Treading Water
There's a certain kind of scene in a movie that just stops the story dead. You know one when you see one. You can tell you've hit a "treading water" scene because people are doing stuff, they're moving, and maybe even talking to other people, but subconsciously (or worse, consciously) you're waiting for the scene to end so something will actually happen.
Two examples from recent horrors:
The pictures are the story!
Two examples from recent horrors:
- The partying in Turistas. While our hard bodies frolic on the beach, and splash and play and flirt, we're waiting, and waiting, and thinking "Gee, I wish I was having a good a time as them. Instead, I'm stuck here watching this lame movie in which nothing is happening."
- The stripping in I Know Who Killed Me. There's likely another whole post in this movie, cuz wow, but I'm putting this out there right now: there are, like, four scenes of La Lohan stripping on stage. Some of them rather lengthy. Because the character's a stripper, dontcha know, and to prove it, the movie has to show her stripping and stripping. She strips the hell out of that movie.
The pictures are the story!
Labels: scenes
posted by Jennica at 9:29 p.m.
2 Comments:
Three simple things, I believe, that can rescue a treading water scene (besides cutting it) are to change the weather, time, or location.
Besides adding tension, weather can add some symbolism in a hurry. Or a “portent of things to come.”
And 4:12 a.m. adds tension. A call to a lover or a stroll to the ATM takes on a different mood at 4:12.
In a script that I’m polishing, I had an exchange of dialogue between the hero and a mentor that just HAD to take place. It was essential to the plot, set up many things, etc. I had it set in the cafeteria of a hospital and it was B.O.R.I.N.G. It seemed like the natural place for the conversation to take place, but it was killing me. Killing the script too.
So I moved it to the curbside. Heavy traffic. The evil, bad, malevolent, antagonist creep was in a wheelchair, inches from speeding traffic. (Oh, and no sympathy for the wheelchair-bound creep. Superficial wound, many evil deeds, plus he was abusing the nurse who was escorting him.)
The hero was now just feet behind the guy who had ruined his life. A simple shove and it would all be over. He was still having the same conversation with the mentor, but now all sorts of Hope vs. Fear were involved, spurred on by the temptation of revenge. The nurse was ready to shove the antagonist ass into traffic herself. Hero had to quietly caution her NOT to act on her impulses.
Anyhow, I think the change of location moved the scene out of the shallow treading pool and into the deeper waters of danger and suspense.
OSM, these are all fantastic pieces of advice. I'm remembering Blake Snyder and "the pope in the pool"... when I saw "Stranger than Fiction", I had to laugh. They'd put Dustin Hoffman in the pool, literally!
I worked with a director on a script once, who had very similar advice. Take the scene, add tension of any kind. It helps. The scene we were working on had a guy and gal on a Vespa, crossing a bridge. It was a happy, static, never-make-it-to-camera scene. It needed tension. We had her purse slip; she almost lost it. It helped.
But I have to say, my complaint with these movies isn't so much that they failed to express tension or conflict in the scenes. It was that the scenes (unlike yours, unlike the pope in the pool) didn't need to be there at all. They really felt like "atmosphere" or something. And I'm sorry... "atmosphere" is for student films, music videos, and hacks!
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