Shaping Perspective

How to order action to create powerful visual dynamics.

A new scene is like a blank canvas. The only thing that exists in the world of the film is what you, the writer, say exists (or imply is there). Read the following passage and picture the growing perception of this world.

Bob, in a suit and tie, gets elbowed by the little kid squirming in the seat next to him. Bob grimaces and uncomfortably tucks himself into his seat as a group of kids squeeze past him down the row. He leans to the side as Jenny shouts in his ear, but only a murmur is heard over the noise of the crowd around them. The lights in the packed high school auditorium fade down and up.

Each phrase slowly expands this scene from just Bob to an entire auditorium of people. Without explicitly stating a camera shot, I have limited the manner in which the scene is visually portrayed. The director still has a million possibilities, but I have limited the opening image to one dominated by Bob — which emotionally aligns the audience with him. By expanding the world from there, I have created the image of the crowd encroaching in upon Bob — swallowing him up by the end of this brief scene. Consider the opposite motion:

The high school auditorium is packed. The crowd chatters away — producing a deafening noise. A group of kids squeeze down an aisle. When they pass, Bob uncomfortably untucks his body from the seat. Jenny, next to him, leans in and shouts in his ear, but only a murmur is heard. Bob gets elbowed by the little kid squirming in the seat next to him. Bob grimmaces and shifts away from the kid as the lights dim.

Again, this world is being shaped phrase by phrase, drawing us closer and closer to Bob. This time, I control the space by excluding the existence of Bob at first. The impression is that the camera slowly draws in to Bob — either through a long crane shot or a series of cuts. The text changes a little between the two examples, but you can see how the direction of the action has altered the tone of the scene from submissive to slightly aggressive: in the second example, Bob’s presence is growing on frame — slowly pushing the crowd away from him. Given the implied final close-up, we are emotionally aligned with Bob at the end of the scene.

In addition to the subtle change in tone, it is the change of perspective that is the most striking difference between the two. Imagine cutting from the first example to Bob’s daughter backstage, peering out into the audience. Since we just showed Bob getting swallowed by the crowd, the audience will presume that the daughter also cannot find her father in the crowd. Give the daughter a worried look and the audience will infer that she is concerned her father might not be there.

To portray the opposite relationship, we could take the second example (which ends on a more aggressive portrayal of Bob) and again cut it to the same shot of the daughter peering out the curtain into the audience. This time, since we just saw a close-up of Bob, the audience will presume that the daughter sees her father in the crowd. We could also reinforce by adding a quick point-of-view shot from the daughter:

INSERT — Daughter’s POV of Bob sitting in the crowd, glaring at the people around him.

We can then cut back to the daughter who sneers. Not a word has been uttered, but we are painfully aware that she hates his presence. Best of all, this relationship was created solely by the arrangement of strong visuals.

Developing this a litter further, we could cut straight from the close-up on Bob to the point-of-view shot from backstage, then reveal the daughter peering through the curtain. This will give us the impression that the daughter has been watching this whole time, rather than just the glance of the POV shot.

If we add a verbal cue before cutting from the POV shot to the daughter, we can further raise the tension:

FRIEND (OS)
Psst. Come on.

By putting this in before we see the daughter, we align the audience with the daughter — the friend interrupts our view of the audience just as she interrupts the daughter’s view. It also demonstrates that the daughter is going out of her way to see if her father is there and that his presence is a distraction. It also sets up the daughter to socially reflect upon her feelings. “What were you doing?” the friend proceeds to ask. “Nothing.” Suddenly, we learn that the daughter is embarrassed/ashamed of the situation, or otherwise wants to keep it secret.

Some filmmakers have argued with me that crafting this sort of perspective is the job of the director, not the writer. While technically true, there are two issues I have with this black and white distinction.

First, screenwriting is a visual medium and it is not possible to write action without implying a perspective and a visual motion. As I demonstrated above, simply describing the auditorium, then the section of seating, then the character Bob — that specific sequence of description invokes a specific perspective on the scene. If you pretend that it doesn’t, then you are conveying meaning in your script that you didn’t intend. If you are at least cognizant of these mechanisms, then you might avoid unintended ambiguity or misinterpretations of your work.

Second, the job of the screenwriter is to create the story! While the screenplay is, indeed, a written medium, the final film is mostly visual. If you refuse to craft your story visually, then you are either writing a talking heads movie (a terrible use of the medium) or you are entrusting the director to recognize the story you meant to tell, make up how to portray that missing visual meaning, and to accurately capture and convey that to the audience.

To put it a different way, a good movie uses strong visual storytelling. If you ignore that in the writing of your screenplay, then who do you expect to read your script and recognize that it will be a good movie? You have either left out that aspect/nuance of your story, or you captured it in a non-visual way, i.e. the daughter saying “Ugh. I can’t believe my father showed up.” That is poor cinematic storytelling. A bad director will leave it in and shoot it as is. A good director will start editing your script to make a more visual story, and you can only hope that they understood your intentions enough to make the right editorial decisions.