random thoughts on pacing

J

Josh Bass

Veteran
Sometimes I think about why I find something I'm watching to be well-paced vs slow and interminable. I realize this is subjective to each individual, but I feel that there are probably, somewhere, other people who think like me on this. I was just watching the first episode of The Romanovs, for instance, and while I haven't finished it yet (these seem like they're long for TV episodes, like feature films) and will resume later, I was into what I have seen so far. On the other hand, we just finished season 3 of Stranger Things last night, whose final episode, I THINK was about the same length as the chunk of The Romanovs that I just watched. However, this season especially of Stranger Things, it felt like every episode went on for fifteen years (just so I know I'm not alone on this, watched this show with my paramour, and while she was into the show during season 1 and maybe 2, she was very not enthused this entire season).

Some of this is that I find most action scenes boring. I'm good for about 30 seconds of that stuff (shooting, explosions, running, etc.) before I tune out and am waiting for the next actual story or plot point. Sometimes tense standoff scenes, those pregnant moments when you're waiting to see if he's gonna kill her or she's gonna kill him, etc., are the exception, but the ongoing loud action stuff doesn't engage me.

And it's not that I like more mature, grounded stuff vs the "dumber" shows like the Marvel Stuff, Stranger Things, etc. I'll watch whatever if it seems interesting to me. I liked Homecoming a lot, way more than I thought I would. It's definitely not that I'm all about quiet moments and character development. Plenty of that in Stranger Things, not to mention any number of flagship/popular shows...Buffy, all the Marvel stuff, really, pretty much everything these days. Same thing...when people start talking about feelings and giving each other pep talks about survival and fighting for something (95% of each Walking Dead ep), I'm thinking about if I'm gonna have a snack later.

I think character development that comes through watching these people actual DO things or REVEAL things, and I mean personal secrets or some other thing that would make you gasp or say "AH HA!", rather than the abstract feelings/pep talks, is key, for keeping my interest level. When each line of dialogue or a bit of action (not necessarily shooty bang boom but also just watching very ordinary things happen) is actually a major revelation, something interesting and not something you could blow past and not lose the story (again, feelings and pep talks), I think that's what keeps me focused.

On the other hand, who knows? I've argued on here before that even though 30 Rock is mile-a-minute with the jokes, and many of them very funny, I find the overall show boring to watch and have only ever had it on in the background, vs something slower like The Office whereI've watched many eps repeatedly (yes I realize many of you will think the opposite, or hate both, I'm just giving insight into my brain here).

So, those are my head farts. Thanks for smelling them.
 
All fair and interesting thoughts! I don't neccessarily disagree with anything. For me its sometimes mood dependent.

I appreciate well done action scenes as entertainment in and of themselves. The choreography and visual wonder, editing, camera movement - just the visceral ride. It's the equivalent of a mindless FPS shooter game. That can be great entertainment in and of itself devoid of all story! I mean, I could have gone with a motorcycle chase 10x longer in MI: Fallout without any story developments, just to watch the incredible stunt work and choreography and cinematography on it. It was way too short for me.

If in the right mood.

There are also a lot of generic action scenes without much cleverness happening these days. In such cases I 100% feel the way you do, almost all the time. Generic choreography and mundane action with lame telephoto shakey camera movement that we've seen a million times before. Booorrrring. And often times, I want substance. I want to feel like I'm engaged in a deep, meaningful story. The "game" equivalent of a deep RPG or heavily story based game where there are meaningful stakes.

I think the best of them out there manage to do both. I think Christopher Nolan has done a good job with this. Dark Knight is so gripping because I feel the action is visercal and stunning in and of itself, but it also carries very high story stakes at almost any moment. It is revealing character, motives, and pushing things along.

And then there's shows like Hobbs & Shaw or whatever the new fast furious one is. I know it's going to be "bad". But I also know I will rent it on 4K HDR on some lazy night where I want to unwind with a beer and burger and I wouldn't even have the energy/mental output to enjoy the more meaningful complexity of a better made film. Where I just want to smile and enjoy at how stupid over the top some of the visually impressive antics are and here my subwoofer go boom.
 
I'll just add to this. One movie I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did was Allita Battle Angel. Girl was busy and had no interest, so figured it would be a good movie to watch then. Reviews had me with lower expectations. And I objectively know it isn't one of the greats. It's just not. It lacks greatness.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't immensely enjoy it. Mostly for the stunning visual flair of the world it created and the incredible fun to watch action sequences. It's just a visual feast with some very fun action.
 
Hmmm. I appreciate that but I’m more into visual flare in less actiony contexts. Altered Carbon? Ok show, cool premise, sort of cringey, but oh my God the visuals. Star Trek Discovery too...LOOKS amazing. Definitely wasn’t feeling second season (see, first post), though liked first season pretty well.
 
Yeah, all preference. I started in film making action movies for fun, so I am super into watching how scenes are planned and choreographed and the creativity that goes into a really thoughtful action scene. Viscerally stunning (as distinct from visually stunning)

I hear you though. Sounds like you're probably quite gripped by something like Blade Runner 2049.
 
I basically quit watching new movies and TV shows. Sometimes, I get to see a few minutes while I am flipping channels during a soccer or a football game and ... well, I find the dialog and acting just awful and the action scenes are cut so fast, they are becoming a visual equivalent of a super fast drum roll.

But then I found a (Russian version of) "Bullitt" online and watched the whole flick pretty much. Its pacing was more varied - with many long shots that build up the suspense to Lalo Schifrin's cool jazz score - but it was a classic nonetheless. Likewise, "A Man and a Woman", where "nothing happens" and which has very little dialogue, is also a gem.

And then I'll watch "Saturday Night Fever" for an hour+. Ralph Bode's camera work is just so first rate. Plus, "GoodFellas", "Harry met Sally", "The Graduate" (Robert Surtees), "The Blade Runner", and a few more.
 
I would have to ask which shows and movies you mean, as arguably the production values, including acting, on many shows and movies are higher now than they’ve ever been. Of course acting styles have shifted over time, usually tending more and more naturalistic which can sometimes mean mumbling as opposed to the crisp if stilted annunciation in the days of yore.
 
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Barry Lyndon is glacially paced by modern standards, often composed of nearly motionless frames. Yet I find it totally riveting and am never bored. Meanwhile, the latest Michael Bay extravaganza usually leaves me bored beyond belief. I think you can get an audience involved at any pace as long as you modulate it properly -- peaks and valleys and ultimately rising tension. Bay only has one speed from the start and it becomes exhausting. When everything is done at the same volume and intensity, you ultimately lose tension and suspense. It's just noise. One thing people always mention about my film is how well paced they think it is, and that it seems to move really well, which honestly surprises me because I was terrified it would be too slow and boring for a modern audience (partially because I've seen it a million times now doing all the post work). It's got maybe ten minutes of action in it, but I think because the stakes and tension keep rising throughout to the climax, it keeps people involved.
 
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Fully agree on the over breakneck modern pacing. Episode VII felt this way to me. Slow it down a bit guys! Geez.

Same with action scenes in general. Telephoto fast cuts to mask real, thoughtful choregraphy. It is meaningless action. Not into that.

Still exceptions. I think it was Atomic Blonde, there's a 7 minute raw fight scene on a staircase that I think you can even find on YouTube. It's legit. It was done as a cheater single take (looks single, but actually several cleverly stitched). Anyway, point is it actually focused on an intense, wide angle, well choregraphed fight.

EDIT: here is part 1, you can easily see part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHi36DCTwec
 
Josh Bass said:
I would have to ask which shows and movies you mean, as arguably the production values, including acting, on many shows and movies are higher now than they’ve ever been. Of course acting styles have shifted over time, usually tending more and more naturalistic which can sometimes mean mumbling as opposed to the crisp if stilted annunciation in the days of yore.
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They can mumble all they want. Heck, Dustin Hoffman mumbles through most of "The Graduate" as if he was underwater ... but, on the Decades channel, I sometimes catch up on some 1970's "Kojak" and "Charlie's Angeles" episodes and everything there fit into the narrative so much better. One was gritty, the other glam and it was just fine for a TV show. Then I'd watch a few minutes of the various "Chicago PD/Med" shows and they kind of makes me want to vomit. OK, they do look great. The camera work is excellent, the lighting is top notch, the acting is generally good enough ... but the dialog is like a chain letter. It's so stilted, so artificial, so .. well, not real dialog like. It's the pits.

I tried BBC's "War and Peace" last year. Because it's Tolstoy and because I had to read the whole 1,200+ pages during the summer between my 9th and 10th grades in high school (I had to, though I stopped at about 800th page) and I thought, "well, all the screen writer had to do was to copy Tolstoy, change a few narrative sentences into dialog, a few dialog lines into the narratives and call it a day". Well, the guy decided to rewrite Tolstoy and the whole miniseries generally stunk.

PS. YouTube has a 2006 Russian version of Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" with translation and, as much I loathe the Russian film making, most of the miniseries came out very well. Then, at the end, it came apart but Bulgakov was drinking himself to death at that point anyway.

Old upload.

 
I feel you on the medical procedurals (which I've never liked) and most of the police ones...I do still like SVU a lot. Most of the cop shows are simply meh but there's something about the speech patterns in the CSIs and NCIS Los Angeles, especially when someone's explaining some techy/forensic thing to somone else, that makes want to tear my ears off and shove them into my brain so I can damage it enough to not remember I ever heard that s*%t.
 
Since we're complaining about network TV, it seems every sitcom nowadays is just non stop sex jokes. I'm no prude but it's obnoxiously relentless. Especially the Chuck Lorre shows. I don't really watch them but my wife and daughter do. I can usually stand about five minutes before I'm out the door.
 
Batutta said:
Since we're complaining about network TV, it seems every sitcom nowadays is just non stop sex jokes. I'm no prude but it's obnoxiously relentless. Especially the Chuck Lorre shows. I don't really watch them but my wife and daughter do. I can usually stand about five minutes before I'm out the door.
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You're telling me the creator of the big bang theory and 2.5 men isn't actually funny?
 
Josh Bass said:
I feel you on the medical procedurals (which I've never liked) and most of the police ones...I do still like SVU a lot. Most of the cop shows are simply meh but there's something about the speech patterns in the CSIs and NCIS Los Angeles, especially when someone's explaining some techy/forensic thing to somone else, that makes want to tear my ears off and shove them into my brain so I can damage it enough to not remember I ever heard that s*%t.
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"St. Elsewhere" and "Hill St. Blues", the "LA Law" are some of my all time favorites from the 1980's. So were "Cheers" and "Night Court". I was told by one of the "Cheers", "Taxi", "Frasier" writer's wife (he won a bunch of Emmy's) that he used to write like a typical writer, sentence by sentence, punchline by punchline. Then, when he was hired for "Taxi", Glen and Les Charles (creators of "Cheers") convinced to try a different method. They said, "You're a funny guy, so just talk your characters onto the page, then pick the best jokes and voila". So, that's what he did sometime in the late 70's/early 80's.

Still, by the early 90's, "Seinfeld" was the most popular Hollywood show. Everyone wanted to write for "Seinfeld", whose style was totally different from "Cheers/Taxi" since both Jerry and Larry hated the setup/punchline sequence of those shows. Instead, each liked the Abbott and Costello type speech pattern.

Imagine this being George and Jerry.

Costello: Well then who's on first?

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: I mean the fellow's name.

Abbott: Who.

Costello: The guy on first.

Abbott: Who.

Costello: The first baseman.

Abbott: Who.

Costello: The guy playing...

Abbott: Who is on first!

Costello: I'm asking YOU who's on first.

Abbott: That's the man's name.

Costello: That's who's name?

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PS. Chuck Lorre has so much money, the shows has so many writers, each script is made so tight, there's a punchline in every other sentence.

On the other hand, I knew a friend's friend who worked on "Seinfeld". He would drop the script off, knowing it would be rewritten either by Larry David or by Larry Charles. By the time he saw the actual episode, there was scarcely a line of his left.
 
I thought I would waltz in here and offer some insight --- but I got nothin'!

Josh, your innocent question is really just another rephrasing of the big question, why are some things successful while others aren't? If we knew that, then there would be no duds.

"Why do we give our attention to movies and TV?"
"For entertainment."
"What exactly is entertainment?"
"Something that holds your attention."

I think we've made some progress, like with The Hero with a Thousand Faces. But we still know less than we might think we should know by now.
 
You've got me. I'm actually a marketing tool from one of the studios. It's been a long, long con (10+) years, but I guess the jig is finally up. I'm burned, now, as they apparently say in gritty shows.
 
BTW, this popped into my mind.

A sitcom script can vary from ~ 20 pages ("Married w/Children") to mid-50's for "Seinfeld" and "Murphy Brown". But "Seinfeld" and "Murphy Brown" were different shows (though they were produced on the same Studio City lot and Elaine Pope went to MB from S after co-winning an Emmy for the "Fix-up" with Larry Charles .... Larry Charles wrote/rewrote most of the verbiage ... he was the best writer on "Seinfeld" also writing the "Limo", the "Bris", the "Heart Attack", the "Keys", the "Trip, Part I and II", the "Bubble Boy", the "Outing" until he left to run "Mad about you" in its most successful stretch). MB also had some big time writers, including Peter Tolan, Tom Palmer, Nell Scovell, Michael Patrick King, Peterman & Dontzig, et. al.

In any case, those shows had totally different tempos and beats. Whereas "Seinfeld" was almost monosyllabic, MB was full of half-page monologues. In "Seinfeld", Jerry usually had the best one-liners, since he often came up with them anyway (So, you want to be my Latex salesman?). On "Murphy Brown", Candice Bergen usually was given enough words to set up her own punchlines but they had to be written for her.

For my taste, MB had very uneven quality. Some episodes were great, some so-so. What that likely meant was that Diane English couldn't rewrite poorer episodes (Peterman & Dontzig, when they became show-runners, could). Most of "Seinfeld" was fairly consistent because, as long as Larry David and Larry Charles stayed on, they rewrote everything. When they both left, the show went into the toilet (but became vastly more popular nonetheless).
 
Never saw much of Murphy Brown, and what I did, I was probably too young to really judge or appreciate properly. I love Seinfeld (after season 1 and kinda season 2--really found its groove in season 3 or 4, to me). I wouldn't say it "went into the toilet" but the last two seasons or whenever those two left are kinda iffy. And of course the finale was a huge letdown.

I would be 30 rock is another one with 50 page scripts for 22 minutes. I will defend Big Bang up til about season 7 or 8. After that it went down and down and down for whatever reason. If you're not into it then you're not into it but I think for a while it was a pretty fun show, admittedly with some dumb elements. It was like a half a really clever show and half dumb as hell. Two and a half men is nice to fall asleep to for an afternoon nap. And If think THAT show sucks, you should see Anger Management, which Charlie Sheen jumped to after he went temporarily insane.
 
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Temporarily?

PS. Side note, Chuck Lorre has had a bad history with his stars. Roseanne fought with him. Brett Butler fought with him. Cybill Shepherd fought with him. Charlie Sheen fought with him. Granted, Roseanne, Brett, Cyb and Chucky fought with everyone but, in the case of Roseanne, it sort of cost Chuck his job and, in the case of BB and Cyb, it cost him both of his series.

One has to surmise that Chuck rebounded nicely from those setbacks, what with him being allegedly worth $800M or so.
 
BTW, the reason I brought up "Murphy brown" was because it was deemed THE hippest show in Hollywood for several years in the late 80's-early 90's. 62 Emmy noms, countless articles, presence in the media, etc. Everything about it was supposed to be great - the casting, the writing, the characters lifestyles, the female leads on the stage and in the executive suit, et cetera, et cetera.

Ultimately, the show proved to be a bit of a naked king, as it totally tanked in syndication, where the real money is made. Hollywood moved on to other darlings and, without hype, the show petered out.
 
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