Fleabag (2016)

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

AI✦Examines how Fleabag’s direct address to camera functions as a self-interrogation tool, using the character’s running monologue to reveal the gap between her self-understanding and self-deception–particularly in season two, where intrusive thoughts mask deeper truths about her emotional defenses.✦

⏱ 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

"These particular episodes in the second season of Fleabag: it is about revealing to us that she has been lying to herself. Those intrusive thoughts are a defense mechanism that gets broken down."

— chas | DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall

DZ-109: Talking DIRECTLY to your audience

What are the different ways a filmmaker can ask something of the audience?

AI✦Analyses how voiceover and fourth-wall techniques function across the diegetic-to-non-diegetic spectrum, interrogating whether Fleabag’s direct address serves exposition, character psychology, or tactical manipulation of audience perspective.✦

⏱ 1h 20m

Words · Character · Structure | 1 MAY 2024

Listen if you've wondered what a character actually wants when they're talking directly to the audience!?

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What are the different ways a filmmaker can ask something of the audience… →

Films: Fight Club (1999) , Fleabag (2016) , The Big Short (2015) , F for Fake (1973) , Star Wars (1977)

Words: Direct Address , Voiceover , Fourth Wall , Exposition

Character: Character Motivation , Unreliable Narrator , Tactics

Structure: Narrative POV

DZ-84: Choices & Decisions 1 - Booksmart

What is the difference between choice and decision when it comes to characters?

In order to better understand dramatising of character, Chas and Stu take a very draft zero look at very specific tool: choices and decisions. We analyse three films through the decisions made by their characters. In particular, how the audience understanding of: the choice available, the considered decision itself, and the consequence changes how we feel about these characters. And how separating those three things can create different emotional effects on your audience… →

⏱ 1h 12m

Character · Audience · Scenes | 30 OCT 2021

Listen how the separation of choice, decision, and consequence (for a character) creates emotional impact.

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In order to better understand dramatising of character, Chas and Stu take a very draft zero look at very specific tool: choices and decisions. We analyse three films through the decisions made by their characters. In particular, how the audience understanding of: the choice available, the considered decision itself, and the consequence changes how we feel about these characters. And how separating those three things can create different emotional effects on your audience… →

Films: Booksmart (2019) , Se7en (1995) , Star Wars (1977) , The Farewell (2019) , Wrath of Man (2021) , Fleabag (2016)

Shows: Fleabag

Character: Choices & Decisions , Character Motivation , Character Agency , Character Depth

Audience: Emotional Impact

Scenes: Dramatic Irony

DZ-63: Tools for Better Dialogue 2 - Hook and Eye

How can you create flow and contrast in your dialogue?

A full three years after the first instalment (and one of our most popular), Stu and Chas have kidnapped Stephen Cleary to once again develop some craft tools around dialogue. It would be fair to say that - in that time - all three have learnt a lot more about dialogue than they knew in 2016. It would be also fair to say that Stephen perhaps learnt a little more through his research into “genderlect”… →

⏱ 1h 58m

Process · Scenes · Character | 31 DEC 2019

Listen when you're rewriting dialogue and want to create connection between characters.

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A full three years after the first instalment (and one of our most popular), Stu and Chas have kidnapped Stephen Cleary to once again develop some craft tools around dialogue. It would be fair to say that - in that time - all three have learnt a lot more about dialogue than they knew in 2016. It would be also fair to say that Stephen perhaps learnt a little more through his research into “genderlect”… →

Films: Juno (2007) , Deadwood (2004) , Fleabag (2016)

Shows: Deadwood 1x1 , Fleabag 2x5

Process: Craft Tools , Rewriting

Scenes: Scene Structure , Status

Character: Subtext , Relationships , Character Authenticity