WATCHING MOVIES FAST
I like to watch movies in
fast-forward. Not the first time, of course. There would be little
point in that. Rather, when studying a film in order to learn from
it. Strange as it may sound, I recommend this as something you should
try as well.
I originally started to do this
as a way to save time. Whenever I am preparing a blog article or have
a particular area of screencraft I wish to study, I always have to
re-watch three, four, sometimes up to a dozen films for research. But
frankly, I don't have that much time in my day. Movies are long. So
to cut down on research time, I began to take advantage of a feature
on my laptop's movie player that allows playback at 1.5x speed (50%
faster than usual) without muting the soundtrack. That way, I could
still watch every moment of the film in only 2/3 the time.
However, I soon noticed a
surprise additional benefit to this. If I was examining these films
for anything to do with plot, story structure, or character arc, I
found I could see the shape and course of such things quicker and
easier than I could have by watching the same film at normal speed.
One difficulty that stands in the way of the developing screenwriter
who attempts to learn more by watching other films is a feature
film's length. To the uninitiated, feature films appear to be such
wild, complicated things, but this is actually untrue. Most great
films have very simple stories and clear, straightforward structure.
However, this is lost on many since they cannot see the forest due to
all of the trees. Feature film structure demands a certain number of
story sequences, each with their own objectives that must be
accomplished through a certain number of scenes (five, six, a dozen
or more). In turn, every scene has its own sub-objectives there to
advance the story and move the sequence forward, all requiring series
of action, exchanges of dialogue, sounds, images, and the use of
camera and editing. The result is that the viewer gets lost in the
details and finds it hard to see the overall shape and movement of
the story as a whole. Being stuck in the moment, that bit of
screencraft executed only a few scenes ago becomes a fading memory.
This may be good for the viewing experience (good story structure
should by nature stay hidden under the surface), but difficult for
those trying to use the film as a learning tool.
In short, I owe a good deal of my
film education to being impatient. Watching films at 1.5x speed
compressed the overall narrative, allowing me to better see and
remember how one event led to the next, how one turning point related
to the one before it. Zipping through scenes caused me to no longer
dwell all my attention on each individual shot and line of dialogue,
but instead see the scene as a whole, and thus taking away only the
general movement of the scene; what was done, what was accomplished,
how it was accomplished, and how its outcome changes the course of
the film, leads to the next story action, and advances the sequence
to its next structural turning point. You could call it a
“bullet-point” method of viewing a film. Light on details, heavy
on function.
This tactic will of course give
you no help when it comes to learning proper pacing and scene
construction (the method I describe next will do worlds of good for
this). Nor do I wish to undervalue the importance of the little
details of plot, theme, and character (the difference between a good
story and a great film is usually found within the use of these very
details). But if what you seek to understand is the broader movements
of story and structure, how each scene and sequence works together to
create one cohesive and functional narrative, I strongly suggest you
give this a try. 150% may sound a little fast, but it is not. In
fact, I was surprised to find that a lot of films (mostly poor or
painfully mediocre films) actually play better
at this speed. Unless the film has unusually quick-paced dialogue or
dizzying-quick action sequences, you will not miss a thing – as
long as you are paying attention. (If you are going to be
multitasking, its wisest to play the movie at its normal speed.)
One
technical problem is that most movie or video players automatically
mute the soundtrack when playing at faster speeds. Watching at 1.5x
speed is not much help without sound. I am no expert on audio-video
products, so you will have to test this out at home or experiment
with the various media players you can get online. The popular and free-to-download VLC media player, for instance, can play back at virtually any speed in .1x increments, depending on how slow or fast you wish to go.
I
should add that when it comes to analyzing films you have
viewed multiple times--films you have watched on so many occasions that
you can now recite dialogue and no longer need the sound to
follow each scene--you can watch these films EVEN FASTER. Last month,
I needed to re-watch Back to the Future
and got through the entire film in under twenty minutes. What does
this do? It turns every scene or sequence into a tight, concise
brick of action. You don't watch the scene, you instead receive the
concept of the scene,
the idea of the scene;
basically why it exists and how that brick fits into the structural
whole. It's a bit like reading a point-by-point breakdown of
the film, but far better, as you can observe how each event directly
causes the next, and how the flow of action moves the narrative
forward. It is difficult, or almost impossible, for one to remember
every essential structural point after observing a full two-hour film in one sitting. That is expecting a lot from your memory.
But the same film viewed in twenty minutes? Far easier. The whole film's
structure now sits firmly inside your head.
WATCHING MOVIES
SLOOOOOOOOW
When
it comes to using films as a learning tool, it is also good to watch
them slow. I mean, really slow. Not in slow-motion, mind you. I don't
see any use in that (at least not at the moment). I am speaking of a
technique called the “START/STOP”, something found in UCLA &
USC Screenwriting instructor William Froug's book Zen and
the Art of Screenwriting, Volume 2.
Used correctly, this technique can teach you more from watching a
single film than you might in an entire semester-long course on screencraft.
Step
1: Select a film to study. Make sure it is a top-notch film in terms of its storytelling, one you love and admire, and ideally
one similar to the types of stories you wish to create. I also
suggest choosing a film that remains fairly traditional in its
approach to storytelling, one considered to be the “gold standard”
of its genre or type, so its lessons may be widely applied to
your own narratives (rather than something like a three-hour
nonlinear art film that stands out from the crowd simply by being so
different). Also (this is optional), find a copy of the film's
screenplay. In most cases, you can download these screenplays online
in .pdf or .doc form. You can also find many published in book form
in local libraries. You will want to refer to the written script from
time to time.
Step
2: Watch the film in one sitting from beginning to end. Get an
overall view of the shape and form of its story, but while watching
also try to identify the most important story elements
from a screenwriter's point of view: where and what are the plot's
major dramatic turning points, how does the protagonist's character
change over the course of events and what causes this to happen, what
thematic elements seem to be present, and anything else that may jump
out at you as unusual or important. As soon as the film fades to
black, start writing about your observations. Do this right away
while the film is still fresh in your head. You can take as much time
as you need and go into as much detail as you like, but one to two
full pages should be enough. Include any questions you might have
regarding how the storyteller accomplished one thing or another. Make
note of any particularly memorable scenes. Also mention your viewing
experience on an emotional level. How did the story make you feel
throughout its course? Was this the storyteller's intention? Take a
moment to hypothesize on how and why the storyteller managed to move
your emotions in this way.
Step
3: Here comes of the fun part. And by fun, I mean grueling. Go back
to the first scene of the film. Watch it to the scene's conclusion.
Go back and watch it a second time. Watch this one scene
again and again if you like. Then, on a clean page write “SCENE #1”
followed by a short slug that describes the scene (ex. “JOHN WITH
MORTY OUTSIDE BIKER BAR”). Then start writing a thick wad of notes
on anything and everything you notice about the execution of that
scene in terms of its written craft. Watch the scene over and over to
observe it on its most atomic level; shot by shot, line by line. Ask,
what is the purpose of this scene? Why is it here? What does it do?
How does it do it? What important information is communicated in this
scene? How did the storyteller communicate it? Is any of this
exposition? Information that will be useful later? Is anything set up
secretly that will be paid off in later scenes? How was this
executed? What is the conflict in this scene? How does it start? How
does it develop? How is the conflict's outcome important – or does the conflict exist as a diversion to accomplish the scene's
real purpose? What is
the scene's moment of change that moves the story forward? How does
the end of this scene set up the action of the next?
This
is only a small sampling of matters to consider. Some scenes give you
a lot more material to chew on than others, but try to go far beyond
a few simple sentences. Expand your observations into anything
between a paragraph and a full page or more.
Step
4: Watch the next scene and repeat the process. Then the next scene.
Continue on like this for EVERY SINGLE SCENE in the entire film.
Every scene. One at a
time. Analyzed under the microscope. Until you have reached the
movie's end. By the time you have finished, you will know this film
like the back of your hand and will have learned more about
screencraft than you could have ever imagined.
Don't
overlook the short scenes in your START/STOP. Give them the same
degree of attention you give all others. Even if the scene lasts only
a few seconds, that scene has been put into the film for a reason. It
communicates something significant. What is it? The opening scene of
Die Hard is nothing
but a shot of an airplane coming in for a landing. This may not seem
like much, but this simple opening still works to communicate
information and set up the following action. Since we are watching
this plane, it suggests that someone important to the story must be on the plane.
Someone who has just travelled a long way. Subconsciously, this causes the
audience to ask, “Who is this person, where did they come from, and
why are they here?” Then, in next scene we learn this person is our
hero John McClane, gripping the plane's armrest in fear (which
suggests he must be here for something important if he hates flying
this much).
William
Froug suggests doing a START/STOP on one film per month for an entire
year (which I guess is a lot cheaper than going to film school).
However, I must have been a much more hardcore START/STOPPER than
Froug imagined. He believes an entire film can be finished in
only a couple days. Yet whenever I have done this, I worked for one
to two hours a day for a month or more. By the time I was finished, I
was so exhausted that I didn't want to attempt another film for an
entire year. But what a reward! For instance, on my third attempt (as you might tell from the example given above), I
chose the film Die Hard.
(It's still the action genre's gold standard for a reason –
its craft's execution is shockingly pristine!). Using Froug's
START/STOP, I learned more from watching this single film than I
probably did my entire four years in film school. After two months
of work, I had 81 pages
of single-spaced type-written notes-- I found so much of it insightful that I had to include much of it in my book Screenwriting
Down to the Atoms three years
later.
You can read
some of the highlights of this START/STOP in a five-part series of
articles I began in 2009 titled “Things I Learned from Die Hard.”
If
you want to learn to write by watching movies (and you should), you
have to pull yourself outside the headspace of the casual
filmgoer. If learning the craft were that simple, everyone with a
stack of DVDs or a Netflix subscription would already be an
expert. You have to watch them smart. Watch them slow. Watch them
fast. Watch them repeatedly. Watch them in terms of their tiniest
pieces. Watch them in terms of their absolute whole. And do your
homework. Write your discoveries down. Writing about it forces to you
to think about things and develop tiny vague
notions into a fully-realized methods of approach. Watch movies like a
scientist. Watch movies like a writer.
That's
all I got for now. scribble on
