DZ-104: Characters Alone - Dramatizing the Internal — Transcript

Very Austin moment, like heartbroken woman running off alone in the rain.

Yeah. When I was watching this, I was like, oh my God, she's not going to kill herself. And then it's like, it's spelled Bronte. She's just going to get deathly ill. Hi, I'm Stu Willis.

And I'm Chas Fisher.

And welcome to Draft Zoero a podcast where to filmmakers, Australian, filmmakers if that's relevant decide to decide decide what is good screenplay working.

Or try to work out what makes great screenplays work and today we are looking at something that we've moved for a while which is we're looking at examples of when characters are alone, And the examples that we're looking at are from After Sun script written by Charlotte Wells who I believe is also the director Sense and Sensibility which was written by Emma Thompson.

Who also stars.

Yes but you know not directed by Emma Thompson and The Equalizer which I think is sole credit to Richard Wenk is that right or Wenk.

Yeah and he actually was sole credit on the the sequels as well bit of a action movie or two in a way.

Yeah so we've got some Express moments that we want to look at in those three films and. Or I mean it feels in a little way like I love these topics when they're really really narrow and we get to dive deep into them but we've both come at this in from different angles and what's interesting is in some of the films we picked different moments that we want to look at but it was you who's called out like we should look at characters being alone. Was it. Like just as a thought exercise what would these characters do when they're alone and I've been for a long time trying to improve my ability to what I call dramatize the internal and I think this is a really good opportunity to do this.

We can't talk about it without the idea of the intimacy spectrum back in ensembles but I think my interest in the character line stuff actually. Predates that quite significantly so on that kind of short feature web series I did restoration which you will put a link in the show notes it's it's time for people to go and watch it if they haven't because it's all on YouTube through dust we actually shot a number of pickups of characters alone because it's not the kind of thing that I at that point in my screenwriting. I was- I was like just spending time with the character alone doesn't move the plot forward, right? And then when we edited the film, we realised we needed these moments where we could process with the character what was going on. So they were kind of what we would call buttons on the scene. So it's moments of the scenes kind of over and we just lingered on this shot that kind of isolated the character and the music could help kind of lead us to understanding what they're going through, right? And there was- we basically just shot, I think it was like two moments that were unscripted for that reason. And it made me realize that this emphasis sometimes on plot in my writing, these full dementing on plot, sometimes sacrifices these moments, these kind of more, for lack of a better word, cinematic moments. And then it kind of creates this question of, well, if you're recreating the experience, how can you write those kinds of moments on the page that makes them compelling, so you want to keep them. Does that make sense? So they don't get crossed out as like, oh, this is just a, you know, character by themselves. How do you do that? Or, you know, me developing my understanding as a storyteller from a directing point of view that I kind of linger on some of these moments, which is what we'll see in Sense and Sensibility, that Anne Lee is kind of extrapolated from Emma Thompson's script to kind of make more of the moment. So that's kind of where I think that interest started. And then the discussion around the intimacy spectrum and the idea that, you know, thinking about what your character's like in the private, the personal and public. And it felt like diving in on moments of aloneness is kind of like its own subcategory because you can be alone in public. You can be alone in the personal space. You can be alone by yourself. And I think all the examples are going to be combinations of these, sometimes created through French scenes, which we'll talk about so sometimes they're their buttons or or what would be the opposite of button what's like a header kind of thing that you might top out of all we got a top and tail the scene and so you cut out these moments but they're actually have power I think I've kind of just transition now into the thesis stuff so I'm going to hand it back to you.

Well I mean I thought it was just going to be so self-evident that if we're just spending time with a character alone that was going to trigger the audience to ask what are they thinking. Right but I think I was considering it too narrowly because I was thinking of a character being genuinely alone right and I guess I was thinking of those drive moments where Ryan Gosling stares beautifully into the middle distance while bleeding to death and you hang on them and so there are these kind of standout moments when you just are sitting with a character sitting by themselves and the absence of a plot question the absence of action makes you focus on them and go what are they thinking. About but as we looked at these different movies. I kind of realised that like you just pointed out there are different versions or different scenarios in which characters can be alone and they bring out different things I mean you made on Slack I'm going to steal your observation because I am like that but you're you know plot over time or sorry character over which one is it.

Well, if anyone's going to put you in my saying, it's not even my saying. So I think it comes from Stephen Cleary, which is plot is character over time. So the idea is that your characters take action, extrapolate them over time, and that creates the plot. The interesting thing is then, and I can't remember how to balance equations properly, but basically I'm saying, well, then isn't character plot divided by time? So if you take time out of the equation, then we've kind of got a snapshot of character, as in like if you suspend the moment. And I don't think that's strictly true because when we get to the equaliser a lot of the stuff around the equaliser is actually quite active and pushing the plot forward but something like After Sun which is very thin in terms of the plot is actually is full of these moments.

I was just going to say that using the intimacy spectrum right like you know characters can be alone but in a crowd they can be alone but observing something dramatic. Or they can be alone and just not doing anything like you said they can be alone before or after scenes which makes you consider the impact of what's coming or what's just been so these moments of characters line can actually achieve a lot of different narrative effects and I was interested when we look at the equaliser and I will come back to them in detail but some of those early scenes of him alone actually do two different things I think sometimes they raise character questions and sometimes they answer them.

Yes, it's worth saying this is connected to some of the character question stuff that we talked about only a few episodes ago right where we talk about the scenes often if you're not asking plot questions and we looked at scenes where the plot question was answered gave us an opportunity to start thinking about character and so this is kind of connected to that but I think it's a very specific application of it. Right because as you say sometimes it is answering character questions sometimes it is asking the character questions you know what are they thinking or quite often I actually think it's it's about creating empathy with the character like we're being with them. And having them experience and I think the different types of aloneness allows that I mean I think for me the fundamental. The reason I'm interested in this tool is as a way of building empathetic connection between the audience and a character right particularly to do with the interiority of the character without using voiceover so we asked for a few examples from a patrons and that's actually what led to sense and sensibility which is a great. Paul but a lot of the examples were like all they've got voiceover over this character or there's like effectively you know an L cut or a J cut so basically so character I talking about a character be you see character I talking and then you cut to character be by themselves with character I still talking over them right and that's kind of informing. Our understanding textually right and voiceover does exactly the same thing and we deliberately picked examples where there is no voiceover there is kind of I guess commentary through like. The shots are literally framed, you know, in a particular way and lit in a particular way and the music does a lot. So there's lots of things going on cinematically, but it's not using kind of literary or dramatic techniques, if that makes sense.

Just going to your point about it creates empathy. What is empathy but like putting yourself in the character's shoes so if you are sitting with a character alone and you're not going what are they doing what's the next action kind of thing if you're removing plot questions and immediately your questions are going to be about like who is this character what are they feeling what do they want right and it is literally forcing you to put yourself in the character's shoes and I'm thinking like I've got a note session tomorrow night that I'm kind of dreading because the development process has, Push me to a point where they want lots of my lead character in conflict and the latest draft they're like delete characters and asshole I'm like yes because you're constantly putting him in conflict and I think just some of those scenes I can come out of them like just have some of them either have like these buttons on the scenes or have moments of resolution or moments of him being alone will, Bring the audience back into empathy with him because at the moment they're empathising with the other characters in the scene who are finding him a source of frustration.

Yeah I mean you can almost do that classic TV thing which is like off Chaz's frustrated expression dash dash next scene so we know that we button off the scene with a close up on you and something that's indicating your emotional state which I think is a very good technique right and that's it I've used it where you you kind of shoot the character on a long lens isolate them, And you can't get a moment of them processing what we're talking about it was kind of a little bit different.

Yeah and I just want to know you know this is one of those episodes that I really enjoy that's actually got us to go to scripts as well but it's interesting either because of the drafts of the scripts we have all the time when they were written and what was fashionable there's not. A lot of the effect that we've perceived on screen from watching the films using the other cinematic tools that you've raised. There's not a lot of that being delivered on the page in these examples, I think. So, you know, I guess whether it's a personal preference or not, I would be more overt now on the page when I'm trying to achieve that effect. And we were even having a discussion with one of our patrons, Thomas Wood, about style and I guess the calling out of what actors are feeling on the Anyway not to say one thing or another I just feel like this is going to be one of those instances where we compare what's happening on film with what's on the page and we will probably take more from what we've seen and experienced in the actual film then from the writing.

But I think it is important that we look. The page which is why we picked examples and look I actually think the one that writes more on the page about the effect is after some which is the most recent and it's a script that came through the Sundance script lab so it was kind of developed indie film right and who's emotional. Atmosphere or mood is kind of what the film is about right where is you know since and sensibilities and adaptation of a novel it is IP the equalizer is IP, And they're older scripts so I think you've got a combination of the kind of films those are, with the period that their scripts have written have meant that they're probably a more skeletal approach to writing than something like After Sun. That's my personal take. I look at After Sun and going, if I'm going to model my style of writing on anything, particularly if I'm running more drama or dramatic moments, I'm probably going to go to After Sun as a more contemporary example than Sense and Sensibility, which at this point is a 20 year old script 20 30 God.

Yeah he's almost 30.

The 90s was only 10 years ago right right plus they've got the book.

Yeah one of the reasons we were so excited to do Sense and Sensibility is we thought you know given it's Austin given it's a novel we thought there would be lots of character interiority that is in books can be provided through the omniscient narrator, That may have made their way onto the page.

Yeah.

But speaking of after sun.

All right so After Sun is as I said it's kind of plot light it's very much about a character experience and taking you on an emotional journey, and about asking who the questions of these characters is and the plot such as it is is essentially a 11 year old girl Sophie she's from Edinburgh going on a holiday summer holiday to Turkey with her loving 30 year old father Callum right, The age difference is not that much to the point where they even get mistaken as a brother and sister and Callum has to like actually know she's my daughter Callum is estranged it will actually wouldn't say it's a strange he's definitely broken up amicably with Sophie's mum and it actually it's the opposite of a strange she even she queries why he says I love you to his ex and he's like well she's family. Right and so it's it's the coming age story her being on holiday her kind of beginning that age of 11 when she's beginning to separate from her parents and wants to become a teenager and that kind of tension of like wanting to move into the teen world in the, do you have other teens while also connecting with her father and what she is kind of oblivious to what the audience is meant to be noticing and that Sophie isn't is that Calum is suffering from depression. And the film is kind of it's got a framing device which I do want to talk about briefly of an older Sophie kind of in a rave so it's like the shots of her in a crowd lit with strodes where she's actually to me my interpretation of it is that she is alone within the crowd. Right and it's shot in a way that's quite impressionistic earlier on but they kind of interspersed the story and that's going to be it there's some found footage stuff from Sophie's camera and then there's these beautifully poetic, Lin Ramsey style cinematography of the actual story so it's it's naturalistic but I think the the way the film was shot doesn't actually feel naturalistic as much as it feels poetic.

I would I would say expressionistic like that the script is much more naturalistic than I think the experience of watching the film is I think there's lots of dialogue where they've made editorial decisions just to. Linger in the poetry and in the performances rather than have the quote-unquote scenes or or much reduced version of the scenes. Like there's one super standout moment for me of not just a character alone it's probably the moment the most lingered with me and it's actually very early in the film and it's just where Callum is dancing by himself on a balcony. And do you but given that the interstitials like they are it's not just a framing device it's throughout the story that it comes back from do you want to because they appear first in the script do you want to talk about them first.

Yeah, I'm going to read it aloud because I feel listening to this and haven't seen the film then you should go to our Patreon page or even like shot zero because I want to put up these shots because I think this is an example of the script giving us more information than the shot does. Right that the way it is being photographed is way more impressionistic than the written version but I think that is a deliberate choice because I think it's the kind of thing of like, If we can't overwrite this and explain what is going on on the script it's going to be easier to convince people what it's doing in the film right like I'm I mean I'm projecting under Charlotte but you know I've had these conversations and know like you have to sit there and you know you go through every single fucking scene and have to justify it from a financial point of view. This is the actual writing from the script. Sophie, 31, stands motionless in a frenetic crowd. Eyes closed, she is out of place and time, a warm crew neck jumper in contrast to the 90s rave attire and naked torsos that surround her. A strobe casts her in light then darkness, light then darkness. Cued by the strobe, in her place now stands a girl, Sophie, 11, dressed identically. As partygoers push past, fragmentary glimpses of an 11-year-old Sophie and a 31-year-old Sophie, in square records adult Sophie closed square brackets alternate with the light both fixed in position eyes shut as the beat escalates on the verge of falling into a groove adult Sophie opens her eyes cut to black over black the sound of a tape being inserted into a camera the closing of cassette door the pressing of a switch the whirring of internal mechanisms. All right. So, interesting moment because it is actually describing what you were saying visually, but there's just enough context. This kind of comes to the unfilmables, the intent of it. She's out of place and time. She's in contrast. She's in light, then darkness, right? Party goers push fast fragmentary glimpses. And I think in terms of this alone in public, the emphasis on the detail of what they're wearing, right? In contrast to the deliberately thin or sketched party goers push past, right? There's not much detail in there. It tells us it's not- that's not something what we're looking at. What we are looking at is these characters. And so, in the script we're reading, this is actually the first scene in the film. It's a little bit later. It's still within the opening, but they have chosen not to open the film with this. They actually open with the DV cam, but it still creates this kind of intrigue about this character the image definitely to me is it's this character that feels isolated in the crowd that's what I got when I first saw it I didn't understand that it was a rave there's not like doof doof music you know yeah I thought it was this impressionistic sense of being alone in public which I guess given what the film ends up dealing with about depression is often that's you know even if people well mask their depression well it's that sense of aloneness or loneliness In public so I think they've done a good job of that and I think just those choices of detail this is sketchiness create that imagery in our head that feeling.

I read the script after watching it and the interstitials I did not get that the adult Sophie was the adult Sophie until much later in the film where they actually cut to her watching as an adult the DV footage. But you definitely get the sense of Sophie is alone in a crowd like they they very the way that it's lit the Strobie the expressionistic style and then later on the interstitials like the film starts out and this will connect to the point that the the moment that I want to talk about. With Callum dancing on the balcony but the film starts out being very much in her point of view there's the young girl and. The interstitials do too and it feels like she's lost in this kind of it feels sort of scary for a young girl to be in that kind of scenario and then later the interstitials find Callum and he's kind of lost in the music in the experience and she's like trying to reach to him and cry out. And one of the things this script does really well is while not being overly expressionistic I feel like it it paces the amount of words like the use of white space it spends enough time. Writing these moments out such that it will call the readers attention to why is this in here or this is important.

Yeah it's because it's not about the rave like you know doof doof doof flashing lights like there is a version of this that is selling the experience of what it's like to be on the dance floor here it's got a more poetic quality this is on page 21. The strobe continues to cast the space in and out of darkness, offering up momentary glimpses of adult Sophie as she pushes through the messy crowd, her eyeline steady. We see others in the space and eventually on the other side of the room at a distance, her target. It's Callum. He's age and appearance as we know him in Turkey. Right. So the script has done a nice job of like putting the emphasis on, on Sophie. It definitely feels surreal. The experience that it's writing is not the experience of someone like sweaty bodies grinding up against each other however you want to put it and also there's just a nice bit of revelation at the end you know her target. And there is a pause it's Callum his agent princess we know him in Turkey so we know that this is at this point becoming more surreal and it's writing that in the script and then somebody crosses in front of her view than him further obstructing him from his view, Just trying to keep him in sight so again it's describing what is happening but the language choices is help recreating the experience of aloneness from an in public and in this case the distance from her father right.

Yeah.

It should lead to your example.

So I like this moment just stood out for me because this is like the prime example of what I thought we were going for coming into this exercise this podcast so. Other than in the DV cam you get to see Callum but it is very like deliberately DV cam it's very grainy it's very expressionistic though the kind of way that it's lit and then as soon as we're actually in the quote-unquote. Present of this movie even though arguably the entire movie is a flashback from all the Sophie's point of view the script has a lot of moments of Sophie talking to Callum Callum talking to other characters like the hotel receptionist. To Sophie to the the tour bus guide so there's lots of communication and I don't feel that the script calls out the way it was ultimately either shot or cut together which. You can hear Callum talking but it's so much from Sophie's point of view that in those opening scenes you get very little access to his face. You know it's it's either shot below his shoulders and pointing at Sophie or were hanging on Sophie while she's like asleep in the hotel lobby and Callum walks past and he's got his back to us as he's talking to the receptionist or it's in a wide and so it builds to this moment where. Sophie's asleep in the bed in the hotel room they finally arrived calm sitting on the bed talking to the receptionist trying to get a change of room because there's only one bed in the room and he had booked a double bed. And then from then he goes out onto the balcony and just starts dancing and I'm going to read that moment it's on the on the script that we have it seen 12 at the bottom of page 8. Exterior hotel room balcony night. On a shallow balcony a few floors up, two white plastic chairs are set around a small table. Like the street-facing exterior, the facade of the building, running along the length of the pool below, is partly covered by scaffolding. Leaning against the railing, Callum struggles to light his crumpled cigarette with a flimsy hotel matchbook. Failing to strike a match with his broken hand, he swaps. Eventually, the flame takes, the cigarette held between his lips catches light, and he returns the matchbook to his pocket. Callum dials up the volume on his Walkman, set down on the table. The sound spilling through the headphones is just sufficient to be heard by him alone. He takes a long, slow drag from the cigarette and moves with the music, his arms loose and free. For a moment, it's as though he's somewhere else. Now the way that the film actually shoots that moment and the way that I experience it is very different so he gets up from the bed and goes out the balcony but we stay in the hotel room.

Watching him through the window.

Yeah he closes the glass behind us is there's literally something between us and him and we don't go out and see the scaffolding we don't see the pool we don't see what he's looking at we are deliberately in a room apart from him like the Brechtian distancing is fully dramatised. We can't hear the music that he's dancing to like just and we just see him dancing and what this shot does in the film is it just lingers with him for so long and this is a character we haven't had. Access to visually so far we can tell that he's like the things that we've been told so far as he's a caring father he's taking his daughter out on a holiday by himself we don't really have insight yet at this point in the script to his struggles with depression and it's just. Lingering in this moment of him dancing and because it doesn't aren't because it's so early in the script it's to me this is one of those instances where it spend so much time with so little plot in this moment that it just forces us to go, who is this guy what is he feeling why are we watching this it almost gets to the point it lingers so long that it almost moves from character questions to thematic questions. Because there's no character questions to fill that void.

I mean it's an interesting shot because even as the script describing struggling to light a crumpled cigarette with a flimsy hotel matchbook you don't see the matchbook at all right it's his his back is almost entirely to camera is he's maybe just a little bit of shoulder angled so you can see his broken hand, so that was the first time I kind of realised his arm was in a cast and I definitely could tell that he's struggling to light a cigarette but I didn't know I was with a flimsy matchbook it could have been a lighter that it didn't work. Right and it is an interesting experience that by staying with it from in it's an uncut shot as well it is creating this interesting thing of of like us I don't think it's quite empathy I think that's what he's in interesting choice about some of these other option, better be some other choices it's not about us empathising with Callum right it's about feeling it is it's more about feeling for him, Right as you say shifting from like feeling to because you like oh what's he doing I was trying to light a cigarette okay now he's okay and then it's kind of just more just watching him and observing and as you say tapping into these thematic questions it's a very interesting moment right and I think from a writing point of view it doesn't quite like you know it's not like I've written this is one long paragraph that's unbroken to give us this impression that it's not cutting but it does go from the specifics of the action. Right about how he's trying to light and you know the headphones and then it just tells us at the very end buttons it the scene with the feeling which is for a moment it's though he's somewhere else, and that is a pattern that we saw when in our own filmable episodes where people would either like top and tail, With the visual description and I'll find a moment to work in the poetic description and you can see they've used that same idea very kind of factual description of what he's saying in the action but ending with the emotional aspect of it. And I do think that it's as though he's somewhere else definitely comes across like in a weird way by watching him through glass in a distance him being away and him kind of being caught up in this world you definitely get the sense that he's taking a moment for himself and that he is not. Present in the world.

Definitely and regardless of how much the shooting changed and maybe they got coverage of everything else that that's written here and they just decided in the edit to hang with the scene from the hotel room I don't know or maybe they were more intentional about it on the day as to what they were going to capture. But what they do do in the scene on the page is the plot that happens is a guy lights a cigarette and listens to some music that's the plot and the scene has five paragraphs unbroken by dialogue one of those paragraphs being five lines in length. The the one thing that really aligns with the page and the feeling is the amount of time the writer is taken on the page to draw our attention to linger in these moments and then as you say it gets to that button right at the end and that button is kind of like the payoff perhaps for a reader going why have I just read five paragraphs about a guy lighting a cigarette.

Yeah because it could have been Callum struggles to light a cigarette, it takes, plays music on his Walkman, dances, you know there's a version of it that is incredibly pithy.

That example for me was it was it was quite powerful is one of the most powerful moments of the film and it's so early because it was forcing me weirdly almost like a thriller does it was forcing me to lean forward and engage with the movie, questioningly and like I said I moved through all these questions like who is this guy what does he want like and then it was holding on that for so long that I moved into, Why am I watching this why have the filmmakers doing this to me why are they not giving me access to this guy like it's a set up for the the larger questions that the rest of the movie answers.

It's great performance because there's a warmth to him but the filmmaking finds a way and I think you can see it reflecting the room that in the script of the filmmaking doesn't more that he's in a warm person he obviously loves Sophie but there is still a distance there and they found a way to kind of capture that. Distance and I wouldn't call it a lupus it's not a lupus is engaged he's tactile they're not doing like in talk to me there's a real through line of the characters been quite touchy and feely early on in the film and then is that as the group like you see them hugging and cuddling and, and then towards the end of the film is the group dynamics break down there physically isolated from each other I don't get that with Callum he's not physically isolated from Sophie there's something else going on. I mean there's also actually I say that and then there's like these amazing shots where he's like cleaning his cast and she's on the bed and they shoot them in such in clean singles and then they cut this wide shot where there's literally a door between them and he's on one side of the frame and she's on the other side of the frame so. There's a lot of compositional techniques they are using to reinforce this kind of like close but distant element.

Yeah, definitely.

So in terms of the way they wrote that in the script, they don't have the composition showing it, but they've- this is an interesting- it is a tangent, but it helps emphasise the aloneness, which is that idea that Sophie's lying in her bed and Callum is cleaning his cast in the bedroom, is they literally write interior hotel room, wrote Sophie side with Callum in OS, and then we cut to the hotel bathroom with Callum doing what he's doing with Sophie in OS, right? They have chosen not to use intercut right or like like if I was possibly writing this I would possibly just write Sophie's on the bed Callum's in the bathroom this is what they're doing intercut right to imply that they're going to move back and forth but here they've made a deliberate choice in the way that the scene is laid out on the page to isolate the characters from each other.

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All right should we move on to sense and sensibility.

Yeah I'm the delightful Jane Austen adaptation written by Emma Thompson I think she won the Oscar for this screenplay as directed by Ang Lee and there's a real beautiful I feel, connection between those two artists that is expressed in this. Right so what I enjoyed about this is you know yesterday I was going through and finding the script references and posting them to you and you like I have different moments from the ones you've picked out I thought we might go through the moments chronologically.

Jazz summarise the film first.

Due to British property laws at the time, upon the death of the patriarch of the Dashwood family, he leaves all of his fortune to his son, which subsequently, by their gentrified standards, impoverishes his wife and three unmarried daughters.

They can only keep two servants. They're very poor.

Yes. And can only live in the most gorgeous cottage I think I've ever seen. Cottage is is a is that is not a cottage and it's about the trials and tribulations of these women finding both love and independence.

Independence being financial in not being destitute right is not how you interpret it.

Yes but I also feel like they are in a battle at that time among those mores to find love that respects them.

Not just marrying for money.

Yeah.

Right so the two daughters that we follow particularly is Emma Thompson who's playing Eleanor Kate Winslet is playing Miriam the first love interest we can introduce to is Hugh Grant doing his foppish thing he plays, Edward Ferris right who's there kind of I guess they're non related brother-in-law it's the brother of their sister-in-law and that's kind of first love interest he gets called back to London and then Mary Ann the Kate Winslet character, who's introduced to the Colonel played by Alan Rickman who's as you say he's an older he's very respectful action I think they've done a good job of not making him feel like a perv, because essentially she is a young attractive woman is moved in he is as a Colonel quite well established but he's older and dead trying it like basically there's a matchmaker who's trying to bring them together he's kind of keeping you, he handed her a bowling ball he is super keen and he's super flirty meanwhile while that's going on and she's just ignoring him John Willoughby who's kind of this Bohemian for like a bit of a word.

Libertine I think is the word that they use.

Libertine it's Libertine meets Marianne and he feels up her ankle it's pretty gay and she kind of has this like crush on him and it is like a romantic comedy of like these are the love interests who will end up with who. It's actually a delightful film beautifully shot performances are incredible.

I mean some of the moments that we're looking at Ang Lee's direction has complimented the writing in the same way that I think Charlotte Wells is direction complimented her own writing in After Sun.

Yeah very different styles but yeah absolutely I completely agree with that. So yeah that would mean the first thing we want to look at is the sword fight I'm surprised this is your pick.

Well sorry there I've got there's a moment early on where Eleanor starts to fall for Edward Ferris because he's sword fighting with her younger sister Margaret. Then we've got this moment as Eleanor and Edward are like growing closer together and they walk out of the house together and it's a beautiful shot as we drift behind them, To find one character alone observing them in their reaction and then tilt up even higher to the next floor of the building where we see another character observing them. And then I've got a moment of Eleanor being by herself essentially morning her her loss of her love. It's trying to express her heartbreak.

And then the scene that I want to look at is there's this this great moment when Eleanor is left alone with a teacup after all the family go off.

So great.

And then there's two related scenes which is after I mean it's it's Austin so of course one of them gets deathly ill.

All this this film reminded me so much of actually Little Women.

Yes and apparently that's the success of the 1994 adaptation of Little Women is what led to this going into production so obviously we weren't the only ones. So Marianne runs off into the rain and get sick so there's a moment of Marianne in the rain having big emotions and then there's a moment after when she is kind of ill that we have a moment of Eleanor alone in kind of like a private space.

And this film I think was the one when I was watching it when I'm like oh this is actually there are all these different flavours of characters being alone and I think these these different scenes portray that range of flavours and narrative experiences.

Yes.

So the first one that I had it was the first moment I noticed a character being by herself and and this was Eleanor watching Edward and her sister sword fighting. And she is ostensibly not quote-unquote alone because there are two other characters in the living room with her but they are having a conversation and she is sitting off to herself writing. So there's first of all like the framing and the separation and the detachment and then it showed her looking out across the beautiful gardens at Edward and her sister. And this is one of those moments where because she's observing something dramatic the I feel like it is raising character questions like basically to me it's like how does Eleanor feel about this but it just feels so. Obvious and so clear because she's watching something dramatic and I think we'll get to this in the equalizer there's there's a difference between watching characters alone. Either doing something or observing something happening like there is quote-unquote plot or action taking place as against you know that moment in After Sun where they're deliberately kind of having less and less. Happening to draw out different questions so let me just read what's on the page but this was yeah as mentioned earlier I feel like the style of this. Script is very kind of all the time very matter of fact so it's interesting to me that you know there isn't more of the internal of these characters in the big print. Page 14 of the script that we have. Interior Norland Park drawing room – another day. John is reading a newspaper, Mrs Dashwood sits across from Fanny, who thumbs through a fashion plate magazine. Eleanor is at a desk by the window writing a letter. We see the words, of course, we should like to leave as soon as possible. Suddenly, she hears a commotion outside. Margaret runs past the window brandishing a stick. Edward follows, proceeds to teach her the first principles of sword fighting. They faint and parry, Edward serious and without a hint of condescension, Margaret concentrating furiously, Edward suddenly turns as though feeling Eleanor's gaze, she smiles but looks away quickly. I feel like this is an excellent example of the you know show don't tell like how you can write action to dramatise the internality without having to call out you know unfilmables or character emotion or anything like that.

Totally because they are doing with action right Edward suddenly turns there is this is as though feeling Eleanor's gaze is borderline but I don't think it's kind of an unfilmable because it's like. We linger on her and you cut to him and he kind of looks back towards that I line and it's going to feel like. He's noticed that she's looking and then you cut to her looking away right.

They did it I think to to lead those actions and to build to that moment where we clearly without anything said on the page we are vibing that Eleanor is liking Edward and you know the dramatic journey of Eleanor in this. Film is about you know Marianne is and and this should lead us to the next scene. Mariana is constantly criticising Eleanor for not showing her emotions and you know the culmination of the film is Eleanor you know breaking down and uncontrollably, sobbing in front of Edward Ferris so you know interestingly I feel like you could argue that the lack of giving us internal access to Eleanor's feelings on the page is actually reflective of, The character Jenny Eleanor is trying to not give us access to her emotions that is her quote-unquote floor or challenge or what have you.

Yeah I think that's a good observation that part of writing the style of writing the experience is trying to write the performances right like the feel of the performances in the characters and I think that, connects with that particularly this that kind of stoic stiff upper lip English kind of attitudes towards emotion.

Yeah and the next scene is Eleanor and Edward walking towards the tree house and it's with the them being observed by the other characters and it reads it's on page 15. Cam tilt up to find Mrs Dashwood on the middle landing of the staircase smiling down at them cam tilt up yet further to find Fanny on the landing above watching Edward and Eleanor with a face like a prune. I mean to again possibly this is you know great examples while we don't you know it's fallen out of fashion to write camera directions she's writing very filmable dramatisations of how the characters are feeling.

Yeah and what's actually great about that shot is they shot it.

Yes.

You know I'd like the staging was a really beautiful like one of those invisible one is where you don't really notice the camera movement that they haven't cut right. So it's it's this common eight watching with a face like a prune the important context here is the funny is the disapproving sister-in-law to Eleanor and Mary Ann who does not like, the fact that her brother seems to be interested in these penniless daughters but it would this moment would play differently I I think it needs with a face like a prune because we need to understand otherwise it's just funny just watching them we kind of need to understand, In that moment of aloneness and it is an example of a lot like a loneliness in public is that she feels safe to show what she truly thinks right and she kind of reveals that to the audio I mean we kind of know it anyway but it deliberately connects us with the idea that she is disapproving of Edward and Eleanor. Yeah right hundred percent and she feels comfortable to show that because she's in private she's comfortable to express that in a world where she have to be a lot more passive-aggressive.

Fully agree and you know speaking of Eleanor's journey to not show emotion Marianne says. I quote I feel I know Mr Willoughby well already if I had weaker more shallow feelings perhaps I could conceal them as you do. And in the big print it says then she realises what she said and Eleanor gets upset and kind of leaves the scene and that leads to my final moment in this film of someone being alone which is I guess the more traditional one or is traditional so that I went is more what I was thinking of coming into this which is characters truly on their own not doing anything so that the scenes on page 51. Interior Barton College, Eleanor and Marianne's room, day. Close on Edward's handkerchief. We can see the monogram ECF clearly. Close on Eleanor staring out of the window. Tears stand in her eyes, but she presses the handkerchief to them before they fall. Again you know dramatising the internal it's so obvious what on the page without having to go in like Eleanor is heartbroken blah blah blah blah blah like, but they've had to take this moment out of the plot to make it clear on the page the depths of Eleanor's feelings especially for a character who's as I said defining characteristic is hiding her emotions.

Maybe her defining characteristic is sensibility and her sister's defining characteristic is sense as in sensuality. Next you can tell me that the two characters in Pride and Prejudice is one is proud and one is prejudiced. I think it's this is just a great example of a Talisman letting us access to the characters but it's you know we can see the monogram ECF clearly so that is a moment that is created contextually that allows us to access. The character but as you say it doesn't do much in terms of the colour in the big print to kind of create that right you get more in actually the next scene this is just big print popped out of me will be profile glows behind the screen in front of her Marianne she looks up and stops gazing bewitched at his beauty the lips move a whisper Marianne then louder haven't you finished he moves out from behind the screen eyes full of laughter they look at each other. So I think you're actually your observation is is correct that that Eleanor and Edwards moments are written more restrained and it seemed that Marianne and Willoughby's interactions are written with a little bit more heightened romance.

So the big thing is actually expressing the characters.

Yeah, so the moment that I wanted to look at and again this is something that's made more of in the direction right so it's the button on a scene that kind of it's actually quite a long. Scene that starts in in the PDF that we've got around page 64 right so the context for this moment is that Willoughby has asked to speak to Mary Anne in private the next day right. And everyone is anticipating that will be is going to make overtures towards a possible marriage and engagement with Mary Ann right so the. Other sisters including their youngest leave to give Mary Ann and Willoughby time alone, will be rushes out and then and then they come in to discover that like Mary is absolutely distraught. Right. Quote, Marianne struggles free. She runs off upstairs. We hear her bedroom door slamming. There is a moment of stunned silence. Eleanor and Mrs. Dashwood have discussions. Mrs. Dashwood goes upstairs. Eleanor follows. Mama, I'm very fond of Willoughby. Mrs. Dashwood goes into her bedroom and shuts the door. Eleanor is halfway upstairs. She meets a wet-eyed Margaret, which is their younger sister, who's 11, coming down with a cup of tea. Margaret, she would not let me in. Eleanor takes the cup, and Margaret runs out into the garden in tears. Right? So, you have the sound of sobbing also comes from Marianne's room, and now from Mrs. Dashwood as well. Eleanor sits down helplessly on the stairs and drinks the tea. So, the way that this kind of plays out is what I would call a- We've talked a bit about, like, French scenes, right? So, the idea is characters coming and going, leaving, it comes from theatre, right? So, essentially, she is in this space with her two younger sisters and her mum. Marianne runs off, and then her mum runs off, and then her sister gives her a cup of tea, and then leaves. And so, she is left in the room by herself. And the way this is shot is that, effectively, it becomes this overhead angle on her holding this cup of tea. And it's just this beautiful image, right, that catches exactly what the script says, which is Eleanor sits down helplessly on the stairs and drinks the tea that one objective helplessly creates that context for what she is feeling right that she is literally left holding the tea for everyone else and feels helpless.

Yeah I mean what I don't think comes across that it works so well as a gag like it's the way that it's shot makes it hilarious right and the way that it lingers like if I was writing this now and, I am not Emma Thompson talented wonderful performer and Oscar winning screenwriter but I do think this is like fashion in screenwriting now I would play up the gag on the page like try and create that sense of laughter because like you said the way that it shot is it's so great because the camera is up on a higher landing looking down the staircase at the lower landing off which all three bedrooms have doors. Right so we've seen one door slam another door slam and another door slam so in the film Margaret also goes into a bedroom not out into the garden.

Yes.

And so Eleanor is left standing in these three doors from which like howling sobbing is coming from all three bedrooms and she's kind of like holding a cup of tea. I just go what do I do right and again the direction is is wonderful she sits and has a cup of tea but she's sitting facing those doors she's facing away from camera she's wearing a bonnet we cannot see her face. You know the directing accentuates Eleanor's aloneness it you know the performances of the sobbing, you know quite heightened and comedic I think there would be ways today on the page to highlight that more how that feels more than just helplessly which which it does do very well.

Okay so now it's page a hundred and three hundred and four to in Marianne storms off.

Very Austin moment like heartbroken woman running off alone in the rain.

Yeah when I was watching this and I was like oh my god she's not gonna kill herself and it's like stop Bronte she's just gonna get deathly ill. Fair enough so effectively Mary Ann has discovered the truth of Willoughby which is the Willoughby has impregnated the. Kind of ward I lack of it away the ward off Ellen Rickman's Colonel and is is to marry her to make an honourable woman and man himself right so she gets taken home and then they're like oh it's going to rain, she's like but I'm in a walk home anyway and so we get exterior the hill rain is started to pour down Mary and walks on regardless. Exterior of the Hill Day. Marianne has reached the top, soaked to the skin. She stands with a storm raging around her, staring at the spires of Coombe Magna, the place that would have been her home. Rain streaks her face and the wind whisps her hair about her. Through frozen lips she whispers, love is not love which alters when its alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on Tempest and is never shaken. This is a small moment of aloneness and I think it's in the contrast this is a moment completely created through context right we know what she is looking at we know the house I don't think we've actually seen it before but we kind of understand that through context we understand the reference to the poetry it's kind of commentary she's speaking to herself but it gives us access to her pain the rain like in an interesting way I think this moment reflects. That kind of like externalisation of Mary Ann's. She is very big in with her emotions and she lets it all out here in a great dramatic gesture and I think the writing reflects that. I think that's what's interesting about it. It's not giving us too much colour in terms of what it means because the poetry does that but through frozen lips she whispers, the storm rages around her like it is so evocative of what that moment is meant to be that it really does reflect her character.

Yeah I mean this is this is really obvious right but in a different version where this is purely Eleanor's story Marianne we could have not had this moment by giving us this moment of the character alone. It has created empathy with her we know exactly how she feels we know the height of her emotion you know.

Yeah, her being in there doesn't like us saying that moment doesn't advance the plot. The plot moment is she goes into the rain and we see her sneak off and then she is returned by the colonel, basically unconscious and frozen. We have chosen that moment to give us access to the character. There is no plot movement there. There's not even a, like, do you think there's a character question?

No.

Is the plot question, is she going to get sick? Yeah, but I think we kind of know the answer to that already.

Yeah well particularly Emma and other fans of Austin do but you're right like I'm just making the observation like it's so obvious what this is doing but I think it's worth highlighting the effect on the audience which is to make us feel what Marianne is feeling. That is one of the potential narrative effects that spending time alone with your characters can do.

It's feeling with her but it's also a cathartic letting go because at this point she needs to be able to move on from Willoughby and developed an attachment to the Colonel right and I think it is a moment of seeing her almost like it is a sadness but is kind of like a release that's what I got from her. All right so the last one which is basically it's again it's one of these alone in public so Marianne's been in lying in bed really sick there's a doctor there kind of by her bedside and there's in a morning where a shimmer of light appears on the rim of horizon somewhere a lark breaks into clear untroubled song. Dr Harris it slumped into a chair Marianne lies motionless Eleanor rises with difficulty from the bedside and goes to the window she is white as paper the lock sings then from behind comes the faintest of whispers Eleanor. So that moment is a little bit more protracted in the film but it's this we see the surrounds and then we have a moment of aloneness with this character Eleanor who doesn't express her emotion that much right and we get to have her. I think it's actually an interesting it does connect us to the equalizer right that Eleanor is a character who is very good at masking her emotions from others so finding moments when she is able to let her mask down, and reveal her fears, create empathy for her I think that's important for Eleanor that we know that she's emotional it's like that moment with the handkerchief we know, That it's not that she's a robot even if that's what her sister thinks of her because we have given access to her to see her concerns.

Absolutely well I was I was going to jump on your Segway to the equaliser because in choosing the third film what we got to was. Would seeing characters alone in a much more plot heavy film have the similar effects to what it has in a drama a film where you know sense and sensibility and after sun it is trying to involve us more in. What these characters are thinking and feeling that is the purpose and point of those movies where is the equalizer it is less about having access. To Denzel Washington's character Robert McCall.

I disagree.

Yeah but I'm gonna say I think what elevates it above other movies is that it does give us this access but like in terms of like why do people go and watch the equalizer is not to have like a rumination on that characters interiority is to see him like, Fuck people up.

Let's let's let's button let's is there anything else to say for now on sense and sensibility.

Look I would just conclude that I think it's a it's a timely reminder that you can dramatize the internal without going too hard at the big print.

Yes, and doing it through action and talismans and I mean even that lark singing that's kind of like that what I would have learned, maybe it's still called this but back when I studied English literature was called like the pathetic environment as in pathos at the environment in reflects the- The storm raging and whipping her hair. Absolutely all that kind of stuff I mean it ties into the novel and what is interesting as I have not read Sense and Sensibility but you know novels tend to give us more access to the interiority of a character and what they're thinking and in adapting this, Emma Thompson would have had that challenge of how do we get that interiority that you get from novels and translate it on screen and what moments do I choose to to do that right that's an interesting challenge but you probably also, You know I can't imagine that Austin didn't have Marianne run out into a storm.

Well she had to get sick somehow.

Yes so moving on to equalising.

All right so you given that Denzel core is your favourite dad court do you want to summarise their equaliser.

So good let's let's be real man like from man and fire crimson tight like his his run with Tony Scott's amazing.

Oh but also you know obviously training day is in its own thing but in terms of like pure dad core unstoppable I never thought I'd be interested in watching a film about a train.

Oh, fucking Unstoppable is so good. So good. I mean, it's Chris Pine and Denzel doing an- Oh, man. Anyway, yes, you can see why I will go to the mat arguing that Denzel Washington dadcore is better than Liam Neeson dadcore. Anyway, The Equalizer is a kind of feature film adaptation of a TV series called The Equalizer. It kind of centralizes on a Character called Robert McCall is basically the tagline for this film should be got trouble who you're going to McCall. Right and he basically is a quiet life in Boston right he works at a hardware store you know he's helping this character Ralphie trained to become a security guard but we see that Robert is somewhat trouble he lives a very sparse life his apartment is very empty he reads books he basically has insomnia and he goes to the- Diner to read and have tea and we can see that he's quite meticulous about it he he basically takes his own tea bag and they just give him hot water right and he befriends a young prostitute there Terry played by Chloe Grace Moran. Yes. And they basically bond and then he has seized this moment that Terry's being beaten up by her pimps and then he learns that she has been taken to the hospital in ICU and he goes to talk to these pimps and basically buy out her contract. And this is an important beat because he essentially is like, I will give you $10,000 and you should do this. You not taking the right way out is going to end in trouble. And he ends up. Slaughtering all the men in there and leaves and then what happens is the Russians are like who the fuck did this gangland hit this guy is ruthless and so it becomes like he is kick the hornet's nest so to speak and the Russians send a basically a assassin out to find out who, did this a fix it and find out who do it and they chase him down to Robert McCall and it ends in honestly one of the best the final act this film is basically a slasher film and it's one of the best slashers of the last decade right, That's kind of the overarching plot right so you can look at that this could play as straight dad core right that he I mean this is definitely kind of got a that dad call I'm going to save the young girl thing. But I give it so much access to the interior we spend so much time with McCall by himself he is a loaner but the film is not afraid of us just lingering with him. Right and I think that is kind of what makes it really interesting and that continues in the sequels. 30 equaliser is basically him chilling on Italy for most of the film right and so he is it look yes he's a character he's a loner so that's going to naturally mean that we spend we spend time with him it's when he's alone but they've done some interesting choices in what they are doing to reveal the character right would you agree.

Absolutely and it like I said before I think it's what elevates the film is the access to the interiority that we get to Robert McCall and it's nearly all done. With scenes of Robert being alone well what it does very well I think is it the early scenes of this film like it it takes quite a while for any action to happen to get to that moment where he's you know beating up everyone in the Russian like Slavi and his gang. It feels quite long it's probably not that long in terms of minutes or or page count of the film but because you know you might go in to a trailer expecting Denzel Washington dad core action film. But it plays like a character drama until that moment until it reveals what Robert McCall is physically capable of.

They have no hint this is not a film that opens with an action cold open there is no context to that what he is capable of at all.

I'm full disclosure the script that we have access to is the one that's widely available online and it is a first draft in other words there are some moments that we we can't actually give you how it was written.

But I worth saying that this draft is by Richard Wink so I think we can make an assumption that even if the specifics have changed I would suspect that the style and the approach of the writer maybe more refined but probably within the broad spirit.

Yeah and also the opening is almost exactly how the film opens so there are definitely some moments so the moments that I particularly wanted to explore is, Contrasting so in in the beginning of the film it goes between moments of Robert being alone it's like establishing the routine of his life the normal before that routine is interrupted him alone. Him at his workplace and in particular his relationship with Robbie and then him at the diner and his relationship with Alina. Sorry her her prostitute name is Terry her real name is Alina. and. It repeats those at least twice if not three times before he goes to kill destroy the Russians and I think in the moments of him being alone there's a difference between the opening ones and the next run because I feel like the opening ones weirdly, there's a distinction between whether they're answering character questions or raising character questions and you would have thought that the first times, The first scenes of someone being alone the first time we're encountering a character that because it's the first time that they would be raising questions but I feel like those moments in the opening are really trying to paint a picture they're really trying to answer. Questions as to who this guy is and then it's actually the later ones when it comes back around that you're kind of prompted to ask deeper questions like is Robert happy. I get like the first round of scenes of him being alone or like who is it who is this person that we're watching which is a question that any audience member is going to ask when we introduced to any character who is this person and how we choose to present them is you know up to us right. So I want to contrast those two and then in the film but not in the script we have a kind of really amazing moment and it's possibly a purely directorial moment because the camera work is extravagant. There's a shot of Nikolai having just been dressed down by his oligarch boss over the phone so it is a button on the scene but the camera moves very almost sensuously around his undressed torso which is very heavily tattooed. Do you have any moments that you want to discuss other than those ones.

What I think I think is interesting is that there's an elongated moment before McCall decides to act that we spent a lot of time with himself and yeah it's a little bit kind of MTV editing it's quite stylised this moment, of him deciding to act and go after the Russians and then they can't repeat that at the end after he's completed his mission where he's basically just looking at the ocean and it's very stylised I don't know if they're in the script but if they're not there the kind of things that they've worked out that they probably want to do in editing. For a particular reason so it's going well if you're going to have to do it anyway you might as well find a way you know maybe I'm projecting my restoration experience in there which is like if you think you need moments of characters alone you should probably write it in because it is actually much easier to just go hey we just want to a silent moment of you staring out into the window and shoot it on the day like even if it's like when you've already wrapped fucking sound you know because you don't need any dialogue then to come back and do pickups with the actors. Right so it's it is definitely worth thinking about and that this is just a by the by but was a cool thing that was reading about these ed come in what director did it, these editors are talking about this director who would after they've got all their their print take would basically run the scene again without dialogue in order to get themselves more reaction shots.

All right are you- actually I do want to contrast because in this version of the script they've written in a moment of him being alone but it doesn't highlight in the script that he's making a decision and they've done a lot more of that. And who knows what the production draft looks like because in the script it's just a moment of him being alone on the bus whereas like you said in the film there's lots of moments of him being alone and then it culminates with him like sitting down and you're hearing, Voice over of what characters have said to him will do a separate episode of video because that is a you know a very obvious way of externalizing and dramatizing the internal is not even saying what is McCall thinking about it's like this is what he's thinking about, and then he stands up right like a decision has been. Made in the in the dramatization and a lot more is made of that in the film and possibly in Richard's later draft then is in this particular draft.

All right so we gonna go chronologically.

Sure so I'm just gonna read the first page I think culminating with the top line of page 2. An alarm clock hits 530 a.m. and goes off bedroom grey morning light alarm still buzzing because the rooms empty bed already made tight enough to flip a quarter room Spartan and immaculate inside the bathroom. A hand wipes steam off a fogged bathroom mirror, just enough to see the straight razor gliding across the final patch of lather. Interior kitchen, morning. Blender being loaded. Wheatgrass, almond milk, whey protein, a cup of organic blueberries. Wrist watch. Finger hits the stopwatch button on it. Hands do the dishes. Drying on the blender and glass. Into a cabinet where there's only one of everything. Arms iron a shirt, with the precision of a surgeon. Starch, stiff collar and cuffs. Interior bedroom morning, shirts buttoned, leather belt slipped into creased pants, tie knotted and tightened exactly. Stepping in front of a mirror, Robert McCall. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-of-the-road looks. Pleased with his appearance, McCall adds a final touch, an orange vest. Finger hits the stop button on the watch timer. And that I feel is perfect representation of how the film opens.

Yeah except I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily describe Denzel is middle of the road.

But you know in a weird kind of way this is got that sparse writing that we've been contrasting the previous two examples with but it does achieve the same effect like it's spending a whole page dedicated to, Giving us insights as to who this man is and I do like the descriptions you know like with the precision of a surgeon into a cabinet with his only one of everything I just know that the wristwatch. Moments are in italics to draw the the readers I took but it doesn't answer why yet at this point.

Get it and they've done a great job of setting up like even the use of the word Spartan right like you put a word Spartan in there you are trying to bring in this idea of this military stick vibe to this character and then we go from that. To his working at home depot. Right so that the con the opening with like him shaving the head and he's living this life you know and then we go he works at he works at a hardware store. Right and it's interesting because the film does a good job of like contrasting McCall by himself but he's not an awkward loner he's actually quite good at talking to people and quite energised around people and so there's these moments where we see that and then contrast to him being very Spartan little bit more emotionally repressed right so it's it's doing a lot of stuff through context.

Yeah and like I said so I mean this is Spartan writing as well hopefully that came across but you know it does take time when it wants to tight enough to flip a quarter on the bed already being made it is answering questions as to who is Robert McCall or like I said earlier it's painting a picture. And then I just wanted to contrast that to a moment in the script it's actually a moment that drew attention to me in the film and it's not written this way in the in the script version that we have which is the next time that we come back to McCall being alone. You know after scenes of him being at Home Depot scenes of him going to the diner there's a moment where and it's at the bottom of this script version of page 6. And so it's interior McCall's bedroom night, clock reads 9.40, McCall in bed, reading a hard cover of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. Clock 1 48am McCall in the dark wide awake and in the actual shooting of it the distinction is you've got Robert in that moment he stops reading the book he marks his page puts the bookmark in turns the light out and then sits there without taking his clothes off and I think he like brings the book to his head. That self moment the fact that there's kind of choices in there or. Afflictions the way that that moment played, on screen is very different I felt like McCall is cannot sleep.

It's just McCall rides home in an almost empty car rocks with the rhythm of the train what they I think they feel like they realise they need it they basically it sounds like in the film. They played up the affliction that it takes McCall more time to be called action and I think that moment that you talked about in the bed is a similar idea that this is he is reluctant to be pulled. Yeah. Back into this life but he's also he's kind of got this internal conflict that he's hiding from others and we only ever see it to him in private.

Almost like it is making a big deal about this is the difference between those two is that if you've got him sort of just run of the mill deciding to act. And it's not making a big deal out of the decision to act then it kind of feels like this is something that he's always been doing. As opposed to in the film coming out of hiding emerging from you know it it later is revealed that he faked his own death to kind of stop being a CIA assassin and lead a quiet life with his wife, who passes away and it's in the absence like he made a promise to her that he wouldn't kill anyone ever again but he's really good at killing people and you know it's it's interesting I feel like, Making more of that decision gives us more depth to his character.

Anything is making more of the decision is literally a screen time thing really yes they do this kind of like more expressive editing style more stylised editing style and it could be, you know looking through the script there was an actual scene at the park with the Ferris wheel so maybe they shot that didn't use it and realise they had footage of him on this park bench, From the same that they deleted and worked out that they could use it. I don't know that that's speculation, but maybe that's where it came from right, By literally showing the progress of time and he leaves at night he goes to the hospital at night we see him singing a bike bench at the day he's kind of flashy moments and is there a you saying that there's like audio grabs from earlier in the film.

Yeah so you hear the in the one that stood out to me is the other prostitute you hear echoes of her line saying like that he's making an example of her.

Yeah so it's doing that kind of recall moment but what is interesting is I think they've chosen to do that compared to what in the script they've done they have the young woman Terry's friend explaining what has happened to her, in this draft of the script we actually flashback to see it the kind of brutalisation of her which is awful and I think maybe the idea was that because it's like him looking at her and it's like by him imagining what has happened we just need to see him on the train we know that he's deciding to act. I may have made a decision to not show he's imagining what has happened to Terry probably because it's it feels a little bit exploitive to me reading what is written right but that also just makes it about what slav you has done not the dilemma that is facing McCall which is. Shit what do I do.

Well I know what I can do is but I've made a promise to my wife it could affect my ability to lead this quiet life that I built for myself like those are all things that are revealed later as to what his considerations were at that point but they've given him the time of consideration.

I mean I've seen this film like three or four times I actually quite like it as dad core so it's hard to remember what my first time watching it was but I think I did went into a pretty blind and so you seem sitting there and you like yeah go and do something. Turns up and gives the money and they've done a great job of your with the Russians that you feel like McCall's fucked up.

And I would also like I've just in scrolling through the script there's another moment that's different in the film that is again giving more interiority to Robert.

Sorry I'm just just see you scrolling this is great moment I'm going to steal this which is just before the call slaughters the Russians it's got like, McCall's I mouth mumbling almost inaudibly 45 seconds McCall's hand moves to his watch pushes a button click and then online by itself what happens next and then new line defines explanation. I'm like fuck yeah.

God damn you that that was a what I was going to read but well done that it called the both of us but do you remember so at the end of that action sequence right. Slavi you know he's giving this really long speech to slavi as he's dying like it's super cold because he's basically telling him. What he's doing as he's dying and how it's his fault right and it's really cold but in the script what it does is it, ends that scene and slavis eyes register the last words before they go blank and then in the descriptor goes to McCall's hands under a running force it trickles of blood mixing with the water, McCall's kitchen later dark silent McCall at the sink cleaning his hands looking up it is reflection in the window studies it like it was some other person, Now I mean that I think those moments are all in the in the script but there's one moment that they don't have in this version of the script that is at the end of after he's killed everyone there's a moment of him sitting beside Slavis desk looking down. And it's a moment that stood out for me because it made me feel he regrets what he is just done. It becomes clearer after watching the film I don't think he regrets killing slavi I think he regrets having broken his promise to his dead wife is is my read on that retrospectively but. They gave him a moment alone in the aftermath of that action again it's a button. Moment right but it's saying what is the impact on the character that of the scene that we've just seen and I'm going to be doing a lot more of these in the script that I'm currently working on this is good preparation for my note session tomorrow night.

I mean that's actually like almost the end after an hour and a half we've come to the idea that if the button on the scene is a good place to answer what is the impact of the scene it is just happened on the character that we are his point of view of the same we want to want to end on. Right and it can set up that there for all that but right like McCall's regret key does help. Like well he's complexity of his emotion because the middle act of the film is him kind of being energised by helping her right leads him to go and help and intervene with other people unbeknownst to him the Russian Mafia are kind of closing in on him that's how like the first half of the second act works right.

Absolutely like he gets more confidence in this is the right path for me to go out and use my skills to. Equalise but look to give credit to this first draft that we have access to in both of those points that his decision to go into action and after the the slaughtering of the Russians. Richard bank has gone I need a moment with Robert alone what has ended up on screen and possibly in in Richards later drops is they've spent a lot more time. Or giving a different flavour to those moments of being alone which has in turn deepened our out your my understanding of Robert McCall's character but he did have that instinct to go I need these moments of being with the character alone at those two points in the story.

Look looking through the script is actually some quite avert performance writing so this is just on page that this not a character alone so but it comes from that moment so where Ralphie his security guard friends can't sit for, the security guard exam my call goes to check in on him and it turns out that he's Ralphie's mum's take away shop has been burnt, Right and so Ralphie explains to him that he's going to have to work here and it rides in the big print an odd mixture of compassion and steeliness on the calls face Nazis understanding that life sometimes sucks, why don't you call the police that is quite a bird right and I'll make sure of all you should write expressions man this script I get dental Washington in it so. You know I mean Richard Wrenck was quite established at this point it's a pre-existing IP but he is chosen this is a character that is got a lot of complexity under the surface right, which I think is why you know I like the equalizer films as far as dad core I think I think the cause of far more interesting character than, Whatever Liam Neeson's characters called in, which ever the fuck, Taken, The Commuter, all of them, they're all kind of ciphers, you know, you know, McCall is seems a little bit more complex.

I mean, you know, before we keep shitting on Liam Neeson, dad, cool. I like Liam Neeson, I know. We have in our Antagonist vs Nature series looked at the Grey where I think in that film there's a lot of early moments of us being alone with Liam Neeson's character and that you know has a similar effect.

Yeah if you are writing this kind of like lone wolf action movie I think starting the equaliser and probably the Grey are really good examples of how to infuse that kind of sense of character right. And if that's what you want you might want a straight forward we don't really get to know the character cipher but if you want something that's got some more complexity I think the equalizer does a good job and part of that is by giving us access to that alone time, it's just like there's definitely moments in the equalizer where we see McCall like installing the cameras and it's a plot question what is he doing it's not about what is he feeling. Right I think a lot of those moments of him sitting on the bus is actually about what is he feeling and it's not just about. Showing that this I mean it is part of the juxtaposition you know you get the juxtaposition of him being in his work family and quite friendly to him getting the bus home sitting by himself but it is about what is this man feeling is kind of the question that we're asking.

Any learnings from doing this episode.

There's a degree of confirmation bias so it's like what are the surprises right what is anything surprising that I have learned doing this exercise. I mean I guess the surprising thing about Sense and Sensibility is the connection to the big print as being reflective of the character. Right and there are characters that you know Marianne and Eleanor are drawn in contrast but the fact that the big print kind of reflects that contrast in personality is a great learning lesson to create to imply performance without being specific about the performance. Yeah I thought you know for me that the lesson from after sun is kind of the lingering moments in there and and and the equaliser which I guess maybe you and I am more likely to write of the equaliser than we are after sun. I would not put a period drama beyond this though. Right so what about you.

I mean the the main things I got is I loved seeing in contrasting to after sun and the equaliser the two very different writing styles can give rise to the same. Narrative effect those you know one is taking away action of the character being alone and spending white space time but to prompt us to go who is this person what are they feeling and then Richard Wayne being very terse and lots of. Actions but again with the character being alone and the different style is still prompted us to go who is this person what are they feeling so I I appreciated seem to very different ways of doing that and to me the biggest like it's such a stupid learning but I'm going. You know characters can be alone in a crowd characters can be alone but watching. Something happen you know I I guess I was when I came into this I'm like characters alone that is just characters alone doing nothing and and that sort of short sightedness it was nice to see the multiple examples.

Yeah that's actually like the I have written the equivalent of the looking at the Talisman and then out the window right that we saw in sensibility right that's you know all looking in the mirror. Like we saw in the equalise it's finding those other opportunities either is buttons or the heads of scenes or just in your blocking to let characters drop their masks. Right or think about what must they're you know putting on I think that stuff is kind of some interesting learning and I think maybe it works with. Prune face Fanny because it's not a character that we really break point of view on to see right we we don't actually want to spend a lot of time for this character that we don't quite like anyway so finding a way in, the story and they specifically written in the camera language but basically to see Edward and Eleanor run off and then find Fanny's reaction gives us access to Fanny is a person but it doesn't feel contrived, Oh we're cutting away to see her evil machinations I don't think that story could have justified it but they found a way to do that because her disapproval moves the plot forward.

Yeah right. All right. Oh thank you as is often the case when we do these episodes perhaps the best thing our listeners will get from this is they'll go oh maybe I should read Sense and Sensibility or After Sun or The Equalizer.

Many thanks to Malay, Lily, Alexandra, Kazmir, Jennifer, Thomas, Garrett, Randy, Jesse, Sandra, Theus and Crob for your top tier support of Draft Zero. Bringing more Draft Zero more often?

This episode of Draft Zero was edited by Chris Walker. Thanks Chris. Thanks Stu.

Alright, see you Chas. Ciao.