Moods and atmosphere

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  • Moods and atmosphere

    Just came across this quote at johnaugust.com:
    Imagine the projectionist screwed up and accidentally lopped off this scene. Would the movie still make sense? If the answer is “yes,” then you don’t really need the scene, and shouldn’t bother writing it.

    At first glance, this rings true. BUT… making sense isn't everything. There are also such things as creating atmosphere and setting the mood.

    For instance, in "Rebecca" there is a scene where Mr deWinter and his new wife are driving toward Manderley palace. The road winds through woods and we share the woman's excitement and anticipation. Suddenly the scenery opens up and there it is, grand, beautiful, impressive. The movie would have made sense without that long drive, but something would have been lost.

    Or in "The Lord of the Rings", the first movie, where the hobbits are on the road, Frodo notices someone approaching, they hide and a Nazgûl rides up, stops, dismounts, sniffs the air. Frodo feels an urge to put on the Ring. Then the bad guy goes away. The scene adds suspense and the hobbit's sense of dread. But it's far from necessary to the story.

    I'm noticing this because I have a similar scene in my script. My protagonist stumbles across a mysterious religious ceremony. Done right, it will create a sense of dark, ancient, hidden magic. The protagonist is curious and it tells us something about the cultural environment where the story takes place. But it doesn't really lead anywhere. The logic of the story is not affected.

    I realize that keeping or losing this scene is a judgement call. Basically, I just wanted to express my doubts about the approach where every scene should be necessary to the story.

  • #2
    Re: Moods and atmosphere

    Originally posted by Merlin View Post
    Just came across this quote at johnaugust.com:
    Imagine the projectionist screwed up and accidentally lopped off this scene. Would the movie still make sense? If the answer is "yes,- then you don't really need the scene, and shouldn't bother writing it.
    At first glance, this rings true. BUT... making sense isn't everything. There are also such things as creating atmosphere and setting the mood.

    For instance, in "Rebecca" there is a scene where Mr deWinter and his new wife are driving toward Manderley palace. The road winds through woods and we share the woman's excitement and anticipation. Suddenly the scenery opens up and there it is, grand, beautiful, impressive. The movie would have made sense without that long drive, but something would have been lost.

    Or in "The Lord of the Rings", the first movie, where the hobbits are on the road, Frodo notices someone approaching, they hide and a Nazgûl rides up, stops, dismounts, sniffs the air. Frodo feels an urge to put on the Ring. Then the bad guy goes away. The scene adds suspense and the hobbit's sense of dread. But it's far from necessary to the story.

    I'm noticing this because I have a similar scene in my script. My protagonist stumbles across a mysterious religious ceremony. Done right, it will create a sense of dark, ancient, hidden magic. The protagonist is curious and it tells us something about the cultural environment where the story takes place. But it doesn't really lead anywhere. The logic of the story is not affected.

    I realize that keeping or losing this scene is a judgement call. Basically, I just wanted to express my doubts about the approach where every scene should be necessary to the story.

    Look, I've heard this kind of advice before and it's important to put it into context.

    You have to understand a story in the same way that you understand a meal. One could just as easily say -- start with the menu and all of the ingredients -- now ask yourself in reference to every single ingredient -- if I removed that ingredient, would you still have an edible, nutritious meal.

    Well, yeah -- maybe. You could completely eliminate that appetizer. Cut the dessert. Get rid of all the seasoning. Do you really need that pat of butter?

    But once you cut the meal down to nothing but it's nutritional basics -- to nothing but "the story" -- what you've ended up with is a pretty uninteresting meal.

    Obviously, what you don't want is a meal where the only reason that people come to the table is to eat the appetizer and the dessert. (For instance, the only reason I watch Saving Private Ryan is for that incredibly delicious D-Day appetizer, after which I turn the movie off -- no interest in the main course).

    But is has to work both ways. Every scene that you serve has to have some "nutritional value" -- it has to have story content. It can't just be there for flavor. On the other hand, you shouldn't ever be asking the audience to eat something "because it's good for you" -- a scene or a moment that's on screen just because it's advancing the story.

    And by the way - there's a very good reason to have that scene in Rebecca. This is about a mousy "average" girl who's carried away to a millionaire to his huge, estate out in the country.

    She doesn't really quite understand what she's gotten herself into until she sees Manderley.

    We identify with her -- she's fallen in love. He's wonderful. And she knows he's rich and he's got this big house somewhere.

    But we also share in that "holy sh*t" moment when she sees just how big a house -- and just how rich a man she's married.

    And since much of the rest of the story deals with her not being able to live up to her sense of what a rich man's wife is supposed to be, it's not at all a moment without any story purpose. Manderley is the externalization of Max's wealth, power, and privilege. In a sense, it's the physical externalization of Rebecca.

    NMS

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    • #3
      Re: Moods and atmosphere

      Originally posted by Merlin View Post
      Or in "The Lord of the Rings", the first movie, where the hobbits are on the road, Frodo notices someone approaching, they hide and a Nazgûl rides up, stops, dismounts, sniffs the air. Frodo feels an urge to put on the Ring. Then the bad guy goes away. The scene adds suspense and the hobbit's sense of dread. But it's far from necessary to the story.
      NMStevens gave you a great answer that I completely agree with. I just wanted to add that both of the scenes you mentioned are extremely important to the films they're in. NM told you why the scene in Rebecca is significant. So is that scene in LOTR.

      I still remember the first time I read that scene in the book when I was a kid. The scene completely reeled me in; nothing could stop me from finishing all three books after that. Until then, you don't realize what a crazy, scary, life-threatening situation Frodo has gotten into. Suddenly we learn this terrifying dead king person is after Frodo and the ring. That's extremely important for setting up the stakes and drawing us into the story. I believe this is also the first time we really get a sense of the ring having its own power and compelling its bearer to put it on. To me at the time, it was a completely novel and fascinating concept.

      If you left out that scene, sure, Frodo would meet the Nazgul later and find out about the ring's power later, but why delay that? You want to set up the stakes and rules of your story as early as possible. Otherwise your readers or viewers get bored and LOTR would never have become the hugely popular books they did become.

      I think JA might've simplified his statement a bit too much in using the words "would the movie still make sense." Instead, I would say that if removing a scene weakens the overall story in any way, it should not be done.

      My website:www.marjorykaptanoglu.com

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      • #4
        Re: Moods and atmosphere

        I'm curious to know the context in which August made the comment. Can you provide a link?

        It sounds to me he was referencing something far different than the examples you've provided.

        I have a hunch August was talking about the "kill your darlings" thingy.

        You have a scene you love and lovingly crafted. It's so cool and awesome. But it does nothing to add layers to the character development and/or move the plot forward.

        This is a "darling" that's wise to cut away.
        Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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        • #5
          Re: Moods and atmosphere

          It's been a while since I've seen either movie, but I'll add...

          In Rebecca, it's not just seeing the mansion. Prior to that, driving through the woods sets up her isolation. Having the mansion in a suburb of London would be a whole different thing.

          And the scene with Frodo sets up the power of the Ring in a decision-making situation driven by fear.

          So I think it's worth looking long and hard about what each scene expresses and if it adds to the overall film. And if you need to compact a script, is there another better, shorter way to express it and/or have a scene do double and triple-duty?

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          • #6
            Re: Moods and atmosphere

            Just came across this quote at johnaugust.com:
            Imagine the projectionist screwed up and accidentally lopped off this scene. Would the movie still make sense? If the answer is "yes,- then you don't really need the scene, and shouldn't bother writing it.
            At first glance, this rings true. BUT... making sense isn't everything. There are also such things as creating atmosphere and setting the mood.
            Sometimes things are completely true as principles, but they just do not work a hundred percent of the time in practice.

            That is how I would view the advice in the original statement. Excellent advice, but do not be an unthinking slave to it.

            To me the important question is: How does the scene contribute to our understanding of the plot and the characters? In other words, do we know more when the scene is over? And, even if the scene contributed in some way, did it detract more than it helped?

            "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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            • #7
              Re: Moods and atmosphere

              I agree with everyone else. The examples you cite aren't great, but most films will have scenes that add little more than flavour. Terrence Malick films are full of them (which is why plenty of people hate Terrence Malick films...)

              I saw BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR a couple of weekends ago and there are plenty of scenes - including one sex scene - that added nothing to the story. Didn't add anything to the characters either. They're a couple, we know they're sleeping together, so why show them having sex again? For about five minutes?

              But it does add to a broader mood of this being about two people utterly in love, so completely intoxicated with each other that they want to spent every minute having sex, talking, hanging out, having sex again. So it adds to the context and mood and atmosphere of the film. At least I'm guessing that's what the director told the actresses...

              But to apply the August test, you could cut half that film out and it would still work. Doubt it would win the Palme D'Or though.
              My stuff

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              • #8
                Re: Moods and atmosphere

                Thanks all and especially nmstevens! Wish you were here so I could buy y'all a beer. You cleared my mind like mental Listerine.

                The johnaugust link is http://johnaugust.com/2007/write-scene

                However, I'm not entirely clear yet. Let's go back to the Lord of the Rings. In the book, right after Frodo and his friends leave the Shire, they get into a dangerous place called the Old Forest, where they are saved from a nasty tree by a strange character called Tom Bombadill. Later, on exiting the forest, they are again saved by Bombadill, this time from a grave barrow wight.

                This chapter was not included in the movie, to the changrin of everyone who wanted an exact, true-to-the-letter rendition of the books. Others said "Well they only had so many minutes of film and this part just didn't move the story forward in any way." And they are right. The enire episode can be skipped. It's not part of the story and Bombadill never appears again.

                But in a wider sense, this episode is very important. It's part of a theme that permeates the entire story. The Hobbits live in a protected part of the world, shielded from dangers that they only know of by rumour. Now some of them have to leave, and immediately as they set foot outside the Shire, they are in danger. In fact, they are nearly killed. The world outside is evil, dark, dangerous. But not entirely. There are also forces of good. There are powers here and there which transcend the darkness. And help is given from unexpected sources.

                Tom Bombadill is only the first in a row of similar situations where everything is lost, but help comes in strange shapes. Strider who meets the hobbts in Bree is the second, then Glorfindel (also skipped by Jackson). Forces of good appear where they are least expected, like Treebeard (grossly misrepresented by Jackson) and Faramir (also spiritually mutilated by Jackson).

                My point is that while cutting the number of characters down and focusing on the main line of the story, without too many side stories, may be a good idea, the overall perspective may sometimes be damaged by cutting things out. This worries me because I want to write a story that goes beyond mere entertainment.

                Those few books and movies which have stuck in my mind, have done so because they created a special mood, a feeling, an experience of a different world which fascinated me. I went around with sparkling eyes afterward. I wanted that experience again. I'm on the hunt for what makes those stories special. And I think it has a lot to do with painting the environment, the setting in a way that feels genuine.

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                • #9
                  Re: Moods and atmosphere

                  Unfortunately, when the source material is as long and rich as LOTR, some things do have to be cut (or it must be done as a mini-series, I suppose).

                  In my mind, cutting Tom Bombadill was a good choice. He doesn't reappear in the story. The events that take place around him don't move the main narrative forward. And it's possible to establish the same mood/feeling using characters that do move the story forward.

                  As you say, there are a series of encounters (Strider, Galadriel, Treebeard, Faramir, etc.) that do set the mood and that move the story forward. Whether you like how Jackson portrayed them in the film or not, I do believe they were the right story choices. And it seems to me the mood of the story is quite well-conveyed by the films.

                  In short, I don't think it's a good idea to include digressions that are solely about establishing mood. Instead, mood can be established at the same time as you are moving the story forward or providing key character moments.

                  My website:www.marjorykaptanoglu.com

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Moods and atmosphere

                    Originally posted by Merlin View Post
                    Thanks all and especially nmstevens! Wish you were here so I could buy y'all a beer. You cleared my mind like mental Listerine.

                    The johnaugust link is http://johnaugust.com/2007/write-scene

                    However, I'm not entirely clear yet. Let's go back to the Lord of the Rings. In the book, right after Frodo and his friends leave the Shire, they get into a dangerous place called the Old Forest, where they are saved from a nasty tree by a strange character called Tom Bombadill. Later, on exiting the forest, they are again saved by Bombadill, this time from a grave barrow wight.

                    This chapter was not included in the movie, to the changrin of everyone who wanted an exact, true-to-the-letter rendition of the books. Others said "Well they only had so many minutes of film and this part just didn't move the story forward in any way." And they are right. The enire episode can be skipped. It's not part of the story and Bombadill never appears again.

                    But in a wider sense, this episode is very important. It's part of a theme that permeates the entire story. The Hobbits live in a protected part of the world, shielded from dangers that they only know of by rumour. Now some of them have to leave, and immediately as they set foot outside the Shire, they are in danger. In fact, they are nearly killed. The world outside is evil, dark, dangerous. But not entirely. There are also forces of good. There are powers here and there which transcend the darkness. And help is given from unexpected sources.

                    Tom Bombadill is only the first in a row of similar situations where everything is lost, but help comes in strange shapes. Strider who meets the hobbts in Bree is the second, then Glorfindel (also skipped by Jackson). Forces of good appear where they are least expected, like Treebeard (grossly misrepresented by Jackson) and Faramir (also spiritually mutilated by Jackson).

                    My point is that while cutting the number of characters down and focusing on the main line of the story, without too many side stories, may be a good idea, the overall perspective may sometimes be damaged by cutting things out. This worries me because I want to write a story that goes beyond mere entertainment.

                    Those few books and movies which have stuck in my mind, have done so because they created a special mood, a feeling, an experience of a different world which fascinated me. I went around with sparkling eyes afterward. I wanted that experience again. I'm on the hunt for what makes those stories special. And I think it has a lot to do with painting the environment, the setting in a way that feels genuine.
                    From my perspective, the issue has never been about "killing your darlings."

                    I'll tell you something that may sound like heresy. I don't believe in killing your darlings. I think you should try, wherever possible, to save your darlings. If you're going to kill anything, kill the runts. Kill the boring, uninteresting scenes. Leave them on the hillside like the Spartans used to do.

                    No, what you want to do, if you have a good scene, is to find a way to make the scene work for you. Now, sometimes it just plain isn't, and can't and won't. There are just times where you've made the mistake of writing a great scene -- you've just put it in the wrong movie (and by the "wrong movie" sometimes that's a different version of the movie you're writing now that you've decided that you no longer want to write).

                    And if that's the case, it's gotta go.

                    I've done that sometimes -- I've come up with a great scene and then I think -- oh shoot, this is taking the movie and the characters someplace completely wrong. It's a whole other movie. A movie I don't want to write. It's a dead end.

                    Or it's a great exchange but it's revealing stuff too early so it just can't happen when it happens.

                    So sometimes there are good reasons why an otherwise good scene has to be cut.

                    But you're going to find that it's very rare to have a genuinely good scene that isn't moving the story forward.

                    That's why I, for one, was perfectly happy not to have Tom Bombadil in the movies and perfectly happy to skip over old Tom when I re-read the books.

                    Thematically, the story beat of the Hobbits entering the dangerous realms of the outside world and then being rescued by these forces of goodness is hit. We get it. We don't have to keep hitting it over and over again.

                    I found this out personally when I had to direct a script and, as often happens, you've got to start cutting on the fly. You're losing time and stuff has to go and you need to make hard decisions and that's when you ask the tough questions about what scenes you really need.

                    Then you look at a scene and say -- what's going on here? Has the story information in this scene already been conveyed? Does the audience already know what this scene is telling them or are we just reiterating a point that's already been made. Oh, we are. They know it. They get it. And oh, by the way, it's not that interesting a scene. So the scene can go.

                    So you always want every scene to be moving the story forward. To avoid those "circling around" scenes that simply make the same story point that's already been made before or, worse yet, those "holding action" scenes where an audience hasn't been given enough information so that they have no idea where the story is headed so they're just sitting on their hands just watching and waiting for something to happen.

                    And you'd be amazed how quickly, when you put an audience in that situation -- not having any idea where the story is going -- that you will lose the audience's interest and attention no matter what you put on the screen. Giant robots, things blowing up, lesbians kissing (or a combination of all three). At some point, you've got to give them some idea of where all this stuff is headed.

                    You've got to maintain the forward momentum of the story.

                    So when gurus talk about "killing darlings" they're talking about killing those scenes that you've fallen in love with that don't move the story forward.

                    But any scene that stalls the momentum of a story is going to cause you trouble. Any time you reach a plateau of ignorance, where the audience doesn't know enough to anticipate what's going to happen next or how what they're watching now relates to what's going to happen next -- you're in trouble.

                    That is as much a structural problem as it is one that relates to the contents of any particular scene. How is it that that particular scene came to be in that place with those characters? What's it doing there, as it relates to the forward movement of the story?

                    You have to be able to answer that question about every scene, the ones you like, the one you love, then ones you don't have any particular feeling about.

                    And if you've got a dull scene that's doing work and an interesting scene that isn't, this may be perfect opportunity to combine a couple scenes.

                    NMS

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                    • #11
                      Re: Moods and atmosphere

                      Originally posted by Margie Kaptanoglu View Post
                      As you say, there are a series of encounters (Strider, Galadriel, Treebeard, Faramir, etc.) that do set the mood and that move the story forward. Whether you like how Jackson portrayed them in the film or not, I do believe they were the right story choices. And it seems to me the mood of the story is quite well-conveyed by the films.

                      In short, I don't think it's a good idea to include digressions that are solely about establishing mood. Instead, mood can be established at the same time as you are moving the story forward or providing key character moments.
                      We basically agree. I won't get into a discussion about the pros and cons of Jackson's LotR, but for the record, I think he fundamentally does not understand the books. There are several important ideas and themes in them which he simply ignores.

                      We can lose Tom Bombadill, sure. This is probably the most obvious episode to cut, if you need to save screen time. But it does mean a shift in focus, from letting us share the hobbits' scary yet hopeful encounter with Middle Earth outside the Shire, to giving us fast-moving action. There is actually another scene of the same kind, also during the escape from Hobbiton and written with the same world-painting intentions, which was omitted: where the hobbits meet Gildor Inglorion and the wood elves. Again, Jackson probably made the right decision from a storytelling POV (the cast of Monty Python & the Holy Grail are shouting GET ON WITH IT!), but it shifts the focus and diminishes the sense of wonder which we share in the books.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Moods and atmosphere

                        I wouldn't argue with John August.

                        His advice is to make you think really hard about your script.

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