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官方艺术家
Mark Allen
导演, 编剧, 作曲家
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Kidnapped and Thrown in A Car

My friend once said this to me about keeping an audience's attention in movies...

"If your friends grab you and kidnap you and take you into their car on your birthday, it's crazy.  Where are they taking you?  this is nuts!  Five minutes go by and you're still laughing because they've tied you up and thrown you in the backseat and you can't see where you're going.  After fifteen minutes or so of driving along, the novlety has worn off and you actually really want to know where you're going.  After thirty minutes, you don't care, you'd just be angry and wanting to go home."

Note that I would hate to have my friends to this to me anyway - but it's something that I've seen done and to each his own... since it's really just a meaphor, it applies.

His point was that after a certain point in time - not too far in, your audience wants to know where they're going - or they are going to be upset.

Now - here's another twist though.  What if they grabbed you and threw you into a car and you're all laughing and then about a minute into it you laugh, "Ha ha ha where we going?"  And then your buddy learns over and said "We're going to the bowling alley."

....oh.  

Well... that kind of took the fun out of it.

It's a delicate balance - what to withhold and what to reveal.  I think learning dramatic rythm is learning tension and release.  You stretch the mystery like a muscle just to the point that you can't take it anymore, and then you relax it so it isn't injured. 

Now... the trick is.... as you let one mystery go - you must introduce a new one to keep the audience going.  If you don't then you're just tied up in a car waiting to get to the bowling alley.  So, one must weave mysteries... during the first mystery - you are setting the stage for the next mystery so that by the time the first is revealed - the audience will not have found pure consonance because they're already curious about the second mystery. 

You can also make one powerful paradigm shift or "turn around" which answers one mystery and simultaneously introduces another.  Both work. 

What doesn't work is letting the mystery go.

I found that the first half of THE MATRIX was a lot more interesting than the second half and that while the first movie was interesting, the second two were dismal.  The first half of the first matrix was so strange and curious.  Who were these people - was it real?  What is this place?  What is going on? 

Think about the second movie.  Was there a single mystery in the entire film?  Not in my mind.  I felt like the entire movie was just labor.  Step after step of tasks.

This goes beyond movies though.  People can sustain careers based on this same principal.  Artists can re-invent themselves to remain relevant.  It can be done through their work, their image, or by being notorious. 

Michael Jackson had a boyhood career, then a young adult career which was totally different and re-invented, then he became notorious later in life for being an unusual character.

Madonna would re-invent her entire image nearly every album and then began to create more controversy about herself with the photobook and other public image operations.  And all of these kept her interesting to the public.

Some artists need to re-invent themselves, they feel irrelevant.

Actors can be re-invented - Keifer Sutherland with 24... before that he was "that guy who'd been in a few 80's movies."  John Travolta with Pulp Fiction ("That famous 70's movie heart throb.") 

No one can get away with making the same music or same movies without eventually become stale.  No writer can keep their story alive without introducing new mysteries either.

Even financial people will talk about "falling in love with the story of a stock."  They talk about stocks as having stories.  Suddenly a stock will seem fascinating because of some news about the company - everyone is all a buzz and wants to talk about the stock and the company and they want to buy it... then it becomes stale and nothing new is happening - no new products, no new announcements, the story becomes stale, they sell, the stock plunges.

All things have this pattern and mastering the ability to create mystery can be used by anyone in any field.

大约 16 年 前 0 赞s  23 评论s  0 shares
Photo 33427
Your point about creating mystery & atmosphere, tension then relief is especially true in my field – producing club / electronic music. Club music does not have a story & vocals, so without these elements it's just a bunch of noises playing together in tandem. The groove itself can only do so much on it's own, so clever arrangement is what makes a brilliant piece of music.
大约 16 年 ago
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pokedpenguin - yes, Jolie is a great example of staying unexpected.... though she sort of has the notorious quality going for her now more than the re-inventing through her talents or projects, doesn't she? elavndrc - don't you think people can re-invent themselves while sticking to what they do? It seems like if anyong... anyone... sticks to the same thing, they're not going to be growing as an artist and that's what makes artists interesting - capturing the moment of change. JasonChau - I totally agree! Great point. So many couples complain that they've stagnated or seem bored with eachother... while others continue to grow and change as people and their relationship continues to retain a mystery. Sometimes I worry about when people totally smother eachother and limit their spouse's ability to see the world around them because it doesn't give much opportunity for them to grow and reinvent themselves.... pongza - interestingly enough the original title was "Mystery" and I published it and realized "What the hell is that? I just wrote a blog about creating mystery and I wrote a boring title... so I changed it to reflect the central metaphor. which was much more mysterious! Learning from my own blog. :)
大约 16 年 ago
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estie - that was an interesting story, I'd never heard it. Sounds like a story more than a reality though. :) pongza - Yes... actually that's exactly right..... so right as one mystery is closed, another one opens... so right when you find out where you're going.... you discover a new mystery - who is following them? In actuality - this is the best way of writing a story and structuring your script - you don't get hung up on the details - you stick to the big "but then" moments. It's important for them to flow smoothly though.
大约 16 年 ago
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One thing about writing action or chases for movies is.... only include the awsome ideas and don't sweat the details. The director and stunt people are going to do whatever your want. A writer is responsible for STORY. So include the story points of the fight / chase / whatever... but don't get too into the details of it. I can't emphasize enough that a writers first and foremost job is to create the structure - script structure, scene structure. This is why being able to synopsize your work - as much as all writers hate it, is an essential skill for writers who want to work in commercial media (like tv, movies, etc)... because their real job is to be great at doing precicely that.
大约 16 年 ago
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I think when you're writing you need to imagine that you are telling someone a story and you have to remember that keeping their attention is essential. The same story can be told one way and be fascinating and another way and be boring. Good teachers know how to make the information they present fascinating by using the same techniques of intrigue.
大约 16 年 ago
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Ha ha ha, I agree. In fact, it is quite similar to what I've always told my girlfriends about how to handle their men... Yes, you'll have to keep the suspense, give them surprises (but not too big a shock or anything that they can't handle); let them feel comfortable all the way but not predictable....:)))
大约 16 年 ago
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Pongza - I thought your twist on it was great and perfectly appropriate because it kept the main element of being in a car. Now... here's the only downside of it... it no longer is directly related to the protagonist because it's not his car (presumably). Thta doesn't mean it wouldn't work... but imagine if midway through the thing, the driver started going faster and at one point he went through a red light and there was almost an accident... so just around the time we reveal we're going to the bowling alley - we suddenly are more concerned about how crazy the drive is driving... why, if we're going to the bowling alley, are we going so fast? our protagonist is now not out of danger.... and/or then they're pulled over and the cops want to check out the truck and then everyone has to get out of the car and then one by one the cops start pulling out Weapons - guns, medieval shackles.... rope... suddenly - everything seems really really dangerous! As for the writing style - I wasn't going to comment because were just writing blog comment stuff - but as a writing observation... in screenwriting - you don't really want to spend letters on things which aren't events. I remember you described a glint on the car and a few other small details... while, if you wanted to use that for a special mood moment - that's fine... but in the course of telling the screenplay - if it isn't relevant tot he story events, you don't add it. This is where the job of the novelist and the job of the screenwriter are drastically different. The novelist is acting as writer / director / production designer / dp - etc. everything.... in screnwriting, your job is to assemble a bunch of events as succeinctly as possible that tell a great story. Not say how it looks or feels.
大约 16 年 ago

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语言
english
位置(城市,国家)以英文标示
Los Angeles, United States
性别
male
加入的时间
April 13, 2007