Fascinating, and potentially workable. Does it lead to the cliche that if a shotgun is shown above the fireplace in Act One, someone will be getting both barrels in Act Two?
One of the perils of writing is that the characters only exist in the confines of the story - is there anything you can do to bring in non-essential items without them looking like window-dressing? One writer I know writes something for each character in a novel which he then rips up and doesn't use. He might refer to it, but he doesn't use it in the story. This ranges from a short story for the lead, to a few lines for minor characters. I'm not suggesting that you would want to use this technique, only that there has to be something suggesting that the characters aren't just characters, the location not just a stage set, the story not the entire world. Hopefully the writer will suggest this (what DID Hamlet get up to with Rosen'stern back at college?) but there are so many things a director can do... costumes, music, framing, set design and decoration...
I really appreciate the way you talk about collaboration, from front of house to back. If you can get a hold of William Goldman's "Adventures In The Screen Trade" read it (if you can't, let me know and I'll dig out a copy for you). He demolishes the auteur theory, and also suggests ways in which a good director can improve a movie by working with writer, actors, cameramen, lighters, musicians and editors, in what he makes sound like a glorious relay race.
Status: how often in a Jeeves and Wooster story do you think Wooster misreads the status? The reader doesn't, but Bertie cheerfully deludes himself to his heart's content. You seen something like that done every time The Star is given a dressing down by his boss in a movie - the boss is convinced he has status, the audience that The Star has just had his status enhanced. So if "A piece of dialogue won’t work if one actor thinks he is lowering the status of the other’s character and the other actor thinks it is being raised." refers to the actors, rather than the characters, I think we're in agreement.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 11:40 am (UTC)Does it lead to the cliche that if a shotgun is shown above the fireplace in Act One, someone will be getting both barrels in Act Two?
One of the perils of writing is that the characters only exist in the confines of the story - is there anything you can do to bring in non-essential items without them looking like window-dressing? One writer I know writes something for each character in a novel which he then rips up and doesn't use. He might refer to it, but he doesn't use it in the story. This ranges from a short story for the lead, to a few lines for minor characters. I'm not suggesting that you would want to use this technique, only that there has to be something suggesting that the characters aren't just characters, the location not just a stage set, the story not the entire world. Hopefully the writer will suggest this (what DID Hamlet get up to with Rosen'stern back at college?) but there are so many things a director can do... costumes, music, framing, set design and decoration...
I really appreciate the way you talk about collaboration, from front of house to back. If you can get a hold of William Goldman's "Adventures In The Screen Trade" read it (if you can't, let me know and I'll dig out a copy for you). He demolishes the auteur theory, and also suggests ways in which a good director can improve a movie by working with writer, actors, cameramen, lighters, musicians and editors, in what he makes sound like a glorious relay race.
Status: how often in a Jeeves and Wooster story do you think Wooster misreads the status? The reader doesn't, but Bertie cheerfully deludes himself to his heart's content. You seen something like that done every time The Star is given a dressing down by his boss in a movie - the boss is convinced he has status, the audience that The Star has just had his status enhanced. So if "A piece of dialogue won’t work if one actor thinks he is lowering the status of the other’s character and the other actor thinks it is being raised." refers to the actors, rather than the characters, I think we're in agreement.