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Abbott Elementary (2022)

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How is the effect of breaking the 4th wall different to voiceover?

AI✦Uses the direct-to-camera moment in “Attack Ad” to explore how breaking the fourth wall can invite audience complicity in a character’s internal experience, even as the documentary form itself becomes a visual reminder of their powerlessness.✦

⏱ 1h 52m

Character · Words · Tone | 31 JUL 2024

Listen to understand how breaking the 4th wall directly involves the audience in a character's emotional present.

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As part of our series on how filmmakers can directly communicate to the audience, we finally examine the most blatant tool of them all: when character look directly down the barrel of the camera… and thus look directly at us, the viewer. Chas, Stu and Mel take the craft tools/levers they identified in previous episodes and use them to examine the tv-version-of HIGH FIDELITY (“Top Five Breakups”), ABBOTT ELEMENTARY (“Attack Ad)”) and - of course - FLEABAG… →

Films: High Fidelity (2020) , Abbott Elementary (2022) , Fleabag (2016)

Shows: High Fidelity 1x1 , Abbott Elementary 2x7 , Fleabag 2x4

Character: Audience Complicity , Character Agency , Character Motivation , Relationships , Internal Journey

Words: Fourth Wall , Voiceover

Tone: Establishing Tone

"the characters can obviously have control over what they say, but I get no sense of this feeling that they have control of how their story is being represented in terms of the filmmaking or otherwise."

— stu | DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

Shot Zero Deep Dives

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY: Roundup by Shot Zero

five reasons Abbott is one of the best shows of the 2020s

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Setting Up and Paying Off Audience Expectation: ABBOTT ELEMENTARY by Shot Zero

directing to keep theme in frame

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