Fri, 2025-Jun-27 15:17 (BST)
Hello,
Random thought:
I see a lot of long scenes of exposition broken up into different scene locations, like two guys will be talking in an office and then the next line delivered they are in a car as if the conversation paused and they waited to get out of the building and into the car and out on the road, and then a few lines later they are in an airport...I understand keeping viewers engaged by giving them new things to look at, but does this bother anyone else? It always feels jarring and inauthentic, but I also tend to overthink stuff. Just wondering your thoughts.
thanks.
There may be a really strong reason for doing this - simulating a montage, or time passage - but as someone who's paid some big bucks to line producers to begin budgeting/scheduling my scripts, this would drive them crazy. And ramp up the cost considerably. My view? The dialogue and character interaction should sell the scene, and leave this stuff up to the director - with the producer looking over his/her shoulder closely, to monitor the costs.
Write it exactly as you imagine it projected in the movie theatre. The rest is gravy. In a great movie, it happens like that because it works - and it tastes good.
In a bad movie, it sucks - and makes you wanna puke.
Write the former.
Jay.
When I see a scene like that I get the opinion that, the person giving the information is just going in and on about it. That they have been talking about the issue for days and we are getting the condensed version.
Like in Forest Gump, when Bubba lists shrimp dishes. He can talk for days.
This is a variation of the "pope in the pool". It's done to keep people engaged visually when the filmmakers know their demographic has a low attention span.
Craig,
the example in Forest Gump is the perfect use of that technique...there is a logic to it and it's plays for a good laugh. I get tripped up when the technique is used simply to give a bored eye something new to look at...again, two guys in an office, one guy asked a question, next frame they are in a car and the other guy starts to answer as if they just started moving and stayed silent for the 25 minutes in between.
Doug
CJ,
exactly. And I'm sure there are graphs and stats to prove how effective it is. I've been asking people recently about it and most don't even notice it happening, so it's another case of me overthinking ;) I'm not sure why it bugs me so much.
doug