Resultados descriptivos

Midpoint Mirror, is a structuring device used that alludes to a script's midpoint matching the emotional tone of the script's conclusion, and the emotional and mental state of a protagonist at the end of the film. Framing the story in this manner will allow for the audience to experience a maximum range of feeling, when the midpoint mirror is combined with the midpoint contrast, which brings the emotional dynamic to extreme highs and lows, taking the script's characters, and the audience, on an exhilarating roller coaster of emotion.

MIDPOINT MIRROR (CONT’D) EXAMPLES:

At the midpoint of Stranger Than Fiction (2006), Harold Crick (Will Farrell) turns a new leaf in his life. A man we had come to know as obsessive, neurotic, a slave to routine and boring begins to develop his interest in the guitar, takes a vacation from his monotonous job as an IRS auditor, stops counting his

toothbrush strokes, moves in with a friend and is upon the precipice of pursuing a love affair with Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). This moment, which is a true high-point in the life of Harold Crick, is a mirror of the high-point that Harold will achieve by the end of the film; the midpoint then mirrors the emotional pitch and resonance of the film's ultimate ending. Here, a victory for Harold Crick at the midpoint means a victory for Harold at the end of the film.

The midpoint can also be a sign of troubling times to come for the protagonist, as is the case with Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) in Raging Bull (1980). Jake and Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) are married, and it seems their lives alternate between Jake's success in the ring and their happy home lives together. However, seeds of jealously are sewn over time along with frustrations when Jake finally lets Tommy Como help him get a shot at the title. In exchange, Jake agrees to take a dive in his next match. Against his own good conscience, Jake throws the fight, and in so doing, sells himself to the mob. This is a mirror of Jake's ultimate fate by the end of the film—where we find him quoting On The Waterfront with significance; “...what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You should have taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money. It was you, Charlie. It was you.”

Monologue

Monologue, a monologue is a character who gives a speech to another character or group of characters. A monologue can serve any number of storytelling functions—clearly, it can be used to divulge character information; how a character speaks, and the content of their speech, will display character.

Monologues can also be used to articulate exposition for the audience, reveal back story and intone key elements of the story and plot. Monologues can also catch the audience up with the action so far before moving on. They can also serve as a heightened emotional moment for the characters—the character who

delivers a monologue preaching or lecturing to others when the conflict has reached its apex.

EXAMPLES:

In Network (1976), a movie full of monologues, gives examples of the multiple different personalities that exist within the framework of a television network system—both on and off camera. However, there are two monologues in the film that go above and beyond all the others in terms of how they stick in the

memories and the imaginations of the audience, the first being the monologue given by news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch), “I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”, or Arthur Jensen's (Ned Beatty) monologue,

“Because you're on television, dummy.” Both stand out as among some of the greatest written, and best delivered, monologues in cinema.

Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) from A Few Good Men (1992) delivers a powerful monologue, explaining to Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) what

responsibility he holds to the Marines and to American freedom, by saying “we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.” The famous “You can't handle the truth” monologue establishes the character of Col. Jessep as a man with a single-minded focus on his job, and his duties, and that everything falls second to the obligation he holds to his status in the United States military.

General George S. Patton Jr. (George C. Scott) opens the film Patton (1970) with one of the most memorable monologues in cinema. With a proud and gargantuan flag of stars-and-bars behind him, Patton addresses an unseen throng of troops with a pep-talk to inspire in them the desire to win at all costs, to annihilate the enemy, “to spill his guts”. This monologue sets up the titanic figure of the film's central character; the general himself, introducing us to his determination, his goals, and his passion—war.

Montage

Montage, is a series of images from different sources that are edited together to give the audience information about the story without the use of dialogue.

Montages can be used to demonstrate the passage of time, to cover two or more separate events that are happening simultaneously, and/or to summarize the actions and activities of multiple characters at their current places in the story.

Montages are visual in nature, so their use is primarily to telegraph visual cues to the audience about the story.

EXAMPLES:

It's common for a film to add a musical score, theme or a song to heighten the mood of a montage. In the case of Team America: World Police (2004), the song that plays during the film's montage is about montages, and explains: “Show a lot of things happening at once, Remind everyone of what's going on (what's going on?), And with every shot you show a little improvement, To show it all would take too long. That's called a montage (montage), Oh we want a montage

(montage)”. This montage allows the audience to understand that a character who at first is inept and untrained quickly becomes a seasoned professional at the trade of policing the world, a sequence that alerts the audience that an appropriate amount of effort has been put in on the part of the protagonist to ensure they are capable of meeting the obstacle that confronts them without taking up many multiple pages of screen time in order to exemplify the process, scene-by-scene.

In Teen Wolf (1985), Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) is one of the best athletes on his high school's basketball team. In a climactic game that puts everything on the line, we're shown how The Beavers basketball team slowly edges their way back into the game in a come-from-behind sequence that takes place over the course of a long montage sequence that brings us to within a point and puts Scott in a position to win the game with a few free throws. This montage takes us through the highlights of the game and builds suspense for the audience in whether or not the team is going to pull through in the end.

Mood

Mood, is the attitude and atmosphere of a scene, sequence, and act of a script—

as well as the prevailing tone of the script overall. Mood is about finding a state of mind for your characters by revealing their character attitude and allowing them to behave naturally in the confines and circumstances that arise within the world of the film. In addition to character, the writer's own voice in their

descriptions of actions, objects and events within a screenplay's action lines also articulates a mood for the reader.

EXAMPLES:

Brick (2005) is a hard-nosed mystery thriller taken out of the styling of noir pictures of the 30's and 40's and set in a modern high-school world. Because of this, the mood reflects the mood felt in those earlier noir films, but under a new guise—the high-school drama. In this case, Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is investigating the death of his ex girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) by tracing her footsteps back to the mysterious and elusive figure known only as The Pin (Lukas Haas). Dark and brooding with fast-talking, quick-thinking sleuths and thugs, Brick has a mood and a style all it's own by taking different genres and transposing them together into something new and exciting.

A comedy's prerogative is to entice its audience to laugh, and as with

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), the mood is light and airy, full of jokes, good times and good people. You like all of the characters at play, here, even if they don't necessarily like each other, as is the case with Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate); though we delight in their antics to get under each others skin. Even as the film turns the corner and finds Ron down on his luck and desperate for work, the tone of the film never descends too deep or becomes too centered on Burgundy's despair; for even in Ron's misery there is comedy (tragically enough). Though not all

comedies are required to be this upbeat, Anchorman is a good example of how audience's oftentimes seek out films with an upbeat point of view for good laughs and fun times.

Motif

Motif, is the use of metaphor, symbolism, repetition and mood in order to articulate a script's theme to the reader without having to state it overtly. By establishing a metaphor and discovering moments to return to the metaphor, a writer begins to make an ambiguous statement about the story which the audience recognizes and focuses upon. The conservative use of a motif can add style and tone to a script, though it can be an easy thing to over-use. When not subtly applied, motifs can exhaust an audience, and rather than being a major element within a screenplay, should only accent themes inherent to the story; the telling of which should always be a writer's first priority, along with character.

MOTIF (CONT’D) EXAMPLES:

Reoccurring camera angles sometimes intone a silent motif to the audience, as in the case of The Third Man (1949), where the constant use of dutch angles, or camera angles where the framing is caddywompus or uneven with the floor, give the viewer a sense that things are unusual—that the characters, or even the audience themselves, aren't on equal-footing with each other. This motif can be used to instill a sense of helplessness in the audience in relation to the protagonist dealing with or coming to terms with the events within a story. The director or writer can do this in order to call attention to a visual representation of the emotions a character is undergoing and interpreting through a camera angle.

Mirrors can be a powerful motif in film, and with Black Swan (2010), Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is oftentimes being confronted by her own image via reflection in a mirror. The mirror motif can say many different things about the individual who's image is being reflected—how does the character see

themselves? How does the audience see them? Does the mirror reflect how a character has changed, or what the character has gone through? Does the mirror allude to what changes need to be made? Does the mirror suggest that the character is narcissistic, or imply that something vital is missing? Sometimes even more powerful than the character's own reflection is what else is being reflected. What is the character's environment? What is going on in the

background of a reflected image? The mirror itself also acts as a metaphor for the process of movie-watching as well—we are watching reflections of ourselves on the screen in very much the same way that the character on the screen is

watching their own reflection in a mirror. In Black Swan, mirrors are everywhere

—all about the character, forcing Nina to confront her own nature; done so repeatedly that the motif is hard to ignore, just as one's own reflection in one can be hard to ignore.

Mystery

Mystery, is the use of placing your protagonist, antagonist, or other supporting characters into scenarios where they are investigating parts of the story they don't know or don't understand, and/or is what occurs when characters are making choices based off indirection. Elements of audience awareness also come into play when dealing with mystery; how much information does the audience have? Is it more or less information than the characters in the story have? When

does the audience learn vital details of the story—before, after, or alongside the characters? Mystery is also a genre of film; one where the characters are searching to uncover a particular curiosity that surrounds an unexplained or unknown event.

EXAMPLES:

Watchmen (2009) is a film that brings together action and comic book genre films into the realm of mystery. We watch as characters such as Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) and Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) investigate not only their past lives and careers as Watchmen, a group of superheroes that saved the world from destruction, while also investigating the murder of their one-time comrade The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The ins-and-outs of the story are revealed little by little, with methodical patience, until even the main characters are unsure of the meaning behind events, shrouding both themselves and the audience into a realm of mistaken identities and mounting suspense. Ultimately, the thrill of watching Watchmen comes from it's captivating detective story—an investigation into the present by meditating upon the past.

The beauty of The Sixth Sense (1999) is that, at the onset, we aren't aware that what we're watching is a mystery film. It would seem that, to a first-time audience member, the story that plays out before their eyes is a drama-horror story about Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a little boy who is tortured by his curse to see ghosts, and a child psychologist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) who attempts to reach out to the troubled boy and understand his affliction. Yet, we come to find that in actuality, Cole is attempting to lead Malcolm upon a path that will lead to the man's own self-discovery; a mystery that teases both

Malcolm and the audience along the path of the story in equal disillusionment and slowly-dawning realization. Though the film is, in large part, a story about a man and a boy understanding their own behaviors, it proves that Crowe's spirit is more mysterious than it might at first appear. The amazing feature of a well-crafted mystery tale is the elation that an audience can feel when the mystery is finally solved; an impending sense of shock and insight can bring a reader and a viewer back to a story over and over again, even if they can never have the pleasure of re-living a mystery for the first time.