive, composed entirely of natural sounds identified in the action. It can also articulate space, establishing distance, position, direction of movement, openness and closure by its volume, tone and echo.
COUNTERPOINT permits infinitely variable and subtle shades of meaning by placing one or more unrelated or contrasting sounds with an image, augmenting the filmic tension. Even the simplest contrast between sound and visual image will have the effect of making one the foil of the other, thereby heightening the effect.
The soundtrack can also decorate or embellish a film by adding audible delight to the visuals, a sensuous feast for the ears, whether by sound effects or music. Remove Bernard Herrmann's legendary orchestra music from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and the tension disappears in many scenes. In short, when the sound has aesthetic integrity, apart from its space-articulating or descriptive functions, it is decorative.
Sound can also lull a writer into a dull reliance upon dialogue, rather than moving pictures, as their prime channel of communication. Writers tend to over-write, creating talky 'expositional' scenes that lack visual power. In the film Point Blank (1967) director John Boorman cut a whole scene of Lee Marvin's dialogue to intensify his ex-wife's verbal confession.
The actor Lee Van Cleef, who played Angel Eyes in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1967) would read the script, redline his dialogue and confer with director Sergio Leone, suggesting ways to deliver the essence of the material (boredom, anticipation, menace) with a mannerism or expression, the result being a series of riveting close-ups, usually of the actor’s eyes.
In film, actions speak louder than words, making dialogue a secondary priority. When disencumbered from the task of sustaining narrative through EXPOSITIONAL DIALOGUE, spoken words can serve more realistic, abstract or poetic ends.
However, dialogue would be ridiculous if it were reduced to muttering only profound thoughts. Some of the most effective human sounds are inarticulate but vividly expressive of grief, rage, joy; e.g. groans, screams, laughter, etc. Words are then no longer simply the vehicle of specific information, but an aspect of characterization, mood and aesthetics.
Some immediately recognizable 'iconic' voices can represent periods in history, like those of Frank Sinatra and Winston Churchill; talented mimics imitate them because their voices are as powerfully suggestive as the incidental sounds of chainsaws or gunshots. Like sound effects, music can be used as a signaling device to create drama, the arrangement of melody and rhythm changing as visual states occur; e.g. the music on the weather channel changes for the seven-day forecast, bringing a distracted viewer’s attention back to the screen.
Sounds and music can establish style, mood and emotions quickly, and are capable of actually influencing the physical state of the audience, enhancing the image's ability to touch the senses.
As a general rule in film and multimedia, if text or dialogue is allowed to persistently overwhelm imagery, the results can be very mediocre. Words and pictures make an uneasy mix, but this can be positively exploited in the form of contrasting elements and counterpoint; e.g. by using a navigational graphic or character, the interactive user may visually 'see the light at the end of the tunnel', quite literally leading from ignorance to wisdom about an actual topic.
For specific information (WORDS) to operate effectively, it has to be translated into images (ACTIONS) in the storyboards. Writers and artists should see the flow of visual information as their principal task. To use text or dialogue as an extension of the ACTIVITY is approaching the ideal.
“The best word is one that isn’t spoken”
Sicilian Proverb
MISE-EN-SCÈNE:
This is a French term originating in theater; it means, 'put in the scene.' For film, it has a broader meaning, and refers to almost everything that goes into the composition of the shot, including the composition itself; framing, movement of the camera and characters, lighting, set design and general visual environment, even sound as it helps elaborate the composition.
German films in the 1920s excelled at conveying tone, meaning, and information by their mise-en-scène. One of the most famous examples is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) by Robert Wiene, where the doctor's internal state of mind is represented in the sets and lighting. Mise-en-scène has also come to represent a style of conveying the information of a scene primarily through a single shot, often accompanied by camera movement. It is to be contrasted with multiple angles pieced together through editing.
Mise-en-scène can be defined as the articulation of cinematic space, and it is precisely space that it is about. Cutting film is about controlling TIME; holding the shot is about what occurs in a defined area of SPACE, bordered by the frame of the screen and determined by what the camera has been made to record. That space, the mise-en-scène, can be unique, closed off by the frame, or open, providing the illusion of more space around it.
In Travelling Players (1975), by the director Theo Angelopoulos, a group of people move into the past by taking a long walk down a street in one shot; time moves backward as they walk.
There is a sequence in the film Grand Illusion (1937) by the director (and son of the Impressionist painter) Jean Renoir in which a group of WW I POWs receive a carton of gifts. Among the gifts is, unaccountably, some women's clothing. One of the soldiers puts the clothing on, and the rest stare at him in stunned silence. Renoir creates their response by gently panning across the men staring. The movement yields up the space the men inhabit, suggests that it extends beyond the frame, and delicately emphasizes their confused sexual response to this sudden appearance of a man in women's clothes.
Had Renoir cut from face to face, the effect would have been quite different, suggesting the isolation of one man and his emotional response from the next person in the group. If he had offered only a wide shot of all the men together, their individual expressions would have been lost. The pan joins individual to group, making the revelation of space not only physical but also emotional and communal, the response more genuinely human. It allows us to understand the response and not lose our perspective. Closeness and comfortable distance remain.
Editing is a way to form a narrative temporally, both in the making and the viewing of a film. Editing speeds up the shooting process in ways outlined earlier; it also speeds up the viewing process by creating a rhythm of forward action. Even the over-the-shoulder cutting of a dialogue sequence, which creates an event that takes place in one space over a short period of time, is moved along by the rapid shifts of point of view between the participants.
Mise-en-scène filmmaking directs our attention to the space of the shot itself. It slows down production; e.g. where care must be taken in performance, lighting, and composition. If a long take is involved, careful planning is required to make sure that the actors and camera move synchronously.
In a long take actors must act well. There's no chance to save a performance by cutting away to someone or something else in the scene. If a mistake is made, the entire shot has to be made again. The economics of Hollywood production frown on such methods. For the viewer, a film that depends upon mise-en-scène and long shots makes special demands.
Without editing to analyze what's important in a scene by cutting to a close-up of a face or an object, the viewer is required to do the 'looking around' in the shot, to be sensitive to changes in spatial relationships and the movements of the camera and actors. The classical continuity style is DIRECTIVE, the mise-en-scène style CONTEMPLATIVE.
Even a film that uses a lot of shots and cutting may still depend on the mise-en-scene to articulate meaning as each cut reveals a different spatial relationship. Perhaps a general rule is that films made in the classical continuity style point of view usher the viewer through the progress of the narrative.
Films that depend on mise-en-scène ask viewers to pause and (consciously or unconsciously) examine the compositional spaces of the narrative.
German films in the 1920s excelled at conveying tone, meaning, and information by their mise-en-scène. One of the most famous examples is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) by Robert Wiene, where the doctor's internal state of mind is represented in the sets and lighting. Mise-en-scène has also come to represent a style of conveying the information of a scene primarily through a single shot, often accompanied by camera movement. It is to be contrasted with multiple angles pieced together through editing.
Mise-en-scène can be defined as the articulation of cinematic space, and it is precisely space that it is about. Cutting film is about controlling TIME; holding the shot is about what occurs in a defined area of SPACE, bordered by the frame of the screen and determined by what the camera has been made to record. That space, the mise-en-scène, can be unique, closed off by the frame, or open, providing the illusion of more space around it.
In Travelling Players (1975), by the director Theo Angelopoulos, a group of people move into the past by taking a long walk down a street in one shot; time moves backward as they walk.
There is a sequence in the film Grand Illusion (1937) by the director (and son of the Impressionist painter) Jean Renoir in which a group of WW I POWs receive a carton of gifts. Among the gifts is, unaccountably, some women's clothing. One of the soldiers puts the clothing on, and the rest stare at him in stunned silence. Renoir creates their response by gently panning across the men staring. The movement yields up the space the men inhabit, suggests that it extends beyond the frame, and delicately emphasizes their confused sexual response to this sudden appearance of a man in women's clothes.
Had Renoir cut from face to face, the effect would have been quite different, suggesting the isolation of one man and his emotional response from the next person in the group. If he had offered only a wide shot of all the men together, their individual expressions would have been lost. The pan joins individual to group, making the revelation of space not only physical but also emotional and communal, the response more genuinely human. It allows us to understand the response and not lose our perspective. Closeness and comfortable distance remain.
Editing is a way to form a narrative temporally, both in the making and the viewing of a film. Editing speeds up the shooting process in ways outlined earlier; it also speeds up the viewing process by creating a rhythm of forward action. Even the over-the-shoulder cutting of a dialogue sequence, which creates an event that takes place in one space over a short period of time, is moved along by the rapid shifts of point of view between the participants.
Mise-en-scène filmmaking directs our attention to the space of the shot itself. It slows down production; e.g. where care must be taken in performance, lighting, and composition. If a long take is involved, careful planning is required to make sure that the actors and camera move synchronously.
In a long take actors must act well. There's no chance to save a performance by cutting away to someone or something else in the scene. If a mistake is made, the entire shot has to be made again. The economics of Hollywood production frown on such methods. For the viewer, a film that depends upon mise-en-scène and long shots makes special demands.
Without editing to analyze what's important in a scene by cutting to a close-up of a face or an object, the viewer is required to do the 'looking around' in the shot, to be sensitive to changes in spatial relationships and the movements of the camera and actors. The classical continuity style is DIRECTIVE, the mise-en-scène style CONTEMPLATIVE.
Even a film that uses a lot of shots and cutting may still depend on the mise-en-scene to articulate meaning as each cut reveals a different spatial relationship. Perhaps a general rule is that films made in the classical continuity style point of view usher the viewer through the progress of the narrative.
Films that depend on mise-en-scène ask viewers to pause and (consciously or unconsciously) examine the compositional spaces of the narrative.
STORY STRUCTURE AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
These are basic narrative requirements in any form of story telling. The director D.W. Griffith established the first real visual vocabulary for film in The Birth of a Nation (1915) inventing the close-up shot and the moving camera. In Citizen Kane (1941), Orson Welles broke all the rules and invented some new ones, fracturing the frame and the narrative with flashbacks and the contradictory stories of different characters.
'Classical' three-act story structure unfolds chronologically, focusing on a central protagonist who experiences conflict in a changing world. The climax or punchline provides emotional and intellectual closure.
There are other alternatives to basic structure, including stories about multiple protagonists whose actions take place in minimalist worlds and offer no closure; e.g. The Big Chill (1983) or Diner (1982) and deliberately anti-structure films like Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975).
Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) is a study of truth and human nature; four people involved in a rape/murder tell varying accounts of what happened. Kurosawa also made the films The Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961), which were later adapted into the classic Westerns The Magnificent Seven (1960) and A Fistful of Dollars (1964).
These films revolutionised visual storytelling and their very titles have become part of our language.
There are three approaches to film structure:
• TECTONIC APPROACH: More than a simple record of objects, figures and actions, the process analyzes and breaks them down into their respective parts, rebuilding them so the part relates to the whole in a new way. It is an additive method, both analytical and synthetic; shot is added to shot as in architectural building - the process and its effect are more architectonic than organic. This dialectical method IMPOSES continuity, harmony and contrast.
• THEATRICAL APPROACH: Established in the earliest films and based on stage conventions, the camera takes the vantage point of an observer who watches the scene play out from beginning to end, liking watching a stage play. It OBSERVES continuity, harmony and contrast in the action.
In Citizen Kane, Orson Welles revitalized the theatrical approach, employing an extremely wide-angle lens to maintain sharp focus from foreground to distance. This way he could plot action in depth; create harmony, contrast and tension between foreground, middle distance and distance, directing the viewer's attention from one part of the scene to another as effectively in a single shot as he could by cutting and editing. This is great mise-en-scène.
• ORGANIC APPROACH: In which continuity, harmony and contrast seem to EMERGE out of the action, the narrative, the exposition, or very often the dialogue. A film may exhibit all the resources, processes and expressive forms available and in the interrelationship of parts, be very simple or very complex, strictly rationalised or deliberately informal.
'Classical' three-act story structure unfolds chronologically, focusing on a central protagonist who experiences conflict in a changing world. The climax or punchline provides emotional and intellectual closure.
There are other alternatives to basic structure, including stories about multiple protagonists whose actions take place in minimalist worlds and offer no closure; e.g. The Big Chill (1983) or Diner (1982) and deliberately anti-structure films like Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975).
Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) is a study of truth and human nature; four people involved in a rape/murder tell varying accounts of what happened. Kurosawa also made the films The Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961), which were later adapted into the classic Westerns The Magnificent Seven (1960) and A Fistful of Dollars (1964).
These films revolutionised visual storytelling and their very titles have become part of our language.
There are three approaches to film structure:
• TECTONIC APPROACH: More than a simple record of objects, figures and actions, the process analyzes and breaks them down into their respective parts, rebuilding them so the part relates to the whole in a new way. It is an additive method, both analytical and synthetic; shot is added to shot as in architectural building - the process and its effect are more architectonic than organic. This dialectical method IMPOSES continuity, harmony and contrast.
• THEATRICAL APPROACH: Established in the earliest films and based on stage conventions, the camera takes the vantage point of an observer who watches the scene play out from beginning to end, liking watching a stage play. It OBSERVES continuity, harmony and contrast in the action.
In Citizen Kane, Orson Welles revitalized the theatrical approach, employing an extremely wide-angle lens to maintain sharp focus from foreground to distance. This way he could plot action in depth; create harmony, contrast and tension between foreground, middle distance and distance, directing the viewer's attention from one part of the scene to another as effectively in a single shot as he could by cutting and editing. This is great mise-en-scène.
• ORGANIC APPROACH: In which continuity, harmony and contrast seem to EMERGE out of the action, the narrative, the exposition, or very often the dialogue. A film may exhibit all the resources, processes and expressive forms available and in the interrelationship of parts, be very simple or very complex, strictly rationalised or deliberately informal.
HOMER'S THREE-ACT STRUCTURE:
“The best plot is the plot that allows for the most good scenes.”
Dashiell Hammet, crime author
Cinderella is a fable about a simple char-girl whose life is changed by a miracle-working mentor, her Fairy Godmother. The idea was adapted for the stage play Pygmalion (circa 1910) by George Bernard Shaw, (Liza the flower girl is Cinderella and Professor Higgins is the Fairy Godmother, who transforms the girl by teaching her good English pronunciation).
Other writers adapted this into screenplays for the musical My Fair Lady (1964), Pretty Woman (1990) and Maid In Manhattan (2002).
Ironically, a similar Cinderella scenario can be found in Mary Shelley’s book of horror Frankenstein (1816); e.g. Godmother is to Doctor Frankenstein as Cinderella is to the Monster.
Here's an example of the three-act theory, in relation to the structure of Cinderella.
EVENT STRUCTURE - Breakdown of Cinderella for a basic timeline:
ACT I: Prologue/Intro the mood and setting. Ideally, foreshadow the climax/epilogue.
Intro the Protagonist - THE GOOD GUY/Introduce Cinderella and Normality - She is beautiful, works like a slave for her wicked Stepmother and ugly Stepsisters.
The First Disturbance (The Inciting Incident): An invitation (McGuffin A) to attend the Prince’s Ball arrives, but Cinderella can’t go because she has no clothes (THE SET-UP).
The Big Plan/Hero's Goal: Cinderella wants to go to the Palace and meet the handsome Prince.
Intro the Antagonist - THE BAD GUY/In this case it's the status quo, 'Class Distinction' - as personified by Cinderella's ugly Stepsisters and Stepmother.
END OF SET-UP
Surprise: The Fairy Godmother provides clothes and transport, supplying a false identity for Cinderella so that she can enter the Ball.
ACT I Turning Point: Cinderella goes to the Ball.
Obstacle: Her disguise is only available until midnight - (the TIME BOMB).
ACT II: Cinderella goes to the Ball, entrances the Prince and completely forgets about the time.
Complications, sub-stories, more surprises and obstacles that lead to the Climax, (In some versions there is a Ball every night for a week, and she goes back several times, getting away every time except for the last).
ACT II Turning Point: Midnight comes - Cinderella’s clothes turn to rags, she runs away in despair, accidentally leaving the glass slipper (McGuffin B).
ACT III: Cinderella returns to her old life, never to see the Prince again - the Prince announces that he will marry whoever’s foot fits the slipper (In some versions, events keep preventing him from entering the Stepmother’s house). The Prince eventually arrives but Cinderella is not at first allowed to try on the slipper - She fights back, demanding to try on the slipper.
Climax: The shoe fits - the Prince says he will marry Cinderella.
Epilogue/Resolution: They live happily ever after – The End.
Technically, it’s important to get the basics right, so if you’re wondering what form or tense to write in, it’s essential to assume the PRESENT PROGRESSIVE TENSE.
This grammatical term is very important to writing for interactivity, and is defined as:
"...Expressing an activity that is in progress (is occurring, is happening) right now. The event is taking place at the time the speaker is saying the sentence. The event began in the past, is in progress now, and will probably continue into the future."
James Ray Musgrave
The present progressive tense usually takes the form of: "am, is, are..." and "-ing..." e.g.
"I’m racing to get there…"
"She’s crying out of selfishness… "
"They’re hurtling through space."
"The doors of reality are open for business."
Homer Simpson
Dashiell Hammet, crime author
Cinderella is a fable about a simple char-girl whose life is changed by a miracle-working mentor, her Fairy Godmother. The idea was adapted for the stage play Pygmalion (circa 1910) by George Bernard Shaw, (Liza the flower girl is Cinderella and Professor Higgins is the Fairy Godmother, who transforms the girl by teaching her good English pronunciation).
Other writers adapted this into screenplays for the musical My Fair Lady (1964), Pretty Woman (1990) and Maid In Manhattan (2002).
Ironically, a similar Cinderella scenario can be found in Mary Shelley’s book of horror Frankenstein (1816); e.g. Godmother is to Doctor Frankenstein as Cinderella is to the Monster.
Here's an example of the three-act theory, in relation to the structure of Cinderella.
EVENT STRUCTURE - Breakdown of Cinderella for a basic timeline:
ACT I: Prologue/Intro the mood and setting. Ideally, foreshadow the climax/epilogue.
Intro the Protagonist - THE GOOD GUY/Introduce Cinderella and Normality - She is beautiful, works like a slave for her wicked Stepmother and ugly Stepsisters.
The First Disturbance (The Inciting Incident): An invitation (McGuffin A) to attend the Prince’s Ball arrives, but Cinderella can’t go because she has no clothes (THE SET-UP).
The Big Plan/Hero's Goal: Cinderella wants to go to the Palace and meet the handsome Prince.
Intro the Antagonist - THE BAD GUY/In this case it's the status quo, 'Class Distinction' - as personified by Cinderella's ugly Stepsisters and Stepmother.
END OF SET-UP
Surprise: The Fairy Godmother provides clothes and transport, supplying a false identity for Cinderella so that she can enter the Ball.
ACT I Turning Point: Cinderella goes to the Ball.
Obstacle: Her disguise is only available until midnight - (the TIME BOMB).
ACT II: Cinderella goes to the Ball, entrances the Prince and completely forgets about the time.
Complications, sub-stories, more surprises and obstacles that lead to the Climax, (In some versions there is a Ball every night for a week, and she goes back several times, getting away every time except for the last).
ACT II Turning Point: Midnight comes - Cinderella’s clothes turn to rags, she runs away in despair, accidentally leaving the glass slipper (McGuffin B).
ACT III: Cinderella returns to her old life, never to see the Prince again - the Prince announces that he will marry whoever’s foot fits the slipper (In some versions, events keep preventing him from entering the Stepmother’s house). The Prince eventually arrives but Cinderella is not at first allowed to try on the slipper - She fights back, demanding to try on the slipper.
Climax: The shoe fits - the Prince says he will marry Cinderella.
Epilogue/Resolution: They live happily ever after – The End.
Technically, it’s important to get the basics right, so if you’re wondering what form or tense to write in, it’s essential to assume the PRESENT PROGRESSIVE TENSE.
This grammatical term is very important to writing for interactivity, and is defined as:
"...Expressing an activity that is in progress (is occurring, is happening) right now. The event is taking place at the time the speaker is saying the sentence. The event began in the past, is in progress now, and will probably continue into the future."
James Ray Musgrave
The present progressive tense usually takes the form of: "am, is, are..." and "-ing..." e.g.
"I’m racing to get there…"
"She’s crying out of selfishness… "
"They’re hurtling through space."
"The doors of reality are open for business."
Homer Simpson
CONFLICT, CLARITY, REALISM, CONTINUITY AND DYNAMISM:
The goal of any writer or artist is to use these five tools to create a totally immersive world, one that the reader, viewer or user falls into and doesn’t want to leave. Anything that doesn’t work within the context of the story being told, and the style and output medium being used to tell it, can interfere with TOTAL IMMERSION.
CONFLICT: All good characters travel along an EMOTIONAL ARC as their personal attitudes toward new ideas or other characters in the story are changed by their experiences.
This creates interesting moments for the audience, witnessing a character’s EVOLUTION and CONTRADICTORY BEHAVIOUR as the changes occur. Conflict is a common scriptwriting term used to describe these behaviours, and its meaning shouldn’t be taken literally.
Convincing characters, while being involved in finding solutions to external conflicts, also suffer from inner conflicts; e.g. protagonist Peter Parker continues to fight evil as Spider-Man, battling against antagonists like the Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, etc; but he also questions his own motives, realising that his personal life is being wrecked by his superhuman activities.
Rather than just showing arguments, fisticuffs and bloodshed, conflict can take much more subtle emotional forms; e.g. in Blow-Up (1966), writer/director Michelangelo Antonioni investigates the mystery of subjective truth, creating a hypnotic pop-culture parable about a fashion photographer struggling with the elusive nature of perception in order to prove to himself that a murder has been committed. He fails, losing his own identity in the process.
CLARITY: The camera doesn't lie, or does it? The best visual storytelling is achieved when the audience isn’t really aware of the way the story is being told. In most cases, they must not get lost or confused as the story unfolds; e.g. there are crucial points in gaming when the player can make certain choices, and if these aren't understood the outcome can be very disappointing.
One of the first steps in any story is setting the scene, called 'establishing shots' in film. These can also establish the relationships between major characters. An unforgettable example is the opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, (1975) utilising unusual camera angles (even the shark’s POV), John Williams’ musical score and the off-camera, unseen underwater action, all so suggestive of the victim’s plight; without ever literally 'seeing' the shark, we are attacked.
The 180˚ RULE: “Crossing the Line” is a strict guideline in traditional film-editing when cutting between shots in a scene, which should be applied to storyboards, if not all visual storytelling.
In any shot or scene, whatever is established as being to the left of frame before a cut, even if it is miles away on the horizon, should be kept to the left of frame in following shots. Otherwise, if you cross the line, the shots won’t cut together and characters will seem to jump around from place to place, with backgrounds appearing and disappearing for no reason in the scene.
Of course, carefully planned exceptions to this rule can be very effective; e.g. say the hero always moves from left to right across the frame, following the audience’s natural eye direction as if they were reading a sentence. Then suppose that in a scene in which the hero is being beaten back by an enemy, both characters move from right to left. Such moves go against natural eye movement, creating the sensation of chaos unleashed.
In the film Raging Bull (1980), Martin Scorsese frequently breaks the 180˚ rule; characters cross the line during fight scenes, adding great visual tension to the mayhem in the ring.
Another exception to the 180˚ rule is to have the camera travel across the line in a 'dolly shot' (as indicated), but this kind of camera move needs to be motivated by an action so that it doesn’t appear extraneous. There is also the 30˚ RULE to consider; a cinematography and editing rule that specifies that a shot should only be followed by another shot taken from a position greater than thirty degrees from that of the first. Otherwise, dimension and dynamics are lost.
In 3D gaming, cutting shots cinematically (from one camera angle to another angle) can disturb the audience, while continuous travelling shots allow total immersion. Since the player/story author is imbedded in a 360˚ CGI-room/landscape, moving TRANSITIONS are used to move from scene to scene, usually in the form of a 'tunnel' opening into a greater space.
REALISM: The audience's perception that what is happening on-screen is real within the context of the story. This “SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF” is the psychological state a film lulls us into at the cinema, and it can be destroyed by a single inappropriate creative act.
Several recent films have dealt with the nature of reality; e.g. The Truman Show (1998) and The Matrix (1999, both inspired by the books of The Wizard of Oz and Through the Looking Glass…), portray our 'known' world, one we easily understand and identify with, so that we are drawn deeper into their worlds and easily accept the 'way-out' stories involved.
The foundation of a well-conceived and seamlessly executed visual story is simply that every creative choice made is logical or real within the structural and stylistic framework of the presentation.
TAKING LIBERTIES WITH REALISM: There are attributes of the real world which, rather than copying slavishly, writers and artists may be able to 're-use' and exploit, in order to clarify or enhance meaning. These include focus, distance, atmosphere and scale.
• FOCUS: Rembrandt's self-portraits owe their presence to his depiction of differential focus, so that the eyes are in sharp focus while other parts of the head are defocused. By selecting the definition of contours, the artist can capture the way in which the eye prefers certain paths across a landscape, leading the viewer's eye on a similar journey in negotiating the painting. A contemporary example; the use of selective focussing to take in and out of attention different parts of a movie scene, perhaps PULLING FOCUS from one character to another.
• DISTANCE: By taking advantage of the non-physical nature of what's on-screen, we can all but abolish the lapse of time in translating ourselves from place to place. Within an interactive application, the conceptual distance between two things can be presented in a form that instantly clarifies context for the user; e.g. check out musicplasma.com or visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp.
• ATMOSPHERE: The effect on clarity and color of distant objects is another accident of reality that can be turned to advantage on-screen. In physical reality, atmosphere is a function of distance and climate, and we can find uses for the effect. For example, we could assist the audience in giving attention to certain features by partially obscuring some and clarifying others. In making such a decision, we are designing for user-friendliness.
• SCALE: If we take a narrow view of photo-realism we deny ourselves all the possibilities of using scale to create meaning. Filming an actor from above usually indicates how isolated they are. A figure on the horizon can appear threatening or isolated, depending on its scale. Look at cartoons to see what can be done once adherence to 'correct' scale is abandoned.
CONTINUITY: Make sure that everything stays within the same world. Visual details, from the colour of a distant mountain range to the mannerisms of a character, must be consistent from scene to scene unless the writer is emphasizing the change. When Dorothy meets Scarecrow in Victor Fleming's film The Wizard of Oz (1939), her hair changes length five times between shots. This breach of continuity slips by first-time viewers, but it shouldn’t happen in the first place.
One obvious exception to strict continuity; a character wakes up in a mysterious environment and the audience has to explore and discover the new environment with the character; e.g. someone has a flashback, or walks through a door to enter the Twilight Zone, or a delusional character hallucinates. There are no clear thoughts expressed and perhaps no clear eye path to follow.
As mentioned, consistent points of reference are extremely useful, providing the audience with visual hints that serve as identifiers for a character's location within their environment; e.g. two people stand beside a lit-UP button, then in the next shot they're standing beside the control panel, watching numbers. The button and the panel tell us that we’ve passed into the elevator.
Anything that might cause the viewer to do a double-take can shake their belief in the IMMERSIVE world of the story.
When game players can return to a character or situation repeatedly, such a mistake is far more obvious and will disturb the audience’s conviction that the story is real. Anything that encourages the audience to have a greater sense of being a participant in the storytelling, rather than merely watching the story unfold, is empowering and immersive.
Interactivity has many ways to keep the experience immersive (too may to get into here), but one of the great flaws of early games was that little attention was paid to writing a solid story, and the audience’s 'suspension of disbelief' was blown by inferior plot-lines and clumsy dialogue.
The best gaming applications blend a host of different activities with very sophisticated stories, photographically detailed 3D locations, complex characters and meaningful dialogue. As more lateral activities become available, the more 'real' the game feels.
This all starts within the writer, intuitively and personally; the artist's task is to capture these feelings in the storyboards.
DYNAMISM & EXPOSITION: A force of energy, active, potent, compelling, vigorous, electric, high powered. Dynamics can be created by the emotions, words and actions of the characters within the worlds they inhabit, or by the dynamics of information layering and time compression.
Special effects are not necessarily dynamic. The laws of optics dictate there is only so much that can be altered digitally without losing the illusion of reality. Well-done effects can add momentary excitement, but if they are not used for enhancement of the story then they are just eye-candy.
“They think it’s about pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with special effects. I think it’s really about storytelling, and the special effects should serve the storytelling.”
Chris Carter, creator of The X-files
There are two primary types of perception:
• INTRINSIC PERCEPTION relates to the components of a single image; e.g.
A baby sits on the ground holding a teddy bear, looking up in innocent surprise, suggesting happiness and contentment – nothing more than what it is, a neutral image.
• EXTRINSIC PERCEPTION develops when the above image is juxtaposed with a picture of a moving car (in itself a neutral image). Together, however, they create a shocking and suspenseful response (particularly if the car is seen head-on from a low angle), that suggest that the child is in the path of the car, even though they might be in different locations.
The images conflict. Though there is no evidence of proximity, the viewer’s mind works with this 'friction' and makes a narrative connection, creating a third and completely different meaning than can be derived from the pictures individually.
There is no need for a character to shout a warning, as the viewer’s narrative comprehension provides an observation more powerful than any dialogue. The challenge for the visual storyteller is to find dynamic ways to express character development, plot progression and dramatic themes, using imagery that stimulates both kinds of perception.
CAUTION: Words can turn a desperado into a dead bore. EXPOSITIONAL DIALOGUE is usually delivered during that dull spot in the second act when the hero suddenly has to explain what's been happening. Words are the antithesis of action, so be wary of the conspiracy of words that can deflect you from the creation of lucid, moving, storytelling pictures.
Seeing is believing.
TELEGRAPHING & FORESHADOWING: ACTION & REACTION - In dynamic media like comic books, film and interactive gaming, quick cuts between shots/angles make rapid-fire action scenes an effective storytelling tool. These shots can be related by visual devices within the frame, or by sounds.
The terms TELEGRAPHING and FORESHADOWING are used by screenwriters in reference to the way images and sounds inform the audience subconsciously, and they can have a positive or negative outcome for the viewer depending on how they're used.
• TELEGRAPHING: Image and sound informs the viewer about things they shouldn't know… yet!
Four shots can describe a tragic moment by visual exposition; e.g.
Shot 1: A woman stands at the edge of a cliff high above us -
Shot 2: Cut to a close-up of her face -
Shot 3: Cut to the crowd below staring up at her - then...
Shot 4: From over her shoulder as she leaps into the void.
The first shot gives the whole game away; telegraphing, or giving advance warning of where she is and her intention to jump. The scene would have much more impact by removing it.
• FORESHADOWING: Image and sound enhances the creative connections of form and content for the viewer. In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane's final deathbed utterance, the word "Rosebud" (ironically at the start of the film) foreshadows a lifelong mystery in a brilliantly epic, enigmatic way. Luke Skywalker's amputated hand foreshadows his connection with his father Darth Vader.
Anything that is to be the focus of attention later in a story should be set up in an earlier scene, but without telegraphing what is to come. It can be as prominent or unobtrusive as necessary; e.g. if the character who is trying to work out how to escape a predicament eventually uses a broken window, show the intact window in an earlier shot or scene (see examples, page 50/51).
Set up and pay off are very important, advancing the action without confusing the audience.
Chekhov's famous shotgun is a fine example:
“If you have placed a gun above the mantelpiece in act one, be sure to shoot it before the final curtain falls. Otherwise it will only serve to distract your audience.”
Anton Chekhov
CONFLICT: All good characters travel along an EMOTIONAL ARC as their personal attitudes toward new ideas or other characters in the story are changed by their experiences.
This creates interesting moments for the audience, witnessing a character’s EVOLUTION and CONTRADICTORY BEHAVIOUR as the changes occur. Conflict is a common scriptwriting term used to describe these behaviours, and its meaning shouldn’t be taken literally.
Convincing characters, while being involved in finding solutions to external conflicts, also suffer from inner conflicts; e.g. protagonist Peter Parker continues to fight evil as Spider-Man, battling against antagonists like the Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, etc; but he also questions his own motives, realising that his personal life is being wrecked by his superhuman activities.
Rather than just showing arguments, fisticuffs and bloodshed, conflict can take much more subtle emotional forms; e.g. in Blow-Up (1966), writer/director Michelangelo Antonioni investigates the mystery of subjective truth, creating a hypnotic pop-culture parable about a fashion photographer struggling with the elusive nature of perception in order to prove to himself that a murder has been committed. He fails, losing his own identity in the process.
CLARITY: The camera doesn't lie, or does it? The best visual storytelling is achieved when the audience isn’t really aware of the way the story is being told. In most cases, they must not get lost or confused as the story unfolds; e.g. there are crucial points in gaming when the player can make certain choices, and if these aren't understood the outcome can be very disappointing.
One of the first steps in any story is setting the scene, called 'establishing shots' in film. These can also establish the relationships between major characters. An unforgettable example is the opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, (1975) utilising unusual camera angles (even the shark’s POV), John Williams’ musical score and the off-camera, unseen underwater action, all so suggestive of the victim’s plight; without ever literally 'seeing' the shark, we are attacked.
The 180˚ RULE: “Crossing the Line” is a strict guideline in traditional film-editing when cutting between shots in a scene, which should be applied to storyboards, if not all visual storytelling.
In any shot or scene, whatever is established as being to the left of frame before a cut, even if it is miles away on the horizon, should be kept to the left of frame in following shots. Otherwise, if you cross the line, the shots won’t cut together and characters will seem to jump around from place to place, with backgrounds appearing and disappearing for no reason in the scene.
Of course, carefully planned exceptions to this rule can be very effective; e.g. say the hero always moves from left to right across the frame, following the audience’s natural eye direction as if they were reading a sentence. Then suppose that in a scene in which the hero is being beaten back by an enemy, both characters move from right to left. Such moves go against natural eye movement, creating the sensation of chaos unleashed.
In the film Raging Bull (1980), Martin Scorsese frequently breaks the 180˚ rule; characters cross the line during fight scenes, adding great visual tension to the mayhem in the ring.
Another exception to the 180˚ rule is to have the camera travel across the line in a 'dolly shot' (as indicated), but this kind of camera move needs to be motivated by an action so that it doesn’t appear extraneous. There is also the 30˚ RULE to consider; a cinematography and editing rule that specifies that a shot should only be followed by another shot taken from a position greater than thirty degrees from that of the first. Otherwise, dimension and dynamics are lost.
In 3D gaming, cutting shots cinematically (from one camera angle to another angle) can disturb the audience, while continuous travelling shots allow total immersion. Since the player/story author is imbedded in a 360˚ CGI-room/landscape, moving TRANSITIONS are used to move from scene to scene, usually in the form of a 'tunnel' opening into a greater space.
REALISM: The audience's perception that what is happening on-screen is real within the context of the story. This “SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF” is the psychological state a film lulls us into at the cinema, and it can be destroyed by a single inappropriate creative act.
Several recent films have dealt with the nature of reality; e.g. The Truman Show (1998) and The Matrix (1999, both inspired by the books of The Wizard of Oz and Through the Looking Glass…), portray our 'known' world, one we easily understand and identify with, so that we are drawn deeper into their worlds and easily accept the 'way-out' stories involved.
The foundation of a well-conceived and seamlessly executed visual story is simply that every creative choice made is logical or real within the structural and stylistic framework of the presentation.
TAKING LIBERTIES WITH REALISM: There are attributes of the real world which, rather than copying slavishly, writers and artists may be able to 're-use' and exploit, in order to clarify or enhance meaning. These include focus, distance, atmosphere and scale.
• FOCUS: Rembrandt's self-portraits owe their presence to his depiction of differential focus, so that the eyes are in sharp focus while other parts of the head are defocused. By selecting the definition of contours, the artist can capture the way in which the eye prefers certain paths across a landscape, leading the viewer's eye on a similar journey in negotiating the painting. A contemporary example; the use of selective focussing to take in and out of attention different parts of a movie scene, perhaps PULLING FOCUS from one character to another.
• DISTANCE: By taking advantage of the non-physical nature of what's on-screen, we can all but abolish the lapse of time in translating ourselves from place to place. Within an interactive application, the conceptual distance between two things can be presented in a form that instantly clarifies context for the user; e.g. check out musicplasma.com or visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp.
• ATMOSPHERE: The effect on clarity and color of distant objects is another accident of reality that can be turned to advantage on-screen. In physical reality, atmosphere is a function of distance and climate, and we can find uses for the effect. For example, we could assist the audience in giving attention to certain features by partially obscuring some and clarifying others. In making such a decision, we are designing for user-friendliness.
• SCALE: If we take a narrow view of photo-realism we deny ourselves all the possibilities of using scale to create meaning. Filming an actor from above usually indicates how isolated they are. A figure on the horizon can appear threatening or isolated, depending on its scale. Look at cartoons to see what can be done once adherence to 'correct' scale is abandoned.
CONTINUITY: Make sure that everything stays within the same world. Visual details, from the colour of a distant mountain range to the mannerisms of a character, must be consistent from scene to scene unless the writer is emphasizing the change. When Dorothy meets Scarecrow in Victor Fleming's film The Wizard of Oz (1939), her hair changes length five times between shots. This breach of continuity slips by first-time viewers, but it shouldn’t happen in the first place.
One obvious exception to strict continuity; a character wakes up in a mysterious environment and the audience has to explore and discover the new environment with the character; e.g. someone has a flashback, or walks through a door to enter the Twilight Zone, or a delusional character hallucinates. There are no clear thoughts expressed and perhaps no clear eye path to follow.
As mentioned, consistent points of reference are extremely useful, providing the audience with visual hints that serve as identifiers for a character's location within their environment; e.g. two people stand beside a lit-UP button, then in the next shot they're standing beside the control panel, watching numbers. The button and the panel tell us that we’ve passed into the elevator.
Anything that might cause the viewer to do a double-take can shake their belief in the IMMERSIVE world of the story.
When game players can return to a character or situation repeatedly, such a mistake is far more obvious and will disturb the audience’s conviction that the story is real. Anything that encourages the audience to have a greater sense of being a participant in the storytelling, rather than merely watching the story unfold, is empowering and immersive.
Interactivity has many ways to keep the experience immersive (too may to get into here), but one of the great flaws of early games was that little attention was paid to writing a solid story, and the audience’s 'suspension of disbelief' was blown by inferior plot-lines and clumsy dialogue.
The best gaming applications blend a host of different activities with very sophisticated stories, photographically detailed 3D locations, complex characters and meaningful dialogue. As more lateral activities become available, the more 'real' the game feels.
This all starts within the writer, intuitively and personally; the artist's task is to capture these feelings in the storyboards.
DYNAMISM & EXPOSITION: A force of energy, active, potent, compelling, vigorous, electric, high powered. Dynamics can be created by the emotions, words and actions of the characters within the worlds they inhabit, or by the dynamics of information layering and time compression.
Special effects are not necessarily dynamic. The laws of optics dictate there is only so much that can be altered digitally without losing the illusion of reality. Well-done effects can add momentary excitement, but if they are not used for enhancement of the story then they are just eye-candy.
“They think it’s about pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with special effects. I think it’s really about storytelling, and the special effects should serve the storytelling.”
Chris Carter, creator of The X-files
There are two primary types of perception:
• INTRINSIC PERCEPTION relates to the components of a single image; e.g.
A baby sits on the ground holding a teddy bear, looking up in innocent surprise, suggesting happiness and contentment – nothing more than what it is, a neutral image.
• EXTRINSIC PERCEPTION develops when the above image is juxtaposed with a picture of a moving car (in itself a neutral image). Together, however, they create a shocking and suspenseful response (particularly if the car is seen head-on from a low angle), that suggest that the child is in the path of the car, even though they might be in different locations.
The images conflict. Though there is no evidence of proximity, the viewer’s mind works with this 'friction' and makes a narrative connection, creating a third and completely different meaning than can be derived from the pictures individually.
There is no need for a character to shout a warning, as the viewer’s narrative comprehension provides an observation more powerful than any dialogue. The challenge for the visual storyteller is to find dynamic ways to express character development, plot progression and dramatic themes, using imagery that stimulates both kinds of perception.
CAUTION: Words can turn a desperado into a dead bore. EXPOSITIONAL DIALOGUE is usually delivered during that dull spot in the second act when the hero suddenly has to explain what's been happening. Words are the antithesis of action, so be wary of the conspiracy of words that can deflect you from the creation of lucid, moving, storytelling pictures.
Seeing is believing.
TELEGRAPHING & FORESHADOWING: ACTION & REACTION - In dynamic media like comic books, film and interactive gaming, quick cuts between shots/angles make rapid-fire action scenes an effective storytelling tool. These shots can be related by visual devices within the frame, or by sounds.
The terms TELEGRAPHING and FORESHADOWING are used by screenwriters in reference to the way images and sounds inform the audience subconsciously, and they can have a positive or negative outcome for the viewer depending on how they're used.
• TELEGRAPHING: Image and sound informs the viewer about things they shouldn't know… yet!
Four shots can describe a tragic moment by visual exposition; e.g.
Shot 1: A woman stands at the edge of a cliff high above us -
Shot 2: Cut to a close-up of her face -
Shot 3: Cut to the crowd below staring up at her - then...
Shot 4: From over her shoulder as she leaps into the void.
The first shot gives the whole game away; telegraphing, or giving advance warning of where she is and her intention to jump. The scene would have much more impact by removing it.
• FORESHADOWING: Image and sound enhances the creative connections of form and content for the viewer. In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane's final deathbed utterance, the word "Rosebud" (ironically at the start of the film) foreshadows a lifelong mystery in a brilliantly epic, enigmatic way. Luke Skywalker's amputated hand foreshadows his connection with his father Darth Vader.
Anything that is to be the focus of attention later in a story should be set up in an earlier scene, but without telegraphing what is to come. It can be as prominent or unobtrusive as necessary; e.g. if the character who is trying to work out how to escape a predicament eventually uses a broken window, show the intact window in an earlier shot or scene (see examples, page 50/51).
Set up and pay off are very important, advancing the action without confusing the audience.
Chekhov's famous shotgun is a fine example:
“If you have placed a gun above the mantelpiece in act one, be sure to shoot it before the final curtain falls. Otherwise it will only serve to distract your audience.”
Anton Chekhov
FILM GENRE:
FILM GENRE are a set of conventions and formulas, developed through film history, which organize and categorize films according to repeated subjects, icons, and styles. Film genres are forms or identifiable types, categories, classifications or groups of films that are recurring and have similar, familiar or instantly recognizable patterns, syntax, filmic techniques or conventions.
Classical Genres are traditions that see a film in relation to a structural paradigm that transcends historical variations, that a genre film either successfully follows or not.
They include the following: settings (and props), stock characters (or characterizations, called stereotypes) and stars, content and subject matter, themes, period, plot, central narrative events, motifs, styles, structures, situations, recurring icons and cliches; e.g.
Weird green guys and flying saucers in Space Invasion movies.
Riding into the sunset, six-guns and ten gallon hats in Westerns.
Bad guys falling off rooftops, crooked cops and car chases in Detective movies.
Genre Categories: They can accommodate any film ever made, although film categories can never be precise. By isolating the elements in a film and categorizing them, it is possible to evaluate a film within its genre, allow for meaningful comparison and judgments on greatness. Films were not really subjected to genre analysis by film historians until the 1970s. All films have at least one major genre, although there are many films that are considered crossbreeds or HYBRIDS with three or four overlapping genre (or sub-genre) types that identify them.
The Auteur System can be contrasted to the genre system; auteur films are rated on the basis of the expression of one person, usually the director, because his/her indelible style, authoring vision or 'signature' dictates the personality, look, and feel of the film. Certain directors (and actors) are known for certain types of films; e.g. the Arthur Freed unit with musicals, Busby Berkeley for choreography, Woody Allen and comedy, Alfred Hitchcock for suspense, John Ford and John Wayne with westerns, or Errol Flynn for classic swashbuckler adventures.
The Main Film Genres: By the end of the silent era, many of the main genres were established: the melodrama, the western, horror films, comedies, and action-adventure (from swashbucklers to war movies). Musicals were inaugurated with the era of the Talkies, and the genre of science fiction wasn't generally popularized until the 1950s. One problem with genre films is that they can become stale, cliche-ridden, and over-imitated.
A traditional genre that has been reinterpreted, challenged, or subjected to scrutiny may be termed REVISIONIST.
The most common and identifiable film genre (Major ans Sub Categories) are:
• ACTION FILMS: Characterized by high energy, physical stunts and chases, with rescues, battles, fights, escapes, destructive crises, natural disasters, non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing, and adventurous, two-dimensional 'good-guy' heroes (or recently, heroines) battling 'bad guys' - all designed for audience escapism. Includes James Bond 'fantasy' spy/espionage, martial arts films, and so-called 'blaxploitation' films. A major sub-genre is the disaster film.
• ADVENTURE FILMS: Usually exciting stories with new experiences or exotic locales, very similar to or often paired with the action film genre. They can include traditional swashbucklers, serialized films, and historical spectacles (similar to the epics film genre), searches or expeditions for lost continents, 'jungle' and 'desert' epics, treasure hunts, disaster films, or searches for the unknown.
• MELODRAMA: A stylized form of drama and the basis of soap opera, characterized by closely related characters; sensational appeals to emotion, compressed time and happy endings. FAMILY MELODRAMAS elaborate on the restrictions of the protagonist by investigating the forces within the family.
• PHYSICAL MELODRAMAS focus on the physical conditions that control the protagonist’s emotions; are these simply a product of the character’s physicality or related to the places and people around them.
• SOCIAL MELODRAMAS extend the crisis of the family to include larger historical, community, and economic issues. In these films, the losses, sufferings, and frustrations of the protagonist are visible parts of a social or national politics.
• DRAMA FILMS: Serious and plot-driven, portraying realistic characters, settings, situations and stories involving intense character development and interaction. Not usually focused on special effects, comedy, or action, drama films are probably the largest film genre, with many subsets. See also the melodramas, epics (historical dramas), or romantic genres.
• BIOGRAPHICAL FILMS: (or 'bio-pics') are a major sub-genre, as are 'ADULT' films (with mature subject content).
• EPICS/HISTORICAL FILMS: Historical dramas, war films, medieval romps or 'period pictures' that can cover a great expanse of time, set against a vast, panoramic backdrop. Epics share elements of the adventure genre; an historical or imagined event, a legendary heroic figure, an extravagant setting and costumes, accompanied by grandeur and spectacle; otherwise, a lavish version of a biopic. 'Sword and sandal' films (and some Biblical epics) qualify as a sub-genre.
• ROMANCE FILMS: Love stories that center on passion, emotion, and the romantic involvement of the main characters, and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus. Lovers in screen romances (often romantic dramas) face obstacles and hazards of hardship; financial, physical, racial or social class status, occupation, psychological restraints, or family that threaten to break their union and attainment of love. As in all romantic relationships, tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into plots of romantic films.
• COMEDY FILMS: Light-hearted plots deliberately designed to amuse and provoke laughter (with one-liners, jokes, etc.) by exaggerating the situation, the language, action, relationships and characters. The main traits consist of central characters defined by distinctive physical features, and narratives that emphasize individual episodes more than plot continuity or progression and that usually conclude happily; and theatrical acting styles in which characters physically and playfully interact with the mise-en-scène that surrounds them. Taking various forms in cinema, including spoofs and parodies.
• BLACK COMEDY: Dark satirical comedy.
• ROMANTIC COMEDY: Concentrates on the emotional attraction of a couple in a light-hearted manner, drawing attention to a peculiar social predicament.
• SCREWBALL COMEDY: Emphasizes fast-talking verbal gymnastics, displacing the sexual energy into barbed verbal exchanges between men and women.
• SLAPSTICK: Emphasizes humorous stunts, physical actions, and gags.
• THRILLER & SUSPENSE: These promote intense excitement, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense genres are virtually interchangeable, with similar characteristics. A genuine thriller relentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience on the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax.
The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a potentially deadly situation.
• CRIME & GANGSTER FILMS: A diverse genre influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes with some overarching characteristics; characters are either criminals, individuals dedicated to crime detection, or individuals who live on the edge of a mysterious or violent society; plots of crime, increasing mystery and ambiguous resolution, in dark urban settings. Gangster films are typically (but not necessarily) set in the 1930s when underworld criminal societies thrived.
Developed around the sinister actions of underworld figures, particularly crime bosses, mobsters or ruthless hoodlums operating outside the law. The criminal activity in these films describes a social world continually threatened by the most brutal instincts of its outcasts.
• DETECTIVE & MYSTERY FILMS: A sub-type of crime/gangster films (or FILM NOIR), focusing on the unsolved crime (usually the murder or disappearance of characters, or a theft), and on the central character - a hard-boiled detective-hero who meets various challenges in the methodical pursuit of the solution to the crime.
Suspense is added as the protagonist struggles within the puzzle-like narrative to gather evidence and testimony, to investigate all motives, and to discover the one essential clue or fatal flaw/alibi that betrays the identity of the culprit. The detective often succeeds in trapping the criminal where law-and-order/police officials do not. Intensity, anxiety, and suspense build to a climax, often with the detective using violence to solve the crime.
• FILM NOIR: Meaning "black film" and describing Hollywood films of the 1940s set in the criminal underworld, much darker in mood and mise-en-scène than what had come before. With stylized lighting and cinematography, they were shot in black and white using nighttime urban settings. They feature morally ambiguous protagonists, corrupt institutions, dangerous women and convoluted plots. Hard-boiled detective films focus on a protagonist who represents the law or a more ambiguous version of it, such as a private investigator. Usually these individuals must battle a criminal element (and sometimes the police) to solve a mystery or personal obsession.
• NEO-NOIR: A term used to describe film noir-style movies made from the 1970s onward.
• HONG KONG NEW WAVE: Introduced sophisticated style, lucrative production methods, and a canny use of western elements to the low-budget Hong Kong kung-fu film genre of the 1970s.
• BLAXPLOITATION: Suggests the economic exploitation of black film audiences (and in particular the identification of an urban market likely to attend films about streetwise African-American protagonists), made possible in part by the black power movement in the early 1970s.
• ROAD MOVIES: Focuses on cars or motorcycles as the center of narratives about wandering or driven characters. Structurally, the narrative develops forward, usually along a linear path, as an odyssey for an undefined place or freedom. Encounters are episodic and disconnected, and traveling shots of open roads and countryside are the stylistic heart of the genre.
• HORROR FILMS: With origins in gothic literature, they seek to frighten the viewer through - supernatural or predator characters; narratives built on suspense, dread, and surprise; and visual compositions that anticipate and manipulate shocking sights. Invoking our hidden fears in a terrifying, shocking finale, captivating and entertaining us in a cathartic experience. Features a range of styles, from the silent classics to today's CGI monsters and deranged mutant humans.
• PHYSICAL HORROR: A sub-genre in which psychology takes second place to the depiction of graphic violence.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR: Locates the dangers that threaten normal life in the minds of bizarre and deranged individuals.
• SUPERNATURAL HORROR: A spiritual evil erupting into the human realm, to avenge a moral wrong or for no explainable reason. Horror is combined with science fiction when the menace is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. There are many minor sub-genres, defined by the main character or content; e.g. Dracula, Frankenstein, war, slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, swamp, etc.
• SCIENCE FICTION FILMS: Often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative - with heroes, distant planets, impossible quests, fantastic places, shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknowable forces and scary monsters, created by mad scientists, by nuclear havoc or from outer space. An offshoot of fantasy films, they share similarities with action/adventure films. They often express the potential of technology to destroy humankind, overlapping with horror, particularly when technology or alien life becomes malevolent, as in the 'Atomic Age' films of the 1950s.
Science Fiction has a prophetic nature (attempting to figure out or depict the future) and is often just another genre set in a future time. They commonly express society's anxiety about technology and how to control the impact of technological and environmental change on contemporary society, or the potential to destroy humankind through apocalyptic events, or through the loss of personal individuality. There are often encounters with beings (sometimes from our subconscious, sometimes from space or other dimensions) that are unearthed to fight an eternal struggle (good vs. evil), played out by recognizable archetypes. Many SF films feature fantastic journeys, set either on Earth, into outer space, or (most often) into the future.
• WAR (ANTI-WAR) FILMS: These acknowledge the courage, horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting on land, sea, or air provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film. Often paired with other genres, such as action, adventure, drama, romance, comedy (black), suspense, epics and westerns. They often take a denunciatory approach toward warfare, and they may include POW tales, stories of military operations, and training. Sections include: US Civil War, WW I, Spanish Civil War, WW II, Korean War, Vietnamese War, WW III.
• WESTERNS: Typically characterized by characters whose physical and mental toughness separate them from civilization; narratives that follow some version of a quest into the natural world; and a stylistic emphasis on open, natural spaces and settings. One of the oldest, most enduring genres with very recognizable elements (six-guns, horses, dusty towns and trails, cowboys, Indians, etc.). They are REVISIONIST; re-invented, expanded, and spoofed.
• EPIC WESTERNS: Concentrate on action and movement, developing a heroic character whose quests and battles serve to define history.
• SPAGHETTI WESTERNS: A hybrid genre, consisting of Italian films of the 1960s, personified by Sergio Leone.
• POLITICAL WESTERNS: More critical films, in which the ideology that always informed the genre are foregrounded; the heroism associated with individual independence and the use of violence naturalized in epic westerns become precisely that which is questioned.
• The EXISTENTIAL WESTERN: An introspective version of the genre, the traditional hero is troubled by his changing social status and his own self-doubts.
• MUSICALS (DANCE) FILMS: A diverse genre with characters who express their emotions and thoughts as songs; plots paused or moved forward by musical numbers; and spectacular settings. It emphasizes musical scores or song and dance routines (usually with music or dance integrated as part of the film narrative), or films that are centered on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography.
• REALISTIC MUSICALS: A type in which the idyllic and redemptive moments of song and dance are integrated into natural, everyday lives.
• ANIMATED MUSICAL: Consist of cartoon figures (sometimes blended with live action) and stories to present songs and music. Major sub-genres include the MUSICAL COMEDY or the concert film.
• DOCUMENTARY FILM: A non-fiction film that presents (presumably) real objects, people, and events. Expressive and persuasive positions are used in documentaries to articulate a perspective either as the expression of emotions, opinions, beliefs, or some other personal or social position or as an attempt to persuade an audience to believe or feel a certain way.
• POLITICAL DOCUMENTARY explores human suffering and struggle or celebrates the activities of common men and women with a balance of aesthetic objectivity and political purpose. NATURE and ETHNOGRAPHIC documentary reveal the natural world, its cultures and peoples in the most authentic terms possible, without imposing the filmmaker’s interpretation on that experience. REENACTMENTS present the recreation of presumably real events, but in a theatrical manner.
• CINÉMA VÉRITÉ means "cinema truth"; a style of documentary filmmaking first practiced by the French in the late 1950s and early 1960s that used unobtrusive lightweight cameras and sound equipment to capture a real-life situation; the parallel U.S. movement is called direct cinema.
• DIRECT CINEMA is a documentary style originating in the United States in the 1960s that aims to observe an unfolding situation as unobtrusively as possible. It is related to cinéma vérité.
• THIRD CINEMA refers to a group of films and filmmakers from a variety of Third World (and some European) countries with an agenda that rejects technical perfection in opposition to commercial traditions and embraces film as the voice of the people.
• LESBIAN AND GAY FILM THEORY: Among other things, they critique and supplement feminist approaches by pointing out that films allow for more flexible ways of seeing and experiencing visual pleasure than the binarisms (mutually exclusive opposites) of male vs. female, seeing vs. seen, and being vs. desiring.
FILM SUB-GENRES: A specialized, more limited version of a general genre, often by refining it with an adjective, such as the spaghetti western or slapstick comedy. These are identifiable sub-classes of genre, with their own distinctive subject matter, style, formulas, and iconography.
Many films straddle several film genres. Action films and Adventure films have tremendous crossover potential as film genres. Both types come in a variety of forms or hybrids: thrillers, crime-drama, war, horror, sci-fi or space, etc. Oftentimes, action films are great box-office hits, but lack critical appeal because of their two-dimensional heroes and villains.
Minor Sub-Genres: Aviation films, buddy movies, capers, chase films, espionage, the 'fallen' woman, jungle movies, legal films, martial arts, medical, military, motorcycle movies, parodies, sport films, police films, political films, prison films, religious films, slasher films, swashbucklers, etc;
Non-Genre Film Categories: There are also many non-genre film categories that crossover many traditional genre film types, such as: Animated Films, British Films, Childrens/Kids/Family Films, Classic Films, Cult Films, Documentary Films, Serial Films, Sexual/Erotic Films.
Classical Genres are traditions that see a film in relation to a structural paradigm that transcends historical variations, that a genre film either successfully follows or not.
They include the following: settings (and props), stock characters (or characterizations, called stereotypes) and stars, content and subject matter, themes, period, plot, central narrative events, motifs, styles, structures, situations, recurring icons and cliches; e.g.
Weird green guys and flying saucers in Space Invasion movies.
Riding into the sunset, six-guns and ten gallon hats in Westerns.
Bad guys falling off rooftops, crooked cops and car chases in Detective movies.
Genre Categories: They can accommodate any film ever made, although film categories can never be precise. By isolating the elements in a film and categorizing them, it is possible to evaluate a film within its genre, allow for meaningful comparison and judgments on greatness. Films were not really subjected to genre analysis by film historians until the 1970s. All films have at least one major genre, although there are many films that are considered crossbreeds or HYBRIDS with three or four overlapping genre (or sub-genre) types that identify them.
The Auteur System can be contrasted to the genre system; auteur films are rated on the basis of the expression of one person, usually the director, because his/her indelible style, authoring vision or 'signature' dictates the personality, look, and feel of the film. Certain directors (and actors) are known for certain types of films; e.g. the Arthur Freed unit with musicals, Busby Berkeley for choreography, Woody Allen and comedy, Alfred Hitchcock for suspense, John Ford and John Wayne with westerns, or Errol Flynn for classic swashbuckler adventures.
The Main Film Genres: By the end of the silent era, many of the main genres were established: the melodrama, the western, horror films, comedies, and action-adventure (from swashbucklers to war movies). Musicals were inaugurated with the era of the Talkies, and the genre of science fiction wasn't generally popularized until the 1950s. One problem with genre films is that they can become stale, cliche-ridden, and over-imitated.
A traditional genre that has been reinterpreted, challenged, or subjected to scrutiny may be termed REVISIONIST.
The most common and identifiable film genre (Major ans Sub Categories) are:
• ACTION FILMS: Characterized by high energy, physical stunts and chases, with rescues, battles, fights, escapes, destructive crises, natural disasters, non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing, and adventurous, two-dimensional 'good-guy' heroes (or recently, heroines) battling 'bad guys' - all designed for audience escapism. Includes James Bond 'fantasy' spy/espionage, martial arts films, and so-called 'blaxploitation' films. A major sub-genre is the disaster film.
• ADVENTURE FILMS: Usually exciting stories with new experiences or exotic locales, very similar to or often paired with the action film genre. They can include traditional swashbucklers, serialized films, and historical spectacles (similar to the epics film genre), searches or expeditions for lost continents, 'jungle' and 'desert' epics, treasure hunts, disaster films, or searches for the unknown.
• MELODRAMA: A stylized form of drama and the basis of soap opera, characterized by closely related characters; sensational appeals to emotion, compressed time and happy endings. FAMILY MELODRAMAS elaborate on the restrictions of the protagonist by investigating the forces within the family.
• PHYSICAL MELODRAMAS focus on the physical conditions that control the protagonist’s emotions; are these simply a product of the character’s physicality or related to the places and people around them.
• SOCIAL MELODRAMAS extend the crisis of the family to include larger historical, community, and economic issues. In these films, the losses, sufferings, and frustrations of the protagonist are visible parts of a social or national politics.
• DRAMA FILMS: Serious and plot-driven, portraying realistic characters, settings, situations and stories involving intense character development and interaction. Not usually focused on special effects, comedy, or action, drama films are probably the largest film genre, with many subsets. See also the melodramas, epics (historical dramas), or romantic genres.
• BIOGRAPHICAL FILMS: (or 'bio-pics') are a major sub-genre, as are 'ADULT' films (with mature subject content).
• EPICS/HISTORICAL FILMS: Historical dramas, war films, medieval romps or 'period pictures' that can cover a great expanse of time, set against a vast, panoramic backdrop. Epics share elements of the adventure genre; an historical or imagined event, a legendary heroic figure, an extravagant setting and costumes, accompanied by grandeur and spectacle; otherwise, a lavish version of a biopic. 'Sword and sandal' films (and some Biblical epics) qualify as a sub-genre.
• ROMANCE FILMS: Love stories that center on passion, emotion, and the romantic involvement of the main characters, and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus. Lovers in screen romances (often romantic dramas) face obstacles and hazards of hardship; financial, physical, racial or social class status, occupation, psychological restraints, or family that threaten to break their union and attainment of love. As in all romantic relationships, tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into plots of romantic films.
• COMEDY FILMS: Light-hearted plots deliberately designed to amuse and provoke laughter (with one-liners, jokes, etc.) by exaggerating the situation, the language, action, relationships and characters. The main traits consist of central characters defined by distinctive physical features, and narratives that emphasize individual episodes more than plot continuity or progression and that usually conclude happily; and theatrical acting styles in which characters physically and playfully interact with the mise-en-scène that surrounds them. Taking various forms in cinema, including spoofs and parodies.
• BLACK COMEDY: Dark satirical comedy.
• ROMANTIC COMEDY: Concentrates on the emotional attraction of a couple in a light-hearted manner, drawing attention to a peculiar social predicament.
• SCREWBALL COMEDY: Emphasizes fast-talking verbal gymnastics, displacing the sexual energy into barbed verbal exchanges between men and women.
• SLAPSTICK: Emphasizes humorous stunts, physical actions, and gags.
• THRILLER & SUSPENSE: These promote intense excitement, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense genres are virtually interchangeable, with similar characteristics. A genuine thriller relentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience on the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax.
The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a potentially deadly situation.
• CRIME & GANGSTER FILMS: A diverse genre influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes with some overarching characteristics; characters are either criminals, individuals dedicated to crime detection, or individuals who live on the edge of a mysterious or violent society; plots of crime, increasing mystery and ambiguous resolution, in dark urban settings. Gangster films are typically (but not necessarily) set in the 1930s when underworld criminal societies thrived.
Developed around the sinister actions of underworld figures, particularly crime bosses, mobsters or ruthless hoodlums operating outside the law. The criminal activity in these films describes a social world continually threatened by the most brutal instincts of its outcasts.
• DETECTIVE & MYSTERY FILMS: A sub-type of crime/gangster films (or FILM NOIR), focusing on the unsolved crime (usually the murder or disappearance of characters, or a theft), and on the central character - a hard-boiled detective-hero who meets various challenges in the methodical pursuit of the solution to the crime.
Suspense is added as the protagonist struggles within the puzzle-like narrative to gather evidence and testimony, to investigate all motives, and to discover the one essential clue or fatal flaw/alibi that betrays the identity of the culprit. The detective often succeeds in trapping the criminal where law-and-order/police officials do not. Intensity, anxiety, and suspense build to a climax, often with the detective using violence to solve the crime.
• FILM NOIR: Meaning "black film" and describing Hollywood films of the 1940s set in the criminal underworld, much darker in mood and mise-en-scène than what had come before. With stylized lighting and cinematography, they were shot in black and white using nighttime urban settings. They feature morally ambiguous protagonists, corrupt institutions, dangerous women and convoluted plots. Hard-boiled detective films focus on a protagonist who represents the law or a more ambiguous version of it, such as a private investigator. Usually these individuals must battle a criminal element (and sometimes the police) to solve a mystery or personal obsession.
• NEO-NOIR: A term used to describe film noir-style movies made from the 1970s onward.
• HONG KONG NEW WAVE: Introduced sophisticated style, lucrative production methods, and a canny use of western elements to the low-budget Hong Kong kung-fu film genre of the 1970s.
• BLAXPLOITATION: Suggests the economic exploitation of black film audiences (and in particular the identification of an urban market likely to attend films about streetwise African-American protagonists), made possible in part by the black power movement in the early 1970s.
• ROAD MOVIES: Focuses on cars or motorcycles as the center of narratives about wandering or driven characters. Structurally, the narrative develops forward, usually along a linear path, as an odyssey for an undefined place or freedom. Encounters are episodic and disconnected, and traveling shots of open roads and countryside are the stylistic heart of the genre.
• HORROR FILMS: With origins in gothic literature, they seek to frighten the viewer through - supernatural or predator characters; narratives built on suspense, dread, and surprise; and visual compositions that anticipate and manipulate shocking sights. Invoking our hidden fears in a terrifying, shocking finale, captivating and entertaining us in a cathartic experience. Features a range of styles, from the silent classics to today's CGI monsters and deranged mutant humans.
• PHYSICAL HORROR: A sub-genre in which psychology takes second place to the depiction of graphic violence.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR: Locates the dangers that threaten normal life in the minds of bizarre and deranged individuals.
• SUPERNATURAL HORROR: A spiritual evil erupting into the human realm, to avenge a moral wrong or for no explainable reason. Horror is combined with science fiction when the menace is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. There are many minor sub-genres, defined by the main character or content; e.g. Dracula, Frankenstein, war, slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, swamp, etc.
• SCIENCE FICTION FILMS: Often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative - with heroes, distant planets, impossible quests, fantastic places, shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknowable forces and scary monsters, created by mad scientists, by nuclear havoc or from outer space. An offshoot of fantasy films, they share similarities with action/adventure films. They often express the potential of technology to destroy humankind, overlapping with horror, particularly when technology or alien life becomes malevolent, as in the 'Atomic Age' films of the 1950s.
Science Fiction has a prophetic nature (attempting to figure out or depict the future) and is often just another genre set in a future time. They commonly express society's anxiety about technology and how to control the impact of technological and environmental change on contemporary society, or the potential to destroy humankind through apocalyptic events, or through the loss of personal individuality. There are often encounters with beings (sometimes from our subconscious, sometimes from space or other dimensions) that are unearthed to fight an eternal struggle (good vs. evil), played out by recognizable archetypes. Many SF films feature fantastic journeys, set either on Earth, into outer space, or (most often) into the future.
• WAR (ANTI-WAR) FILMS: These acknowledge the courage, horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting on land, sea, or air provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film. Often paired with other genres, such as action, adventure, drama, romance, comedy (black), suspense, epics and westerns. They often take a denunciatory approach toward warfare, and they may include POW tales, stories of military operations, and training. Sections include: US Civil War, WW I, Spanish Civil War, WW II, Korean War, Vietnamese War, WW III.
• WESTERNS: Typically characterized by characters whose physical and mental toughness separate them from civilization; narratives that follow some version of a quest into the natural world; and a stylistic emphasis on open, natural spaces and settings. One of the oldest, most enduring genres with very recognizable elements (six-guns, horses, dusty towns and trails, cowboys, Indians, etc.). They are REVISIONIST; re-invented, expanded, and spoofed.
• EPIC WESTERNS: Concentrate on action and movement, developing a heroic character whose quests and battles serve to define history.
• SPAGHETTI WESTERNS: A hybrid genre, consisting of Italian films of the 1960s, personified by Sergio Leone.
• POLITICAL WESTERNS: More critical films, in which the ideology that always informed the genre are foregrounded; the heroism associated with individual independence and the use of violence naturalized in epic westerns become precisely that which is questioned.
• The EXISTENTIAL WESTERN: An introspective version of the genre, the traditional hero is troubled by his changing social status and his own self-doubts.
• MUSICALS (DANCE) FILMS: A diverse genre with characters who express their emotions and thoughts as songs; plots paused or moved forward by musical numbers; and spectacular settings. It emphasizes musical scores or song and dance routines (usually with music or dance integrated as part of the film narrative), or films that are centered on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography.
• REALISTIC MUSICALS: A type in which the idyllic and redemptive moments of song and dance are integrated into natural, everyday lives.
• ANIMATED MUSICAL: Consist of cartoon figures (sometimes blended with live action) and stories to present songs and music. Major sub-genres include the MUSICAL COMEDY or the concert film.
• DOCUMENTARY FILM: A non-fiction film that presents (presumably) real objects, people, and events. Expressive and persuasive positions are used in documentaries to articulate a perspective either as the expression of emotions, opinions, beliefs, or some other personal or social position or as an attempt to persuade an audience to believe or feel a certain way.
• POLITICAL DOCUMENTARY explores human suffering and struggle or celebrates the activities of common men and women with a balance of aesthetic objectivity and political purpose. NATURE and ETHNOGRAPHIC documentary reveal the natural world, its cultures and peoples in the most authentic terms possible, without imposing the filmmaker’s interpretation on that experience. REENACTMENTS present the recreation of presumably real events, but in a theatrical manner.
• CINÉMA VÉRITÉ means "cinema truth"; a style of documentary filmmaking first practiced by the French in the late 1950s and early 1960s that used unobtrusive lightweight cameras and sound equipment to capture a real-life situation; the parallel U.S. movement is called direct cinema.
• DIRECT CINEMA is a documentary style originating in the United States in the 1960s that aims to observe an unfolding situation as unobtrusively as possible. It is related to cinéma vérité.
• THIRD CINEMA refers to a group of films and filmmakers from a variety of Third World (and some European) countries with an agenda that rejects technical perfection in opposition to commercial traditions and embraces film as the voice of the people.
• LESBIAN AND GAY FILM THEORY: Among other things, they critique and supplement feminist approaches by pointing out that films allow for more flexible ways of seeing and experiencing visual pleasure than the binarisms (mutually exclusive opposites) of male vs. female, seeing vs. seen, and being vs. desiring.
FILM SUB-GENRES: A specialized, more limited version of a general genre, often by refining it with an adjective, such as the spaghetti western or slapstick comedy. These are identifiable sub-classes of genre, with their own distinctive subject matter, style, formulas, and iconography.
Many films straddle several film genres. Action films and Adventure films have tremendous crossover potential as film genres. Both types come in a variety of forms or hybrids: thrillers, crime-drama, war, horror, sci-fi or space, etc. Oftentimes, action films are great box-office hits, but lack critical appeal because of their two-dimensional heroes and villains.
Minor Sub-Genres: Aviation films, buddy movies, capers, chase films, espionage, the 'fallen' woman, jungle movies, legal films, martial arts, medical, military, motorcycle movies, parodies, sport films, police films, political films, prison films, religious films, slasher films, swashbucklers, etc;
Non-Genre Film Categories: There are also many non-genre film categories that crossover many traditional genre film types, such as: Animated Films, British Films, Childrens/Kids/Family Films, Classic Films, Cult Films, Documentary Films, Serial Films, Sexual/Erotic Films.
EXTENDED PLOTS & TIMELINES:
In regard to film structure, narrative and plot points work together to extend the timeline of the story. Standard 3 Act storylines can be developed into sequels and trilogies. George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) saga is an example of extended scriptwriting; the first three acts occur in the fourth film, according to the fictional chronology of the series.
The following two films fill in the middle parts, becoming the second trilogy. Then we move back in time to the first part, which has it’s own three-act structure and another two prequels. There is potential for a third trilogy, making nine films in all – this adds up to 27 'dramatic' acts.
The scope, or franchise potential, for all of this material is boundless.
Drawing a timeline or flowchart of character intersections in the Star Wars narrative barbell would take a lot of wall space. What about fifty years and eight James Bonds in over twenty 007 films?
In computer gaming, storylines are not restricted in any way - its ultimate expression is the 'sandbox' format of gameplay, where the user is embedded as a customized character within a real-time 3D environment (Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto, Mass Effect), ineracting with animals, experiencing day and night and changes in weather conditions. The user can literally sit and smell the flowers or shoot their way out of a bank.
May the Force be with you.
The following two films fill in the middle parts, becoming the second trilogy. Then we move back in time to the first part, which has it’s own three-act structure and another two prequels. There is potential for a third trilogy, making nine films in all – this adds up to 27 'dramatic' acts.
The scope, or franchise potential, for all of this material is boundless.
Drawing a timeline or flowchart of character intersections in the Star Wars narrative barbell would take a lot of wall space. What about fifty years and eight James Bonds in over twenty 007 films?
In computer gaming, storylines are not restricted in any way - its ultimate expression is the 'sandbox' format of gameplay, where the user is embedded as a customized character within a real-time 3D environment (Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto, Mass Effect), ineracting with animals, experiencing day and night and changes in weather conditions. The user can literally sit and smell the flowers or shoot their way out of a bank.
May the Force be with you.
THE 3 ACT HIT LIST:
Movie moguls, TV hacks and comic book gurus story-crunching methods:
• HAVE AN IDEA OF HOW MANY PAGES YOU’LL NEED to cover the duration of the entire story, usually timed at about one minute per page in script terms (using a double spaced, feature film format), with 90/120 pages equaling a 90/120 minute feature film. Use Courier font at 12 pt double space, and get a sample from somewhere, or download some software.
• START YOUR STORY WITH THE STATUS QUO, an example of your hero’s normal state.
• STORY STRUCTURE 1: Basically, the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' have a series of encounters that end indecisively until the forces of righteousness prevail. The form of what they’re fighting over (McGuffin) changes, but the conflict never does. The two antagonists punch it out until the nobler one wins. This PREMISE is the essence of what makes your story unique, or a cliché.
• STORY STRUCTURE 2: The three acts. Set up Act I with the HOOK, that special something that happens on the first page that makes us stay for the second page. Think of the pre-credit sequence in 007 movies, or in Star Wars when the battle cruiser chases the rebel vessel.
Hook 1: Open on action! Big and dramatic, preferably posing a question.
Hook 2: A question about what the user can’t see. A character opens a box – what’s inside?
Hook 3: Present danger! Some deadly threat is lying in wait for the happily unaware hero.
Hook 4: An image so striking the user must continue. You need an extraordinarily gifted artist.
Hook 5: At least have a character who is about to stand up or open a door.
• DON’T OPEN ON AN INANIMATE OBJECT, unless it’s about to do something. People are usually interested in other people, not things.
• START SCENES AS LATE AS POSSIBLE, just before we’re about to be intrigued. Forget about coming in off the street and climbing up the stairs, just kick down the door. The essence of drama, and especially melodrama, is compression. Show us only what’s important to the story.
• GRAB THE AUDIENCES ATTENTION AND GET THE STORY GOING AT THE SAME TIME, then always keep the story moving forward. Don’t write anything that doesn’t contribute to your story. Don’t peek in at your characters when they’re shaving, show them doing something important. If you really want to capture someone’s attention, work out what everybody would expect the hero to do, then do the opposite. Write around formula, cast against type, try to find that magical something.
“What the French call, a certain… I don’t know what.”
Doctor Evil, The Spy Who Shagged Me.
• By the end of the first act, you should have introduced the four major character groups; e.g.
The HERO/the supporting protagonists: Luke Skywalker, C3PO and R2D2.
The NEMESIS/a hierarchy of antagonists: Darth Vader, and by association the Emperor.
The ROMANCE: Princess Leia (part of R2D2’s secret message/McGuffin).
The MENTORS & PARTNERS: Obi Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Yoda, etc.
• STORIES ARE ABOUT CHANGE, an alteration in some ordinary state. Show the change to whatever situation provides the story’s conflicts. Luke’s life is changed by "the McGuffin".
• INTRODUCE THE McGUFFIN as early as possible. You’ll naturally do this to get your story going. Director Alfred Hitchcock contributed many amazing ideas to the art of visual storytelling, and intensively storyboarded all his scripts, based on photographs taken of actual locations. In his interview with Francoise Truffaut, Hitchcock explains two important elements of screenwriting:
THE McGUFFIN: Whatever the hero and villain are fighting over. As defined by Hitchcock, it is of vital importance to all of the main characters; the secret code, the treasure map, the glass slipper, but of little importance to the audience - its purpose is to galvanize the characters into action. The McGuffin should seem credible to avoid belittling the hero’s concern, unless you’re being purposefully funny. The Star Wars McGuffin: Princess Leia plants a secret message for the Rebel Alliance inside R2D2. She’s also a tantalizing romance for Luke and Han Solo.
THE TIME BOMB: Another Hitchcock idea; the audience is aware of crucial facts that the hero doesn’t know; e.g.
A couple talking in a bar, unaware a bomb is set to explode under their table. There is a clock on the wall. We anticipate the explosion, and long to warn them of the danger.
• Devise the INCITING INCIDENT, an event that causes the hero to react, providing the task or puzzle that galvanizes the hero into action. Upset the balance in your hero’s life; e.g. Luke finds the (McGuffin) message carried inside R2D2, but his Uncle won’t let him act upon it – when the evil Empire’s troops kill Luke’s family, he decides to join Obi Wan and become a Jedi. Big stuff!
• ACT II: Take the story in a new direction, make something unexpected happen. Complicate your hero’s life by adding an exhibition of their powers, adding other problems/obstacles. Obi Wan takes Luke to a spaceport to meet Han Solo; will Luke survive this strange encounter?
• SUSPENSE VERSUS SURPRISE : Suspense is a state of mental uncertainty and excitement; awaiting an outcome, accompanied by apprehension and anxiety. SURPRISE has little entertainment value – bang, it’s over. Hitchcock explained how SUSPENSE CAN keep an audience enthralled for hours, and how it's almost the opposite of surprise.
The Star Wars alien bar scene is filled with suspense; shadows, strange languages and hidden threats, climaxing in an exhibition of Obi Wan’s expertise with a light saber (severing his opponent's hand, a foreshadowing device), and Han Solo's exchange with an alien mercenary (Luke's partners both prove themselves worthy in this scene). Will they get away from the approaching storm troopers?
After the Millennium Falcon blasts the hero into space in the middle of the Act II, Obi Wan begins to teach Luke about the Force. Obi feels the terrible power of the Death Star as it destroys a planet and we experience RISING TENSION through his pain, due to the acting of Alec Guinness. The heroes rally themselves, Luke and Han fighting off an attack by Darth Vader’s forces. THE BATTLE IS ON; Will Chewbacca fix the machine and make the jump to hyperspace in time?
IT’S A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK, OR A... tick tick tick
TIME BOMB! Relay audience suspense by:
• We know the hero will survive, but will the lesser characters live through it?
• How will the hero accomplish something extremely difficult? We know he’ll escape, but how?
• We know Detective Columbo will best the villain, but the bad guy's so clever, how will he do it?
• Add more perils to overcome, let your hero fail occasionally. Heroic failure is great drama.
• Use RISING ACTION: Make each scene in the plot more intense; each action bigger, each obstacle more complex or dangerous. Then provide a CATHARSIS - a relief, usually sudden, from the tension you’ve created. This RISING TENSION ensures that you won’t bore anybody.
• DEVISE MORE SITUATIONS AND CONFLICTS, and answer some questions. Where are we, what are we doing, who’s the good guy fighting, what’s at stake? What is the conflict/McGuffin all about?
• GET THE HERO INTO TROUBLE. Put them out on a limb and start sawing it off. Luke, Obi and Han go aboard the Death Star to rescue Princess Leia – remember the Garbage Compactor scene. Then Obi Wan is killed by Darth Vader as Luke and the others escape to fight another day.
ACT III: The race to the finish, the hero overcomes more threats and obstacles. Adhere to the principle of RISING ACTION and you’ll naturally reach a final moment of confrontation, or CLIMAX.
• Another trick of rising action, especially in Act III – is the FINAL COUNTDOWN; e.g. the story of the first Star Wars film is about two robots taking a secret message to the Rebel Alliance. The message eventually reaches the right hands, allowing the Rebels to mount an attack on the Empire. As the Rebels attack, the Death Star is preparing to destroy another planet, but the giant weapon must wait until it’s target clears the orbit of a circling moon.
Will Luke drop a bomb down the rat-hole before the bad guys blow up the planet? This is a classic TIME BOMB situation.
• AT THE LAST MOMENT, add another action scene or some plot development, preferably both, highlighting the fact that the hero can’t possibly win. Luke loses confidence after battling Darth Vader in space, but Obi Wan speaks from the grave to urge his disciple to “Use the force Luke!”
• RESOLUTION AND DENOUEMENT: A kind of post-script, easing the viewer out of your world.
• DELIVER A SENSE OF COMPLETION, even if there are many episodes to come.
• ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS. Never leave them wondering how or why something happened.
• DON’T TWIST YOUR STORY OUT OF SHAPE to meet the requirements of a formula outline like this.
• KNOW WHAT THE END OF THE STORY IS BEFORE YOU WRITE THE START. It’s a good idea to know what you’re working towards. Sometimes you can even work backwards, letting the story structure emerge organically from the incidents that are needed to arrive at your big finish. This way writing has a job to do, and the story is always guaranteed to be going somewhere.
An exponent of this was the choreographer Ballanchine, who would establish the tempo of a dance by listening carefully to the music, finding the final climax of the piece first. He'd give his dancers directions for the pose they must strike at that climax, and then he worked backward, finding the second last climax and indicating his dancers’ pose for that, and so on until he had reached the start. He would then choreograph the piece, joining all the dots to the end.
“We always tried to get a good, interesting, climactic situation and then find a reason for that situation. It was a good way of making stories… to find a big, climactic gag… a very interesting situation – then build everything up to that point.”
Carl Barks,
creator of the Disney character Scrooge McDuck
• HAVE AN IDEA OF HOW MANY PAGES YOU’LL NEED to cover the duration of the entire story, usually timed at about one minute per page in script terms (using a double spaced, feature film format), with 90/120 pages equaling a 90/120 minute feature film. Use Courier font at 12 pt double space, and get a sample from somewhere, or download some software.
• START YOUR STORY WITH THE STATUS QUO, an example of your hero’s normal state.
• STORY STRUCTURE 1: Basically, the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' have a series of encounters that end indecisively until the forces of righteousness prevail. The form of what they’re fighting over (McGuffin) changes, but the conflict never does. The two antagonists punch it out until the nobler one wins. This PREMISE is the essence of what makes your story unique, or a cliché.
• STORY STRUCTURE 2: The three acts. Set up Act I with the HOOK, that special something that happens on the first page that makes us stay for the second page. Think of the pre-credit sequence in 007 movies, or in Star Wars when the battle cruiser chases the rebel vessel.
Hook 1: Open on action! Big and dramatic, preferably posing a question.
Hook 2: A question about what the user can’t see. A character opens a box – what’s inside?
Hook 3: Present danger! Some deadly threat is lying in wait for the happily unaware hero.
Hook 4: An image so striking the user must continue. You need an extraordinarily gifted artist.
Hook 5: At least have a character who is about to stand up or open a door.
• DON’T OPEN ON AN INANIMATE OBJECT, unless it’s about to do something. People are usually interested in other people, not things.
• START SCENES AS LATE AS POSSIBLE, just before we’re about to be intrigued. Forget about coming in off the street and climbing up the stairs, just kick down the door. The essence of drama, and especially melodrama, is compression. Show us only what’s important to the story.
• GRAB THE AUDIENCES ATTENTION AND GET THE STORY GOING AT THE SAME TIME, then always keep the story moving forward. Don’t write anything that doesn’t contribute to your story. Don’t peek in at your characters when they’re shaving, show them doing something important. If you really want to capture someone’s attention, work out what everybody would expect the hero to do, then do the opposite. Write around formula, cast against type, try to find that magical something.
“What the French call, a certain… I don’t know what.”
Doctor Evil, The Spy Who Shagged Me.
• By the end of the first act, you should have introduced the four major character groups; e.g.
The HERO/the supporting protagonists: Luke Skywalker, C3PO and R2D2.
The NEMESIS/a hierarchy of antagonists: Darth Vader, and by association the Emperor.
The ROMANCE: Princess Leia (part of R2D2’s secret message/McGuffin).
The MENTORS & PARTNERS: Obi Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Yoda, etc.
• STORIES ARE ABOUT CHANGE, an alteration in some ordinary state. Show the change to whatever situation provides the story’s conflicts. Luke’s life is changed by "the McGuffin".
• INTRODUCE THE McGUFFIN as early as possible. You’ll naturally do this to get your story going. Director Alfred Hitchcock contributed many amazing ideas to the art of visual storytelling, and intensively storyboarded all his scripts, based on photographs taken of actual locations. In his interview with Francoise Truffaut, Hitchcock explains two important elements of screenwriting:
THE McGUFFIN: Whatever the hero and villain are fighting over. As defined by Hitchcock, it is of vital importance to all of the main characters; the secret code, the treasure map, the glass slipper, but of little importance to the audience - its purpose is to galvanize the characters into action. The McGuffin should seem credible to avoid belittling the hero’s concern, unless you’re being purposefully funny. The Star Wars McGuffin: Princess Leia plants a secret message for the Rebel Alliance inside R2D2. She’s also a tantalizing romance for Luke and Han Solo.
THE TIME BOMB: Another Hitchcock idea; the audience is aware of crucial facts that the hero doesn’t know; e.g.
A couple talking in a bar, unaware a bomb is set to explode under their table. There is a clock on the wall. We anticipate the explosion, and long to warn them of the danger.
• Devise the INCITING INCIDENT, an event that causes the hero to react, providing the task or puzzle that galvanizes the hero into action. Upset the balance in your hero’s life; e.g. Luke finds the (McGuffin) message carried inside R2D2, but his Uncle won’t let him act upon it – when the evil Empire’s troops kill Luke’s family, he decides to join Obi Wan and become a Jedi. Big stuff!
• ACT II: Take the story in a new direction, make something unexpected happen. Complicate your hero’s life by adding an exhibition of their powers, adding other problems/obstacles. Obi Wan takes Luke to a spaceport to meet Han Solo; will Luke survive this strange encounter?
• SUSPENSE VERSUS SURPRISE : Suspense is a state of mental uncertainty and excitement; awaiting an outcome, accompanied by apprehension and anxiety. SURPRISE has little entertainment value – bang, it’s over. Hitchcock explained how SUSPENSE CAN keep an audience enthralled for hours, and how it's almost the opposite of surprise.
The Star Wars alien bar scene is filled with suspense; shadows, strange languages and hidden threats, climaxing in an exhibition of Obi Wan’s expertise with a light saber (severing his opponent's hand, a foreshadowing device), and Han Solo's exchange with an alien mercenary (Luke's partners both prove themselves worthy in this scene). Will they get away from the approaching storm troopers?
After the Millennium Falcon blasts the hero into space in the middle of the Act II, Obi Wan begins to teach Luke about the Force. Obi feels the terrible power of the Death Star as it destroys a planet and we experience RISING TENSION through his pain, due to the acting of Alec Guinness. The heroes rally themselves, Luke and Han fighting off an attack by Darth Vader’s forces. THE BATTLE IS ON; Will Chewbacca fix the machine and make the jump to hyperspace in time?
IT’S A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK, OR A... tick tick tick
TIME BOMB! Relay audience suspense by:
• We know the hero will survive, but will the lesser characters live through it?
• How will the hero accomplish something extremely difficult? We know he’ll escape, but how?
• We know Detective Columbo will best the villain, but the bad guy's so clever, how will he do it?
• Add more perils to overcome, let your hero fail occasionally. Heroic failure is great drama.
• Use RISING ACTION: Make each scene in the plot more intense; each action bigger, each obstacle more complex or dangerous. Then provide a CATHARSIS - a relief, usually sudden, from the tension you’ve created. This RISING TENSION ensures that you won’t bore anybody.
• DEVISE MORE SITUATIONS AND CONFLICTS, and answer some questions. Where are we, what are we doing, who’s the good guy fighting, what’s at stake? What is the conflict/McGuffin all about?
• GET THE HERO INTO TROUBLE. Put them out on a limb and start sawing it off. Luke, Obi and Han go aboard the Death Star to rescue Princess Leia – remember the Garbage Compactor scene. Then Obi Wan is killed by Darth Vader as Luke and the others escape to fight another day.
ACT III: The race to the finish, the hero overcomes more threats and obstacles. Adhere to the principle of RISING ACTION and you’ll naturally reach a final moment of confrontation, or CLIMAX.
• Another trick of rising action, especially in Act III – is the FINAL COUNTDOWN; e.g. the story of the first Star Wars film is about two robots taking a secret message to the Rebel Alliance. The message eventually reaches the right hands, allowing the Rebels to mount an attack on the Empire. As the Rebels attack, the Death Star is preparing to destroy another planet, but the giant weapon must wait until it’s target clears the orbit of a circling moon.
Will Luke drop a bomb down the rat-hole before the bad guys blow up the planet? This is a classic TIME BOMB situation.
• AT THE LAST MOMENT, add another action scene or some plot development, preferably both, highlighting the fact that the hero can’t possibly win. Luke loses confidence after battling Darth Vader in space, but Obi Wan speaks from the grave to urge his disciple to “Use the force Luke!”
• RESOLUTION AND DENOUEMENT: A kind of post-script, easing the viewer out of your world.
• DELIVER A SENSE OF COMPLETION, even if there are many episodes to come.
• ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS. Never leave them wondering how or why something happened.
• DON’T TWIST YOUR STORY OUT OF SHAPE to meet the requirements of a formula outline like this.
• KNOW WHAT THE END OF THE STORY IS BEFORE YOU WRITE THE START. It’s a good idea to know what you’re working towards. Sometimes you can even work backwards, letting the story structure emerge organically from the incidents that are needed to arrive at your big finish. This way writing has a job to do, and the story is always guaranteed to be going somewhere.
An exponent of this was the choreographer Ballanchine, who would establish the tempo of a dance by listening carefully to the music, finding the final climax of the piece first. He'd give his dancers directions for the pose they must strike at that climax, and then he worked backward, finding the second last climax and indicating his dancers’ pose for that, and so on until he had reached the start. He would then choreograph the piece, joining all the dots to the end.
“We always tried to get a good, interesting, climactic situation and then find a reason for that situation. It was a good way of making stories… to find a big, climactic gag… a very interesting situation – then build everything up to that point.”
Carl Barks,
creator of the Disney character Scrooge McDuck
INTERACTIVITY:
NATURE/GENETICS VERSUS CULTURE/SOCIETY - These opposites can be seen as the balance of linear and lateral. Human biology, astrophysics, mathematics and art are slowly joining in a greater understanding of the universal balance of opposites. Outside and inside, emotional and physical; bedrooms, black holes and the boundaries in between.
Physically we are all made of stardust that was generated at the beginning of the universe during the Big Bang. The particle reaction that happens inside your stomach when you’re digesting food is the same as what happens on the surface of the sun. We are what we eat.
Quantum Physics suggests that multiple timelines and multiple realities exist. Theoretically, it is impossible to be a silent, objective witness, since to observe an object we inevitably cause an effect upon it. Change is everywhere, nothing is fixed; whatever you may think, Isaac Newton's clockwork, linear universe has been exploded by lateral Quantum Theory.
We are more than the sum of our parts. Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry are where Physics meets Philosophy – where the Permanent/Ephemeral equals Matter/Time.
Physically we are all made of stardust that was generated at the beginning of the universe during the Big Bang. The particle reaction that happens inside your stomach when you’re digesting food is the same as what happens on the surface of the sun. We are what we eat.
Quantum Physics suggests that multiple timelines and multiple realities exist. Theoretically, it is impossible to be a silent, objective witness, since to observe an object we inevitably cause an effect upon it. Change is everywhere, nothing is fixed; whatever you may think, Isaac Newton's clockwork, linear universe has been exploded by lateral Quantum Theory.
We are more than the sum of our parts. Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry are where Physics meets Philosophy – where the Permanent/Ephemeral equals Matter/Time.
LATERAL/LINEAR MIND & BALANCE:
“Improvement makes straight roads. Crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.”
William Blake
In the 1960’s Edward De Bono proposed the theory of LATERAL & LINEAR THINKING, describing several brainstorming techniques like CLUSTERING that allow the writer to develop new methods of imagining. Since then scientists have proven that the Corpus Callosum is the connecting point between both sides of the brain, and that these separate parts do operate quite differently upon our behaviour and expression.
LINEAR LEFT-BRAIN/The Sign Mind: Cumulative change. Logical, structural instinct, learnt knowledge, technique; socially conditioned worldview, methodical, rigid, wants yes/no answers. Objective thought, pulls toward cliché is poor at writing emotion but good at keeping it real, a sense of every day life. It defines the task at hand; identifying patterns, genres, stereotypes. Helps monitor the originality of lateral ideas; analyzing elements for the purpose of mimicry, good for 'keeping ideas REAL', checking for credibility gaps, schmaltz or anything over the top.
LATERAL RIGHT-BRAIN/The Design Mind: Catalytic change. Illogical, intuitive, inspirational, originality, energy, receptive to new ideas; idiosyncratic worldview, creative, random, reacts to stimulus. Subjective thought that hates cliché, is good at writing about emotions but pulls toward over-emotionalism and melodrama, has an instinct for myth and archetypes. It is good for generating lots of UNUSUAL ideas that are outside normal patterns and genres. It keeps us fresh in the way we think about emotional interaction.
There are many examples of LATERAL THOUGHT causing a quantum leap in human expression. The writers Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe (circa 1830) probably suffered from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, a toxic gas used for illuminating lamps. Chronic CO poisoning would explain Poe's low tolerance for alcohol, recurring chronic fatigue, blackouts, alleged impotence, and hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation of all kinds: sounds, lights, odors, tastes and touch.
Modern authors J.G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany and J.M.G. LeClézio also employ revolutionary tactics, unshackling their writing from authority, embracing madness as information, making it part of our own experience as we read their work. The legendary guitarist B.B. King learned to play by strumming a piece of wire he’d nailed to the verandah post of his home.
"What I want to do is make you see…"
David Wark Griffin
William Blake
In the 1960’s Edward De Bono proposed the theory of LATERAL & LINEAR THINKING, describing several brainstorming techniques like CLUSTERING that allow the writer to develop new methods of imagining. Since then scientists have proven that the Corpus Callosum is the connecting point between both sides of the brain, and that these separate parts do operate quite differently upon our behaviour and expression.
LINEAR LEFT-BRAIN/The Sign Mind: Cumulative change. Logical, structural instinct, learnt knowledge, technique; socially conditioned worldview, methodical, rigid, wants yes/no answers. Objective thought, pulls toward cliché is poor at writing emotion but good at keeping it real, a sense of every day life. It defines the task at hand; identifying patterns, genres, stereotypes. Helps monitor the originality of lateral ideas; analyzing elements for the purpose of mimicry, good for 'keeping ideas REAL', checking for credibility gaps, schmaltz or anything over the top.
LATERAL RIGHT-BRAIN/The Design Mind: Catalytic change. Illogical, intuitive, inspirational, originality, energy, receptive to new ideas; idiosyncratic worldview, creative, random, reacts to stimulus. Subjective thought that hates cliché, is good at writing about emotions but pulls toward over-emotionalism and melodrama, has an instinct for myth and archetypes. It is good for generating lots of UNUSUAL ideas that are outside normal patterns and genres. It keeps us fresh in the way we think about emotional interaction.
There are many examples of LATERAL THOUGHT causing a quantum leap in human expression. The writers Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe (circa 1830) probably suffered from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, a toxic gas used for illuminating lamps. Chronic CO poisoning would explain Poe's low tolerance for alcohol, recurring chronic fatigue, blackouts, alleged impotence, and hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation of all kinds: sounds, lights, odors, tastes and touch.
Modern authors J.G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany and J.M.G. LeClézio also employ revolutionary tactics, unshackling their writing from authority, embracing madness as information, making it part of our own experience as we read their work. The legendary guitarist B.B. King learned to play by strumming a piece of wire he’d nailed to the verandah post of his home.
"What I want to do is make you see…"
David Wark Griffin
THE EXPERIENCE OF WRITING & STORYBOARDING:
Good writing should offer more than documentary authenticity or casual honesty. It should perform a function once the trust of religion, that of reconciling us to our experience of life, whether social, domestic or tragic. Through vision, heart, style and wit, art can redeem the experience it presents, rather than idly documenting the discontents of others and adding them to our own.
We should disregard the idea of a writer as a suffering artist, since scriptwriting of all kinds, far from being hard work, can be seen as a form of creative, insightful play.
“At some point films have to stop being films, being stories, and have to begin to come alive, so that people will ask themselves: What about me and my life?”
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, film-maker
There are many books describing the 'rules' of screenwriting, and although these can be useful at times, they can also limit a writer's ability to imagine spontaneously. Writing for interactivity is not like writing prose in a novel, but it is similar to writing scripts for comic books or film screenplays. Also, an interactive art form or genre doesn’t necessarily need a formal beginning, middle and an end - but it should definitely deliver an emotional high, a middle and a low.
The creation of accurately motivated characters is probably the most important contribution a writer can make to any script. Story and character development are intellectual activities, while the creation of good dialogue is usually a function of the ear, not of the brain.
Novels are born in silence; they develop and mature in silence. Scripts are usually talked into being, and the writers and artists must consider the input of many other creative people who contribute through discussion.
The script itself is secondarily a written thing; an elaborate notation, a codified description for other creative people to use as a guide. The words the writer puts on paper are not usually going to be read or photographed. They are structures of words that will ultimately be converted by designers, filmmakers and programmers into sounds, images and actions.
The script is undoubtedly an aesthetic creation, a form of dramatic memory with two basic functions; budgetary and psychological. It allows the producer to plan costs and gives the production team an action plan they can feel confident about. Once the team has taken on a job, the internal logic of the characters within the story can get lost in the mix very rapidly.
In which case, it is the original writer's talent and stubbornness that the team will need to get them through the fog of production, retaining meaning in the story and the integrity of the characters.
In most cases, a first draft script will represent not much more than an abstract treatment of the concept’s potential. The characters should be sufficiently developed and the story dramatic enough to attract credible investors and an excellent creative team.
During redrafting, writers will find themselves involved in an alternating sequence of reductions, expansions and revisions. Everything scripted can be completely changed once production begins; e.g. settings need to be altered, or two characters may have to be condensed into one. During the revision stages, clear-headedness and objectivity are prime virtues for the writers and artists.
Scriptwriters and storyboard artists can be certain of one thing; what they are developing will probably have to be redone once all the other collaborators apply themselves to the material. One of the most serious mistakes writers and artists make is to assume that a producer or director know what they are doing when they select a writer/artist for a particular job.
For most projects there is no ideal person and no foolproof method of selection. The 'rightness' of a person for any given project will hinge not on their rapport with the material, but upon their relationship with the other members of the creative team.
The challenge for the writer/artist is not only to understand the dramatic possibilities of the material, but also how the gifts and interests of team members relate to these possibilities. Students of film apply the French term 'auteur' to directors who so control every aspect of their films that they deserve to be regarded as sole authors.
The writer Harlan Ellison regards the auteur theory as 'corrupt', while Francis Ford Coppola emphasizes the crucial contribution of the screenwriter. Very few films or interactive games are the brainchild of one person, but rather the product of collaboration between a multitude of people using a variety of expensive equipment.
However, the majority of classic films, and games like Myst, Final Fantasy, Quake, and Septerra Core, have been guided by one visionary person – a person driven by the need to tell a story, who is able to inspire others to create a fully realised world into which the audience can escape.
In the development of interactive games, writers get it on paper; programmers make it work, artists make it pretty, designers make it fun and producers make it happen. The collaboration between producer and writer should begin and end with the money, but the collaboration between writers and other members of the creative team only begins with the money.
While money is a perfectly legitimate kick-off for taking on a project, the fascination for a writer/artist is that of collaborating with a range of creative intelligences of a very different sort.
What's needed in this work is imagination, an agile mind, and a facility for on the spot invention; also, tolerance, a sense of humour and a willingness to compromise. Literary genius or an auteur attitude, if you have them, can be problematic and should be left at home. What the producer really needs in a writer/artist is not just a passive interpreter, for there may be no original vision to interpret - but a creative reader of opportunities, (and sometimes an opponent). Someone who will scrutinize hunches and intuitions closely and objectively, looking for whatever unrecognized lines of development they may contain.
We apprehend physical reality, as we do art, film and multimedia, through the interrelationships of light, space, movement, time and sound - but it's absurd to conclude that these mediums are only concerned with the representation of physical reality. The dimensions of art are not the dimensions of 'the real world', but are created by artists and made articulate by them.
Once a project is distributed to the public it would seem to be complete, but the creative process hasn't ended, for the work of art is not the object but the experience of the viewer. Viewing too, is an act of creation, in which the audience's perceptions, experiences and sensibilities give unique meaning to the work.
In Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, by Alain Resnais), the character Nevers says:
"I believe the art of seeing has to be learned."
And learning, like creation, never ends.
The screen may change but the scribe must still write and draw. When you receive a job brief, write and sketch some pages and get your own first reactions down first before you enter meetings with the client and other collaborators. Apply your imagination and ask questions about the sensations to be offered to the audience. When working with a development team, like any collaboration, the test of the group is how well its members work together.
Project development can be an exponential activity, providing the means to communicate ideas to a client, a cinema audience, one on one with a single interactive user, or between groups of people online, in a wide variety of traditional media, all at once or individually. Each media has a history and language of its own, the aim being to communicate an idea to an audience.
By overlapping images and sounds we can display many levels of understanding simultaneously, engaging them in a real-time experience.
It is possible for a skilled interactive designer to start work directly in the digital realm, relying on creative instinct rather than careful planning. With a well-equipped studio, the designer can sample voices and sounds, switch to other software to edit video, create gaming activities or 3D characters, then while rendering switch again to compose music.
All of this flexibility is great and can work well in an organic free-form context, producing outstanding if sometimes unpredictable results. On a commercial job it is doubtful that a client will finance the work until some kind of preliminary design or plan of action has been submitted for approval.
Does time fly when you’re having fun? Writers and artists must always be thinking about how the audience or the user will experience their creation. Write every idea down straight away; an idea is useless if it isn’t written down.
“Opposition is true friendship.”
William Blake
We should disregard the idea of a writer as a suffering artist, since scriptwriting of all kinds, far from being hard work, can be seen as a form of creative, insightful play.
“At some point films have to stop being films, being stories, and have to begin to come alive, so that people will ask themselves: What about me and my life?”
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, film-maker
There are many books describing the 'rules' of screenwriting, and although these can be useful at times, they can also limit a writer's ability to imagine spontaneously. Writing for interactivity is not like writing prose in a novel, but it is similar to writing scripts for comic books or film screenplays. Also, an interactive art form or genre doesn’t necessarily need a formal beginning, middle and an end - but it should definitely deliver an emotional high, a middle and a low.
The creation of accurately motivated characters is probably the most important contribution a writer can make to any script. Story and character development are intellectual activities, while the creation of good dialogue is usually a function of the ear, not of the brain.
Novels are born in silence; they develop and mature in silence. Scripts are usually talked into being, and the writers and artists must consider the input of many other creative people who contribute through discussion.
The script itself is secondarily a written thing; an elaborate notation, a codified description for other creative people to use as a guide. The words the writer puts on paper are not usually going to be read or photographed. They are structures of words that will ultimately be converted by designers, filmmakers and programmers into sounds, images and actions.
The script is undoubtedly an aesthetic creation, a form of dramatic memory with two basic functions; budgetary and psychological. It allows the producer to plan costs and gives the production team an action plan they can feel confident about. Once the team has taken on a job, the internal logic of the characters within the story can get lost in the mix very rapidly.
In which case, it is the original writer's talent and stubbornness that the team will need to get them through the fog of production, retaining meaning in the story and the integrity of the characters.
In most cases, a first draft script will represent not much more than an abstract treatment of the concept’s potential. The characters should be sufficiently developed and the story dramatic enough to attract credible investors and an excellent creative team.
During redrafting, writers will find themselves involved in an alternating sequence of reductions, expansions and revisions. Everything scripted can be completely changed once production begins; e.g. settings need to be altered, or two characters may have to be condensed into one. During the revision stages, clear-headedness and objectivity are prime virtues for the writers and artists.
Scriptwriters and storyboard artists can be certain of one thing; what they are developing will probably have to be redone once all the other collaborators apply themselves to the material. One of the most serious mistakes writers and artists make is to assume that a producer or director know what they are doing when they select a writer/artist for a particular job.
For most projects there is no ideal person and no foolproof method of selection. The 'rightness' of a person for any given project will hinge not on their rapport with the material, but upon their relationship with the other members of the creative team.
The challenge for the writer/artist is not only to understand the dramatic possibilities of the material, but also how the gifts and interests of team members relate to these possibilities. Students of film apply the French term 'auteur' to directors who so control every aspect of their films that they deserve to be regarded as sole authors.
The writer Harlan Ellison regards the auteur theory as 'corrupt', while Francis Ford Coppola emphasizes the crucial contribution of the screenwriter. Very few films or interactive games are the brainchild of one person, but rather the product of collaboration between a multitude of people using a variety of expensive equipment.
However, the majority of classic films, and games like Myst, Final Fantasy, Quake, and Septerra Core, have been guided by one visionary person – a person driven by the need to tell a story, who is able to inspire others to create a fully realised world into which the audience can escape.
In the development of interactive games, writers get it on paper; programmers make it work, artists make it pretty, designers make it fun and producers make it happen. The collaboration between producer and writer should begin and end with the money, but the collaboration between writers and other members of the creative team only begins with the money.
While money is a perfectly legitimate kick-off for taking on a project, the fascination for a writer/artist is that of collaborating with a range of creative intelligences of a very different sort.
What's needed in this work is imagination, an agile mind, and a facility for on the spot invention; also, tolerance, a sense of humour and a willingness to compromise. Literary genius or an auteur attitude, if you have them, can be problematic and should be left at home. What the producer really needs in a writer/artist is not just a passive interpreter, for there may be no original vision to interpret - but a creative reader of opportunities, (and sometimes an opponent). Someone who will scrutinize hunches and intuitions closely and objectively, looking for whatever unrecognized lines of development they may contain.
We apprehend physical reality, as we do art, film and multimedia, through the interrelationships of light, space, movement, time and sound - but it's absurd to conclude that these mediums are only concerned with the representation of physical reality. The dimensions of art are not the dimensions of 'the real world', but are created by artists and made articulate by them.
Once a project is distributed to the public it would seem to be complete, but the creative process hasn't ended, for the work of art is not the object but the experience of the viewer. Viewing too, is an act of creation, in which the audience's perceptions, experiences and sensibilities give unique meaning to the work.
In Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, by Alain Resnais), the character Nevers says:
"I believe the art of seeing has to be learned."
And learning, like creation, never ends.
The screen may change but the scribe must still write and draw. When you receive a job brief, write and sketch some pages and get your own first reactions down first before you enter meetings with the client and other collaborators. Apply your imagination and ask questions about the sensations to be offered to the audience. When working with a development team, like any collaboration, the test of the group is how well its members work together.
Project development can be an exponential activity, providing the means to communicate ideas to a client, a cinema audience, one on one with a single interactive user, or between groups of people online, in a wide variety of traditional media, all at once or individually. Each media has a history and language of its own, the aim being to communicate an idea to an audience.
By overlapping images and sounds we can display many levels of understanding simultaneously, engaging them in a real-time experience.
It is possible for a skilled interactive designer to start work directly in the digital realm, relying on creative instinct rather than careful planning. With a well-equipped studio, the designer can sample voices and sounds, switch to other software to edit video, create gaming activities or 3D characters, then while rendering switch again to compose music.
All of this flexibility is great and can work well in an organic free-form context, producing outstanding if sometimes unpredictable results. On a commercial job it is doubtful that a client will finance the work until some kind of preliminary design or plan of action has been submitted for approval.
Does time fly when you’re having fun? Writers and artists must always be thinking about how the audience or the user will experience their creation. Write every idea down straight away; an idea is useless if it isn’t written down.
“Opposition is true friendship.”
William Blake
COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGERY:
What is it really good for, besides creating what is 'unreal' in epic fantasy films? What about testing the long-term durability of architecture before construction begins, or rebuilding missing bone tissue to repair the skull of an accident victim?
The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) are believable because they have been skillfully incorporated into the realistic context of the film. If the context is real, then so are the dinosaurs. The flat 'characters' that once inhabited interactive games have become 3D renderings of people and monsters, moving through realistic rooms/landscapes, with shadows and lens flare.
Many people play computer games, or use interactive software like PhotoShop or Lightwave. How many users have experienced the sensation of having 'crossed-over' into a zone of fluent response with their computer? There’s an ambiguous point of amalgamation in interactivity when the user begins to respond in real time with the software, experiencing an actual sense of physical and mental cohesion with the machine.
In 3D games in which the first-person “I” player/author can switch identities during the game, most regular players will prefer and identify with only one of the characters. A relationship develops between characters and the audience, drawing them into the story. Make your heroes more human and they will have more impact, as they will be perceived as being more 'real'.
The creator of role-playing game Septerra Core, Brian Babendererde, argued with the publishers Viacom that the main character Maya, who dies at the end of the game, shouldn’t be brought back from the dead for a sequel; “It’s epic, it’s drama, it’s reality. People don’t live forever like iconic characters. People die in real life”.
Because interactivity can draw on so many different media, 'scriptwriting' for multimedia involves planning procedures with no specific, formal doctrine of practice, adding totally new dimensions to the composition process. Since the range of content is potentially infinite, clearly guiding the user through the multimedia is the primary challenge for the writers and artists.
Presenting information as a replacement for a real experience is a very delicate artificial construct, but people need choices and the rewards of information freedom are worthwhile and much needed. The potential is infinite; try to understand what’s possible within a budget, without preconceptions of purpose.
SIMPLICITY is key - find out how much the client can spend, then decide on the top priorities that need to be completed first.
In producing an interface an adaptable multimedia writer or designer can be involved variously:
• Contributing to the Design Documents
• Inventing Design Strategy
• Expanding the Scope of a Project
• Developing Marketing Ideas
• Development of Electronic Promo Kits
• Researching Educational References
• R & D of Navigation Principles
• Designing for ”User-Friendliness”
• Technical Manuals for Service Providers
• Product Testing of Target Audiences
• Product Image and other considerations
• Production of © Materials/Legal issues
With a new delight we can use all those ancient languages and all that knowledge to further inform what we need to communicate interactively. We can write words, sample texts, make music, create links, draw maps, play games, photograph life, record reality in every form, build web-sites for every country, acquire knowledge and project any idea at any time, globally.
In the context of interactive multimedia, CONTENT IS ACTIVITY, not just information delivery.
The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) are believable because they have been skillfully incorporated into the realistic context of the film. If the context is real, then so are the dinosaurs. The flat 'characters' that once inhabited interactive games have become 3D renderings of people and monsters, moving through realistic rooms/landscapes, with shadows and lens flare.
Many people play computer games, or use interactive software like PhotoShop or Lightwave. How many users have experienced the sensation of having 'crossed-over' into a zone of fluent response with their computer? There’s an ambiguous point of amalgamation in interactivity when the user begins to respond in real time with the software, experiencing an actual sense of physical and mental cohesion with the machine.
In 3D games in which the first-person “I” player/author can switch identities during the game, most regular players will prefer and identify with only one of the characters. A relationship develops between characters and the audience, drawing them into the story. Make your heroes more human and they will have more impact, as they will be perceived as being more 'real'.
The creator of role-playing game Septerra Core, Brian Babendererde, argued with the publishers Viacom that the main character Maya, who dies at the end of the game, shouldn’t be brought back from the dead for a sequel; “It’s epic, it’s drama, it’s reality. People don’t live forever like iconic characters. People die in real life”.
Because interactivity can draw on so many different media, 'scriptwriting' for multimedia involves planning procedures with no specific, formal doctrine of practice, adding totally new dimensions to the composition process. Since the range of content is potentially infinite, clearly guiding the user through the multimedia is the primary challenge for the writers and artists.
Presenting information as a replacement for a real experience is a very delicate artificial construct, but people need choices and the rewards of information freedom are worthwhile and much needed. The potential is infinite; try to understand what’s possible within a budget, without preconceptions of purpose.
SIMPLICITY is key - find out how much the client can spend, then decide on the top priorities that need to be completed first.
In producing an interface an adaptable multimedia writer or designer can be involved variously:
• Contributing to the Design Documents
• Inventing Design Strategy
• Expanding the Scope of a Project
• Developing Marketing Ideas
• Development of Electronic Promo Kits
• Researching Educational References
• R & D of Navigation Principles
• Designing for ”User-Friendliness”
• Technical Manuals for Service Providers
• Product Testing of Target Audiences
• Product Image and other considerations
• Production of © Materials/Legal issues
With a new delight we can use all those ancient languages and all that knowledge to further inform what we need to communicate interactively. We can write words, sample texts, make music, create links, draw maps, play games, photograph life, record reality in every form, build web-sites for every country, acquire knowledge and project any idea at any time, globally.
In the context of interactive multimedia, CONTENT IS ACTIVITY, not just information delivery.
CONTENT = ACTIVITY:
Interactivity equals information, imagination and technology, hopefully amalgamated with a higher sense of purpose and something enjoyable to do. Good interactivity is a clear complex of branching and responding graphics and sounds that present a set of practices or communicative behaviours that allow for the logical presentation of information.
PRODUCTIVE CONTENT is all about developing a system of easily accessible navigation metaphors. What different things do computers give us during our 'interaction' with them?
Sound - Dialogue/Voice Over
- Music/Sound Effects
- Silence? For emphasis; to feature an image, or darkness.
Vision - Form/Shapes in Perspective
- Light/Shadow
- Colour/Texture
- Movement/Stillness
WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE APPLICATION, AND WHAT DOES THE USER GET TO DO? Discovering what interactivity is really good for and how we make it better or easier for the user is the great challenge for multimedia writers and designers. All the marketing analysis in the world won’t help if the application is uninteresting, slow or difficult to use.
The user will forget your product very quickly if something better comes along.
FAMILIARITY, CLARITY, HONESTY, GENEROSITY, SIMPLICITY and FUN are watchwords to remember. Simplicity doesn’t mean lack of impact, especially if the user is effectively getting what they need.
Nothing succeeds like success, and people will come back for more when that’s what they got before. Monkey see, monkey do.
“There is nothing finer than siding with the oppressed; the true aesthetic consists in defending the weak and the disadvantaged.”
Gerhard Zwerenz
PRODUCTIVE CONTENT is all about developing a system of easily accessible navigation metaphors. What different things do computers give us during our 'interaction' with them?
Sound - Dialogue/Voice Over
- Music/Sound Effects
- Silence? For emphasis; to feature an image, or darkness.
Vision - Form/Shapes in Perspective
- Light/Shadow
- Colour/Texture
- Movement/Stillness
WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE APPLICATION, AND WHAT DOES THE USER GET TO DO? Discovering what interactivity is really good for and how we make it better or easier for the user is the great challenge for multimedia writers and designers. All the marketing analysis in the world won’t help if the application is uninteresting, slow or difficult to use.
The user will forget your product very quickly if something better comes along.
FAMILIARITY, CLARITY, HONESTY, GENEROSITY, SIMPLICITY and FUN are watchwords to remember. Simplicity doesn’t mean lack of impact, especially if the user is effectively getting what they need.
Nothing succeeds like success, and people will come back for more when that’s what they got before. Monkey see, monkey do.
“There is nothing finer than siding with the oppressed; the true aesthetic consists in defending the weak and the disadvantaged.”
Gerhard Zwerenz
HYPERTEXT:
Multimedia can deliver the benefits of an additional interactive LEARNING LINK that sensually reinforces the usual 'boring' text or lesson. In test groups of educational applications, learning retention was improved from 30% recall to over 70% when the lesson was presented as play.
The ability to CLICK on a word in a text or an area of the image, that then CONNECTS us to another page, causing the user to experience some new, related EVENT, discovering more about the concept of the first page, constitutes PLAY for the user.
HYPERTEXT is one of the most creative basics of interactive writing. When we 'read' magazines and comics, we are decoding imagery as well as reading text at the same time. Conventional printed forms are sequential - word after word in a single-line sentence, imagery ordered to define meaning, pages numbered to control the order in which the text is read. On the other hand, dictionaries and encyclopedia require us to find a subject in an index, searching several volumes, laterally accessing information; e.g. “M is for Monkey, page 794”.
THE HYPERTEXT THEORY behind multimedia is very complex. In a hypertext document there may be no single order that determines the sequence in which to access the information. This means the user can navigate through the units in a random manner. LINKS are the fundamental unit of hypertext design. Links may be EXPLICIT (as defined by the writer, connecting an anchor node with a destination node) or IMPLICIT (not defined by the writer, but following from the various properties of the information, and selected by the user).
So, with EXPLICIT links the user can read a text about the twin carburetors of an MGB sports car. With another click, they can bring up a 3D/X-ray turntable representation of the vehicle, then pull-down a detailed plan to locate the mixture adjusting nut. The user can also hear sampled audio clips of the engine, with IMPLICIT examples of three different mixture adjustment; too rich, too lean, just right. The user can rev the car and hear how the mixtures perform.
These hypertextual links are the beating heart of interactivity and the essence of being USER-FRIENDLY.
The ability to CLICK on a word in a text or an area of the image, that then CONNECTS us to another page, causing the user to experience some new, related EVENT, discovering more about the concept of the first page, constitutes PLAY for the user.
HYPERTEXT is one of the most creative basics of interactive writing. When we 'read' magazines and comics, we are decoding imagery as well as reading text at the same time. Conventional printed forms are sequential - word after word in a single-line sentence, imagery ordered to define meaning, pages numbered to control the order in which the text is read. On the other hand, dictionaries and encyclopedia require us to find a subject in an index, searching several volumes, laterally accessing information; e.g. “M is for Monkey, page 794”.
THE HYPERTEXT THEORY behind multimedia is very complex. In a hypertext document there may be no single order that determines the sequence in which to access the information. This means the user can navigate through the units in a random manner. LINKS are the fundamental unit of hypertext design. Links may be EXPLICIT (as defined by the writer, connecting an anchor node with a destination node) or IMPLICIT (not defined by the writer, but following from the various properties of the information, and selected by the user).
So, with EXPLICIT links the user can read a text about the twin carburetors of an MGB sports car. With another click, they can bring up a 3D/X-ray turntable representation of the vehicle, then pull-down a detailed plan to locate the mixture adjusting nut. The user can also hear sampled audio clips of the engine, with IMPLICIT examples of three different mixture adjustment; too rich, too lean, just right. The user can rev the car and hear how the mixtures perform.
These hypertextual links are the beating heart of interactivity and the essence of being USER-FRIENDLY.
USER-FRIENDLY:
IT IS WHAT IT IS, I AM WHAT I AM, AND SO ARE YOU: Human beings are social creatures with a natural empathy for others, and our behaviour is what helps us enter the flow of life. Hands up who likes to smile; our actions define our emotions. Laughter is about social connection, when we smile our hearts are moved, endorphins are released in our brains and we experience some kind of truth in the nature of things.
More than any other previous form of expression, interactive multimedia gives us the ability to make the user take control of his or her own 'DEPTH PERCEPTION' on any given subject. This is the facility we must learn to apply when writing and designing for multimedia, and it takes us beyond the limitations of the traditional audience/spectator experience.
At first sight, an interface should deliver a confident 'CAN DO' message. It should contain a sense of readiness, a unique and certain quality of purpose, approachability and effectiveness. This much-coveted 'User-Friendliness' is best achieved by a consistency in graphics, shapes, sounds, textures, colour schemes, layout of pages and screens, navigation metaphors and movements through the application. Whenever we come across a new concept that is particularly complex, multimedia writers and designers must be willing to experiment with expressing that idea in a new and sensory way.
Effortless is what you’re aiming for. It is critical that multimedia users are given all the necessary information that they may not be familiar with, because the interactivity of an application may not be self evident; e.g. imagine the facility to give the rules of a game to a user who hasn't played before. Whatever the subject matter, visual and aural input are the means at your disposal,
and the writer must totally engage the user with their senses, offering choices that cause emotional responses, from interactive web-sites, electronic promo kits (EPK), Playstation games, immersive 3D cinema experiences, etc.
In the 1970’s, Marshal MacLuhan wrote that “The medium is the message.” Via interactivity, the audience now participates and responds within the medium. We are no longer separated from the message, instead we are living and breathing it.
Answer these primary questions to start getting user-friendly:
• How will this application be used? Is it a CD, a web-kiosk, a web-site?
• Why is an interactive appropriate? What can the user gain from this application?
• What features are useful to users? Is it an enjoyable experience?
• How will the application be assessed before mass production?
• What happens after general market release? Does it need to be upgraded?
Very PRECISE PLANNING and exact programming is needed when you structure a hypertext document.
Here are some useful definitions and subjects to consider:
• ICONS: The dictionary defines icon as an image or statue of reverence, which itself is regarded as sacred, or a person/object of conscious desire. In interactivity an icon is a small word, graphic logo or symbol that appears as an indicator on the desktop, usually as a button for opening files, links and applications. Icons are symbolic images that connect to the instinctive impulses of every individual, regardless of nationality, helping to reduce translation problems – the fewer words the better. Each icon/link should be a common metaphor, (colour scheme and navigation method) from screen to screen. Clients can under-estimate the effect of harmonious colours, graphics and sounds on their audience.
• SCREENS: Usually contain text, photos, graphics, hypermedia (hotspots and buttons), other interactive icons and multimedia elements (slide shows, animation, narration, etc.) Consider different sorts of transitions, in keeping with the subject and style of the project.
• ANIMATION: Excellent for colour and movement, and it downloads quickly. It should give the audience what they expect in a different way, and also what they don’t expect. Use the speed and colour of exaggerated cartoon effects, get the user’s attention and create understanding with sharp visual communication.
• VIDEO: Should be harmonious or not used at all. It is powerful but expensive, so only use video if it adds to the overall application. Be careful to balance picture quality with file size.
• SOUND: Should always be of the highest possible quality, appropriate to the style and goals of the application. Be consistent in your sources; don’t try to mix high resolution and low-resolution sound and vision together, unless you’re looking for a discordant style. Precise co-ordination of sounds with other multimedia elements has a lot of impact. It can go very badly when sound and vision are out of synch. Consider applications carefully for standards of delivery, re; sound and vision, and label the size and types of file clearly.
• FOOTPRINTS: Advisable to let the user know where they currently are, where they have been, and where they can go from here. Try to invent imaginative places where these paths and stepping-stones can go, other than the routine or obvious. Be 'Real & Unusual' equally.
• INTERFACE: This refers to the capture, manipulation and integration of digital material into a single-user environment. It is not just the computer screen, but the broader contexts (both physical and intertextual) in which we receive information; the design of software and hardware.
• CONTENT AND CONTEXT: A definition that relates to the way MULTIMEDIA IS ABOUT INFORMATION and the way information is presented. It is about the environment in which the audience 'uses' the information. This environment is capable of allowing trial-and-error exploration, or intuition-friendly navigation, through 3D transitions.
• METATEXTUALITY: This concerns the relationship of 'commentary'. Take into account the possible changes in performative power and the question we should be asking is: What if commentaries could have direct impact on the texts they are commenting upon? Obviously the impact doesn't have to be of the kind its originators think it has or believe it should be. Let's say you criticize a work of art as being perverted and politically incorrect, and as a result of your activity it turns out to be even more perverted. Everything that doesn't kill it, makes it stronger.
There are many other obvious possibilities here; e.g. we may turn any metatextual piece into just another layer of text with or without changing it. Basically all this comes down to the difference between commenting and commanding. Their combination can easily be self-destructive; e.g. a metatext may cause the string of signs it cites to be deleted for good and consequently destroy its own value as commentary. This value is challenged by various other reasons as well. In certain encounters with indeterminate cybertexts, commentaries may turn out to be about one's own singular experience of ephemeral constellations of signs never to be repeated.
• MULTIPLICITY: The web provides facilities for building multiple views of hypertext applications that are linked with other modes within applications. This 'multiple views effect' on narration opens up literature to many interpretations of the same text. With alternative routes there is a never-ending array of possibilities. In print this multiple alternative or branching narrative was first used in Julio Cortazar's novel, Hopscotch (1966). John Irving's The World According to Garp (1976) also offers stories within stories.
In the 1980's there were the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series, which were widely available in children’s books with their binary decision points, encoded within portions of the text. The reader takes partial control of the stories direction. Meaning becomes transcribed by the reader dependent upon which view, or now with the Internet, with what application is being used.
OH-OH! BLACK HOLE: Here is where we come across the exponential problem of too many links with far too many endings available to ever attempt to use every one. Mathematically, narratives can break down with too many links. To have a choice in a one-page story, there would be a resulting three pages, the opening page and the two possible continuations.
To have a five-page story there would be thirty-one pages of choices. But a dozen pages could lead to over four thousand pages of choices, with a forty-page novella needing a trillion pages of material. Queneau's sonnets are the results of selecting randomly from ten possibilities for each line in each sonnet. Again, it is the reader who is the ultimate creator.
"I am large...I contain multitudes."
Walt Whitman
With all this in mind, we should consider our resources, select a destination and plot our course.
More than any other previous form of expression, interactive multimedia gives us the ability to make the user take control of his or her own 'DEPTH PERCEPTION' on any given subject. This is the facility we must learn to apply when writing and designing for multimedia, and it takes us beyond the limitations of the traditional audience/spectator experience.
At first sight, an interface should deliver a confident 'CAN DO' message. It should contain a sense of readiness, a unique and certain quality of purpose, approachability and effectiveness. This much-coveted 'User-Friendliness' is best achieved by a consistency in graphics, shapes, sounds, textures, colour schemes, layout of pages and screens, navigation metaphors and movements through the application. Whenever we come across a new concept that is particularly complex, multimedia writers and designers must be willing to experiment with expressing that idea in a new and sensory way.
Effortless is what you’re aiming for. It is critical that multimedia users are given all the necessary information that they may not be familiar with, because the interactivity of an application may not be self evident; e.g. imagine the facility to give the rules of a game to a user who hasn't played before. Whatever the subject matter, visual and aural input are the means at your disposal,
and the writer must totally engage the user with their senses, offering choices that cause emotional responses, from interactive web-sites, electronic promo kits (EPK), Playstation games, immersive 3D cinema experiences, etc.
In the 1970’s, Marshal MacLuhan wrote that “The medium is the message.” Via interactivity, the audience now participates and responds within the medium. We are no longer separated from the message, instead we are living and breathing it.
Answer these primary questions to start getting user-friendly:
• How will this application be used? Is it a CD, a web-kiosk, a web-site?
• Why is an interactive appropriate? What can the user gain from this application?
• What features are useful to users? Is it an enjoyable experience?
• How will the application be assessed before mass production?
• What happens after general market release? Does it need to be upgraded?
Very PRECISE PLANNING and exact programming is needed when you structure a hypertext document.
Here are some useful definitions and subjects to consider:
• ICONS: The dictionary defines icon as an image or statue of reverence, which itself is regarded as sacred, or a person/object of conscious desire. In interactivity an icon is a small word, graphic logo or symbol that appears as an indicator on the desktop, usually as a button for opening files, links and applications. Icons are symbolic images that connect to the instinctive impulses of every individual, regardless of nationality, helping to reduce translation problems – the fewer words the better. Each icon/link should be a common metaphor, (colour scheme and navigation method) from screen to screen. Clients can under-estimate the effect of harmonious colours, graphics and sounds on their audience.
• SCREENS: Usually contain text, photos, graphics, hypermedia (hotspots and buttons), other interactive icons and multimedia elements (slide shows, animation, narration, etc.) Consider different sorts of transitions, in keeping with the subject and style of the project.
• ANIMATION: Excellent for colour and movement, and it downloads quickly. It should give the audience what they expect in a different way, and also what they don’t expect. Use the speed and colour of exaggerated cartoon effects, get the user’s attention and create understanding with sharp visual communication.
• VIDEO: Should be harmonious or not used at all. It is powerful but expensive, so only use video if it adds to the overall application. Be careful to balance picture quality with file size.
• SOUND: Should always be of the highest possible quality, appropriate to the style and goals of the application. Be consistent in your sources; don’t try to mix high resolution and low-resolution sound and vision together, unless you’re looking for a discordant style. Precise co-ordination of sounds with other multimedia elements has a lot of impact. It can go very badly when sound and vision are out of synch. Consider applications carefully for standards of delivery, re; sound and vision, and label the size and types of file clearly.
• FOOTPRINTS: Advisable to let the user know where they currently are, where they have been, and where they can go from here. Try to invent imaginative places where these paths and stepping-stones can go, other than the routine or obvious. Be 'Real & Unusual' equally.
• INTERFACE: This refers to the capture, manipulation and integration of digital material into a single-user environment. It is not just the computer screen, but the broader contexts (both physical and intertextual) in which we receive information; the design of software and hardware.
• CONTENT AND CONTEXT: A definition that relates to the way MULTIMEDIA IS ABOUT INFORMATION and the way information is presented. It is about the environment in which the audience 'uses' the information. This environment is capable of allowing trial-and-error exploration, or intuition-friendly navigation, through 3D transitions.
• METATEXTUALITY: This concerns the relationship of 'commentary'. Take into account the possible changes in performative power and the question we should be asking is: What if commentaries could have direct impact on the texts they are commenting upon? Obviously the impact doesn't have to be of the kind its originators think it has or believe it should be. Let's say you criticize a work of art as being perverted and politically incorrect, and as a result of your activity it turns out to be even more perverted. Everything that doesn't kill it, makes it stronger.
There are many other obvious possibilities here; e.g. we may turn any metatextual piece into just another layer of text with or without changing it. Basically all this comes down to the difference between commenting and commanding. Their combination can easily be self-destructive; e.g. a metatext may cause the string of signs it cites to be deleted for good and consequently destroy its own value as commentary. This value is challenged by various other reasons as well. In certain encounters with indeterminate cybertexts, commentaries may turn out to be about one's own singular experience of ephemeral constellations of signs never to be repeated.
• MULTIPLICITY: The web provides facilities for building multiple views of hypertext applications that are linked with other modes within applications. This 'multiple views effect' on narration opens up literature to many interpretations of the same text. With alternative routes there is a never-ending array of possibilities. In print this multiple alternative or branching narrative was first used in Julio Cortazar's novel, Hopscotch (1966). John Irving's The World According to Garp (1976) also offers stories within stories.
In the 1980's there were the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series, which were widely available in children’s books with their binary decision points, encoded within portions of the text. The reader takes partial control of the stories direction. Meaning becomes transcribed by the reader dependent upon which view, or now with the Internet, with what application is being used.
OH-OH! BLACK HOLE: Here is where we come across the exponential problem of too many links with far too many endings available to ever attempt to use every one. Mathematically, narratives can break down with too many links. To have a choice in a one-page story, there would be a resulting three pages, the opening page and the two possible continuations.
To have a five-page story there would be thirty-one pages of choices. But a dozen pages could lead to over four thousand pages of choices, with a forty-page novella needing a trillion pages of material. Queneau's sonnets are the results of selecting randomly from ten possibilities for each line in each sonnet. Again, it is the reader who is the ultimate creator.
"I am large...I contain multitudes."
Walt Whitman
With all this in mind, we should consider our resources, select a destination and plot our course.
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