random thoughts on pacing

Sheen was all over the news for a month or a few with "winning" and "tiger blood" and whatnot, then it kinda died down, and he was (seemingly?) stable enough to hold it down on Anger Management for however many seasons that lasted. Then it came that "winning" etc. was after he found out....well. Didn't seem to have much to do with Lorre.

Again, never really saw much of MB.
 
Have an opinion on the pacing of Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" ?

I've heard many people say they hate the pacing, but I had no problems with it. I loved the immersiveness of it. I don't mind slow pacing if it helps establish the mood of a film.
 
TheDingo said:
Have an opinion on the pacing of Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" ?

I've heard many people say they hate the pacing, but I had no problems with it. I loved the immersiveness of it. I don't mind slow pacing if it helps establish the mood of a film.
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My issue with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood isn't pacing, it's the aimlessness of the narrative. There is nothing much at stake for nearly two thirds of the movie and the scenes don't build on each other.
 
The Sixth Sense is a good example of a movie that moves slowly. Not only is the camerawork and editing about 10 times slower than many modern movies, but the trickle of information slowly seeps out too. And then it went on to make about half a billion dollars.

I want to say it is because it succeeded in planting a question in me that I wanted to wait and find out the answer to. But that can't be all that's needed, because practically all movies raise some question at the beginning: "Will hero succeed in doing x?" And yet most of them fail to make me care enough to find out the answer. And I don't know why.
 
The 'save the cat" narrative is also getting totally worn out. Saw an ad for the new Brad Pitt film - but not Tarantino's - "the fate of the world is at stake". And so it is in every CGI laden flick for the last two decades. To quote Def Leppard from the other decade, the 1980's. "We are getting it. Armageddon it".
 
I agree. I prefer stories with lower stakes than "the whole world". They are more grounded, personal, meaningful, and real to me. Bigger is not always better and I wish not so many movies (or games, for that matter) didn't feel the need to make "the whole world at stake".
 
Batutta said:
My issue with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood isn't pacing, it's the aimlessness of the narrative. There is nothing much at stake for nearly two thirds of the movie and the scenes don't build on each other.
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I agree with this. It was a little odd for me for this reason, though I enjoyed it regardless. It was just different... it felt more like the point of the movie was just to dip in and explore characters, a setting, and let the world itself be entertainment. And it was. And much of it was very enjoyable and entertaining.

But I can't say that I liked it as much as his other recents. Inglorios and Django felt like better movies to me.
 
I think "whole world is at stake" sells better to the target demo (honestly, probably the moviegoing public, period) than something like "The Station Agent" (I movie I'm very fond of), hence, why more of those get made.

I think it makes for more interesting games (assuming you mean video games). Would you really want to play The Last of Us if Joel was simply trying to get a broken wrist fixed?

I confess I don't quite understand what whoever it was meant by "talking characters onto the page" rather than writing line by line, sentence by sentence.
 
Josh Bass said:
... I confess I don't quite understand what whoever it was meant by "talking characters onto the page" rather than writing line by line, sentence by sentence.
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At some point, they didn't write any dialog themselves but had their secretary jot down their oneliners.

Let's say it's something to do with Norm ("Cheers"). What are the thoughts that are popping into your head. Start talking. The secretary will take notes. Then, if you're funny enough, she'll have have a dozen of solid punchlines in an hour. Keep on talking. Take a break. Come back to the office and talk some more. Within a day, you might have enough material for a 50 page script. And none of that will be stilted because it was a live exchange.
 
Interesting. I guess if it works it works. Was this after they had a plot structure to deliver those lines within? Otherwise I dont get how it would work.
 
DLD said:
At some point, they didn't write any dialog themselves but had their secretary jot down their oneliners.

Let's say it's something to do with Norm ("Cheers"). What are the thoughts that are popping into your head. Start talking. The secretary will take notes. Then, if you're funny enough, she'll have have a dozen of solid punchlines in an hour. Keep on talking. Take a break. Come back to the office and talk some more. Within a day, you might have enough material for a 50 page script. And none of that will be stilted because it was a live exchange.
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Definitely a valid approach for a sitcom, as they are mostly people talking in rooms anyway. The same room. Week after week. And maybe a feature comedy. I never wrote a funnier script than the one I wrote with my two college buddies, one of whom became a professional comic. We'd just shoot the ****, make each other laugh, and then I'd go type.
 
I get that but even sitcoms still have plots. Someone loses or gets a job. Someone meets a woman or breaks up. I would think you'd have to know the plot and scene structure, the basic beats, before you start improvving like that.
 
Josh Bass said:
I get that but even sitcoms still have plots. Someone loses or gets a job. Someone meets a woman or breaks up. I would think you'd have to know the plot and scene structure, the basic beats, before you start improvving like that.
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Isn't that stuff worked out though before the writer starts? On a typical sitcom, in the writers room they hash out plots and beats, maybe come up with some gags, and then send the assigned writer off to execute.
 
Josh Bass said:
I get that but even sitcoms still have plots. Someone loses or gets a job. Someone meets a woman or breaks up. I would think you'd have to know the plot and scene structure, the basic beats, before you start improvving like that.
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I am pretty sure it was after they had the basic story line ... but story lines get adjusted too, if there's a good suggestion.

There are two basic (with zillion iterations, obviously) forms of your typical sitcom screenwriting.

One is a gang-bang (a euphemism), where most of the show is written at a writers table. So, you would have a room of 4-15 writers sitting on couches and drinking coffee and goofing off. That was the norm for the Simpsons (since it was created by James L. Brooks, who also co-created "Taxi", which was the first show to hire Les and Glen Charles, the gang-bang is basically a non-writing writing scheme writ large).

The basic goal is to create both the basic story structure and the sufficient amount of gags for a staff writer to take home for a polish*.

*Staff writers normally begin as the writing-room members and then graduate to the higher levels based upon accomplishments. A typical sitcom hierarchy goes like this - staff writer -> story editor -> executive story editor -> co-producer -> producer -> supervising producer -> co-executive producer -> executive producer -> executive producer/showrunner. Money goes up accordingly.

The other, opposite system, is to give each writer at the story editor level or above a rough outline (sometimes that writer comes up with the story line himself) and allow them to work on the entire script in solitude over a ~ 3-week time span, after which they have to submit their draft. The high ranked writers (usually SP's and up) would then do a read and gang-bang further suggestions. After another week, the final version of the script is submitted. After that, the top ranked writers on that show would rewrite the submitted script as much as they deem necessary.

Most sitcoms try for, at least, three punchlines per minute, or 60-70 per show. The Simpsons often got over a hundred, as they combined both verbal and visual gags. It's worth adding that the Simpsons gags were generally quite amusing under Jean & Reiss.
 
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