DZ-101: Oners - Creating Immediacy & Anchoring Action on the Page — Transcript

Chapters 21

21 chapters

3 JUL 2023

0:13 Cold Open

Mel Killingsworth

The resonance of Stu's deep baritone.

Stu Willis

I'll just AI that shit.

0:23 Sponsor: ScriptUp

If you want more Draft Zero more often please consider joining our wonderful cohort of patrons. However, this episode in particular is brought to you by ScriptUp. Now, regular listeners know that ScriptUp are story consultants with industry expertise. They don't promise any of that access to market bullshit. They just help you make your script better via their excellent report and a follow-up feedback call. And that feedback call is super valuable. If you're like me and you think with your mouth open, you know that often discussing ideas is how you find solutions to problems. We've used ScriptUp and they were super helpful for our project. And we've also heard from listeners who sing their praises, that say that their written analysis is really thoughtful and considered, but that the follow-up call really does help, that it helps them diagnose things that are unseen, and also helps them spitball possible solutions in a really creative environment. But the best news we've heard recently for Stu and my ego, and also hopefully for your ego, dear listeners, is that ScriptUp has told us that when they get a script from a Draft Zero listener, Those scripts are a cut above. This means that you, dear listener, must be a better writer just because you love listening to three-hour podcasts about screenwriting. Jokes aside, I think having a shared passion for the screenwriting craft, and that's why we're all here, is awesome. Ego-stroking aside, if you would like 10% off ScriptUp's story consultancy services, please use the promo code DZ10 and you can find the links and the promo code in our show notes.

1:58 Directing from the Page: Writing the Feel of Camerawork

Stu Willis

Hi, I'm Stu Willis.

Chas Fisher

And I'm Chas Fisher.

Mel Killingsworth

And I'm Mel Killingsworth.

Stu Willis

And welcome to Shot Zero, a screenwriting podcast that's all about shots. Annoying Chas. It's kind of a Shot Zero, Draft Zero crossover.

Mel Killingsworth

Kind of. Today we're talking about oners. So shots that, whether they're stitched together via CGI or whether they are all actually one continuous take or is in one of our samples today, whether it's animated and doing things that defy the laws of physics, everything happens within one continuous shot and we're going back to the page and seeing how the writing sets up our shots and our expectations. Yeah.

Chas Fisher

And I'm just conscious here as the one person in the virtual room who does not call themselves a director, that like the key objective here is, in a weird kind of way, this is a related topic to when we did Unfilmables and, you know, to quote Craig Mazin. We should get a super cut of Craig Mazin saying, like, it's our job to direct from the page. But I guess the- We're using oners as a lens, an entry tool, a single aspect of filmmaking to look at how some writers have chosen to, quote unquote, direct from the page.

Stu Willis

What we're talking about is intentionality, right, that they're creating. What is the intention at this moment? And I think the kind of oners that we're talking about have a narrative purpose. It's not just aesthetic, right? We're not talking about a oner that's like an establishing shot, which you can get, right? Where it's like, oh, we're going to do a wide shot and it comes in and finds the characters and, yes, it's a 90-second uncut shot, right? We're talking about a scene that's effectively covered in one shot and the reason I think that we do that on a primary level is coming back to our questions of the scene, I actually think it's about unity, right? We're actually, we talked about scenes as having unity of time, unity of space and unity of action and I think the oner kind of magnifies that unity, right? And it can be real-time and all the oners that we are looking at play out in real-time, but like one of the great one-shots of like from Contact, we've got Jodie Foster's character name, the young Jodie Foster, like the popcorn running up the stairs, like they do a speed ramp in that shot. They go from 24 frames per second to 60 frames per second. There's an iris fall that changes the depth of field, so she's more focused and then you see her in the mirror. Like that's a cool aesthetic shot that moves out of real-time, but the intentionality of it is to put us inside the experience of the character, to kind of amplify the unity. So, I think one of the main reasons to use a oner, and I think all these examples are, right, is one to create that sense of unity, but also kind of really bond us with character experience, right? And I think that's the one of the reasons you need to do it. One of the most common types of oner which we'll look at in Goodfellas is a follow shot, right, because it actually literally puts us almost a POV shot, right? And then you get the inverse, which is like kind of like instead of follow behind, it's a follow from the front on the character and seeing their reactions, which is a little bit different and Hereditary does that as well.

Chas Fisher

I was just going to interrupt you mid directorial segue rant describing shots in an audio format. Just to mention yes we're doing the famous father shot in Goodfellas then we're looking at the incredible motorbike chase sequence in The Adventures of Tintin and closing out with, it's not the first but like one of the many long shots in the incredible Children of Men but but while we've interrupted Stu Mel do you have anything to add. Because I I'm not here to say this is how you direct specifically a oner I'm off from the page what I want to get from this is how do writers convey to a reader the feeling that a oner gives an audience so now what to you is there anything you want to add to Stu's. Unity is in what the effect of a oner has on an audience.

Mel Killingsworth

I think the effects can be well Stu mentioned point of view and I think that in in one of these specific examples the effect is to give us one specific characters point of view and that's in Goodfellas and in another it's essentially to give us the the feeling that all the characters have it's almost a disconnected or like when you're having a associative event almost but you're feeling what they're feeling and then in Tintin it's almost a third, point, like God's eye point of view when you're seeing all this massive action unfold. And I think reading the scripts does give you some of that as well. Particularly in Goodfellas, there are no paragraph breaks. It is all just everything that's not characters talking, because there are there are a lot of bits of dialogue throughout is just chunks of text because you're meant to be swept along with this action. In Children of Men, the script has a lot of, and we'll talk about like the mini slugs, right, but everything's just bang, bang, bang. You can almost tell that it's happening simultaneously because of the mini slugs, you know, in the road, in the car, outside, inside. It's all felt as one. And then in Tintin, you've got this just broad description of all these different actions that are happening. So I do think that the scripts convey the feeling that the ultimate shot gives.

Chas Fisher

Matthew Feeney Yeah.

7:26 Writing camera direction versus writing the feeling of a shot

Stu Willis

And that's going to bring me to one of our guiding principles we had when we picked these scripts is a lot of writers are told don't write camera directions in the script, and I thought about that and I think the reason comes back to that what is the feeling of a shot, right, what is the feeling of this moment in a film and if you point out what the camera is doing in the script, what you're actually saying is the film at that time is going to draw attention to the camera work. That could be a very profound thing, one of my favourite shots which we discussed doing this but it's not we are one up is in Taxi Driver there's this moment when Travis Bickle is calling. I just blanked on Cybill Shepherd's character name, he's having an awkward phone conversation and the camera, un-motivated by physical action, dollies off, down a hallway and the camera, the phone conversation is completely off-serene and then he walks in, that camera move is drawing attention to itself, right, it wants you to go, I can't move, and it becomes a feeling but it's slightly intellectual and you could write that and we dollied off and Taxi Driver has a few of those moments.

Chas Fisher

We also spoke about something similar in The Invisible Man how often the camera would deliberately like move off or like tracking to an empty space that either the character was looking at or not looking at to make us feel that someone was there whether we knew they were there or not and that could very well be written in the page.

Mel Killingsworth

Yeah, and I think that the convention has changed a little bit over time. The oldest shot that we discussed doing is Touch of Evil, which is a very famous one, and it did give a little bit more camera direction on the page. Goodfellas, which is the oldest one of the three that we are actually covering, does a lot of that thing that now a lot of screenwriters tell you not to do, which is, we see, we see this, we see that, and then neither of the other two do that. And so I think that a little bit of it is just that things do change over time, as well as, again, you do have some writer directors, you do have some people who are writing to a specific audience, you know, they know who is going to be reading the script already, etc. So, you know, all rules are made to be broken, etc.

Stu Willis

I'm not saying it's a rule, I'm just saying in terms of the goal is to write not a shooting script, but a spectrum that creates the feeling of the movie. The danger of writing in camera directions is that you draw the reader's attention to what the camera is doing, and that is like the moment you notice what the camera is doing in the film, and that should be something to ground to control.

Mel Killingsworth

Absolutely. And it often feels too didactic as well.

9:50 BOURNE IDENTITY & HEREDITARY

Stu Willis

That said, just to do two contrary examples up front from the films that we're doing, we've talked about this on Joss Europe before, I can't remember which episode, but in The Bourne Identity by Tony Gilroy, there's this wonderful moment when Jason Bourne is hanging on a ledge outside of the American consulate, and Tony Gilroy wants a very specific feeling for the audience. I'm going to handball it over to Meegan May, the co-writer and one of the voice actors in Starship Q-Star, to read this script excerpt. In fact, she's going to be reading all the scripted excerpts in today's episode. Over to you, Meegan.

From the film

Exterior U.S. consulate building wall. Day. Bourne still hanging there. Looking down. Up. There's no choice. He has to go down. Bourne finding a toehold below him. Reaching. Touching down. It gives way. Crumbling and... Hesitates does he know how to do this or not still for a moment then Bourne starts climbing down and this is all one shot no cutaway no cheating we are watching a master at work. Handhold to a drain pipe swinging to a better ledge dropping to an air conditioner grabbing a window frame just before the air conditioner gives way teetering there now he's on the fourth floor.

Stu Willis

Right and then it and then it just goes in and walks out the action so you read it with the idea that this is meant to be one shot in the film it is not one shot right.

Chas Fisher

He had lofty aspirations.

Stu Willis

What's cool about the this is all one shot no cutaway no cheating is coming back to the unfillables thing he's telling us what the camera is doing he's telling what the intention is which is to make the stunt feel real and to make us. Feel that Bourne is the real deal right and master at work.

From the film

So it comes back to that idea that it clarifies the intention This is in contrast to hereditary the end of hereditary We come to a close-up of Peter He looks confused and scared although not in a way that feels like Peter We will hold on this close-up for the remainder of the scene the sound of someone rising This person Joan shuffles past Peter to lift the crown off Charlie's head She then comes to stand, now off-screen, before Peter. After a moment, the crown enters frame to be placed ceremoniously onto Peter's head.

Stu Willis

In italics we will hold on to see you the remainder of the scene right what's interesting about that moment is that dang talks about the sound of someone rising he senses something behind him so he is so consciously aware that the shot is just holding on either that the Big Print changes to reflect the fact that what we are hearing and seeing is what it's basically what we're hearing and he's kind of reaction to what he is saying and it's original from that point of view and Very clever. So as much as it's got this kind of like what we used to call an instructable, right, it is clarifying in the Big Print what the experience of that moment is. And that's why I think it works. So I think, you know, coming in and going, you need to write what the experience of this is. And so if you're thinking as a writer about writing in a one up, right, or something that is like long plane, you have to be thinking about what is my intention here, right? And what do I want the audience to experience to try to reflect that on the page? And I think Goodfellas is a great example of that.

Chas Fisher

I'm going to just briefly squash your brilliant segue there, Stu. Like, I want to reiterate your point that we've chosen three examples where the one or the feeling that the one it gives in each of these examples is a has a narrative purpose to it. But you're drawing, I think, a good distinction between when you're writing camera work into the script, you're kind of, in a way, bumping the reader out or making the reader- They're not in the story they're thinking about how the story is going to be presented and I do think there are one is for audiences that deliberately do the same thing right there I think there are a lot of one is out there that don't serve any narrative purpose. It's just there there for people to go today cut isn't that amazing.

13:15 Narrative purpose as the test for any oner

Mel Killingsworth

Oh that's so pretty but if it goes on long enough I do think you loop back around we talked about the bear right like so the bear they do an entire episode that is a one hour and I start watching and I'm in it. And as soon as I notice, like five minutes in, I think, oh, oh, they're doing this. They're doing this. But then you just get carried away in it and you forget that that's what they're doing. So if it goes long enough, you almost fall back into it again.

Chas Fisher

Yeah.

Stu Willis

I mean, just before we jump into that, and we're not going to do as an example, but the difficulty with the one is you get like the 1917 problem. I describe 1917 as my favorite video game adaption. It feels like Medal of Honor, World War I, the movie. Because like so committing to the water they have to create in private is in the narrative. There's no time jump right there so much you need a time you need action in your space that they can't have time not so everything is conveniently at the exact right time and it feels like a video game where you just finished the action sequence. And the next cutscene starts, but there's not, you know, within the game engine. So, I think that's what's interesting about all these three examples is they don't feel contrived, right? Now, I think sometimes you get that kind of contrivance, you know, the kind of action movie one shot, It'll be everyone fighting, and it just happens to be perfectly timed.

Chas Fisher

And I think I you know we're already talking about Quarren so we pulled up patrons and there was a lot of great TV examples like Mel's mentioned the bear True Detective came up I really wish we'd been able to do that episode of The Haunting of Hill House. Which is also a one of but does like intercuts the same characters but in different ages so they move from the haunting when the children are young to the to a funeral scene when the children are all middle aged. But it's all one and it's as they physically follow the characters and I would have been fascinated to be able to find the script to see what he was doing on the page there like I presume there would have been intention written into it as well because it's such a stark confrontation. It's like a Brechtian distancing thing initially right like it is drawing attention to the fact that this can't be continuous action so why have they done that. So Marvellous Mrs Maisel, Breaking Bad.

Mel Killingsworth

I had several Marvellous Mrs Maisel wonders in mind as well. I just I couldn't find any of the scripts for the right, the ones I wanted to study.

Chas Fisher

Often there are pilot scripts out there and then occasionally you'll find like for your consideration scripts of particular episodes. But other than that, it's really hard to find. So thank you patrons for all your amazing suggestions. But these are the ones we ended up with. So now I'm going to re-open, geez, amazing, it's the famous shot, it's the famous Copacabana shot.

16:30 GOODFELLAS

Mel Killingsworth

If you haven't seen it, Goodfellas is about a guy played by Ray Liotta named Henry who always wanted to be a gangster. And in the scene, he's taking Karen, his girlfriend, to the Copacabana nightclub and he goes in through a back entrance and he's trying to show off.

16:57 Excerpt: the Copacabana follow shot

From the film

Goodfellas, by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese. Exterior Copacabana night. Henry gives the keys and rolled up $20 bill to the doorman at the building across the street and steers Karen towards the Copa. We see Henry deftly steer Karen away from the Copa's main entrance and down the basement steps. A huge bodyguard, eating a sandwich in the stairwell, gives Henry a big hello. We see Henry walk right through the basement kitchen, which is filled with Chinese and Latino cooks and dishwashers who pay no attention. Karen is being dragged along, open-mouthed, at the scene. Henry starts up a stained kitchen staircase through a pair of swinging doors, and suddenly Karen sees she is inside the main room. The hurried maitre d'—he is surrounded by customers clamouring for their tables—waves happily at Henry and signals to a captain. We see a table held aloft by two waiters wedging their way towards the stage and plant the table smack in front of what had until that moment been a ringside table. As Henry leads Karen to their seat, she sees that he is nodding and shaking hands with many of the other guests. We see Henry quietly slip $20 bills to the waiters. We see the captain approach with champagne. Karen watches Henry turn around and wave at a 280-pound hood. Henry turns to the stage where The lights begin to dim and Henny Youngman walks out.

Chas Fisher

This is also a sister episode I think to our white space episode. Because what I like about this episode is I think we've got good examples of actually when a big fuck off block of text can actually serve you well in terms of that feeling of immediacy ongoing.

18:22 How breathless prose mirrors Karen's point of view

Mel Killingsworth

It's breathless, it's literally breathless, like Stu's trying to read the whole thing, and it's breathless, and that's how you feel watching it.

Chas Fisher

There's that continuity of action.

Stu Willis

There's the continuity of action. The repetition of the we see does that continuity as well. What's interesting is it's actually the we see is calling out what piece of choreography we are catching, and then coming back to our main point of focus. So, without overly getting into how you direct a one-eye, I think the longest take I've ever shot is like two minutes. Mel might have more experience of it than me. But in camera terms, we often talk about positions. So, you've got like, and that's related to Mark. So, you've got first position, second position, third position, that's where the camera is or the actors are, focus points, etc. And so, something like this is calling out the positions of where the camera is meant to be pointed. The other thing you're often doing with a one is where is the audience looking you do the taxi driver thing where you pan off something right and there's no action that you're following you're drawing attention to what the camera is doing. So this one, they're following behind the character, so it's on a steadicam. Cam operators walking behind the character following them noticing things that are motivated by action and then coming back and so the script is calling out the key things that the camera needs to say right without going into what is the actual choreography of all the elements in play.

Chas Fisher

Now like just in terms of like fashion and style I feel like now there would be an expectation that each of those sentences would be like a separate. Paragraph just to break up that block of text and maybe there would be less we sees but then what I think that would be replaced with is some form of repetition at the beginning of the sentence to to keep that continuity going and maybe either some ellipses or some double dashes at the end to make it feel like it's flowing on.

Stu Willis

All you might do we follow we yeah right at the beginning we follow Henry dash dash or Colin he drifts through the you know he moved I moved through the dot dot dot new line and through the kitchen to do and, like you could break it up but I think you would probably need to do something like the Bourne Identity or Hereditary just give it a little bit of a framing device but it doesn't have to be, There's plenty of scripts that I've read, True Detective comes to mind because we brought it up, that will do follow or we follow, you know, as part of the writing because it's important, right? We follow Henry. It's not just what you were saying. The intention is we want to be with Henry. And more importantly, we actually want to be with Karen in that moment. Right.

Chas Fisher

This is her point of view.

Mel Killingsworth

Yes. This scene is all about how Karen feels.

Chas Fisher

Yeah.

Mel Killingsworth

Like we're swept along into his world. And this is, it's actually cutting away from Karen introducing her to her mother. And it's just, she's getting swept up with his charisma. We're seeing him do all these things. The whole point of Karen in this scene is just to sort of, we're following along in her back. And even though we see her, it's her point of view. She's seeing him interacting with all these people. He's the one that's physically active in the scene. He's the one that's glad handing and giving 20s and everyone's greeting him and not her and they know him and he's, Hey, how you doing? You know, and joking with the waiters making out in the corner and all that sort of thing. And it's her getting swept up into his world and swept up in his charisma and like before she even knows it, she's through this line and through the back door and seeing all these things happen and now she's in the front row and people are talking to, you know, so it's about feeling like her watching him and getting swept away into his world.

Stu Willis

I mean, you could, if you want to write this in a spec form, and this is me just spitballing an idea, rather than doing something more technical, like follow, you could do Karen, and then brackets, and us are swept up with Henry as he, boom, and, so you're actually describing the emotional effect on the character, and so that makes it feel more justified to be in the script, because it's about emotion, not technicality.

Mel Killingsworth

I think it's just more literal than this script. Gets in terms of the script never really tells us whose feelings we're with or whose, you know, point of view we're in. It's just every script has a different method, but you're right. Like, you could absolutely do that. And again, I think some of that comes down to, you know, the fact that this was written, you know, 35 years ago or whatever. So I think that some of it's just a little bit changing times. I think I probably would do that if I were writing it now.

Stu Willis

Yeah, I'm just speculating how to, like we actually had a brief chat about modernizing it, the modern spec market where there is, you know, there is controversies, unfortunately, around technicalities and script, and I do think learning experience is good, and if you can ground choices in the emotion of the character or the reader, using something like swept up, which is your word, I was just like, oh, that's great, because that's exactly what the intention is, to write it in where you're swept up with, like, coming back to the Hereditary example, it's like, we hold on- Peter's terrible, right like he just says we holding this in CU it's a little bit more instructive and he writes it in italics but it's he's a writer director. I think I would probably try to frame that we hold in the close up with the characters emotion.

Chas Fisher

I mean that that would be my only criticism of how actually this paragraph is written like it clearly is about Karen's experience but then it just completely leaves her never you know goes back to her reaction at all and maybe that's because you know what, the writer is telling is to never turn around like what that we are only in a follow shot like it's suggesting that by only talking about the action that's in front of her and never going back to. How that looks on her face and we don't know whether this version of the script that we're looking at you know Scorsese has said to the writer I'm going to do this as a one and please write it like that or whether he has written it in this way such that Scorsese has read it and gone all that has to be.

Stu Willis

I want to because of just the breathlessness of it is Pileggi wrote the script so it's possible it is specifically were in the we see to be a checklist but everything that like he's actually come up from there I need, these actors I need this these are all the choreography that we're going to have to work out that we can then capture.

25:00 Modernising the we-see style for spec scripts

Mel Killingsworth

You know, and I think the specificity of even the types of people who are in the background suggests that because he's clearly drawing that class distinction. So the specificity of the, you know, the people who are in the kitchen versus the people who are in the main room, like that's very, very intentional. So I definitely think that there's some of that, that flavor that is sprinkled throughout suggests that whether he wrote it, co-wrote it, told the writer what he was thinking, like oh I want this to be a scene that shows you know class and the light and dark and this and that I think that that's all clearly suggested.

Chas Fisher

I feel bad we should actually say who the.

Mel Killingsworth

It's on the yep it's Nicholas. Yes I'll ask the Italian to pronounce the Italian.

Chas Fisher

It wouldn't be a Draft Zero episode without a very poorly pronounced last name. And I mean we can wax lyrical about the writing in the directorial choice here but we could all imagine the MTV or you know Into the Spider-Verse edit version of this, where it's just like constantly cutting very quickly to what Karen seeing and then back to her reaction as it is like just all about her you know being overwhelmed by, And trying to replicate that in the audience and obviously this is a very different choice.

Stu Willis

What they could have stepped in your camera in the corner like so you see them cross the road you see a camera in the stairs they walk past the cameras they go down the stairs you stick the camera in the kitchen and it kind of just pans with them as they walk through the kitchen and it's got some nice shoot through so you get some nice foreground action and we've seen those shots before, foreground action you feed them in the background cut cut you pick them up on the other side of the as they come into the restaurant and you kind of again pan or track with them like this could have been many many shots to kind of get those moments and still nicely choreographed. But the way it is written, that kind of breathless style as Mel said, is like we are in the moment experiencing it with Alan, and as you say, it's about Alan being kind of in awe.

Mel Killingsworth

Yeah, because I think the technique that you're talking about makes her feel almost frazzled. It makes her feel like she's overwhelmed. It's like a sensory overload. whereas with The One-er, you feel like she's carried away and she's a bit overwhelmed, but it's not an overload. It's her along in the wake of Henry's impeccable charisma. So I think that, you know, sometimes you can get across the same feeling with different techniques, but I really think that this technique is, you'd get a very different vibe from different, you know, what you just discussed as opposed to even a follow going the other way. It's showing us us what she's feeling instead of putting us quote unquote in her shoes.

Stu Willis

Yeah.

Chas Fisher

We very deliberately chosen, I think, there's a real virtue to having one is that is performance based as well, but they don't need directing from the page to say that. So one, one that we considered is that amazing scene in Hunger where it's just, you know, that two shot of these incredible performances talking after there has been so much silence in the film before. And, you know, once again, it's a writer, director, co-writing, but there wouldn't have been much. I think reason on the page to draw attention to that choice it just been like the appearance of dialogue on the page after so much white space and action would have had a similar effect like you know the eyeballs would have been sucking up that dialogue and obviously it allows actors to be more in the moment and so there are performance reasons and one recent performance that wasn't a one of it was shot that way is famously the you know the Succession scene and I'm going to, Not spoil anything for Stu who has not watched any Succession and I'm just going to shame him in that way but they deliberately put a number of cameras fixed around the room and let the entire scene play out to try and capture a different style of acting performance in those scenes.

Mel Killingsworth

I think Stu might be slightly spoiled because I did this on Draft Zero where I found that the cutting from the one to the other was.

Stu Willis

Yeah yeah and the lens focal length change making it jump. The other related to Hunger, one of the other famous one shots, because Hunger is probably taking inspiration from, is the phone call from All the President's Men, right? It's just a six minute tracking dot into Robert Redford, while he's calling a contact and he's got multiple phone calls. The thing is, you read the script and it's just literally him on the phone. So you sit there and go, where am I to cut to, right? You could sit there and go, we're going to shoot it from two angles, right? We're going to, maybe we'll have to do a bit of coverage. Fincher might cover it, right? You might do a French over from up and above, which means French over is from behind over the shoulder. You know, there's ways you could shoot it with coverage to give yourself performance options, and in fact, the tape that they've used of Robert Redford, he actually fucks up the name. He butchers the script, then he's in the zone, so he picks up and corrects himself and actually makes it feel more real. And the great thing about that shot is they've got all the buzzing background of it being a newspaper, and so you get a lot of background action that's not written into the script, and then you dolly in, and then it kind of just isolates on Redford's character, Bob Woodward as he kind of basically cracks Watergate. It's a great shot but again it's something that when you read the scripts you're like yeah I could see why the director came to this conclusion or this is a way to do this but it doesn't come across as intentionality from William Goldman and William Goldman definitely wrote in shots like how- Oh my god. He wrote in shots and he wrote in shots and angles and it's of that style you know angle on you know using character names and slug lines and stuff like that so he's got a little bit bit of that kind of, you know, talk to this, angle on that in there and in this moment, he's just reading us the phone conversation.

Chas Fisher

Didn't Goldman also do Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Yeah. But that's got like, I read the script for that once and I'm going to butcher this. I'm paraphrasing from memory, but it was something like, this is going to be the longest, fastest Dolly shot in the history of cinema.

Mel Killingsworth

Doesn't he write freeze frame at the end of that as well?

Chas Fisher

I can't remember. That's the one that stayed with me.

Mel Killingsworth

I'm pretty sure that's actually written in the script which is again it's just but I guess when you're William Goldman, you know you can do that.

Chas Fisher

Yeah I mean that's just to say one of the reasons why I mean we've got two writer directors in our three options and the middle one is an animation which will will talk about the script considerations of that in a second but I think it is you know Stu and I have been harangued. Every podcast about us criticising how much he cheated in one of his scripts and that's the thing that you can do when you're a writer director.

Stu Willis

Positive criticism writing writing intention.

Mel Killingsworth

No such thing as cheating.

Chas Fisher

Yes.

Stu Willis

He was writing intention and then he's his argument was that he was been working out how to realise his intention with the practical execution of it and I think intention all the white things that Mel was describing about the shot in Goodfellas you know we're back here and it's not about her being fostered, That's intentionality. Don't be hung up on the idea about it being one shot or maybe it's two shots. The intentionality is that we want to be, so how do you as the writer in the spec script, make sure that the language that you are choosing is saying, we are being swept up with this character and you might have to beat, quote unquote.

Mel Killingsworth

It's an audio medium, but Stu has put really big quotes on either side of that.

Stu Willis

Yeah yeah but you might have to call that out in the script for people to understand and that's something that suddenly we found that and I would expect scripts both what we worked on together and separately that sometimes you just need to be clear about what your intention is because people read fast. Subtlety is lost. I'm thinking of not so cool and different intentionality should we do thinking because I'm not like what is the intention of this being a one shot and chase kind of thing.

32:48 THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

Chas Fisher

I would say it is what I mentioned before is like Spielberg is drawing our attention to like wow factor here.

Mel Killingsworth

Yep this is just about like oh there's this freedom that animation allows and this is impressive and this is big and this is whoa like that that is it I not as a slam that's great.

Stu Willis

What is the like unless you can read the whole script I don't give me the synopsis of the same like it we don't need the synopsis of the engine we do need a synopsis of the same.

Chas Fisher

So they're in a coastal town they've been attending an opera performance and the villain is there and Tintin and Captain Haddock and Snowy are together and there is a literal kind of mini adventure in this whole sequence. There's a MacGuffin there's the three pieces of a scroll which get lost and are being chased and in particular there is some edits in the beginning of this sequence but at one point it chooses to stop cutting and just continues through the rest of the action, Which is when a bird gets involved in the chat in the chase a trained Falcon steals a bit of the scroll and while Captain Haddock is fist fighting with the baddies Tintin is chasing the Falcon.

From the film

The Adventures of Tintin, The Secret of the Unicorn, by Stephen Moffat and Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. Haddock throws down the rocket launcher. The wall of the dam bursts with a thunderous boom. Angle on. Tintin and Haddock desperately attempt to outrun the wall of mud on the motorcycle. Angle on. Exterior bagger streets. Mudslide. Day. Angle on. Sakharine as he watches the deluge behind Tintin and Haddock. Tintin skillfully navigates the motorcycle as Tom desperately steers the Jeep down flooded streets. Angle on. Sakharine looking behind them. Sakharine POV. A torrent of mud is bearing down on them. Tintin's motorcycle is getting closer. Tintin and Haddock drive past on motorbike with sidecar. Snowy leaps into the jeep and tries to grab the scrolls. Sakharine tries to keep them from Snowy, only to have the scrolls grabbed by Tintin. Snowy jumps back to the motorcycle. Sakharine's Falcon flies after Tintin and Haddock. He swoops down. The mudslide slams into the city buildings, destroying everything in its path. A A tank bursts through the wall behind them and Haddock is banged on the head by a barrel. Haddock's coat is snagged by the tank cannon and he is lifted from the sidecar. The scrolls slip from Tintin's hand. Haddock grabs two. Snowy grabs the scroll before it flutters away. The motorcycle breaks in two, and Tintin and Snowy sail off in different directions. Haddock hangs from the barrel of the tank. The tank careens and slides all over the road, smashing Haddock from one wall into the other. Haddock hangs precariously over the edge of a drop. Haddock falls through lines of washing. Haddock loses another scroll, which flutters up into the air. The scroll flutters in the air. Haddock tries to grab it. The falcon swoops in and snatches the scroll. Haddock gives chase, cursing as he goes. Tintin collects Haddock on the front of his motorbike. Snowy rides atop the mudslide and manages to capture the falcon, pinning him down with the scroll still in his beak. They race alongside Tintin and Haddock. Haddock launches himself at the falcon. He manages to upset Snowy and the bird. They fly through the air into a building, as Snowy hangs on by his teeth to the scroll the falcon holds in its talons. Haddock ends up inside the building. He swirls around and around, and the mud rises higher. Haddock grabs Snowy. Winded, Snowy lets go of the scroll. The falcon snatches the scroll. Sakharine arrives in the jeep. He raises his arm to the bird. Tintin intercepts the falcon. He grabs the bird and manages to get two of the scrolls before the falcon escapes. The motorcycle is smashed on a bridge and Tintin uses the handlebars to ride electrical wires like a zipline. He runs along the walls of buildings, smashes into poles and rides a lantern after the falcon, the threads that still entangle the bird just beyond his grasp. Just as the falcon loses Tintin, he jumps from a balcony and grabs the falcon. Time slows as Tintin slowly aligns the scrolls, still locked in the talons of the falcon. The mysterious symbols slowly become numbers.

34:14 Excerpt: the Bagghar chase set piece

37:23 Capitalisation and handovers as the connective tissue of a oner

Stu Willis

So what do you think the intentionality is I'm turning us in an interview but you're more familiar with the shop and what do you think the intentionality is you said spectacle but. Is it just be on that is to cry raise the stakes or is it you know Spielberg does a lot of one and we should link to the great video breaking down his one is pretty does a lot of one is that it just like combining coverage and being really efficient this is definitely like I'm having fun.

Chas Fisher

Yeah I can only go by my feeling is the audience I think this is genuinely just about spectacle I think there could have been efficiencies in the edit that he chose not to use. In particular I think it how the one a starts where it's very clever but it you know that heading down hill like this entire town is like slopes downhill in a very sort of Mediterranean coastal way and it starts with, Captain Haddock on one platform fist fighting and it drops down and finds Tintin going around a corner on the motorbike and what I like about the script is it doesn't ever draw attention to the fact now, you've worked in animation a long time and we've spoken about animation before we don't know how much this script was just like a transcription of previous so we don't know but it is never at any point saying, This is all going to be one shot and it does move between the different characters and the different actions and it keeps the characters capitalised which I think is really important for the read and it starts each line with the character in cap so it's kind of like you were talking earlier about the positions in the one is it's orienting you in the action as to what you're looking at and who's doing what.

Mel Killingsworth

Not just the characters, but all the really key things like the smoke explosion, the rocket launcher, like all those sorts of things that are really crucial. It capitalizes all of them, which again, because of animation, it's almost capitalizing what gets featured in, not in each shot, because it's a wonder, but in each frame, you know? Oh, this is actually what's really important in this moment of this shot is the rocket launcher, is the trigger, is the cloud of smoke, is the falcon, is the etc., you know? you know? Yeah.

Stu Willis

Yeah. Coming back to it, you know, I don't know how the film was made. I had two Pauly. Welcome the previous patron team, one of them Kevin Saracen and Kyle Ashley. Super talented and it's very possible that they just started previews in this sequence. It's also possible, I mean, as far as I know Spielberg hasn't used boards for a while because they're not spatial enough for him, right, like as in they just can do 2D frames but like- Like not enough 3D. Yeah, it's hard to communicate perspectives but it's possible this was very organic, that the writers were coming up with ideas and the storyboard artists or the previs were doing things for it, which definitely happens in animation and it's not like, oh, it's just the previs artists it can be that they sit with the writers or Spielberg or all of them in a room and spitball but at the moment I think there are things that you can talk about that they seem to have caught something of the intentionality and the spirit of the shot in the script and we should learn from regardless of how the sausage was made.

Chas Fisher

I mean so I've already named one tool that they use which is similar to I think what they've done in all three scripts which is they very much each line anchor the position or the the point of view or what the action is and then they've done two very different I feel like tools like white space tools there are lots of just single lines ending in ellipsis like next line I'll give you some examples. Haddock hangs precariously over the edge of a drop ellipsis Haddock falls through the lines of watching ellipsis Haddock loses another scroll which flutters up into the air exclamation mark the scroll flutters in the air Haddock tries to grab it full stop. The Falcon sweeps in and snatches the scroll ellipsis Haddock gives chase cursing as he goes. Tintin collects Haddock on the front of his motorbike full stop so each of those are a single paragraphs like broken up tons of white space each line starts with the character you know in caps at the beginning and you know the the ellipsis gives that feeling of continuity of action but sometimes it repeats the action you know that the repetition of flutters up in the air is I think important but then what it also does is has a number of moments where there are blocks of text as well. So I'm just going to read to which is a three line paragraph and then a four line paragraph Snowy rides a top the mud slide and manages to capture the Falcon pinning him down with the scroll still in his beak exclamation mark they race alongside Tintin and Haddock. Tintin nice work Snowy don't let him go then the next four line paragraph Haddock launches himself at the falcon ellipsis he manages to upset Snowy and the bird dash they fly through the air into a building as Snowy hangs on by his teeth to the scroll the falcon holds in his talons exclamation mark. Haddock ends up inside the building ellipsis he swells around and around as the mud rises higher. So even that's kind of more like what they were doing in Goodfellas like this breathless continuity of action and you know it's interesting to see the two different types because you can imagine it almost being broken up into many sequences within, the action shot like the locations change or the mode of transport changes whether the characters are together or apart all of that changes but, Never are you lost as to what is going on the actual words on the page of very efficient there's very few adjectives in there.

Stu Willis

My other observation in this mainly more into directing but they're doing on the page which is Goodfellas was a follow right like as in we're following with character and it kind of picked up some other action but you feel that it comes back to the character, It's just doing a lot of handovers, right? So you follow character A who meets character B, B walks over to C, C comes back to A, right? So it's making sure that the links in the chain, which is what you need to make it want to work, if you want to feel like it's motivated, they're doing it on the page. It flutters up in the air, then you've got the falcon coming in, and then this happens. And that's why it needs to reorientate you to make it feel like it's connected, right? That it's got the connective tissue as much as possible, because otherwise, you're going to be like, well, how do I get from character A to character C or action A to action C, right? Like they're trying to create that feeling and choreography of those elements on the page. Don't you think?

Chas Fisher

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Stu Willis

The repetition is quite a bit of links in the chain. Without drawing attention to it right.

43:48 Anchoring action through micro-plotting and clear victory conditions

Chas Fisher

I'll just read one more paragraph because this one uses a slightly different technique of doing exactly what you just described this one instead is on page a hundred and one. The motorcycle is smashed on a bridge comma and Tintin uses the handlebars to ride electric wires like a zip line full stop. He runs along the walls of buildings, smashes into poles and rides a lantern after the falcon, the threads that still entangle the bird just beyond his grasp exclamation mark. And you know that's demonstrating everything we spoke about before but I want to just highlight their use of capitalisation. So instead you know you can use whatever you want you can use bold italics underline whatever it is that works for you but they have capitalised, motorcycle then Tintin then handlebars then electrical wires then zipline then walls then buildings then smashes, then poles then Lantern then Falcon and then threads and each of those are kind of you can see them being focuses of the camera or change of location or like orienting you in the shot.

Stu Willis

Yeah what are the key elements makes me think a little bit like tangent but coming back to the all the president's men example we talking about this one shot what's interesting about the choice of that one shot is it's immediately falling on montage. Right to pre-order and has a montage been playing documents they find this clue cut to this one shot is a rhythm thing to it and that's part of what makes a one up. Work is the rhythm of the choreography within the shot but there's also the black of rhythm that's created by the lack of cutting. Right you know what is interesting because i have to create the rhythm through the choreography of elements rather than cutting shots right and so you have it was creating with. Right, they're orientating the reader, but they're helping giving that sense of this thing is propulsive, even if we're not cutting between scenes or cutting between extensible camera setups.

Mel Killingsworth

And it's almost like this da da da da da, like you're looking at the page and you see these, the small caps, the big caps, the small caps, the big caps, it is very, it's almost musical, there's a pattern to it that you can sort of feel and as you go, it's not choppy, but it's very, Staccato? You know, a few longs and a short, and a few longs and a short, yeah, staccato.

Stu Willis

I think what's interesting about this scene is it's a set piece, right? And that's a little bit different. Goodfellas is not a set piece. Kingdom of Enies is a set piece, but it's got different purposes. This has got, and we'll talk about it a little bit more like a Babus in-game of the scene, is that it's got, like, as you say, down the hill, very clear motivation, get the MacGuffin. The character is irrelevant. What the characters do reflects who they are, but it's not about us beginning to deepen our understanding of who these characters are, right? And so they simplify all of that stuff so they can have a lot of micro-plotting. So I think meeting when to do a sequence like this, you might need to strip it out and make sure that we understand what the arena is. This is the terminology I'll- when we eventually talk about the game with the scene. We need to understand what the arena is and what the- kind of the goal, what is the victory condition of this set piece, which is get the scroll, right?

Chas Fisher

Yeah. Or the bird, which has the scroll at that time.

Mel Killingsworth

And I- so I actually- to be frank, I watched this for this podcast. Like I haven't seen the movie and I watched this one, and it was immediately clear to me what was happening, the action, who was who, what was being chased, and then again, the objective of the scene. You know, and then I went back and read the script and then it became clear, but it's really obvious within the set piece. I was never confused, I was never lost, it's inherent within the way that it's shot, but then if you read it, it's also inherent in the way it's written.

Stu Willis

Interesting comparison to Gameside. Gameside has a centerpiece that's somewhat like this, which is Get the MacGuffin. In Gameside, if you haven't seen it, the MacGuffin's a Faberge egg, and they basically play as they describe it in the script. A game of hot potato hero characters have been chased and they're throwing this egg to each other we did a little bit of a breakdown of it on Draft Zero but all the script basically says is and they play a high stakes game of hot potato.

Chas Fisher

They do underline that line.

Mel Killingsworth

No rules.

Stu Willis

It's almost like they knew that the choreography was going to be so dependent on the physical space, right? And the directors did the similar kind of game in their Dungeons and Dragons film, which was the chasing the druid who's constantly transforming and following her. It's the same kind of concept. It's a little bit of a gag, and they've done it as a way to kind of emphasize that. But what's interesting about the script as you highlight it is they're really giving us the dig down. They're not relying on. I mean maybe they did storyboarded and they did a post script on it or it's a combination of all of these elements but the fact is even if it's a transcript incredibly good transcript and effective one of creating the feeling.

Chas Fisher

There's so much micro plotting like even so much more than I mean in Game Night they've not done any of the micro plotting perhaps deliberately but in Dungeons and Dragons again that what that, doing that scene is a wanna actually does is as much as the character you the audience is behind is the druid it kind of puts you more in the empathetic position of the gods chasing her. Because she keeps you know disappearing and reappearing and you're kind of surprised as they are when she changes or what she's.

Stu Willis

Doing it makes it look awesome. Yeah, that's the intention of that shot. It's about how clever she is. It's like a not an arc of awesome, but it's like yeah, this character is cool. Yeah, it's what we talked about the whole sometimes if we need to make character feel impressive like Sherlock, we actually have to withhold information for the audience that we are surprised by what they are doing and that's makes them seem smart if we're ahead of the character makes them see.

49:34 CHILDREN OF MEN

Chas Fisher

All right well do we want to go to our final example which is one of the- . There are so many great one is in Children of Men that when Mel said in her thread the car one I thought it was a different one because one of my favourite shots in Children of Men is when they're escaping the farm and the one is starts with him pushing the car silently down the hill and it stays with them like in and out of the car as people are chasing and goes right to the bottom of the hill in the, Holding in that one it makes you feel their terror like it really makes you empathize with them because you know most people who had a manual car in their life have had to push start a manual car and know what that terror is like without people chasing you and trying to shoot you but that is not the shot that Mel has selected.

Mel Killingsworth

Too many wonders in a great great way.

Chas Fisher

So now which is the the moment of Children of Men that you've selected for us.

Mel Killingsworth

So I've chosen what I think is the first big wonder. We definitely have a few that track through the streets But I wouldn't necessarily call them entire scenes They're more they're more world-building based and the one that I've chosen is the one where Julian and Theo are reconnecting and then all of a sudden while everyone is in the car terrorism happens and You know chaos ensues.

Stu Willis

So if you haven't seen that film, right?

Mel Killingsworth

So I don't think we need to do a synopsis of the whole film You've essentially got you've got Julian and Theo and we know they have a past We know they used to be married and they're not married anymore. And we know that Julian is still an activist and Theo used to be and Julian is kind of dragged Theo back into this world because there's these other three characters in the car and there's this activism that Theo's still a little bit unclear of that they've sort of dragged him to look help us do this thing with this young girl you'll be well recompensed and you'll, you know, come back to your roots. So you've got... Different people in different stages of their relationship with different motivations all in the one place and we're still a little bit unclear what they are and one of the other things that fascinates me about this is that the action in the script remains almost the same as what you get in the film however the dialogue and the conversation that happens is completely different and that's really fascinating.

Stu Willis

So they're in this car, they're going somewhere, right, they're bonding, and then there is a car blocks them off.

Mel Killingsworth

This flaming car, yeah, this car that's lit on fire, like comes in their own blocks their path.

Stu Willis

They're getting stopped and they're getting attacked. That is kind of the synopsis of the scene. It is tense at peace and it ends with Julian getting killed, right?

Chas Fisher

Yeah.

Mel Killingsworth

It actually doesn't end with that. That happens about midway through. She's killed, but the wonder continues. The wonder continues, we actually get out of the car and we see one of the other people in the car shoot two cops dead. Like the cops have come along, the terrorists have fled. The person who was the driver, who is Julian's current compatriot, gets out and shoots the cops. And Theo has just seen his ex-wife killed in front of him, still isn't quite sure what's happening. Suddenly this driver's killed two cops, the terrorists have fled, and Theo just gets out and is like, what the fuck? And because it's been a one-er up until that point, yes, we've been inside of everyone's headspace, but as soon as he gets out and says that, we're with him, we're like, what has just happened? Everything has changed in the course of this, you know, I think it's like six pages. All of a sudden, everything's been upended, that he thought he knew, that we thought we knew, we've been introduced to all these groups of people, all these different things have happened. oh, all of a sudden all these people are dead and we're back in the car and we're driving away. And we're quite breathless because it has been very continuous. Things have been happening constantly.

53:38 Excerpt: the Zed ambush

From the film

♪ The multiplayer pulling away, Theo accommodating himself, glancing at the woman seated beside him in the middle seat. Kee, 21, is dark-skinned, West Indies. When she was born, the world was already falling apart. She grew up knowing human life would not last much longer than her. To Julian. Theo and Kee lock eyes. Kee looks away. Theo looks around the car. Miriam, 58, shy woman, Scottish, simply dressed, string bracelets. She can't believe it's the end of the world. It's not in the stars. Theo senses the tension in the car. Everyone is nervous. Theo makes himself comfortable against the door and closes his eyes, dozing. Exterior Canterbury roads, day. The roads of Canterbury are curvy, running through the woods and small hills. The multiplex cruises along.

And this is where the one-er actually begins.

From the film

Theo's eyes open. Julian smiles. Theo looks out the window at the wooded hills passing by, getting his bearings. Kee laughs at a small TV flipped down from the ceiling. On TV, Miriam spots something out the window, through the windshield up ahead. A burning car comes rolling down a small hill, towards the road they're travelling on. Luke accelerates. The Multiplier responds grudgingly. The Multiplier picks up speed, the burning car careening down the road, but it looks like they may beat it. Luke slams the brakes, screeching to a stop, just avoiding. We now intercut between the road and the Multiplier. Road. The flaming car cuts them off. Smash! Crashing into a derelict car. Inside the Multiplier. Tense silence. The road is now blocked by the flaming car. They hear war cries. Emerging from the trees. Zeds. A gang of twenty-ish males, faces painted, some masked, armed with stones, sticks and knives. A tribe of hunters descending down the road in a wave, running at them. Inside the multiplar, CRACK, the first stone hits the window. Instead, Luke throws the car into reverse, screeching the car backwards. The Zeds upon them, running down the car, CRACK, sticks and fists pounding, bodies piling on. Luke keeps pedal to the metal. Screaming in reverse, the last Zeds dropping off, giving chase, but can't catch up. Road. A lone motorcycle comes from behind the burning car. Two riders in masks, racing through the Zeds, accelerating, towards the Multiplier, coming closer. Inside the Multiplier, Luke can't go any faster backwards. The motorcycle catches up, running alongside them. The Zed on back looks in the car, his eyes visible for an instant through his black mask. Luke accelerates and the motorcycle drops back, riding now in front of the car. Theo sees the Zed on the back of the motorcycle rise up. He's aiming a high-powered rifle at them. Bang! The bullet crashes through the windshield. Julian jolts with the impact, blood spraying, the passengers screaming in terror and disbelief. In the car, screaming to Miriam. Miriam uses her body to protect Kee. Theo is reaching over the seat, coming to Julian. She's been hit in the neck. She's bleeding badly. Her eyes are open, alive, barely. Road. The motorcycle accelerates again, coming back alongside them. Inside the Multipla, Theo sees the motorcycle approach, the Zed on back, pointing the gun at him, about to shoot. Abruptly, Theo throws open his door. Road. Whack! Theo's car hits the motorcycle. The driver trying to keep balance, but he's going too fast. The motorcycle careens and spills, throwing the gunman into the grass, the driver bouncing across the pavement, leaving lots of skin behind. Inside the Multipla. Luke slows the car just enough to execute a turn, spinning a 180, heading away from the ambush, finally driving forward. Theo holds her throat with both hands, trying to dam the blood with his fingers. Julian reaches towards her throat, grabbing one of Theo's hands. She squeezes the hand, holding it tightly. Miriam rubs her palms together, laying healing hands onto Julian's head, holding them there. Theo's still holding Julian's wounds in her hand, Miriam's hands on her. Julian is dead. The car is silent. Then, approaching from the distance, they hear sirens. It's a police caravan. Two squad cars and a tactical van, coming from the opposite direction. Luke plays it cool, maintaining his speed, as the caravan heads right towards them. The police caravan flies past them, headed for the scene of the ambush, there's a moment of relief. Until, in Luke's rearview mirror, one of the police vehicles brakes from the caravan, turning around, coming back towards them. Sirens screaming, the police car following, getting closer. Luke keeps driving. The policemen are right on their tail. There's no choice. Luke eases the car to a stop. Road. The police car skids to a stop behind the Multipla. Immediately, two policemen are out of their cars, approaching, guns drawn, screaming. In the Multipla, Luke watches the two policemen approach. Miriam opens her door. Theo opens his, starting to get out. Road. Luke steps out his door, one hand raised in the air. Luke pulls his other hand from the car. Bang. Luke's other hand is holding a gun and he shot cop one through the heart. Before cop two can react, Luke swivels. Bang. Luke gets off another shot, taking down cop two. Cop two fires off a shot. Bang. Luke finishes cop two. The echo of gunfire dissipates. Theo standing there, taking it in. The two cops lay bleeding on the ground. Silence. Theo stays there, confused. Luke levels the gun at Theo. Luke pointing the gun at Theo, who does not back down. He appears ready to finish with Theo, and Miriam can tell. Theo gets in the car. Luke gives the gun to Miriam. Interior Multipla Driving. Day. Luke driving away. All business taking control.

1:00:32 Mini slugs and car-interior POV as 360-degree orientation

Mel Killingsworth

There's a lot of things that you can find about the direction of this in terms, you know, you go on YouTube and they show how they, you know, cut the car apart and here's how the camera is mounted and all of those sorts of things if you're interested in the direction. But I was really interested, in fact, when I picked wunners, this was one of the first ones that came to mind, I wanted to study how this was done on the page and why. And I think it's fascinating, you know, Chas, you pointed out that they use almost these mini slugs. There's a lot of this back and forth in the mini slugs, but it doesn't do what we saw in Goodfellas where it says, we see. And it's not something that on the page feels like it needs to be this epic set piece. But it does have this idea that all of these things are happening at once. And I think that doing it as a one-er instead of a ton of different cuts makes you feel how simultaneous and how terrified and how instantaneous your reactions have to be, whether those reactions are terror, whether those reactions are shooting people, whether those reactions are that fight or flight, right? It puts you in that fight or flight mindset of all of the characters who are in the car with you. No one particular point of view because you see all of their faces at different times. You see outside the car, it's constantly showing you a 360, but I think this this one is is alright.

Stu Willis

So what are they doing on the page to kind of create that so there's these mini slugs so what we're talking about is stuff that's not a specific like interior exterior it's It's just something like, in the multiplane this would be. Is that how you even say it?

Mel Killingsworth

I think it's multipla.

Stu Willis

Yeah, that's like, I meant row, but they're not interior exterior daylight. They're just capitalized.

Mel Killingsworth

It never says interior exterior. It's on its own line. And we do get one or two other things that say emerging from the trees, which just signifies like a direction or a vague somewhat something is coming from, but it's not interior exterior and it's never probably attention to itself.

Stu Willis

It just kind of happens along with all these other lines that are coming, bang, It helps orientate you though and kind of breaks up, this is what we are with, this is what we are with, this is what we are with, right.

Chas Fisher

Before we even get into the drive the script does take a bit of time to say where each character who they are and where they're sitting in the car to your points you to like, orient us for the dialogue seen in the position and where the action is happening when people are having to reach across you you know where that where they in the car they're reaching from and where they're reaching to so it says, Theo looks inside Luke at the wheel Julian beside him to other women in the back seat very efficient but it's orienting us.

Mel Killingsworth

This is the scene before this is not within the one-er.

Chas Fisher

You know Theo climbs in and then at the beginning of the next scene Theo accommodating himself glancing at the woman seated beside him in the middle seat and then it introduces the other characters but it very firmly tells us who's in the middle in the back who's on either side who's like behind the driver who's behind. Julian so we're well-oriented before the one-er starts.

Mel Killingsworth

And I think that's important it's were oriented within the script it's something that obviously when you're watching is almost inherent but this is telling us where everyone sits is actually quite important.

Stu Willis

And also I think it's because the action as you kind of alluded to is going to take place around the car right it's not happening. The kind of the one-er want to be fixed on the car it's not a roving. Am I going to go outside and follows all the characters and comes back quite a bit different to the one-ers that we've seen Tintin Tintin was following this MacGuffin almost the MacGuffin became most of what we were following very similar to the Games Night, example where the egg becomes the connective tissue in Goodfellas the one-er is the connective tissue is almost the moving between real space right that's the other advantage you know what are the advantages of wandering in space makes it feel real because you feel the transitions the boundaries if you've ever worked on a sound stage where you've got real world external locations and internal sets you don't often have the characters walk through doors Or you put a green screen out the door so you can actually kind of get something that makes it feel connected and want to help sells the physical reality of an environment and that's why some directors use them. Here it's not actually about the transition of space, it's about the characters within the car and then what's happening outside. Okay, and so the slug lines doing that, but what is I found really interesting is that it's wishing most of the Big Print is written from the point of view of those inside the car. So you've got inside the multiplier, tense silence, the road is now blocked by the flaming car, they hear war cries, mini slug emerging from the trees, zeds. So it's not cutting to like inside the trees and seeing the zeds it's making us hearing it's very similar to hereditary they're writing the Big Print from the point of view of the characters where the camera is kind of fits to and that early on particularly helps them understand that when we go road motorcycle coming that we're experiencing it from the characters and it does pull out a few moments which is like from through the the windscreen kind of thing right yeah Definitely, but it stops doing that because I think it's established the idea that they're going to do as much as possible.

Mel Killingsworth

Yeah, it's almost all in the beginning. Theo looks out the window at the wooden hill and it actually calls it out. Theo looks at the window at the wooded hills getting his bearings. It's almost letting us as the reader see how the people inside the car are trying to situate themselves. And then, you know, it does that a few times. And then once, you know, once that flaming car runs down the hill, everything just keeps happening so much.

1:06:17 Real-time big print and the moment-by-moment obligation of action lines

Chas Fisher

Can I make an observation that you know the first of all Mel it would be worth you talking about the big difference between the script that we're reading and what happens in the film in the first part before the burning car appears because, in the script it's just dialogue other than Theo getting his bearings we don't really have any indication that this is supposed to be immediate urgent real time anything like that, And what they've chosen to do on screen and I presume in a future draft is introduce one of those moments that it's an incredible character moment but it also draws the audience's attention to the fact that this is a one-er so I think that's I'm handballing to you Mel.

Mel Killingsworth

There's two big differences in the script. The first is that in the script there is something where it talks about there's a flip down TV that's playing this old British footage that Key, who's the new character, sort of the very unknown to everyone else in the car element, is watching and laughing at. And they've taken that out. So they've deleted that. Now that could be a practical element because of the way that they've had to build the car. But I actually think that it's also, it's something that could almost be too distracting. If you're trying to watch her and you're trying to watch the screen in something that's a one-er, that's actually something that's quite difficult to do effectively. The second thing that happens, though, is they replace a lot of this dialogue between Theo and Julian with a bit about them passing a ping pong ball back and forth between their mouths. And it's something that it sells their chemistry, it sells their history. She actually says, do you know how many people I've tried this with and nobody's been able to do this with me, right? Like, so you've got this moment where it's like, they're still each other's flames, right? But on the page, what's important is character moment. And they've deleted a lot of the dialogue and replaced it with teasing dialogue and ping pong balls for character moments and physical and visual stimuli which the ping pong ball services both.

Stu Willis

Yes I think in the purpose is part of it is that they want to make it feel real time but inching this thing, comes from the fact that he's playing out in real time and the feeling of panic and the 360 move from a direct point of view makes us feel the tension and the riding just like inside the car road helps create that sense of surrounding but the 360 moves definitely add to that. What is interesting is that real time feel is in the Big Print. Okay, often when we talk about writing, or even when I teach my beginning writing students, it's like, you actually want to compress time, phone rings, character gets out of their chair, walks over, picks up the receiver, blah, blah, blah. That's normally stuff you can just delete, because the editor will delete it, right? We get no dramatic potential about a character getting up out of the chair, picking up the phone in a normal situation. Maybe it was a character that he's like, got their leg cut off and bleeding, you know, that adds more tension, and them having to do it is like an obstacle. But in this, the Big Print is actually playing out moments in detail, right? The motorcycle creeps and spins, throwing the gunman into the grass, driver bouncing across the pavement, leaving lots of skin behind. Wound explodes the car just enough to execute a turn, spinning a 180, getting away from the ambush, final driving forward. And then there's more, particularly when once Julian is shot, where it's kind of going into the detail, how they're trying to deal with the wound, because that is additional tension. Quite, you know, in a very clinical way, it's an obstacle that they're trying to deal with, that it's escalated the situation, right, that the kind of situation is one-up. So, the Big Print is actually giving us a lot of detail of the moment-by-moment that's happening in the action, because once it melts on her. And I think because the moment is so tense that you can get away with that, that you don't sit there and go, oh, can this action line just be like, the motorcycle explodes, and instead it gives us the detail of them tumbling and stuff you know it's alluding to the stunt work but it's actually more specific keeping us in this it's real time they're not compressing the time in there the choices in the action lines.

Chas Fisher

Like you said it draws the audience's attention to this is a one-er like you know to paraphrase Tony Giora no cutting no cheating right whether they cheated with VFX is another question but it draws the audience's attention to a one-er before then the action starts. So I think that is a good example of when it's worth drawing the audience's attention to the camera work is it then sets up a narrative purpose I mean they're also they're not afraid of obviously there's really super short. Single lines of action but like Tintin they're not and like Goodfellas they're not afraid of longer blocks of text but they just like in Tintin they're using punctuation to create that staccato feel. So you've got instead comma Luke throws the car into reverse comma screeching the car backwards full stop the Zed's upon them comma running down the car full stop crack exclamation mark, Sticks and fist pounding, bodies piling on, ellipsis. So the, you know, almost any, you know, subsection of a sentence in there is no more than three or four words. So even though it's not like having lots of white space, it's just like pounding you with the rhythm of the text.

Mel Killingsworth

And it's a very, it's a very different type of rhythm than the other two, but they all have their own internal rhythms. Like this one has a lot fewer, it introduces stuff in the big text just the first time, like burning car or whatever, the first time it's all in caps, the rest of the time it's just taken as part of the scene, which is completely unlike Tintin. It's all like one line, staccato, couple of words here, couple of words there, there's a few like blank stares, you know, spots, something, very short things. So it's very different than the other two, but they're all establishing their own rhythm.

1:12:24 Key Learnings & Wrap Up

Chas Fisher

So should we just quickly summarise like the Children of Men I think you know I was fighting for it to be the first one that we did but I think it's good that it's the last because I think it draws on all the tools that we previously identified from the two previous examples. For me the big tools that it uses is to Stu's point it suggests the one and by constantly orienting things from the characters in the car. Like you said it's you know Miriam notices in Luke's rearview mirror through the windshield and then obviously those mini slugs in the Multipla you know or road you know the bike.

Mel Killingsworth

I'm sure it's some sort of British Pacific car thing.

Chas Fisher

And then what they've all done is you know they have thinned out the writing even if they've used different approaches to white space, They've all thinned out the pace of the words and the length of the sentences and the use of punctuation.

Stu Willis

Yeah and I think if people, you know, you will often get the note, oh you need to write this scene from the point of view of the character and what is interesting in all these scenes is the sensory experience, is written from the point of view of the character so that's worth studying the scripts of all these three films to see how they do that, particularly Children of Men because of those connections to hearing the sounds outside but also hereditary which we mentioned, Because it speaks to intention and look you can absolutely do the attorney go away no cuts no cheating kind of idea I'd use that in a horror script it was kind of like almost a Children of Men inspiration where it was like a zombie script was just a rewrite job and. A bunch of people attacking the characters in the back of this car and kind of pulls the handbrake and lays in the back of the car right and this was low budget so that we specifically wrote, We hold on the character but cuts no cheating but we also then wrote in the sound. I don't even wonder if we needed the cut so cheap we could have just written we hold on the turret like the tension or whatever and just spoken more about what they were hearing around them, the idea is that we were going to see the car plow through the zombies we just got a hold on this character you it then cut to a wide shot of the car already, place the picture vehicle already placed in the position right so we didn't actually have to do this done that was the idea, So I think this has kind of told me that you can kind of not do that because sometimes it doesn't matter. Chas and I are looking at this scene in the script that we're working at the moment, and we kind of talked about, I mentioned that I was thinking about shooting it for one hour, but really what I'm interested in is the real-time feel, and maybe it ends up being two shots that are properly cut, right, that we don't try to stitch them, because it's not about that. Maybe we do stitch them, but from the writing point of view on the page, the intentionality is that this is playing out, this is a big horror moment, it's playing out in real time, and we are within the experience of our protagonist and we should be writing it from what they see so if these other characters come off we don't cut to them we may just talk about them being a murmur hear their panic right and we don't write the dialogue like in a shooting script or on the day we might have to write out what they're saying so the actors know what their business is. The experience of the moment is that it's kind of myopic.

Chas Fisher

Yeah and like my key learning from this is that I've overwritten that like I'm really focused on like saying we are in X's point of view like heartbeat thundering in his ears that kind of stuff because I'm hitting on the head overly the intention and I think I can achieve the same thing by just shortening the sentences or shortening the clauses to this really tight format.

Stu Willis

It could just be Sky in the car you know we hold on Nicola if he is overwhelmed by because really what we're talking about is being overwhelmed I mean that's kind of what Children of Men is it's not like anxiety overwhelmed it's kind of like literally just being surrounded in that sense of panic and that kind of all this stuff going on in the real time and it's like them struggling to kind of get control back.

Chas Fisher

I mean like yet just another one siren screaming comma the police car following comma getting closer full stop Luke's Luke keeps driving the longest section of sentence and that is four words.

Stu Willis

But it has talked about the car was doing in a little bit more detail to create the sense of it happening in real time because there is tension in the police vehicles approaching right, It doesn't just say the police vehicles approach or police vehicles thunder it's kind of actually used a little bit more words than necessary in order to make it feel more real time to me anyway that's how I interpret that.

1:16:50 Intentionality as the writer's true directorial compass

Chas Fisher

I mean my key learning from the whole exercise other than tightening the words on the page is like that use of repetition and anchoring like really at the beginning of sentences, What's happening where like orienting the read is the biggest thing that I think I've taken out of this it does create an immediacy to write in brutal form constantly starting with. Whatever the key either piece of action or you know key character that you're starting with.

Mel Killingsworth

But like Seuss is repetition and I think that's one of my mind is like rhythm and flow and you can establish that in different ways whether it's how you use punctuation whether it's you how you use all caps whether it's one big block of text whether it's, Every sentence is its own line you're establishing a rhythm and flow that fits the feel of your scene and that fit is hopefully in service of your overall theme your overall intent with the scene your overall characters point of view etc so it could change slightly but that's what's super important is establishing that rhythm and flow. Yeah.

Chas Fisher

Because what we're talking about is is creating immediacy and urgency and that seems to be the the way that these writers have all writing three very different types of scenes have all created a sense of immediacy primarily through rhythm.

Stu Willis

I mean I think you say they're different types of things I think they're all kind of set pieces right particularly Children of Men and Goodfellas set these action scenes and even if they weren't one is there worth reading in terms of saying how they make excellent set pieces, And they spent time polishing the prose to do that right they haven't done the equivalent of they fight right they've written in the actions. Goodfellas is interesting because it's definitely a set piece moment right in the story and her getting sucked into the underworld with the mafia. But it doesn't draw his attention. Why are you the all the present men conversation is a set piece right like it's seen what would do journalism well right.

Mel Killingsworth

It's a set piece by nature of being a one or but it's not all action set piece per se.

Stu Willis

Yeah yeah but it's I mean dramatically it is kind of a set piece.

Mel Killingsworth

Sure dramatically character or it's a turning point whatever.

Stu Willis

Same with hunger that is a set set piece conversation that's really important I think that's I just think it's just interesting in the age of like these CGI ones. Yeah. Right where you get like oh a bunch of CGI characters on the battlefield and the kind The scale of the fighting and all that kind of stuff, but I think it kind of works backwards. That doesn't come with intentionality. And even Hereditary's end moment, that is the climax of the film. It's why that it is there, right, to kind of hold with Peter. And interestingly, I think that's part of the reason we've been talking about it with our moment. It's an absolutely pivotal moment for the character. And for us, the reason we're doing the quote unquote one-up, really we're talking about real-time, is to take the character from the point of confrontation with the horror to they're making a really awful decision and getting the audience over the line with that is actually like, let's just stick within this character's experience and when they're like, we have to do this horrible thing, we know where they're coming from and we're kind of with them with the decision and then hopefully, ultimately, when the character's confronted by the dirtiness of what they've done, VR as well. So, intentionality, it's all always. And so, when you're directing from the page, I think what you really need to be thinking about is, I'm directing, what is the intention behind this? The direction cinematographer will work out how to realise it in terms of camera lenses and stuff like that. And maybe they end up using three shots, maybe they use one that's stitched together. But the intentionality is what's going to inform their choices there. And I think that should be what's going on rather than, I mean, sometimes angled on or notice is the best way to call out the intentionality. It was like, we need to have a close-up on this thing. But From a dramatic point of view, always coming back to what is your intention as the writer here?

Mel Killingsworth

The intention is that, like, I think all the writing services, whether it's the theme, whether it's the character point of view, whether it's the quote-unquote feel, whether it's the overwhelm, or the charisma, or the awe, that's exactly what it is. And I really enjoy the way that they have very different approaches, but they all show their craft in the writing as well as the actual filming and directing. All right.

1:21:03 Thanks to our Patreons

Chas Fisher

So as always thanks to our amazing patrons who bring you more drops here and more often particularly when one of us is on the other side of the planet and then we will cross to opposite sides of the planet in a few weeks you guys do it and also thank you so much for all the homework suggestions that our patrons supplied on this episode it was super helpful but as always particular shout outs to our amazingest patrons of which there is a new one so thanks to Lily Alexandra. Kazimir Eduardo Jen Thomas Garrett Randy Jesse Sandra these Alex and Crob.

Stu Willis

Thank you yeah I'm going to be living in a patient for a long time but she bumped up to get a name called out.

Chas Fisher

And thanks to you Mel and Stu for making this episode work even though we decided on the homework literally five minutes before we started recording.

Mel Killingsworth

Thanks again to Meegan May for reading our script excerpts you can also hear her melodious voice on Starship Q star which she co-wrote and co-produced and also is the voice of the titular Starship on Starship Q star pun intended.

I hope you all feel like arguing with either Stu or myself about anything on this episode or anything in general and you can find many ways of getting in touch with us at our website at draft hyphen 0.com. At the website you also find the show notes for this and all our other episodes as well as links to support us and spread the word for free by rating and review on Apple podcast. Very important for spreading the word. Or, if you think that what we do here is worth a dollar, or preferably more than a dollar, then you can also find links to our Patreon page to support us getting these episodes to you quicker. Thanks. And thanks for listening.

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0:13 Cold Open #

0:23 Sponsor: ScriptUp #

1:58 Directing from the Page: Writing the Feel of Camerawork #

7:26 Writing camera direction versus writing the feeling of a shot #

9:50 BOURNE IDENTITY & HEREDITARY #

13:15 Narrative purpose as the test for any oner #

16:30 GOODFELLAS #

16:57 Excerpt: the Copacabana follow shot #

18:22 How breathless prose mirrors Karen's point of view #

25:00 Modernising the we-see style for spec scripts #

32:48 THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN #

34:14 Excerpt: the Bagghar chase set piece #

37:23 Capitalisation and handovers as the connective tissue of a oner #

43:48 Anchoring action through micro-plotting and clear victory conditions #

49:34 CHILDREN OF MEN #

53:38 Excerpt: the Zed ambush #

1:00:32 Mini slugs and car-interior POV as 360-degree orientation #

1:06:17 Real-time big print and the moment-by-moment obligation of action lines #

1:12:24 Key Learnings & Wrap Up #

1:16:50 Intentionality as the writer's true directorial compass #

1:21:03 Thanks to our Patreons #

0:13 Cold Open

0:23 Sponsor: ScriptUp

1:58 Directing from the Page: Writing the Feel of Camerawork

7:26 Writing camera direction versus writing the feeling of a shot

9:50 BOURNE IDENTITY & HEREDITARY

13:15 Narrative purpose as the test for any oner

16:30 GOODFELLAS

16:57 Excerpt: the Copacabana follow shot

18:22 How breathless prose mirrors Karen's point of view

25:00 Modernising the we-see style for spec scripts

32:48 THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

34:14 Excerpt: the Bagghar chase set piece

37:23 Capitalisation and handovers as the connective tissue of a oner

43:48 Anchoring action through micro-plotting and clear victory conditions

49:34 CHILDREN OF MEN

53:38 Excerpt: the Zed ambush

1:00:32 Mini slugs and car-interior POV as 360-degree orientation

1:06:17 Real-time big print and the moment-by-moment obligation of action lines

1:12:24 Key Learnings & Wrap Up

1:16:50 Intentionality as the writer's true directorial compass

1:21:03 Thanks to our Patreons