Week 3: Storytelling in the New Hollywood
Forming the Principles of Storytelling: How it came about
flexible guidelines that have beeen expanded through introduction of influences from other filmmaking practices & adapted to fit the existing system of narratives
Most basic Principle: narrative consists of a chain of events occurring in time and space linked by cause and effect that is easy to follow
Basic Techniques of Progression, Clarity and Unity
Hollywood films do not lack complexity, not simple or thin compared to art-house equivalents
Unobtrusive craftsmanship
scriptwriters, directors weaves an intricate web of character, event, time and space that can seem transparently obvious but are actually very crafty
Script manuals: help freelance screenwriters with structuring their narratives according to the "Norms"
Craft norms arise from frequent patterns and regularities we detect from Hollywood narratives to form the basic techniques of storytelling
and the rise of script manuals that "dictate" craft norms/establish basic techniques
mid-1990s: realised that relying on script manuals/formulas were harmful to narratives
2) Hollywood favours clarity
1) Hollywood favours Unified narratives
- a cause should lead to an effect & the effect becomes a cause foor another effect in an unbroken chain of events
Dangling Cause: action that has no effect until later in the film.
- a line of action that is put on hold until it is needed to push the story forward
- typically not at the end/resolution, but somewhere middle
Most hollywood films achieve closure in all plotlines and subplots & ambiguous, open endings are avoided
- UNLESS: Generating a Sequel and hints at the dangling cause the sequel will address
Hollywood Plots are easy to Understand:
- Clarity of Comprehension is Foundational to our EMOTIONAL responses
- are not ambiguous, or extremely symbolic
Everything in the film should be motivated: each event, object, character trait should be justified by elements in the film.
Plot holes arise from a lack of justification, an unmotivated device that becomes distracting & runs counter to narrative linearity / unity
What elements motivates characters, narratives and objects?
- personal events (past)
- impersonal circumstances (disaster, unforeseen luck)
- institution systems (large organizations such as The Matrix or Children of Men)
- Genre conventions (i.e breaking into a song because it's a musical)
- Character traits inherent/consistent in characters (eg. greed, pride, compassion) but these traits cannot be only a caricature but well-rounded & in-depth
3) Hollywood favours clear progression: goals and desire occurring continuously in time and space
Characters seek out goals and pursue them rather than being passive & usually one or two main goals with sub-goals
- Romance as a second goal in plot action (usually as a B-plot) but does not make it a romance genre
- goals are causally linked
Momentum in a plot:
- films set up a series of questions before the goal is introduced/formulated
- usually at the VERY beginning
- one main goal for UNITY
- forward impetus and temporal clarity are established with DEADLINES
In art film, there can be no progression with goals.
- unable to pursue them actively
- shifting ambiguous goals
- simply no goals
these are impossible in classical-style
story details/facts are often repeated, duplicated and redundant to remind audience of certain missed facts and help them follow/understand the plot.
- fatigue of concentration
Progression are usually temporally continuous and comprehensible. Spatial compositions also enhance clarity (eg. most important characters are centered)
Narrative Structures
Continuity System: classical continuity system utilizes style primarily to make narrative events as clear as possible
- Now, contemporary styles are more flashy and follows a music-video aesthetic with fast cuts and special effects
Spectators are most likely to lose track of time and space during the progression of one scene to another.
- Establishing shots is so crucial to maintaining a clear sense of exactly where you are.
- Dangling cause needs to be picked up in the next scene through temporal continuity
however, certain fundamental techniques are not lost. Still used to promote narrative clarity: eg. shot/reverse-shots
transitions make continuity clear using hooks and dialogue hooks to hint what would happen next.
Use of Motifs: auditory or visual
- cues in redundancy
- adds emotional resonance to a narrative
The Hollywood Three-Act Structure
- Aristotle: A beginning, a middle and End
- minor climaxes in action and one great climax
Why does a narrative need structure?
- gives audience a sense of direction in which the action will proceed
- aids comprehension
- For producers: cost-efficiency at valuing how much time a film needs
- For directors: to ensure a coherent, continuous and engaging story is written
- First Act: 30 pages (rising action, inciting incident, catalyst to the problem)
- Second Act: 60 pages (conflict between protagonist and antagonist leading to an unsolvable problem, with midpoint)
- Third Act: 30 pages, climax and action providing solution to the problem
*no new information needs to be introduced in the climax. Developing action would have explicated all that needs to be explicated
Plot point/Turning Point: incident or event that hooks into the story and spins it around into another direction.
contingent and capitalizes on the audience's schema:
- plot structure is shaped by protagonists' goals
- narrative changes direction when protagonist's goals transforms
- need not be moments of high drama
- usually when the characters goal changes or when a goal is achieved and a new one replaces it
- can occur after an act or before an act as transition
hook and a dialogue hook that foreshadows -- usually appears in the end of one scene and starts another scene
Why is it important for Acts and large-scale parts?
1) afford the spectatoor room to breathe
2) fosters clear, gradual character change (allocate enough time to motivate their progress)
3) Each part has a shape of its own and its own unique variety
4) caters to the attention span of the audience
she doesn't loook at acts, but rather part-structure! it's not script manuals but instinct
click to edit
- subplots may not flow mainstream plotlines, but just
Redundancy, Appointment, Deadlines
- important information is repeated: helps people to direct attention esp because we overlook things.
Formal devices t omaintain claritty: 1) Wide shot
2) Eyeline
3) Shot reverse shot
4) Angle
5) Match Cutt
6) Mootifs
7) sound design
- episodic vs serial televisino
- plotlines and story arcs are cnofined within the episode itself a
- serial television: multiple plotlines and arcs across each episodes that connects to a whole narrative.
IN TV: redundancy in tV is crucial so they will repeatt informatitono durng commercial breaks, around new audience, for fans whoo are super absorbed in it.
- recaps up front (previously on)
- repeat critcal infoo in dialogue
- proograms with coommercial breaks
- repeated dialogue ooften coomoes sono after commercial break
- released in a block:
- seems to cmoe in character dialogue when tthey reappear in narratives and episodes
include keywords like: motif, dangling cause, motivation, deadlines, clarity, unity