Wow! The non-stop gravy train that is the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival continued yesterday with some great food, conversation, and networking. I spend lots of time at various conventions, festivals, and of course host Screenwriter Karaoke, so it’s always rewarding when  an event is well orchestrated. (Translation: thanks for having your shit together LA Comedy Shorts!)

Favorites of Saturday Night

Isabel Fay & Lee York’s With or Without U2 – A musical short, it appears to be about a man pining for his lost love. But it turns out as something else entirely. The short was good, but what elevated them above others on Saturday night was the filmmakers’ industriousness outside of the film.

When Isabel Fay began the short, she  the neglected to consider the rights of the U2 song they used. So, though they got into festival, the sound track was not licensed. What would any self respecting, industrious filmmaker do in such a predicament? Well, get the Silver Lake Chorus to perform the song live, acapella in the theatre. It was awesome!

It reminds me that filmmakers often work best when presented specific limitations – they came up with an absolutely inspiring solution that felt just the right bit of funny, old-timey, and performance art. Sadly, given the licensing issues around the short, the filmmakers shared With or Without U2 had its one and only public outing last night.

The other two favorites of the night were also foreign outings; Suiker a story accidental death and sugar and Appy Ever After the delightfully funny romp where a boyfriend uses a green-screen app on his iPhone, so he can drink with his buddies at the pub.

Rooftop Partay!

After the screenings it was onto the gorgeous Japanese Garden space at the Kyoto Grand Hotel.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Day 4 wrap up and don’t forget to read about the first 2 days of the festival here and here!

Unlike novels, a script has implications far beyond the imagination of the reader. It is the document blue-print for an ultimately collaborative endeavor. In order to be an effective screenwriter, you need to be hyper aware of the production process and post-production process. I say aware, since you don’t have to do those tasks, you just need to know what is required of someone who does.

A couple of months ago at Screenwriter Karaoke, I was chatting with a writer about script dialogue. He was insistent that “real authentic dialogue is exactly like conversation.”  I responded that dialogue wasn’t actual conversation, but only gave the impression of conversation for the the sake of story. It is condensed and streamlined. After all, not everything we say in real life is interesting or even poignant. As we shared the exchange about a what dialogue needed to be,  he pulled the “well where did you learn how to write?” line. He’d gone to USC, was extolling the virtues of McKee or someone.  I simply said: “post-production.”

Pull the needle from the record! What, does the (mostly) solitary act of writing have to do with, say, cutting together a film? Quite a bit actually. Time and time again, I read scripts by writers who are woefully unaware that production and post process even takes place. For example: I often see scenes begin awkwardly with somebody walking into the room, simply to begin small talk, when the meat of the scene is a 30 second dialogue exchange on the couch later, where Jimmy tells Jane he’s joined a Poison cover band to avenge the death of his gerbil “Mikey.”

In a quest to mimic actual conversation, writers actually create the kind of stilted and obvious dialogue that makes most people groan. Film editing taught me to get in late and get out quick. Through my work, I’d spent so much time editing other people’s (bad!) dialogue, I began to gain a sense of what “good” dialogue sounded like to me. Part of a film editor’s job is to further finesse the dialogue, cut it so it sounds and feels natural, while maintaining the essence of the scene.  In many ways, the last cut of a film is the final draft of the script, or as Oscar nominated Director/Actor Peter Riegert said last year at the Southampton Screenwriting Conference: “Your script isn’t finished until opening night.”

As an editor, I was reverse engineering how to write a good scene.  I am able to recognize good dialogue when I read it in a script because I can see the semblance and pacing of “real” conversation, without all the boring parts. I am able to write good funny visual jokes that pop at the right moment, because I have an idea of when to get in and get out.

I put a call out to several writing and screenwriting communities for some comments on how their editing backgrounds have impacted their ability to write:

Xiaoniu (via reddit)

… I think it’s all part of what makes my film sense together, so it might have subconsciously influenced my writing.

Merrill Barr (Another Merrel?!)

You learn the idea of pacing early… when you bring that knowledge to writing, you end up pacing it the way you would edit something… It’s also helped the way I write movie/tv reviews. Reviews are written like a trailer almost. Short(ish), sweet, and to the point. I hate reviews that spend 4 paragraphs on nothing important. Most of my reviews never pass 700 words. You really shouldn’t need more than that.

Millstone99 (via Reddit)

I’ve spent a lot of time watching editors cut my extraneous dialogue (and sometimes entire scenes). So, I’m always thinking about the editor as I write. Is he just going to cut this bit anyway? Why do I think it’s so important, anyway?

So, the next time you write excruciatingly slow small talk, or have characters inexplicably enter the room at the beginning of the scene, think about how that scene will play visually, and how there would  be no way in hell, it would ever make it out of the editing room.

I encourage every writer to learn how to cut. I learned to cut on an AVID, and in recent years have moved to Final Cut Pro. There are many options out there. But, once you get a sense of how to assemble a scene visually, you’ll notice your writing will become more succinct. And even if you never work professionally as an editor, it is a skill and knowledge set which in no way can do harm to your ability to tell a story effectively. Get out there and be aware. Your story will be thankful for it.

HEAD TO HEAD

As part of a new collaborative series of articles with Xandy Sussan of Covermyscript.com and Merrel Davis of MerrelDavis.com, we will deconstruct and evaluate modern and classic films from the screenwriting, directing and story perspectives. Our first movie is Shaun of the Dead. Articles will be cross-posted on both sites.

Shaun of the Dead: How do you Pegg it, when you Wright?

The zombie movie is as pervasive in our cinematic culture as popcorn at the concession stand, but what Shaun of the Dead brings us is a new take on a staid and challenging genre by seamlessly incorporating fresh comedic and romantic details into the traditional George A. Romero style zombie film. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg figured out how to take a genre and twist it around, all the while, never sacrificing the key elements that make it what it is: a true zombie flick.

How do you tell a standard story in a way that is so fresh, so new, that while the pacing and character arcs are familiar, the offering is unique and special? How do you avoid being cliché, when there are only so many stories to tell and so many ways in which to tell them? The answer: Change the details. Could it really be that simple? Indeed, the Devil is in the details and the details are what makes a standard, typical, pat plot, fresh and inventive. That is exactly what Wright and Pegg did with Shaun of the Dead.

Shaun of the Dead changed the details in several key ways. In most zombie films, we open with a mysterious outbreak of a virus or some government experiment gone awry. The citizens get infected and then finally, a reluctant hero emerges, with a sawed-off shot gun to save the day… of the dead. But he winds up tragically only saving himself. Wright and Pegg take those elements and redefined them when they created Shaun.

CHARACTER

Xandy Sussan: Shaun, as a character, is archetypal, relatable, and understandable. He has a girlfriend he loves but he can’t get his act together. He works a dead end job, because he can’t get his act together. He has a Hamlet-esque relationship with his sainted mother, and childishly hates his step-father, because he can’t get his act together. Shaun is your basic everyman. The twist? Shaun is, while healthy, a zombie merely plodding through his own life. It takes the confrontation with the real zombies to knock him out of his stupor , to seize life, and to regain his love.

Both as a character and a visual metaphor, Shaun is what makes this movie such a gem and it is the literalness of the metaphor that makes it so clever. While the concept of the man sleep-walking through life is a well established premise, showing a man literally walking through life like a zombie, until such time as he has to fight actual zombies is a fresh and inventive take on that basic idea. The script wove pedestrian character dilemmas in to the fabric of the story so seamlessly. It used action counterpoint so masterfully, to articulate the problems that it felt there were two films (a romantic comedy and a zombie flick) running side by side, in harmonious, parallel perfection.

Merrel Davis: It is Shaun’s day-to-day minutiae, which establishes his character as someone we know, but that is only half of the character equation. Every Lone Ranger needs his Tonto, and for Shaun, it is the daft and selfish, best friend Ed. Ed appears only as comic relief in the first act, a bumbling fool who is so self-involved that while everyone is running from zombies, it is he who pauses for a silly photo-op or takes a call from a mate looking to score some weed. Others, including Shaun, feel that it is exactly this behavior that is holding Shaun back. Ed’s actions, serve to highlight the duality of Shaun: the man-child and the emerging hero. It is these two discordant characteristics, which illuminate Shaun’s inability to marry his old life with his new.

When Shaun finally decides that he must grow up, that he must be responsible for more than just himself, it is Ed’s ridiculous and selfish behavior that forces Shaun into a moment of clarity and responsibility. At the height of being surrounded by hundreds of zombies in front of the locked pub, “The Winchester,” Shaun can no longer ignore what he hates about his friend, what he hates about himself.

Like a good “Tonto” always did, when backed in a corner, Ed displays a triumphant act of heroism and sacrifice. When the zombies are closing in on the cellar and it seems as though all is lost, Ed redeems himself and shows Shaun that while you can still be a child at heart, you can also be a man.

Visual Style

Turning an eye to the visual look of Shaun of the Dead, we discover frenetic and fast paced cuts ala Requiem for a Dream for the most mundane of tasks such as brushing teeth. It is this visual reinvention of pedestrian activities which creates a feverish yet controlled environment that enhances the pacing of the plot. It is this filmmaking style, married with intuitive use of tracking shots and visual call backs that makes this movie.

MD: The first scene is a brilliant piece of filmmaking and editing that immediately pulls the audience in, while exposing several layers of backstory through a series of cut-aways and reveals. The scene begins tight on Shaun. It appears as if he is alone at the bar. Then, as we pull back, Liz is revealed. It now seems as though they are alone having a relationship chat. But then, we go wide again to reveal Ed, as he plays a fruit machine, mere steps away from the quarreling lovers. Then we ratchet back in tight to Shaun and Liz, until the line “It’s not like I don’t like David and Di” where we reveal yet again, there are more players in the room. We cut to a medium wide of David and Dianne as they sit right next to Liz; a hilarious reveal.

This style of editing and shot construction opens up the scene to five players, in a clever way that later echoes the interpersonal relationships and struggles the characters must confront. It also allows for us to go back in tight between two characters and then go wide again, without feeling too jostled.

XS: I love the entire “You’ve got red on you” sequence and multiple call backs. From the moment it begins, we find a foreboding, yet hilarious rake joke foreshadowing what’s to come. A simple pen stain on a white shirt really means so much more. It establishes character: a schnook of a man whose pen breaks open, ruining his work shirt. We suddenly know all we need to about that guy, and it’s all conveyed through one tiny detail: a small red stain on a white work shirt.

The red ink establishing the bloodshed to come is both a simple and elegant. It is a perfect visual clue to let us know what is just around the corner. When both Ed and Shaun’s Mother subsequently deliver the line “You’ve got red on you,” the meaning and intention is overtly clear. It is a quite clever touch, really.

STORY

The story is as basic as they come. Boy gets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back by slaying zombies. What Wright and Pegg did was take a standard by-the-numbers plot and make it dazzling, simply by adjusting the details and changing up the visual way in which they were presented. They did so without sacrificing originality and staying true to their genre.

XS: The story, on the whole, is satisfying on a number of levels. There’s the romance between Shaun and Liz: their easily relatable problems, their commonplace if not charming arguments, their friends who can’t help but interfere with their own agendas. It’s your standard three act romantic comedy but it delivers with clever, fresh dialogue and a breezy pace.

MD: Then there is the zombie element, the action, and the adventure. All of which takes us down a path of thrilling edge-of-your-seat entertainment.

As the zombies spill to the streets there are moments that evoke Resident Evil 2, a survival horror video game. These are moments of intense desperation and fear, not only just of the known (zombies) but the overarching fear of the unknown (government conspiracy?)

Shaun embarks on a treasure hunt of sorts, he must go from location to location, saving person by person, until he leads them to relative safety. And, as though the filmmakers knew the audience was getting a little antsy for some gunplay, they deliver in the form of a pump-action shot gun!

XS: And of course there is the comedy to give us a much needed respite from all of the harrowing gore. There’s always room for a joke and Wright and Penn know the proper moment to deliver one, especially in the most dire of circumstances. Whether is be an off-color fart joke (“Shaun, I’m sorry. No, I’m really sorry”) or the more subtle joke (“No, what does ‘exacerbate’ mean?”) there is always an instance, which enhances the story or gives us a momentary break from the non-stop action.

MD: I especially liked the choreographed attack of the elderly zombie backed by the soundtrack of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. It was new, different and gave the audience a catchy tune to bounce around to, while violence was erupting all around us.

A zombie flick is several things: it is a visual story, it is an emotional, and oft times painful journey, it is a bloody catharsis, which by the end, leads us to be reborn, satisfied movie goers. Shaun of the Dead is a perfect example of a film whose details made all the difference between lazing down the path of least resistance and charging down the avenue of newly conceived, exciting peril.

It is with Shaun of the Dead that we rediscover our love of romance, adventure and are thrilled by an equal amount of gory, yet hilarious, zombie slaying. The audience leaves with two lessons: Pay attention to your life, because it’s over before you know it. And that any story is new again when you simply change the details. The details are what will make your script and subsequent film stand out from the lackluster trite projects that consistently glut the marketplace. Shaun of the Dead should inspire you, as it did us, to employ standard structure and stay true to our chosen genre, but be intrepid when crafting original and creative, stand-out details.

Avoiding Mental Spackle

Recently I worked with a friend, Emery, on the seventh draft of his romantic comedy. He had been toiling away for the better part of a year and he was positive that his opus was now finally ready to send out. When he asked me to give it a once over, before he sent out his queries, I was excited to see where he had landed with his script.

What I encountered, unfortunately, is a very common pitfall. There were gaps in his character development that could only be explained through backstory; they never made it onto the page. He had a handful of obvious typos, and worse still, in a pivotal scene between three main characters, he misused one of the character’s names for all the dialogue, a character that no longer existed. Emery was usually so fastidious about his work, so how could he have missed so many crucial details? The answer was simple: Emery had applied a thick coat of Mental Spackle and he could no longer see even the most minor of infractions.

Image Creative Commons Licensed / CC BY-NC 2.0

Mental Spackle is a term I’ve coined to describe what the mind of a writer does when revising. As you go through each change, shift scenes, consolidate characters, details inevitably fall through the cracks. With each minor adjustment, with each new scene, even the most dedicated and observant writers will miss minutiae that could ultimately cause their excellent, thoughtful script to be a pass. While a story may exist fully in the writer’s mind, it almost never exists entirely on the page – certainly not in the first couple of revisions. It is very easy for a writer to gloss over holes or problems in story as they revise because as the old saying goes “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” Writers, like Emery, unwittingly become blind nature walkers and every additional revision seems to solidify a layer of spackle somewhere.

Am I Spackling?

It is so easy to get lost “too inside your own head” during the writing process and forget there is a difference between subtext and nothing there at all. You won’t know you are spackling until after you have put away the putty knife. As you write, you’ll gain a sense of depth and breadth of your character. After all, you are living with them every revision. But is it on the page? If you write like I do, then you have likely created detailed backgrounds for all your characters. 98% of this detail will never make it into the script outright. If when you receive notes and you find yourself explaining how your protagonist needed that chocolate ice cream as a child in order to set up his current job loss as a engineering contractor at the end of Act Two, but the ice cream scene isn’t in there, nor mentioned, it is likely you are Mental Spackling.

An example from one of my scripts: My protagonist must make a pointed decision at the age of eight, one which will forever change the direction of his life. In the first two revisions – this decision took place off screen. I knew the decisions, based on the backstory I had developed so, in retrospect, I believed that the different lives he would lead as a result of those decisions would contrast enough. It didn’t. In the next revision, the decision took place on screen, but it still didn’t pronounce in a truly effective manner. Even though I knew what was going on, there was a disconnect between what I knew in my head about the character and what was actually on the page. Mental Spackle struck at the most important incident of the first act! It happens to the best of us, but if you follow a few simple steps, this won’t happen to you.

How do I combat Mental Spackle?

As you are the closest person to your own work, it will always be hard to ferret out things that may seem obvious to others. That’s why it’s always important to have a group of readers whom you trust. I have a friend that is excellent with grammar and typos. I have another who can critically deconstruct even the most challenging plot arcs with ease. I have actor friends who help me make dialogue more authentic.

• Don’t fly solo. Discuss your work with your trusted peers. The simplest of spackle jobs can be addressed with a read through by someone other than you. Send it out for a round of informal notes. This will catch the top level stuff; grammar, wording, formatting and spelling problems.
• Have professional coverage written on your script. Getting coverage on your script can really help you make your story a concise, precise and marketable piece of work. A good analyst will deconstruct your story, find your mistakes and missteps and tell you what may be holding your script back. It is through this analysis that you’ll know what works, if your highs are where they belong, and if your characters’ arcs read correctly. Learn a bit more about script reading and how it can help greatly in my other post Script Reading and Analysis: Why?
• Organize a table read with real actors. There is nothing more helpful than hearing the words you’ve written coming form the mouths of actors. A table read is not for performance sake, it is to hear your dialogue and action text spoken aloud. Does it seem natural? Does it make sense? Does the pacing work? I personally like to have the actors read the script cold. If my characters and their voices are strong, the actors will be able to find their groove easily, and spot embarrassing mistakes, such as Emery’s.
• Revise, Revise, Revise! Each pass through of your script you’ll find something new to adjust, sweeten and tweak. I know writing is an eager process and instant gratification is the solution for excited writers. And while it may feel like it’s done at the end of revision two or three, it probably isn’t. Space out your revisions. Editing back to back will increase the likelihood that you will accidentally spackle right over major problems because you’re too close to your project to notice.
• Workshop your script. Workshops provide an immediate, collaborative environment to vet your work. If you are able to get into a workshop with a strong workshop leader and committed participants you’ll find it a worthwhile endeavor. Plus, you never know what comment will spark that “Eureka!” moment that will help you fix your script.
• Most importantly, Step away for a bit. If you have the luxury, let the work breathe. You can’t eat a pie straight from the oven, and you can’t finish a script and shoot it out to the world before really making sure that every detail, every character, every scene is perfect. For every writer there is a want, a need to finish a revision and share it with the world. That urgency is healthy. But being hasty can be your downfall.

Avoiding Mental Spackle altogether is impossible. Your mind will always fill in your character’s gaps, confuse removed scenes from five drafts ago with your current version and think like they are still a part of the script.

So, after Emery and I finished our consultation, he was astonished he had overlooked such obvious items. I explained to him that Mental Spackle afflicts even the best of us. But the only real way to make sure that doesn’t happen is diligence, patience and a solid core group of trusted friends, readers and peers to help keep you on track. While writing a script is a solitary business, taking your script to the next level is only possible when you get good, thorough and thoughtful feedback.

Instead of succumbing to mind-numbing Mental Spackle, plan ahead and be methodical. Lest you end up like Emery. While his script used to take place in Kansas, it was moved to outer space. Apparently, Emery didn’t catch that when he changed the meet-cute from the Wichita Wal-Mart to his new location planet Merrilia, he left the stage directions the same. But who knows, maybe Emery knows something about inter-stellar retail that we don’t.

(Article written with contributions from Xandy Sussan at CoverMyScript.com.)

Yesterday was a mix of interesting, fun and just plain tiring. The documentary production company I’m working for is doing the last round of talking head interviews for their most recent project.

I carried and set up a lot of equipment, a green screen, lighting and the such.  One moment in the day stuck out as a great and valuable lesson.

The DP asked for quiet, then said, “Recording room tone!” We all stood silently for about a minute. Then I asked “What did you just do?”

“Room Tone” is when you record the baseline ambient sound that a room has. Each room and location is structurally different. Which means sound bounces and echoes differently. “Room tone” is needed so that the editors can use it in post-production when assembling or tightening spoken words. Sometimes a person end abruptly, or the cut leads from sound to nothing. “Room Tone” is needed to construct naturally sounding pauses and spaces.

And now you know. AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE!

I’m at a unique point in the screenwriting process that separates men (and women) from the boys (and girls).

This weekend I finished my first draft of my as yet unnamed screenplay. It clocks in at 125 pages. Now I have to go into my first of many refinements and revisions. I must prepare myself to the reality of cutting away some fat, no matter how well written.

As Paddy Chayesfky once said:

“Some of my dearest and most beloved bits of writing have gone with a very quick slash, slash, slash. Because something was heavy there. Cutting leads to economy, precision, and to a vastly improved script.”

Here are a couple of my lessons learned:

1. Your screenplay isn’t going to write itself. Yes, it’s good that you have bought many how-to books and have read many blog posts (even this one!) but you have to force yourself and prepare yourself to push through. Which leads me to the next lesson learned
2. Don’t get caught up in formatting and the economy of the page in your first draft. Be sure action text is action, and dialogue is dialogue, beyond that it’s a first draft, so let it rip. You’ll have time in a later revision to make corrections. Try not to think from an editorial perspective. If you do, you might end up working on the first 15 pages until the end of the world. Don’t give yourself a page limit either. It’s better to have more than less.
3. Writer’s block is tough. I’ve found the best way to deal with it personally is to write some scenes out of order. I prefer writing in a contiguous fashion, but if I’m stuck on one scene I’ll work on a different scene I’ve plotted out further in the script. You end up with several “floating islands” that you then can build bridges to you as write.
4. Use active verb tense instead of passive verb tense. Though this is more of a preferential thing. Active verb tense, tends to put things in the “now.” i.e. “Merrel hands the bloody axe to the Warden. He sits, his feet dangle” instead of “Merrel is handing the bloody axe to the warden. He is sitting, his feet dangling”
5. You aren’t writing a novel. Exclusively internal conflict and overly literary terminology will not endear your script to anyone. What you write must be seen by the audience.
6. The vision in your head may not actually be what you’ve written. You may have a great hold on how something looks and feels in your head. The goal of the screenwriter is to effectively get that out onto the page. Plenty of people have good movies ideas, it takes another level of thinking and dedication put it to the page.

Other recommendations are to get a thesaurus, get a good script formatting reference book (I recommend The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats: The Screenplay) and pick up a copy Final Draft.
- Merrel

I’ve found it’s hard to keep track of all these sites out there that can be very helpful to anyone looking for Production/Post-Production services or Job Listings. I’ve decided to make a personal list of Production and Post-Production Resources. This is an ever growing list (on a static page on my blog.) If you’d like to add to the list please e-mail me.

-M

This one has been sitting on my mind for a while.

As an editor watching a movie my discerning eye (and ear) can inadvertently take me out of the moment. It can be a continuity mistake, an incongruous plot device, a really obvious over-dub or just a jarring edit. But when I see them during a movie, it kills it for me. Similarly, suspension of disbelief is such an important element of story telling in film that breaking it, even for comedic purposes, can be the death knell of a movie.

With this in mind I’d like to share some examples I’ve recently encountered.

Last month I was re-watching Casino Royale to refresh for Quantum of Solace. (Note: Solace plays second fiddle for Royale in every way.) There is a particular scene where Bond is chasing a man through an airport. It is a tense cat-and-mouse scene, but something is a little off.

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Did you see it? Bond slings off his jacket and the next cut he’s wearing it again. (The implication in the scene leading up is that he’s in a security line at an airport.) In a tense real-time sequence the edit just looks silly and jarring. It is likely there was more footage of Bond placing his personals into the x-ray basket. Though, if the edit kept that in you’d have to deal with pesky facts like Bond is likely armed with a hand-gun. (How does he get through security?)

Moving along, last week I was cajoled into watching Mike Myers’ latest comedic travesty The Love Guru.  The story meanders around Myers’ character, a self-help guru, who wears a chastity belt while helping others find love. The heavy clinking chastity belt sets up such obvious gags as the “erection gong sound.” (See the film trailer.) Ultimately the film is a luke-warm love story leading up to the inevitable removal of aforementioned chastity belt. But what bothered me the most was the following scene.

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Can somebody please tell me how Verne Troyer’s character magically managed to punch through the chastity belt? Adding a goofy “gong” sound doesn’t excuse that the entire premise of the movie is based on removing this impenetrable heavy metal belt. You can’t punch through metal, even if it’s a crotch hit gag. How exactly is the the “Guru Pitka” in so much pain? Wouldn’t the belt act as an impregnable cup? (A note to comedy writers: your movie still needs to maintain a certain level continuity and believability, just as any other type of movie. As a viewer I’m willing to suspend my disbelief to a point, but don’t insult your viewers for a cheap senseless gag.)

One of my favorite and oft under-appreciated visual shots in movies and television is the “Reveal Shot”.

Traditionally, the reveal shot consists of pulling back from a tightly framed shot to reveal a larger framing, exposing a greater context with often epiphanous implications to the audience – and in some cases – the on-screen characters.

There are many different types of reveals and they can be subtle or out-right obvious.  Regardless of genre, it is an effective story-telling technique. Revealing can also have the added effect of allowing a filmmaker let the viewer “in” on portions of the story that perhaps the main protagonist is not yet aware of, and vice versa.

In appreciation of this technique I’d like to share some different types of reveals and how they are used to further enhance story.

Dramatic/Stationary:

Reveals don’t necessarily have to pan or pull back to be effective. Some clever film-making can keep the camera stationary and still expose a revelation. If there was ever a television show that perfected the reveal as a mechanism to capture the viewer – it was The X-Files.  Each episode began “cold” – that is, no credits or introduction. This allowed a story to unfold immediately, drawing the viewer in, and at the right moment reveal a greater context for the story. Fade to opening credits. It was a frightfully effective way to rope in people watching The X-Files on a Friday night.

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We see the character Assistant Director Skinner deleting rather ominous looking pictures. The viewer is given the impression that Skinner is in his own office. The camera follows him as he stands up to leave the office and rests at table height. What’s clever about the reveal is the use of light in the stationary shot. As the door opens off-screen, light from the hallway spills in and the viewer sees the Fox Mulder name placard. What also makes this an effective reveal is they way in which music is used. The whole scene features low-key single note cello strokes. Then, as the door opens for the reveal, a cymbal crash is punctuated with a four-key piano melody which really adds to the overall mood and effectiveness of the scene.

Intentional obfuscation:

Sometimes an object or person in frame is intentionally obfuscated, distorted or out-of-focus. The reveal can be as simple as a rack focus from the foreground to the background. For example: Two crooked cops, seemingly acting on their own, beat a suspect in the hallway of a Police Station after hours. Rack-focus to reveal the commissioner standing at end of the hallway with his arms crossed. Silently approving of the action.

Other times, reveal is set up by intentionally obscuring written type or a visual component that is in frame; Such as on a TV, computer monitor, or tombstone. In this vein, the ending to the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg action cop opus – Hot Fuzz fits the bill nicely.

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Sergeant Angel’s shoulder is placed in frame to obscure the first name on the tombstone. In the previous scene [SPOILER!] there is a large explosion and his partner Danny Butterman is presumed dead. The reveal, in this case, is designed to mislead the audience, though playful in its use. The camera pans right to show Danny Butterman is very much alive, and in fact we see the grave is that of his mother Irene Butterman.

The Pull-back Reveal:

Pulling back can bring a larger context into focus for the viewer and is a “tried-and-true” reveal shot. Brian De Palma uses a pull-back reveal in the opening of his film Femme Fatale – slowly bringing into focus a greater understanding of situation. It is a very elegant opening that ropes the audience in post haste.

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As a bonus there is an additional reveal, through a frame-within-a-frame horizontal wipe right at as the shades are pulled back to show the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. Most of what I can say about this opening can read on Film Critic Jim Emmerson’s blog. He does an excellent deconstruction of the opening scene of Femme Fatale.

For Comedic Effect:

There are also comedic applications where the reveal acts as a punchline, or as part of a visual gag. If done well, a reveal shot can deliver a sharp point to the punch line of a joke. Matt Groening’s shows have a propensity for such reveals and both The Simpsons and Futurama have employed the technique. There are many instances in both shows, such as in the overly-quoted The Simpson’s episode “Mr. Plow“  when during a snow storm Homer crashes into another car. Commenting on the damage “Welp, I got him as good he got me.” Pan to reveal his family, cut to birds-eye view of his front yard, and his damaged cars.

Here is a more recent comedic reveal from Futurama.

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The space version of the Titanic is sinking into a black-hole [take that Doctor Who writers!] The camera frames tight on Professor Farnsworth’s face as he says “Thank God there are plenty of escape pods! We won’t have to dress up as woman and children.” The reveal is quick. As the camera pulls back, the viewer sees Professor Farnsworth is wearing a beanie and carrying an over sized lollipop. Laughs all around.

In Horror:

Horror is a genre that sees recurrent overuse of the reveal to the level of cliché. However, use at a pivotal moment it can add value and shock to a scene. The Twilight Zone relied on this technique for the climax of “The Masks” and many other episodes as well.

I find that Japanese cinema does a particularly good job incorporating reveals. In comparison to the Western counterpart, Japanese horror cinema is much more cerebral and paced differently.

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In Ringu [リング] again we see stationary framing used in a reveal. With the camera at knee height, Reiko slides the door aside – the impact is instant – the audience sees her son Yoichi viewing a video which has already killed 4 high school students.

Sound and music are an important element in this reveal, too. Japanese horror usually doesn’t have an over-produced soundtrack, indeed there are scenes where there is no incidental music at all.  Much like The X-Files reveal above, the music punches in at the right time further emphasizing the impetus of fear.,

See also:

The Turnaround: The sister of the reveal known as the Turnaround. Popularized by Hitchcock, we’ve seen it in everything from Doctor Who to George A. Romero films. Someone is sitting in a chair. “Jim, is that you? Jim, you aren’t responding! I’ll just turn the chair around slowly… OH MY GOD your eyes you’ve lost your eyes!”

Long Take: A long take (sometimes referred to as a “one shot”) can also be the vehicle for a good reveal shot. A lengthy single take can follow a protagonist down the road to his destination ultimately pushing over a horizon line to showi a desolate wasteland, room full of monkey’s or whatever shocking revelation is to be had. Here are some examples of long shots in contemporary cinema.

Note: Yes, there are so many great reveals out there, I couldn’t possibly put them all in a single blog post. Maybe next time Gadget.