DZ-109: Talking DIRECTLY to your audience — Transcript

If you don't have anything dramatic to say, don't say it at all. That's it. That's it. We didn't need the rest of the hour and a half.

Hi, I'm Chas Fisher.

I'm Stu Willis.

And I'm Mel Killingsworth.

And welcome to Draft Zero, a podcast where three Australian, are you? No, you're not nationalized yet. Two Australian filmmakers try to work out what makes great screenplays work, you know, and then there's Mel.

So close.

If anyone is listening to the podcast for the first time, Mel is, I think now numerically our highest appearing guest. So yeah.

I get the and in the credits.

But you don't get guest starring like Stephen Cleary does.

Yeah. You've moved past that. And today we are talking about talking directly to the audience, which Stu has offered to summarise what the fuck we're talking about and how we're tackling it.

So this will be the first of probably a three-part series. We can't help ourselves. For a while, I mean for a long while, probably going back for 10 years, maybe our 10th anniversary year is about doing all the episodes we were planning to do 10 years ago. We've had it, like people go, oh, you know, can you do an episode of voiceover? How to write effective voiceover? Can you do stuff about breaking the fourth wall? And so we're going to be tackling that, right? So this is an introduction episode, raising some of the questions, kind of helping us set the parameters for the discussion that will follow in part two and part three. Part two or part three, one of them will look at voiceovers, and the other one is going to be talking about like fourth wall breaking or what I'll call piece to cameras, but maybe not exclusively. Maybe we'll end up talking about things like Paul Verhoeven's ads. And so that's kind of why we're doing this, because we think we can kind of lump them together. And I've got a tool that I've been thinking about for a while, which actually seems so simple, and it came out of our exposition episode, but I actually think is the key to how making any of these choices work, which is that characters, and I'm including the storyteller as a character... Talk when they want something from someone else. And when you're talking to the audience, it's because you want something from the audience. And it doesn't matter whether you're a character or Martin Scorsese at the end of Killers of the Flower Moon, you want something from the audience. And part of these tools that we're going to be talking about is thinking about the different ways that you talk to the audience in order to get what you want and the kind of different feels that those choices have. So, should you be doing something as a title card? Should you be doing it as an in-world ad? Should you be doing it as narration? Or should you be doing it as a fourth-wall piece to camera? All of them are going to have different feels that are going to be emerging from that need. What do I want from the audience?

And choosing between them and moving from one to the other is hopefully what we well in terms of me coming into this episode i'm hoping to discern beyond just oh i think this will be cool reasons why i might move from one to the other pick one as a storytelling tool but i i also want to be clear as a kind of framing device or limiting factor because when the three of us sit down in front of mics, things can get out of hand. And we are talking about when media, I mean, in particular film and television, narrative talks directly to the audience. So, we're excluding like the opening shot of any movie is talking to the audience. Everything in film and TV is for an audience. It is about a relationship between the audience. So, we are trying to not talk about everything we're trying to talk about. The limiting factor here is, I guess the audience being aware that they are being directly communicated to, perhaps.

Or the person communicating being aware of the talking too.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, see, we're already fudging the lines. But as we, I think it's become more and more a case with us in recent episodes is what we identify our craft tools and we identify like the zero to 11 on the spinal tap amp as to like, what does each end of the spectrum of using this tool look like? And hopefully in this episode, through some questions that we plan to ask ourselves, we'll lay out a taxonomy, a word that I'm using just to appease Patrion Thomas Wood.

So for me, and this is how I'm bringing up spectrums, is that there's kind of like three different individual levers, right? One, who's doing the talking? When someone speaks, Are they doing so inside the story world or are they doing it outside the story world? And I would call that the spectrum of diegetic to non-diegetic. So diegetic is a word that I first picked up talking about sound design and music. So diegetic music is like music coming over the radio in the scene. Non-diegetic music is the music like in Star Wars where the characters have no, I mean, that's actually a good example. The cantina music in Star Wars is diegetic. But John Williams' score is not. Related to that, I think, is who is doing the talking. I think on the one end, you have a character, and on the other end, you have what I would call the storyteller. And I'm saying that sometimes that can be the author, right? And there's, you know, I'm a big fan of Philip K. Dick, and there's a great moment in one of his novels where basically midway through the novel, the main character realizes they are actually, in fact, Philip K. Dick. Right. And you just basically have this moment of like, whoa, whoa, this is a meta man. And like me as a teenager, I was like, this guy's a genius. Yeah.

Like Stranger Than Fiction, right? You have a narrator who begins telling the story, but by nature of telling the story, they become a character in the story.

Yeah.

The other one is who they're talking to. Right. And there is obviously they're talking to another character, but for the sake of these two episodes, we're taking that out. About talking to themselves versus talking to the audience. And I think that is a spectrum that is often quite fluid in the storytelling. Right? Yes, you do have the extreme of House of Cards where Frank is clearly talking directly to the audience. But then there are other moments where, like Die Hard's a good example, where John McClane is talking to himself a lot.

Right?

But it's for the audience's benefit, but they've done such a good job of it that he's really just talking to himself. But there is a lot of voiceovers and talking to the audience that kind of sits somewhere in the middle, I think. I don't think that's how we're going to structure this episode. These are just the starting points.

We did identify one other axis in your- Now four-dimensional. Cube, sphere, which is when in time is the information coming from? And I mean that in terms of like dramatic irony. Whatever element it is, is it the storyteller? Is it the character? character is the information that they're delivering from a different time than what we're being presented narratively is the information before in alignment in empathy or coming from the future and.

You don't always know that at first sometimes it's not the end of the film that you realize oh they've they've been dead half the time and they've been talking from future knowledge or oh actually they didn't know so yeah sometimes you don't know that at the the time, but it should generally be, if you're writing this, you should know. Yeah.

All right. So we've got our axes. Hopefully that will allow us to categorize or orient ourselves or identify dials.

To me, it's a way of thinking about it and it connects to what you as the writer want from the audience. And I'm separating the storyteller from the writer because on some level, the writer within in a film, like as much as writers like talking directly to the audience, even Martin Scorsese at the end of The Killers of the Flower Moon, there's an air of artifice that it's him as the storyteller, like as a function, right? It's an incredibly powerful choice that the epilogue of the film is delivered personally by him.

Mrs. Molly Cobb, 50 years of age, passed away at 11 o'clock Wednesday night at her home. She was a full-blood Osage. She was buried in the old cemetery in Greyhorse beside her father, her mother, her sisters, and her daughter. There was no mention of the murders.

Just to recap the dials, we've got, is the talking diegetic to non-diegetic? Does it exist within the story world or is it outside of the story world? Related to that is who is doing the talking. And that dial is from character to storyteller. Is it a character that's diegetic to a storyteller that is separate from the story? And then the third dial is to whom are they talking to themselves or to the audience? Again, that is a dial. And then the last dial is from when in time is the communication coming? Is it from the past? And you can turn it all the way up to the future.

Well, I mean, that segues us neatly into my first question, which is the narrowing factor of this podcast is whom the communication is directed to, which is directly to the audience. The audience is hopefully aware that they are being communicated to.

So here's the thing. Is the audience diegetic or non-diegetic? It's a good question because like a Starship Troopers ad, yeah, it's speaking directly in second person to the audience. but within the conceit, it's talking to characters within the universe.

Young people from all over the globe are joining up to fight for the future. I'm doing my part. I'm doing my part. I'm doing my part. I'm doing my part too. They're doing their part. Are you? Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world. Service guarantees citizenship.

And is that different from like the Princess Bride or AI or Barry Lyndon or, you know, Big Lebowski?

Yeah, I think it absolutely is because, I mean, another potential in terms of measuring how diegetic or non-diegetic something is, is how aware are the characters of the communication that's going to the audience. So, let's talk about Verhoeven's Starship Troopers ads, right? And let's contrast it with the ads in Robocop. The Starship Trooper ads are very different when they are taking up the entirety of the screen at the beginning of the film, when we've seen no other characters, no other narrative versus some of the ads that are in Robocop. We are often seeing the characters being exposed to the ads.

They say 20 seconds in the California sunshine is too much these days. Ever since we lost the ozone layer. But that was before sunblock 5000. Just apply a pint.

It's very Minority Report, right, where they're almost giving you, hey, we're going to give you the audience bits that you need to know about the world by playing ads to the characters that we're hoping you watch and you pick up on this like world building that we're doing.

Yeah, I mean, that's very clear in Minority Port. And it's more clearly there's a moment which is it's for the audience, even though it's kind of diegetic. And then we kind of reveal it in the world to kind of place it. And that's a little bit different from some of the ads in Children of Men, which are definitely more environmental storytelling, which is we're going to see this billboard and slow down enough for you to read the billboard and then speed up. But it's not like directly addressing you. But I think they're really good examples, actually, of that spectrum, because I think the Starship Troopers, that talk, that dialogue works, because what the ad wants is to recruit you, right? And yes, it is a satire of fascism, but that choice of speaking directly to the audience has a purpose, so it feels real. And the ads in Robot Cop are not for that purpose. They're for to sell the product. The satire kind of comes from the absurdity of the product in the world. What is interesting about Minority Report, and it feels like they get away with it because the ad itself is structured to like voting, yeah, vote yes to whatever they call the proposition. But the way it's kind of structured feels a little bit for us.

Imagine a world without murder. I lost my best friend. I lost my aunt. I lost my dad. I lost my father. I lost my wife. Just six years ago, the homicide rate in this country had reached epidemic proportions. It seemed that only a miracle could stop the bloodshed. But instead of one miracle, we were given three, the precognitives. Within just one month under the pre-crime program, the murder rate in the District of Columbia was reduced 90%. They were going to be waiting for me in the car. He was going to rape me. I was going to be stabbed. Right here. Within a year, pre-crime effectively stopped murder in our nation's capital. In the six years we've been conducting our little experiment, there hasn't been a single murder. And now pre-crime can work for you. We want to make absolutely certain that every American can bank on the utter infallibility of this system. And to ensure that what keeps us safe will also keep us free. Pre-crime, it works. It works. It works. It works. It works. Pre-crime! It works! On Tuesday, April 22nd, vote yes on the National Pre-Crime Initiative.

Right? Like, I don't know. Maybe I'm being cynical and not everyone has that feel, but it definitely feels like it's playing a little bit for me as opposed to for the audience, but still got a desire, which is it wants people to think that pre-crime should go national, that it's going to stop all these things.

Sure. Sure, but that's where the medium comes into effect, right? Because it is a political ad and political ads are so blatant and playing to the lowest common denominator, it gets away with it differently than it would if it were, you know, being more niche within the world.

Yeah. So... Taking a step, I love where we've dived in here, but we're talking about, you know, this is very similar ground early on to our world building episode, where we were talking about all the different tools for very quickly establishing the rules of a world. And here we've got a situation of the filmmakers are wanting something from the audience. As you've said, Stu, we've got an array already, just looking at the advertising that they're choosing of how diegetic versus non-diegetic it is and if you wanted to go full non-diegetic like the the completely divorced from the narrative then it wouldn't be an ad at all it would be a title card it would be like the opening of june yeah.

Or blade runner.

Yeah i.

Mean june's interesting because it's doing it in like i guess space traveler voice i.

Don't know well even the opening title card to oppenheimer like as an audience we all go oh this is the filmmaker telling us information that we need to know before we're being introduced to the narrative or or what have you but.

It's interesting because it feels motivated in all the ads right.

And and.

Blade runner or gladiator or oppenheimer a lot briefer right because it's like we know the storytelling it's it's not dissimilar to ballad of buster scruggs opening.

Up

And going setting the stage what is interesting and i know I know you said you haven't seen the Alan Smithy cut of June, but it's literally got almost what feels like five minutes of voiceover giving us the history of the universe over concept art. And there's a point that I'm like, what do you want from the audience is we don't want you to be confused, right? That doesn't really have a dramatic purpose. So it doesn't have drama in it in terms of being engaging. Yeah. Starshoot Troopers, Minority Report, even Robocop, all have dramatic purpose. And the storytelling cards in the front of later on, all those things, the opening of Master and Commander, all have dramatic purpose of setting the scene and moving the fuck out of the way.

Yeah.

So it probably explains the degree of brevity you need to choose in terms of relative to your purpose.

Us so we're talking you know the first question is who is communicating right and we've got the title card which is very clearly the filmmakers possibly the producers terrified that no one will understand and so we need oh you can.

Always tell they're like actually.

We're not sure.

They see your vision.

But it's clearly the filmmakers communicating then we've got ads where if they're you know relatively in world and and similar to ads and we discussed this in world building is like the news footage cliche where it's just like this is the political situation in which we find ourselves and this is what has just happened and then we've got like obvious ones which are a narrator which might be completely separate goodfellas goodfellas has a narrator oh.

As far as i can remember i wanted to be a gangster as.

Far back as i can remember i always wanted to be a gangster so, To me, being a gangster was better than being president of the United States.

I thought it was Henry Hill, but no. Okay.

Well, it is.

No, so I'm separating a character from a narrator. Okay, sure. So the most recent example I can think of is the TV show Never Have I Ever, whereas John McEnroe, as John McEnroe.

Okay, I see. Sure, sure, sure.

He plays no part whatsoever in the narrative he is narrating to us.

Ron Howard doing Arrested Development voiceovers.

Yeah.

It's like a commentary track.

Yeah. Yeah.

So separate from a character.

And then in the middle, the Stranger Than Fiction, where are they a character or aren't they? Yeah.

Yeah. And then we've got characters, right? And I think we'll get into voiceover being the most non-diegetic versus in-character diegetic stuff. But when we were talking about this, we've just recently for an episode done Yellow Jackets pilot. And I remember that they've got this montage of them interviewing people who knew the Yellow Jackets very early on. It's been like the first five pages of the pilot. And it's something that never comes back as a literary tool throughout the first season. I haven't seen second season, but that documentary footage or that interview format is super similar to showing like a news story or something like that.

Like hustlers. Yeah.

Yeah. But then, and the format, because it's pseudo documentary allows the characters to be looking fairly straight down the barrel. So even though it's a fully diegetic in character piece of communication, it is like, that's how you can use that dial. Communicating more directly to the audience while still being completely in world yeah.

I mean you see that in mockumentaries really like the office right and the office use those those little asides i mean look they call them what do they call i i'm not as much a reality tv person but i think they just got ivs but the pieces to camera that they record in reality tv after what's happened and they get them to basically narrate it because they're like and it's clearly it's there because Because they want you to, like, they're manipulating you. Oh, I was so scared, you know, that I wasn't going to do, do, do, do. They want you to feel something, which is scared that they're not going to succeed, right?

I mean, MasterChef, I think they're encouraged or told to narrate in present tense.

Yeah, yeah.

You have to talk in present tense. And if you phrase it wrong, they'll just make you rephrase it in present tense.

So here's an interesting example. And I'm not sure it falls yet under this heading. But it did come to me when we were talking about ads and characters setting up the world building. I'm going to say a few things and see if you can work out. Guess the movie. We'll play it like Jeffy. Cardio. Double tap. Beware of bathrooms. Seatbelts.

Zombieland.

Yeah. So the opening of Zombieland, and it becomes a running joke, is the Jesse Eisenberg character, who I think is called- Columbus? Yeah. He's survived a zombie apocalypse, and he narrates to the audience, and it's supported by like cool animated like kinetic typography to the audience these rules of how he survived zombie apocalypse and it's fascinating because it's like who's he doing this for, and clearly it's somewhat meta that it it's one of those he knows he's in a film kind of it's playing with that that the filmmakers are aware that they're playing in a zombie film the character is kind of it's like his sense of ocd is that how you play it that like he's He's developed these rules to survive and then he ends up sharing them with the other characters.

No, my friends, this is now the United States of Zombieland. It's amazing how quickly things can go from bad to total shitstorm. And why am I alive when everyone around me has turned to meat? It's because of my list of rules. Rule number one for surviving Zombieland? Cardio. When the virus struck, for obvious reasons, the first ones to go were the fatties. Poor fat bastard. But as the infection spread and the chaos grew, it wasn't enough to just be fast on your feet. You had to get a gun and learn how to use it. Which leads me to my second rule, the double tap. In those moments when you're not sure the undead are really dead, dead, don't get all stingy with your bullets. I mean, one more clean shot to the head. And this lady could have avoided becoming a human happy meal. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

But that's an amazing example because consider what they've done there, right? They're dramatizing it as he's doing it. So while he's doing cardio, he's like doing a run, he's running around a petrol station from memory while like some zombies are following him. Right. But he's not talking, he's not staring straight down the barrel and talking to us. So the dramatization of what we're seeing is not directly to the audience. It's the animatics that you're talking about, the titles that appear and the voiceover. because they could do a moment where they like freeze frame and he can like look and stare straight down the barrel and say, this is why you need to double tap or this is why you always check the backseat. So it's one of the things that I think probably more in the breaking the fourth wall episode we'll get to, like what is the difference? What does talking straight to the audience do differently from just having voiceover?

If you were doing that along an axis, would you place that the opposite of a dramatic irony where someone is trying to tell us something and we're actually witnessing actions where we're like, oh, no, actually, honey, you're lying to yourself. Like, I love my mother. No, you don't, actually. I can see this.

I mean, my favorite example of a breaking the fourth wall, moving from being completely non-diegetic to being diegetic is the shift between Fleabag season one and season two, where the priest notices when she starts talking to us.

Who are you talking to? And that's the first time anyone, clearly it feels like the first time anyone's ever caught her doing that.

And suddenly we're aware that every time she's previously spoken to us, someone else could have been noticing that, and that she basically looks like a crazy person to everyone else.

Fleabag's my main example of characters talk to the audience when they want something, right? I think actually Fleabag, when you start going, what is it that Fleabag wants from the audience at this point? And it's ultimately coming from something more internal, actually just really unlocks what Fleabag's doing. Then playing with it is fun. And then part of the question is, why is the storyteller doing that? What is it thematically or narratively doing? But I actually sometimes think Fleabag is less complex than what Zombieland is doing there.

I think it is slightly more ethereal when you're doing that. Maybe not more complex, but trickier to write when you're trying to balance that. You have a character breaking the fourth wall. That's clear what's happening. As opposed to, all right, it's not going to be diegetic, but how are we going to make sure it walks that tightrope, you know, so that it doesn't become absurd? Oh, we give him maybe an OCB thing. It feels almost like an internal monologue, but we never quite see him internally monologuing. So, yeah, I think you're right. I think it can be a little bit trickier to balance that. Partly a director's problem.

I think there's a dramatic purpose to it, which is from the filmmaker's point of view, which is to reassure us as to the audience, why Jesse Eisenberg is one of the people who has survived the zombie apocalypse.

This is how I, Mark Zuckerberg, have survived it.

Have you seen Fleshman's in Trouble? That guy is not surviving.

Okay. Should we move on to your next question? Because there's a lot of questions, Chaz.

Well, there's only a few more, but yeah, we're only at question number two. So let's move on to number three. Okay. So my next question was, does the audience know who is talking? So the really obvious ones is in a voiceover, like they know that the protagonist is the one communicating to us.

Even there, there's a little bit of like pretty little liars, right? You hire a different actor. So sure, it's the protagonist, but you don't necessarily know that up front.

Yeah i mean a good example is um what we mentioned earlier the noir about bowling the big lebowski oh man.

That took me way longer than it should have done.

Uh the big lebowski opens with that incredible sam elliott delivered voiceover and the way it's delivered and it's it's so interesting because it's doing a very particular vernacular The.

Way out west, there was this fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him. And he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me and a lot about where he lived likewise, but then again maybe that's why I found the place so darned interesting, they call Los Angeles the city of angels I didn't find it to be that exactly but But all I know is there are some nice folks there. Of course, I can't say I've seen London. And I've never been to France. And I ain't never seen no queen in her damn dundies, I'll tell you what, after seeing Los Angeles and this here story I'm about to unfold, well, I guess I've seen something every bit as stupefying as you'd see in any of those other places. And in English, too.

But we don't know who it is. And we don't know who it is for a long, long time. And then we're also like, why did this person do the voiceover?

Well, I mean, they only prompt, like, initially, once you've settled into the film, You're right. This is the narrator, right? Like the film has taught us that the narrator has Sam Elliott's beautiful voice and vernacular and that's who's going to be telling us this story. And I guess initially you're just thinking it almost as purely tonal, but it's that scene where he sits down at the bar and they talk to each other that deliberately the Coens are throwing the audience and making us go, fuck, that's the narrator. The narrator is a character. He's in the film. He's talking to Lebowski.

Yeah, and literally the voiceover at the beginning of the film is him. He is actually telling us, recalling the events. He's the one who's telling us this story.

And the shift is deliberate to draw our attention to it.

Yeah, it's a good way of putting.

Now, maybe we have to wait until we do our homework for the voiceover episode if we do the Big Lebowski so that I can actually try and discern why. Like, what is the effect of establishing an omniscient past tense narrator, And then suddenly we meet them in real time as a character. Mel, you've already mentioned one of my all-time favorite films that I can't believe I didn't think of, but Stranger Than Fiction, where an omniscient narrator becomes a character.

Yeah. I mean, I think what's interesting coming back to him, why is this person saying what they're saying? Because they want something from the audience. I think Sam Elliott's character, part of the reason the voiceover works, is he literally says, I've never seen a case more stupefying. His motivation is like, I need you to help me understand this madness, which is the voiceover I think in Spontaneous is a bit of a similar thing if you haven't seen it it is definitely voiceovers coming from this fucking crazy thing happened and I I need to kind of like have catharsis with you which.

Then is I think the effects on the audience because the story has grown slightly crazier and more absurd right and then when he enters it gives you a little bit of a handle on like oh okay maybe this is this is real you know maybe he's exaggerating maybe Maybe it's color, but also it recontextualizes everything you've heard before is like, oh, okay, now actually I'm more willing to accept it because I was leaning towards rejecting it. And now that he's entered the story, I'll shift back.

Yeah. And that goes to one of the previous axes that we've identified, which is like dramatic point of view. The time from which the communication directly to the audience is coming is different and spontaneous. I mean, this is part of what drew my attention to this. Like when we were doing Spontaneous Mel, we noticed kind of as we were analyzing it, that at the end of the film, the voiceover moves into present tense. So we as an audience catch up to where that character, the point in time that the character was narrating from right at the end. Because we are in a relationship with the narrator in that instance.

I think you necessarily enter one.

Yeah. I mean, Stu's made this observation in many podcasts before, but part of what voiceover does is it gives us access to the internal of the character. It can create empathy and all kinds of other things. It's almost a shortcut for that in many instances.

Empathy and identification.

I mean, I think in one way, that's why we often like dialogue. It's how we identify with characters. And I think screenwriters write it because in a way, and this comes back to who's talking, The screenwriters, the only part of our writing that speaks directly to the audience is often the words characters say.

Right?

Which is why the whole, is this the character talking or is this the storyteller talking is such an interesting thing. Spectrum because it is about oh this is the opportunity that i get to lecture the audience on blah blah blah blah and.

You mentioned already killers of the flower moon um but i have another one that is slightly less direct than that the end of black klansman you've got a traditional dolly shot where the characters are essentially moving on a dolly which is a really classic spike lee thing happens in most of these films these characters are standing on the dolly and the The dolly is moving. So the final scene of Black Klansman essentially happens in three pieces. You've got the dolly move. Then it switches almost to a point of view. So it's moving in the exact opposite direction from approximately eye level. And you come out into a scene where you see from what the two characters who are on the dolly would be seeing, which is crosses burning and this film scene that's very stylized. And then it cuts directly from that. Into news footage of, I believe, a march or crosses burning, something that's very similar but is not stylized. It is clearly news footage. And then the news footage has, you know, the time and date stamped down on the bottom. So he's taking you from classic, this is me, this is my signature shot, into real life news footage. And then the news footage continues for several minutes. I think it covers most of the credits. So this is clearly a filmmaker saying, I am transitioning you out of a fictional narrative into a political commentary, into a, this is quote unquote, from fiction to reality. And that is him talking directly to you, the audience, without voiceover, without a title card, right? There's no onscreen text saying, hey, by the way, this is a real event. But the effect is the same. I think the emotional effect is stronger, but like the cognitive or narrative effect is the same.

So we did an episode with Stephen Cleary on different sequence questions. So whether, you know, is there a plot question, a character question or a thematic question? So what we were looking at there, we were particularly looking at narrative structure, but there's a whole array of things that you can do. Whereas what you're trying to prompt in the audience is to go, why am I watching this? Not who am I watching? Why are they doing that? What are they feeling? What's going on? None of those questions. It's like, what is this about? And I think it's at the extreme of the spectrums that we're talking about here in terms of the filmmaker is pulling every lever they can to talk directly to the audience, but without the audience kind of being aware that they're being directly spoken to, They're not- There's not a voiceover or a voice talking straight at them. There's not a title card. There's not, you know, breaking the fourth wall. There are other levers being pulled where I guess the storyteller wants to talk directly to us, but doesn't want us to necessarily be aware that we're being directly spoken to. And my contrasting example, I don't think you've seen this yet, Stu, but Mel and I have is American fiction. Have you seen that? So I'll try and describe the ending without spoiling it for you.

Oh, ha ha. Hmm. The movie is already fairly meta. Like it, for example, it makes a really obvious, like it makes a joke mentioning Ryan Reynolds, right? Like it's meta, it's talking about the world we live in.

It is a satire as well. So as satires do, it's trying to be the thing that it's commenting on. And it's about an African American author who feels compelled to write more quote unquote black literature because that's what's selling better. And he writes a novel as a joke that is the most cliched like ghetto story ever. And it becomes a bestseller and he becomes super successful and rich of it. But so there's that story that's happening. And then in the meantime, there's like a really beautiful sort of romance and family drama going on. And then it gets to the conclusion of both the satire and the romance. And the film cuts to him talking to the director of the film version of the story that we've just seen debating how they should end it.

He's turning it into a biopic and then we're seeing that happen in real time.

And so it's completely in world. These are two characters we've met before. They're talking to each other. They're not breaking the fourth wall. There's no voiceover. But we are thrown violently out of the narrative. And then we're presented with three different endings that they're talking about.

To be clear, we see one of those endings before we see the talk. So we see this ending. You almost think that's the actual end. Then it got same talk to the director and you realize just that last scene was the biopic and then you see the two other like clue-esque alternate endings.

Yeah.

Like it could have pulled the clue. Go to a different theater. See a different ending.

And I feel like that's one extreme kind of like what you're talking about with Black Klansman, Mel, where it is clearly the filmmakers talking directly to the audience, but they're trying to do so in the most diegetic way possible.

Yeah, okay.

What's fun is I don't think you've spoiled it at all, which is pretty great. You've described it in great detail without actually really spoiling anything.

Look, it's not dissimilar to one of my favorite films, which you cannot really find anywhere, and we've done on the podcast, which is American Splendor.

Here's me, all grown up and going nowhere. I'm not doing as great as you think. I've got to get out of here. My second wife divorced me i work a dead-end job as a file clerk so if you're the kind of person looking for some fantasy figure to save the day guess what you got the wrong movie, in the early 60s i met this shy retiring cat from philadelphia meet my buddy bob crump you should see his comics i could write comic bookstores that are different from anything that's being done this is great stuff can i illustrate them these are all about you yeah you turn yourself I've known a comic hero. Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.

So what is fascinating about that is a quote-unquote biopic. Basically, the conceit of the film is Paul Giamatti plays Harvey Pecker, Pecker, Pecker, the biopic of this guy who basically started writing a comic book series about his life called American Splendor, right? But we intercut him being played by Paul Giamatti, the narrator, Radar, who's the actual real Harvey Peeker, with the comic book and the comic book re-animated recreations and you have these moments.

But there's more than that. There's actual talking heads documentary interviews with the real Harvey Peeker in time. And then it will cut to live footage from Harvey back in the day.

I actually don't know. Is this the real guy or is this an actor playing the real guy?

No, the real guy.

Okay.

I think. Yes.

It is literally, it is the real guy narrating it. Paul Giamatti playing a version of him. Archival footage from the time and there's the comic book recreations and it's an incredible biopic because it's like how else do you recreate the life of a guy whose life has been absolutely influenced by the fact that he's written a comic book i'm pretty sure that's how he meets his wife, right it's because she reads the comic book it's amazing and it is talking to the audience because it's literally like him in a white room with a microphone when he's commentating and he's like oh what does he want for the audience it's amazing because he is a quote-unquote unreliable narrator narrator, because he definitely wants you to think better of him or not.

To drag us back, one of the questions I have is from what time is the information coming? So, American Splendor is an amazing example because we've got Paul Giamatti playing Harvey in, Harvey is in his own time at that point. And then we've got Harvey, the narrator, the real Harvey, who also has, you know, two camera visual footage coming from 20 or 30 years later. And there's a lot of dramatic irony there because he is portrayed as a misanthrope and that's, you know, part of where the humor of the cartoon comes from. And it's kind of cool because the Harvey that Paul Giamatti is playing is someone who's like-

A lot more miserable than the guy doing.

The voiceover. Yeah, than the guy who's- exactly.

So he's not kind of leaning into it. He's like playing him as a grump and being like, oh, not bad.

Thank you. Yeah. And so, where in time the communication that's coming directly to the audience is coming from is a really key question to answer, as is how reliable is that information? And I think when we do the voiceover episode, we're definitely going to talk about The Killer, the new David Fincher film.

Yeah. So coming to reliability, which is related to, so it's like, what does the character know? Right. So really these questions are, what does the person talking know? Right. And that's the talking in terms of if it's narration or if they're talking in camera. Camera and so what is interesting with something like fight club is you're obviously melding pieces to camera with with narration but largely that feels present tense but i'm fairly certain there's probably been movies where there's like a piece to camera that's from the future but i can't think of anything that's coming to mind so it's what information do they have what do they know what do they not know right but it's also that is then related to what do they want from the audience, like Fleabag, like Frank Underwood, and I know they're my go-to examples. But like the killer, they all want something, right, from the person they're talking to. In the case of diehard John McClane, when he's talking to himself, he's largely just reinsuring himself. He's trying to talk to himself. You can do it, John. You know, what were you thinking, John? All that stuff is Kim trying to deal with the situation he's in. So he wants something from himself. So when characters talk to themselves, I think you can, as a writer, you can do it is because they want something for themselves. If all they're doing is going in and saying, oh, wow, like this computer, I don't know how to blah, blah, blah, and delivering exposition, it doesn't work because they don't want anything from themselves. Right? If they're the character that's like, oh, fuck, what, how do I crack into this system? I mean, I'm someone that talks to themselves all the time. So, you know, it doesn't feel unusual if I'm talking to myself because I want something for myself. himself.

Well, can I make an observation there? Like, you know, we're talking about situations where characters are talking straight to the audience. And why is it different, you know, from just dialogue that we're hearing? Characters talking to other characters is inherently less reliable because they are interacting with other people. We don't know necessarily whether they're lying or not or what they're feeling or what their relationship is with that, with those characters. And that may become clear or as evident as the filmmakers want it to be, right? But when the characters are talking directly to us, even self-talk, at least they're not monitoring themselves in the same way. Does that make sense?

You don't lie to yourself, Chas? You don't sit there and go, come on, Chas, I can write a hundred words, they're really good words.

But if I'm lying to myself, I'm usually unaware that I'm lying to myself. I don't knowingly lie to myself.

Okay.

The psychology flashing across his face right now is delicious, but what and one of the things about so for like my absolute number one strongest most favorite example is probably veronica mars right and one of the things because the pilot starts with her voiceover and she's telling the audience she's talking directly to the audience one thing you know about me is. And you realize like that it's jaded enough and it's self-deprecating enough and it's knowing enough that you go, yeah, this is the truth, you know? And so then it almost sets the tone for when she starts off talking to you that directly, when she starts interacting with characters, you're like, yeah, you're actually probably lying to them because you're talking to them differently than you've just been talking to me about yourself and telling me all these like hard truths etc so it sets your expectations as well as your understanding of their psychology.

Yeah so to me these are related things like how reliable is the information is impacted by obviously the character and what and what we what we know of them and.

What the character knows yeah fight club being a good example like jack is an unreliable narrator because he doesn't know who the fuck tyler durden is.

Spoilers and shutter island the same thing the sixth sense so there's a lot of narrators that are proven to be unreliable because they don't know what they're talking about well.

And sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum is a lot of Mike Flanagan's. So if you look at The Haunting of Bly Manor, as well as Fall of the House of Usher, both have omniscient narrators who are clearly talking, well, one much more clearly than the other until halfway through, who are talking from the future and everything that you see to be true, et cetera.

So we've just done, you know, does the audience know who is talking from what time they're talking and how reliable that information is. And then my next one is how aware are the characters of the communication? And I'm talking like even the person who's narrating themselves, like how aware is the protagonist that there's voiceover going on, that they're providing this?

Can you give an example where they don't know?

Goodfellas, right? Like- Does Henry Hill actually know he's narrating to an audience?

Yeah, because he looks at us at the end.

Okay, but you don't know that till the end.

Yeah, yeah. I think these things shift, but I think, have I already talked about Emperor's New Groove on mic? I don't think I have. So Emperor's New Groove is my favorite example of this because at the beginning of the film, the voiceover is, this is my story. Look how great my life is. And this guy's trouble. Like, even though it's in the past tense from the protagonist's point of view, it's sharing the perspective of Cusco at that time. Like, it's not the Cusco from the end of the movie who's changed, who's providing that narration, right? And then there's a certain point in the movie where the film stops, like it- Record scratch. Yeah. And then he like gets out a marker pen and says, just remember that this is about me, not him. Crosses out Pacha and circles himself in the bag.

Hi, excuse me. Two seconds here. I'm the one in the car, remember? This story's about me, not him. Okay. You got it? All right. We're going to move ahead. Sorry to slow you down. That llama you're looking at was once a human being. And not just any human being, that guy was an emperor. A rich, powerful ball of charisma. Oh yeah! This is his story. Well, actually my story. That's right, I'm that llama. The name is Kuzco. Emperor Kuzco.

And then there's a later part, which is the low point of the whole film, where he's given up and he's wanting to be a llama. And he's sitting there and the voiceover is saying, like, you know, see, how could all this happen to me? Like, you see how all this was not my fault and it's everyone else's problem. I'm paraphrasing here. I don't know exactly what it is, but he's blaming it on other people. And the Cusco that we're watching the llama who's alone and sitting in the rain feeling sorry for himself says will you just shut up to his own voiceover and that's where we are like keenly aware of a character aware of their own voiceover and another example would be um kiss kiss bang bang and the the moment of the voiceover that I always remember is when they tell us that Perry's character has survived being shot numerous times, the Val Kilmer character, and they acknowledge it in the voiceover. He's like, I know, I know, we may as well, like, trot out Abe Lincoln, and then, like, Abe Lincoln actually walks into the room, and, you know, like, there the visuals are following the narration and how ridiculous the narration is.

Okay.

So I think for the vast majority of first-person narrations by protagonists, they would likely be aware of their voiceovers. But I mean, the Fleabag example being where other characters become aware or films like Pain and Gain where you've got multiple voiceovers.

Who is aware is a good question, because it's who diegetically, I guess, you're talking about, is aware of the voiceover.

Well, we've also become tracked in voiceover a bit, which is fine, but let's just talk about the communication. The communication that is directly to the audience. Is the character aware of it? Because I think in Spontaneous, for most of Spontaneous, we're watching the character. We're getting the voiceover, but the character at the time is not aware. Of the voiceover yeah because our voiceover is coming from a different point in time.

Well you've also got a couple of and i can only think of one off the top of my head but i'm sure there's probably tons of charlie kaufman examples is uh like the truman show right where the voice over is technically a voiceover that is within the world but it's actually a voiceover that's us but the characters can hear it because of how it's operating over a speaker yeah.

Oh good one i I mean.

That comes to the question of like coming back to some of the things, I think, tools that you're going to be asking yourself when you're like, What does the speaker want out of whoever they're talking to? That kind of changes depending on who they're directing to. It changes if they're aware they're being listened to. Like when you talk to yourself, what you're saying to yourself is different than the intimacy spectrum stuff that we talked about in ensembles. You talk differently to yourself when you think you're alone than when you're in public or when you're in kind of private, right?

Or like something like How I Met Your Mother, where what they want from the audience, they've given them an audience surrogate right they're talking in this really direct way to, you know he ted mosby is talking in a really direct way to his children he's trying to get something out of them he's trying to make himself look like a good guy he's trying to be funny he's trying to whatever but they're the audience surrogate all the things that he's trying to get out of his children are also what he's trying to get out of us so that's a really direct example.

And i think this is you know we're talking a lot about different tools and i love sue that you keep bringing it back to what are the people who are communicating to us, filmmakers, characters, narrators, what do they want from us? What is the dramatic purpose? Because I think what we will find when we do deeper dives with examples is that the dramatic purpose is different for breaking the fourth wall, is different for voiceover, is different for voiceover from different times is different from verhoeven's ads internal.

Monologue versus external almost.

Yeah because there's there's so much you know you talk you've mentioned john mclean talking to himself a few times and i think so often that's like we need john to figure something out and we can't just have him go ding and like run in the correct direction so the self-talk is for the benefit of the audience to buy how John is suddenly either level with or one step ahead of the robbers. So I think there's a lot of times where there's exposition that this is, you know, something that's being provided. Often character backstory, like, I know the big short, whenever they introduce a character, there's a cutaway with the voiceover introducing us to all the things that that character has or does or things like that. But for the most part, I feel like these These tools are used better when they're trying to provide us something from the character that we couldn't ordinarily get by just straight dramatic presentation or, you know, going back to Mel, Your Black Clansman stuff, they're trying to talk about theme. They're trying to tell us what this is about in a more overt way. I mean, I've only got two more questions and I think we've almost kind of covered them anyway, bouncing around as we have. The two questions are what is the different impact on the audience of like VO versus breaking the fourth wall? And we may get into that when we actually do the VO and breaking the fourth wall episodes. And then I've got what are examples of the intention or the effect of this direct to audience communication without talking directly to the audience. And so we've already talked about, you know, black Klansmen.

And I think both of them turn slightly different and I don't want to make it a binary. It's not intellectual or emotional, but I think some of them have a more emotional effect than others, depending on how they're used, how much you've identified with the character before they do that, how much they're making a direct appeal versus, you know, and and I think both of those are somewhat somewhat answer those questions. The effect on the audience, depending on how you address them, like if you are showing somebody news footage or if you are putting a title card up or if you are having an interviewer, you know, fake a news footage thing like we were talking about Hustlers or the Yellow Jackets pilot, that probably has a slightly less emotional effect. It's more about filling the audience in on some facts that you're setting up or establishing, you know, certain things about the world as opposed to directly making eye contact with them or making, you know, when you've got an actor's voice that is quavering as they're telling you about this sob story about, you know, their their wife who died and was fridged that, you know, you can you can sort of use those things to crank the volume a little bit.

I mean, coming back, I know we're getting towards the end, but coming back to your observation about, you know, do they know they're doing a voiceover? It's more specifically, who do they know that is listening? And I think Terrence Malick's stuff is clearly, particularly, I think, Thin Red Line, maybe Tree of Life. That's really us listening to the inner thoughts of the characters as they try to make sense of what has befallen them, right? We're hearing them, but they're not talking to us. right they're kind of talking to themselves as voiceover but that does feel that is a good example of like a voiceover that's not for the like ultimately it's quote unquote for the audience.

But in the same way that everything is for the audience yeah.

But they're not delivering it to the audience.

Well i think almost any voiceover that's in present tense is is closer to self-talk than you know it's almost like drifting it's clearly non-diegetic in terms of what you're talking about diegetic versus non-diegetic but in terms of the access of when in time they're talking from but it it feels it's inviting the audience in the moment with the character as they're experiencing whatever that is present.

Tense is kind of diegetic.

Yeah by.

Default in a weird way.

Yeah like it's almost like we're hearing we're hearing what's going on inside their heads Yeah.

Which is why a lot of stuff in post, you almost have to like, so for example, the very, the infamous Blade Runner voiceover, right, that they tacked on at the end, it becomes a producer's note and you have to think about the fact that if you're not planning for it ahead and you can't really... Choosing the tense does a specific thing but you really don't have much of another option if it hasn't been woven in throughout.

Yeah i mean one of the obvious ones is it's not actually that obvious it's just so well written i'm tempted not to mention it due to the character who is the unreliable narrator but the usual suspects but you know in that they do have that cutting back and forth so he's telling this story in in the past tense like we're in the present while he's being interviewed by the police, and then he's telling the story in the past tense, and his voiceover usually starts, but then falls away as we get more involved in the drama of those scenes. And then, you know, you've got police coming in and saying, who's Kaiser Soze? And he'll be like, ah, fuck. And then it doesn't make him retell Rashomon-style stuff that we've already seen, but it does prompt new information from him. And then obviously that amazing ending.

And I think something like so, for example, you've got something like Dairy Girls, where because they're telling a story that's historical and happens in the past, like and it is it stays true to historical fact. The voiceover speaks in past tense because it's contextualizing those things. And that's it's not quite a necessity. You could do it in present tense. And and but it can say we did x during the troubles but then if the voiceover is the internal monologue of the character then it's in present tense and it immediately tells you who's talking when it is where it is even subconsciously so yeah two very different examples of someone switching tense which is pretty interesting yeah.

And then i just mentioned like the rashomon effect and we and we could have talked about rashomon or you know the more recent use of Rashomon.

The Last Duel. Yep.

The Last Duel as well. I was also thinking The Last Jedi as well, where you've got the same scene told from different perspectives. And because it's told from different perspectives, it's being presented to us differently. And none of that is voiceovers. It's us going back and seeing the scene play out as those characters experienced it. Right. So I guess flashback and time is involved there, but they are telling these stories to other characters. It's not directly to the audience, but because the audience is the person, I mean, experiencing it in The Last Jedi as Rey, I guess The Last Duel is a better example because those three retellings are just purely for the audience.

And then the thing to consider as a writer is, are you going to use a title card up front to say this is this person's perspective? Are you going to start on the character and have them say, this is my story? Are you going to be that literal? But you think as a writer, the way that you're going to set up telling the story from three perspectives.

I mean, I disagree with the Last Duel that they are just for the audience. I mean, quite specifically, they're giving us access to how these other characters perceive what was going on, and that actually explains their actions at the time of the assault, as well as their actions post-assault.

Sure. Right? I guess the point I was making is in comparing and contrasting The Last Duel with The Last Jedi, we see each of those flashback scenes, and they're not flashbacks in The Last Duel, sorry, but in The Last Jedi, they are flashbacks. And we see that flashback every time when it's being told by one character to another. So as much as we're experiencing it, it's Rey who's also experiencing it, right? Right. A character is experiencing the same information at the same time as we are. Whereas in The Last Duel, I'm not saying that it doesn't inform character or anything like that. You're absolutely right. But there's other than the trial scene, maybe, or there's there's one scene with between Adam Driver and Ben Affleck where they're talking about the usual protestations and stuff like that, that there's a little bit of retelling within the story. But a lot of it is us going, oh, and now we're going to see it from his point of view. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

I'm just like, they've shifted a dial somewhere depending whether it's a character telling another character a story versus a structural choice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It got me thinking about video games and finding diaries and that got me thinking about, which is why I went slightly quiet about like films where other character, like character A has access to character B's voiceover. But like you're going to be using it through a medium where they're listening to audio tapes or you know like there's some conceit about like oh they can hear people's you know internal voices it's it's you know a superhero power or something like that and that does feel different because what is interesting about the kind of voiceover that we're talking about unless it's come through like it's unless it's mediated through a diegetic medium right as in oh like we're hearing letters, that someone's reading.

Something like Bones and All or whatever, where the voiceover is her listening to tapes that her father has left her.

Yeah, and what was it, Archive 81 or something like that, which is based on the, anyway. Yeah, so there's some ways you can do it, or Sans Soleil, where there's just these letters being read out. Over vision is there many cases of characters getting access to that i mean i realize that we're talking about a very edgy edge case here as opposed to you know we specifically said we're talking about characters speaking to non-characters they're speaking to themselves or speaking to the audience not to other characters but it's kind of interesting.

But bones and all is actually quite interesting case where the the tapes are him talking to his daughter but they're also very clearly meant for us they give backstory about her mother and other things that we would not have had otherwise without a character monologuing to us and it would be very strange for you know a dad to like sit his kid down and be like hey do you remember this about your mother of course but it's different in the context of tapes it's different in the context of i want to leave you an oral history it's a little bit more like how i met your mother honestly where it's like all right let's let's dig into this emotional depth but it is for the audience even though it's in world not going.

Back to the the you know the disclaimer up front everything is for the audience right.

Sure so yeah and.

And she's right to impose the limiting factor here but those edge cases we're talking about is when you push right up against the edge of how can we achieve this effect without talking directly to the audience how can we keep this entirely in world.

Sometimes so well that the audience argues you're not doing it at all yeah like starship troopers.

So I think it's good to point it out and discuss it and, and yes, identify it as an edge case, because what we're talking about there is going, all right, well, how can we possibly achieve the same effect without talking directly to the audience? And this is how hard it is to achieve narratively.

Yeah. And then there's just the interesting, the other edge case, which is coming back to effect, What effect am I wanting? So I'm just going to be, in my mind, the questions are, you know, what does the speaker want from the person they're speaking to? It's separate from what effect as the writer do I want upon the audience? Yes. So the storyteller may be talking directly to the audience and that kind of more closely aligns to what effect does the writer want to have on the audience. But that can be different from, you know, other examples where the Sam Elliott thing.

So I love that what you're saying, because I had actually conflated those two things. I had conflated because we're talking about talking directly to the audience. I'm like, that's always what the writers want from the audience because it's them directly communicating to it. But we've just talked about a number of different examples where it is the writers communicating directly to the audience. But if they're doing it via a character, via an unreliable source, via something else, then the effect that the writer wants is actually not necessarily aligned with the communication.

And I do think we started with me talking about Killers of Thou's View with Martin Scorsese. There is a difference between Martin Scorsese delivering a monologue than, say, Kubrick using an unnamed narrator that is not him, right? There is a aesthetic distance there, right? Even they're saying the words, you know, Orson Welles is someone, is like the kind of filmmaker who can choose whether or not to have characters, you know, is this all, like, if it's fake, we've talked about, like, is that Orson Welles talking or is that, you know, the character, is that Orson Welles, the filmmaker, right? Right. So the edge case I was thinking of was something like The Princess Bride, where there's a book ending of, I am reading you a book, right? So it's narrated- Frametail. Frametail? Is that what is- Yeah.

It's a frame. So Princess Bride is a frametail, and the frametail is- Oh.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's a double-layered thing, right? Like a frametail isn't necessarily, you know, grandfather sitting reading a book to grandkid. It can be much more obscure, but this one is doubly direct, I guess.

So that's interesting to think what effect... Choosing to have a frame tale have right there is a version of that where there is just a voiceover at the beginning from someone we do not see and we associate as a character right from one that we choose the speaker is someone that we choose to see peter.

Fox some random omniscient narrator with a sexy voice.

I mean you've already mentioned the ballad of buster scruggs there's a there's a big difference between the framing device it's not a frame tale of the book being opened and we can see the pictures and the contents page and the opening page, and we can see that it's a book, then when we dive into the very first story, Buster is talking directly to us. And then when you get to the second story, no one is talking directly to us. So you're making the excellent point in The Princess Bride that what Peter Falk's character wants when he's reading the book to his grandson who's sick is very different from what is it William Goldman um wants from the audience as the effect.

So I found out very recently I'd never read the book uh I found out that apparently the book is essentially written in a way where William Goldman writes it as though it's a book from somebody else that he's found that's obscure and he like creates this entire foreword to demonstrate this so even the book has the same effect as the film where it's like the story within a story, except he's trying to mask the fact that it is, which is just great. I've read his, you know, William Goldman, obviously on screenwriting, et cetera, but I'd never actually read The Princess Bride.

So, I mean, I think the questions that we're asking and that we're exploring is what effect does this stuff have on the audience and the kind of tools that you've got, the levers that you can do. So people can either start from these, the levers that I'm interested in pulling. Oh, wow, this is the effect that that's having, or they're starting with the, this is the effect that I'm I'm interested in having on the audience and these and the levers that I'm going to be.

Going back to the episode we did with Judith Weston, you know, like the emotional event, how have the characters become closer together or move further away? And I really like that you're re-emphasizing and coming back to what is it that whoever is communicating directly to the audience, what do they want, right? And what are they trying to achieve? And that's different from what is the effect of using this tool going to have on the audience. And I think that when we do a deeper dive into voiceover and breaking the fourth wall, it's worth asking both those questions. What does whoever is talking directly to the audience want? Because that will give it dramatic purpose. Because if what they want is the same as the storyteller, it's like, I just want the audience to know this piece of information so they're not confused. That's not going to be great.

If you don't have anything dramatic to say, don't say it at all. That's it. That's it. We didn't need the rest of the hour. But seriously, I think people sometimes just try to, they write for the sake of writing and characters aren't real people. There are people that talk in order just to keep attention on themselves, like I'm doing now, in order to kind of hold the conversation. And I think even that is an intention. And if you write with that intention, your dialogue will be better. Your voiceovers will be better.

Usually the character wants what everyone wants, which is to look good, to seem good, to be loved.

Yeah, but I mean, you should watch American Splendor because, well, I mean, maybe he still wants to be loved, but he's like him portraying himself as a misanthrope is a shtick for that.

An angle. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, just to bring this back to the pragmatic for a second. So, Stuart and I have written a few things together, but one in particular that we had a script read for on Sunday that Mel, you got to attend. And for every version of the script up until this last one had a title card up front and we didn't have it in this one and we're you know not really missing it but we've never asked ourselves the question of what is the intent of us putting this in here what are we trying to get from the audience by telling them this information up front and it seemed fairly obvious it was a bit of, world building but we but it was all it's all kind of in there narratively as well we.

Don't want people to feel lost rather than.

Yeah we're.

Telling you this is four and then you're gonna watch two plus two so you go oh it's four.

And and maybe that's why we haven't really missed it now now that it's gone so mel did you have you learned anything from tonight's conversation yeah.

I think I like thinking about it with those dials. And I'm actually working on a script at the moment that uses essentially all of the title card, voiceover, fourth wall break, etc. And so thinking specifically, what do I as the writer, but what does the character who's doing that want from the audience at this particular moment in time? Is this the best method to get it? Is there maybe another and or additional method that you can use to get it? Like, I think that's a really useful tool in terms of... Going back through and looking at the different ways the information is being presented. And if that's the most effective, that's the most emotional. And as well, as a writer, sometimes I'm watching a film and they have someone who's monologuing information at someone and you kind of roll your eyes. But you get the same thing when someone uses a voiceover, right? Do you need to use this? Is this effective? Are you just doing this as a shortcut, et cetera? So just really considering that I think is very useful. And I'm keen to see what the more specific deep dives get into.

I mean, in terms of what you just said, something, an observation that I had that's probably saved for a very different episode because it's not talking to the audience directly at all. But the longer any character talks like a monologue or a speech even if it's very obviously like even if it's fucking mark anthony and julius caesar doing it to all the romans like the longer a single character talks the more we will feel to us so.

Both they and the pros better be damn good.

Well i i always quietly admire the guardians of of the galaxy speech where he like gets them to come on the mission right isn't i can't remember a single line from it but i totally bought that at the beginning of that scene absolutely no one other than uh star lord was interested in risking their lives to save the universe and by the end of it they all were and it was as much as like so completely in world between characters effect on the characters. That's the intention of the character. It's got nothing to do with the- Nothing is directly at the audience, but it made me go, this is what the film is about.

Guys, come on. Yondu is going to be here in two seconds. He expects to hear this big plan of ours. I need your help. I look around at us. You know what I see? Losers. I mean like folks who have lost stuff and we have man we have all of us our homes our families normal lives and usually life takes more than it gives but not today today it's given us something it has given us a chance to do To do what? To give a shit. For once, not run away. I, for one, am not gonna stand by and watch as Ronan wipes out billions of innocent lives. But Quill, stopping Ronan, it's impossible. You're asking us to die. I'm standing. You all happy? We're all standing up now. Bunch of jackasses standing in a circle.

I always think it's the hardest part, and Guardians of the Galaxy isn't, but of any sports film, is almost all of them have that speech.

Right?

And you have got to write that speech knowing that the audience is going to be, essentially has to be swept up in the emotion of it to buy it. It's not to them, but it's to their emotions.

Stew have you learned anything from.

Yes um i mean i think even just articulating the difference between the speaker and what they want from the spoken to i mean it sounds so clinical but really that is i mean we're just talking about like want and want which we haven't unpacked at all which is good because it actually gives us the clarity like a tool for the next two episodes is for me want is tied to tactics i mean they're entangled like when you want something you're going to choose how to go about and get it and that's your tactics and and a lot of people are just you know the character wants something and actually what differentiates characters is the tactics that they choose to go and get it right and that is also then connected to how they're speaking to the audience what information they're revealing what information they're not revealing, I think that is really useful. And then that separating that from what does the writer or the filmmakers, want from the audience i think that decoupling is really useful right and the tactics for you what you can think about is yourself as the filmmaker it talk comes back to all that spectrum stuff you know is it diegetic is it non-diegetic is it you know are they talking to themselves are they talking directly to the audience uh you know when from when in time are they talking dramatic.

Irony are they lying or not.

I mean the lying lying is a tactic right and then it becomes It is.

But they might not know that they're lying.

That's a self-awareness thing, right?

Are the characters aware of the voiceover? Like how in world is it or not? I'm saying voiceover. I'm short-handing. The communication.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's your lawyer side, Chaz. Please refer to the communication of the 16th floor. What about you, Chaz? What have you learned?

Oh, I think you guys have summarized it for me. We only kind of got there in the end with you drawing that distinction for me, but we will dive into the communication being direct to the audience and the different effects that that can have in the different ways, but treating who is saying that communication as a character, even if it's me as the writer, you know, or Martin Scorsese showing up, treating that as a different, the want of whoever is doing the communication separate to what the effect is, I think is going to be really important.

Okay.

Key.

Hmm. Interesting that that particularly is what is connected for you. Hmm. Well, that's going to be fun to unpack.

Hmm. Thank you so much, Mel, for joining us at very short notice for another huge...

You had me at no homework. Slash, I'm allowed to talk about Veronica Mars.

Slash, three episodes.

Yeah, excellent. Oh, wait, am I only in the next two episodes?

I would hope so.

We're going to put that to a Patreon vote.

Uh thank you as always to our amazing patrons good good segue there stew who bring you more draft zero more often certainly responsible for bringing you this episode because stew has been doing the heavy lifting on uh everything for years on everything uh and has just thrown me some added responsibility for the next few episodes and it's only because of you patreons that I've managed to somewhat rise to the occasion. And in particular, thanks to our top tier patrons, Thomas, Theece, Sandra, Randy, Malay, Lily, Krob, Jesse, Jen, and Alexandra.

Thank you.

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