{"id":1509,"date":"2011-05-04T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T18:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/?p=1509"},"modified":"2011-05-04T06:00:44","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T18:00:44","slug":"how-we-got-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/how-we-got-here\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Got Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest abridged script<\/a>‘s opening made me laugh out loud:<\/p>\n

\n

EXT. LOS ANGELES<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES is getting ASS-FUCKED by ALIENS.<\/p>\n

VARIOUS MARINES IN HELICOPTERS<\/p>\n

(shouting)<\/p>\n

OO-RAH! LET’S GO GET THOSE ALIENS!<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE<\/p>\n

Yay, they’re getting directly into the action! Maybe this will do that good-movie thing of jumping right in and cleverly filling us in on the backstory as we go along.<\/p>\n

(pause)<\/p>\n

Or it might do that bad-movie thing where...<\/p>\n

TITLE CARD: “36 HOURS EARLIER”<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE<\/p>\n

Fuck.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Once the chuckles abated, I had to search hard to find out what kind of storytelling device this is: a how we got here<\/a> trope.<\/p>\n

I used to think this device\/trope was a nicely grabby way of starting off stories until Battlestar: Galactica<\/a> killed that enjoyment with overuse in its second season.<\/p>\n

I inwardly groan whenever I see such a title card now. For me, it’s become an unnecessary obstacle a film or show has to overcome for me to continue watching. Grinning and baring it has been occasionally rewarding – Breaking Bad<\/i> and Band of Brothers<\/i> come to mind – but for the most part, deservedly or no, a time-travelling title card provides an excuse to stop watching and move on to the next show.<\/p>\n

And how would yours truly do it?<\/p>\n

In film, Memento<\/i> and 21 Grams<\/i> have shown the way in forcing your audience to work without title cards.<\/p>\n

As for TV, I wouldn’t use it in a pilot*<\/super>. I was going to say it’s been done to death but I’ve gone back three years in my viewing diary and haven’t even been able to make a list of five. I blame BSG<\/i> for my sensitivity.<\/p>\n

And as for Battle Los Angeles<\/i>, I enjoyed it immensely despite health advisories from Mr Ebert<\/a> and Mr Slevin<\/a>. Maybe my low expectations carried me over that title card hurdle.<\/p>\n

*<\/super> And yet… a pilot script of mine starts just like this – though, in my defence, it doesn’t have a title card.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest abridged script‘s opening made me laugh out loud: EXT. LOS ANGELES LOS ANGELES is getting ASS-FUCKED by ALIENS. VARIOUS MARINES IN HELICOPTERS (shouting) OO-RAH! LET’S GO GET THOSE ALIENS! AUDIENCE Yay, they’re getting directly into the action! Maybe this will do that good-movie thing of jumping right in and cleverly filling us in … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “How We Got Here”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,4,6],"tags":[194],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-scriptwriting","category-television","tag-battle-los-angeles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}