At the heart of all great screen drama are Big Secrets and Bold Lies.

by Mike Jones

(continued from Part 1)

So far, so good but what we haven’t touched on yet is the other kind – those non-diegetic Secrets and Lies that are held by the audience. It is these that bring an even greater spectrum of complexity to notions of narrative subtext.

Subtext in Horror

Horror films give us the clearest insight into the power of secrets and lies held with the audience. The scares and frights of a horror film are predicated on the viewer being positioned in one of two states – either they know More than the characters know, or they know Only what the characters know.

In the later, when the monster leaps from the shadows, we jump as the character jumps in shock and surprise. In the former, by contrast, we already know the monster is around the corner waiting and we watch, biting our nails in dread and suspense, as the ignorant character – oblivious to the secret we as viewers are forced to keep – heads blindly into the danger.

Horror films give us the clearest insight into
the power of secrets and lies held with the audience.

Both forms are very effective and great horror films move the viewer consistently through these different positions letting them in on the secret sometimes, keeping them in ignorance at others – ensuring a complexity of thrills.

The Audience Knows – Two Forms of Subtext in Horro

From this simple basis we can extrapolate a complexity of possibilities for how and when the audience may be told a lie or given a secret to hold. As with diegetic secrets and lies, we can view a number of ways they can be perpetuated with the audience which broadly may be seen to reside in two broad forms:

• The Character knows something the Viewer does not.
• The Viewer knows something the Character does not.

The first of these is the most obvious and results in the classic reveal often situated at key turning points in the plot. Here the viewer is made aware of new information that forces them to re-evaluate what they previously knew or believed. Whilst this may seem simple it is in fact a direct orchestration and manipulation of what the viewer knows by the writer at any given point in the story’s timeline.

The writer must clearly conceive of what
the viewer doesn’t know that the characters do.

To make such reveals work the writer must clearly conceive of what the viewer doesn’t know that the characters do in order to make the reveal of the conceit plausible and authentic. Scripts that fail this test and do not properly plan or articulate the secrets and lies to the viewer in the writing process, fall foul of Deus Ex Machina where a plot twist or reveal rings as untrue or overly contrived.

Examples of Subtext where The Audience Knows

Excellent examples of this kind of conceit with the viewer can be found in virtually any Hitchcock film but more contemporary films such as The Sixth Sense also demonstrate how effective this lie can be (spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t seen The Sixth Sense). The film’s reveal that the protagonist himself is actually dead – and indeed has been almost the whole time – is a tremendously effective ending; not because it’s a surprise but because the viewers all slap their foreheads as they realise that ‘it all makes sense’ and indeed that they perhaps should have seen it coming all along. The lie is authentic because it was carefully planned, each scene knew the truth as it was written and hid that truth carefully from the viewer as a secret.

Excellent examples of this kind of conceit with the viewer
can be found in virtually any Hitchcock film.

Such planned secrets to the audience also form the basis of complex-narrative stories such as Memento and The Usual Suspects which are films that build their entire dramatic concept on the ‘unreliable narrator’ and the grand ruse where the viewer is forced to recognise the lies they had previously accepted as truth.

The second of the two – that the viewer knows something the character does not – is consistent across all genres of screen narrative. Whether it’s at a macro level such as Titanic where the audience is fully aware of the ‘secret’ that the iceberg is coming while the characters are oblivious; or at a scene-by-scene level such as in the opening of Jaws where we have already seen the shark waiting and know the danger long before the first victim gets wet. We know the secret and we watch in horror that we cannot stop the inevitable.

We know the secret and we watch in horror
that we cannot stop the inevitable.

photo credit: wwworks

Similarly we might look at numerous scenes from Battlestar Galactica where the viewer knows which characters are in fact Cylons whilst the other characters remain oblivious. The audience is positioned to be the custodian of the secret and the drama plays out as an orchestration of not just What the viewer knows but When they know it.

Likewise in Dexter the audience knows Dexter’s secret life and so whenever we see Dexter interact in a normal way with his police colleagues we watch with a rich vein of subtext based on the dark secret we hold.

Conclusion

Whether the secrets and the lies are held between characters or with the audience the fact is that without secrets and lies your story will often be starved of subtext and tension or else be reliant on far more verbose and less effective forms of tension such as car chases, pointed guns and spectacle.

As a tool, investing your characters and your story at the planning stage with specific Secrets and Lies, that in turn have Values and Damages, will generate tangible potential for rich subtext before you even write the first scene.

-Mike Jones

(read the first part here)

Mike Jones has a diverse background in screen media crossing writing, technical production and academic research.

He is an award winning teacher, author and currently lecturer in Screen Studies at the Australian Film TV and Radio School. www.mikejones.tv

photo credits: Cameron Cassan, Zarko Drincic, Diamond Farah, tommy the pariah

If a story isn’t a den of lies then it’s likely – somewhat ironically – to be missing the essential element that will may make the experience of that story authentic and truthful.

by Mike Jones

Does that sound a bit odd? Let me explain…

The presence – or lack thereof – of secrets and lies in a story is all too often what i observe to be absent from the films and scripts of both my students and screenplays by new and inexperienced writers. Often what is otherwise cited as missing in these cases is ‘subtext. But whilst this is certainly true, subtext is also a notoriously slippery term.

Definition of Subtext

It’s relatively easy to define subtext as that which is between the lines – what is not said between characters – but which is none the less clearly present for the viewer. However, putting that idea into some sort of tangible construct as a writer engaged in a creative process is not nearly so easy. Subtext is easy to see once it’s well written but not all that easy to write.

It’s relatively easy to define subtext
as that which is between the lines

Thus what I’m proposing is an alternative way to consider narrative subtext that perhaps makes it easier to hold onto and use as a creative narrative tool rather than a slightly abstracted concept; Subtext as a set of prescribed Secrets and Lies.

photo credit: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

Two Categories of Subtext

Secrets and Lies can exist in a story under two broad umbrellas and we might conceive of these two categories in the same way that sound design is often considered in cinema – diegetic and non-diegetic. A diegetic sound is one that comes from within the scene and belongs there, such as the sound of a car engine as we see a car drive or the sound of a gun shot when we see a gun go off, not to mention the sound of a person’s voice as we see them speak.

Conversely, a non-diegetic sound is one where the audio does not emanate from or belong to the scene; voice over narration or a musical score being the two most obvious examples.

When we apply this idea broadly to the subtext of Secrets and Lies in narrative we see a distinction between the secrets and lies held diegetically between characters and those secrets and lies held non-diegetically by the audience observing the characters.

We see a distinction between the secrets and lies
held diegetically between characters and those
secrets and lies held non-diegetically by the audience

In the former, diegetic, sphere we have something one character knows that another does not, or something one character believes but the other does not. In the alternative, non-diegetic, sense we have something the audience knows that the character (or characters) do not (or vise versa).

From this simple observation we can construct all kinds of variations for introducing and manifesting secrets and lies in a narrative; be they at the macro-level of an over-arching story concept that’s predicated on a conceit (Breaking Bad and the secret that Walt is a drug dealer) or at a scene-by-scene level (Michael in The Godfather lying to Kay declaring that he didn’t have his brother-in-law killed). In either case the secrets and the lies fuel the dramatic tension.

photo credit: Raïssa Bandou

Four Kinds of Subtext

So let’s ponder the variations of diegetic secrets and lies. There are essentially 4 kinds:

Character A knows something Character B doesn’t.
Character A doesn’t know something Character B does.
Character A knows something Character B doesn’t and lies about it.
Character A says something Character B knows to be a lie.

Any one of these variations invested in a scene or story adds subtext almost innately by investing an element that is not spoken or, if it is spoken, is not true. That said, what is important from a writing perspective is for the writer to orchestrate clarity about who knows what? If you don’t know what your characters know and, just as importantly, aren’t clear about what it is they don’t know, then you have very little in the way if a toolkit to build compelling subtext beyond words and actions.

What is important from a writing perspective
is for the writer to orchestrate clarity.

When mapping out characters for a story we often think in terms of what WHAT and HOW; What does the character want and How are they going to get it. Stress is exerted by every screenwriting book and script guru doing the circuit that characters must Want something and encounter Obstacles on the way to getting what they want. This may well be true but in many ways this is also too simplistic to be really useful to screenwriters in the midst of the creative writing process.

As with most of the high profile script gurus that dominate screen narrative discourse I find such preaching fine and dandy in a retrospective way – describing how good films worked – but far less useful or functional from the front-end when you’re writing from scratch. Such analysis is focused on description from hindsight and so disconnected from in-the-trenches creative process.

Wants, obstacles and active protagonists are great
but they do not, of themselves, generate subtext.

For example, you may have the clearest What and How in the world for your character with a big obstacle and high stakes and yet still have a scene that is bland and dull and entirely lacking in subtext. Wants, obstacles and active protagonists are great but they do not, of themselves, generate subtext.

This brings us back to the usefulness of Secrets and Lies as a way to tangibly motivate the writing of scenes with more sophistication than just What and How. If you can map out not only what a character wants and how they are going to get it, but also sketch what it is they Know, what they Don’t know, what secrets they have and what lies they are willing to tell – from beat-to-beat and scene-to-scene within a script – you will have a very complex array of dramatic possibilities open to you when it comes to plotting.
photo credit: Chris Halderman

Key Ingredients of Subtext: Value and Damage

Of course this leads us to the key ingredients that character-based Secrets and Lies rely on to be effective. To make the secrets and lies work dramatically we need to add two things – i’ll call these Value and Damage . The Secret has to have Value and the Lie must cause Damage (or be capable of causing damage). This might otherwise be called dramatic stakes but thinking in these more specific terms of Value and Damage may help to make the ideas they embody more specifically targeted and tangibly useful for the writing process.

For a character’s Secret to have dramatic implications it must have Value, the knowledge they hold, or withhold, from other characters must be valuable and desirable and important. The more valuable the better, the more other characters want the secret or would be affected by the secret, the more dramatic pressure is applied to the character. What must also be remembered is that the value of a secret is in direct context of the story-world the narrative plays out in.

The more other characters want the secret
or would be affected by the secret,
the more dramatic pressure is applied to the character.

Thus, for example the location of the knock-list of secret agents is a very valuable secret for Ethan Hunt to hold in Mission Impossible, a secret with implications for international diplomacy. On a different scale altogether, but every bit as valuable in the context of the story, is Don Draper’s secret past and appropriated identity in Mad Men. This knowledge wont bring down governments but in the context of the Mad Men world the secret, none the less, has immense value in being kept or released.

photo credit: buckyishungry

In terms of Lies, it is Damage that becomes a crucial ingredient. If the lie can’t hurt anyone, if it has no fallout from being perpetuated, then it is dramatically un-useful. But if the Lie has the potential to cause damage, large scale damage commensurate with the story-world, then you will have armed your character and narrative with a potent subtext explosive. The more damage the lie can cause the more effective it will be. Of course by damage we don’t necessarily mean physical damage – though that may very well often be the case – but fallout damage in a wide variety of forms.

The more damage the lie can cause
the more effective it will be.

In Pixar’s Monsters Inc. for example the big lie is that children are utterly toxic and contact with them will kill and bring down the whole Monster World. The fallout damage for this lie is in fact positive rather than negative (the revelation that children are not toxic after all), but the damage is nonetheless big in scale as the revelation of the lie inverts the monster world and changes forever the characters in it.

Likewise, working at both personal and world scale, is the film Amadeus. The big lie maintained and perpetuated by Salieri is that Mozart’s music is mediocre and not worthy of the Emperor’s attention. The lie in this case for Salieri is to himself more than anyone else, when he in fact knows the truth of Mozart’s genius. The lie can and does inflict great damage – to the world by curtailing Mozart’s career and life, and to Salieri personally as he lives out his days in guilt and despair at his own mediocrity.

Practical Tools for Creating Subtext

What we can take away from these ideas and observations should be some very practical tools for writing character-drama; give your hero a big secret, your villain a big lie (or vise versa), arm each character with a secret to keep and a lie to tell – secrets and lies that have value and possibility for damage – and then throw events at the characters that force the secrets and lies out into the open… At the heart of all great screen drama are Big Secrets and Bold Lies – plotting therefore is the events you toss at the characters to bring out and confound their secrets and their lies.

-Mike Jones

(to be continued)

Mike Jones has a diverse background in screen media crossing writing, technical production and academic research.

He is an award winning teacher, author and currently lecturer in Screen Studies at the Australian Film TV and Radio School. www.mikejones.tv

It is the Showrunner – a curious title that embodies a diverse array of responsibilities.

LA Times columnist Scott Collins writes about Showrunners as;

“Hyphenates,” a curious hybrid of starry-eyed artists and tough-as-nails operational managers. They’re not just writers; they’re not just producers. They hire and fire writers and crew members, develop story lines, write scripts, cast actors, mind budgets and run interference with studio and network bosses.

It’s one of the most unusual and demanding, right-brain/left-brain job descriptions in the entertainment world….[S]how runners make — and often create — the shows, and now more than ever, shows are the only things that matter. In the “long tail” entertainment economy, viewers don’t watch networks. They don’t even care about networks. They watch shows. And they don’t care how they get them.”

What we may see in the Showrunner is a hybrid writer-director-producer; a role with a clear creative reign over a long-form and episodic project.

We appear to be in the midst of a golden age of television wherein the writing, production value and audience enthusiasm for serialized drama as jumped enormously in just the past decade. And this shift away from a very feature-film focused culture prompts us to reconsider the viability of a short-film to act as calling-card or learning tool.

Of course, this begs the question… Is there something better than the short film to achieve these ends?

Lacking time and resources to write and make a feature film or TV series? What’s an emerging and aspiring filmmaker to do? One answer may be staring us in the face as we sit in front of our computers reading this blog – Webisodes and the online Web-series. I would suggest that the emerging filmmaker’s learning experience and calling card of the future (if not the now) is the Webisodic Drama.

The potential advantages of the Web series as both Learning Tool and Calling Card for emerging writer-directors are myriad. Firstly, the Web-series is resource viable. It arguably takes no more money, technology or logistics to make an episodic online series than it does to make a short film.

Second, the Web-series online can potentially find a larger scale – and international – audience than a short film, seen by more eyes than a short playing the festival circuit. In doing so the Web-series both teaches and proves audience engagement and the ability of the filmmaker to create for, gather, keep and motivate viewers.

Most importantly the Web-series has the potential to more viably demonstrate a filmmaker understands Character Arc and Story Structure. The episodic nature of a web-series; its construction, spacing and structure connects very well to both feature film narrative turning points and long-form drama act-breaks, episodes and seasons.

This question of what short-film alternatives there may be for emerging writer-directors to both learn from, and announce themselves with, is one the Australian Film Tv and Radio School has been pondering. And in response has developed a new graduate certificate course that aims to provide a hothouse environment for ‘showrunners’ around the construction of online Web-series.

Called the Graduate Certificate in Websiodes this part-time course, run over two semesters, is geared for participants who possess basic production skills in shooting and editing and who have a clear idea for a story they want to tell in an episodic way. With a comprehensive focus on narrative structures and patterns in episodic forms, classes will look at theme, premise and myth and marry these understandings through continual practical exercises with the cinematics of visual construction. The course then empowers these creative conceptualizations with modules on business basics related to online distribution and the relationships to social-media networks and 360 media development.

Just as an art school will hand a student paper and brush with the expectation they will paint and sketch over and over to develop an idea into a final form; the Grad Cert in Websidoes program arms each student with laptop and camera for the duration of the course and encourages an ongoing and persistent process of writing and shooting. Participants become part of a hothouse environment to develop a project deeply over time.

In this vein the intention is that filmmakers may utilize the course in different ways; some may use it to deliver a complete and polished episodic online show – 6-8 episodes produced over the course of the year – a complete project unto itself and one that stands as a calling card to their story-telling vision. Others may use the program as a proof-of-concept development process; a visual draft of a bigger project they may want to subsequently pitch as a TV series or feature film. In this way using the web-series as way to prove the viability of a bigger project. However showrunners use the course, the online episodic platform allows for direct engagement with audience, genre, and delivery in a way that the traditional short-film festival circuit may not. The short film has served emerging filmmakers very well for many years but the online, episodic, Web-series potentially offers a platform and vehicle that extends far beyond the limited currency of the short film in the twenty-first century.

-Mike Jones

(read the first part here)

Mike Jones has a diverse background in screen media crossing writing, technical production and academic research.

He is an award winning teacher, author and currently lecturer in Screen Studies at the Australian Film TV and Radio School. www.mikejones.tv

photo credit: Cameron Cassan

Calling-cards, Webisodes and the Problem with Short-Films

It’s not difficult to see such an observation as a truism that stems directly from the nature of how most directors emerge (not just in Australia but overseas as well). Short-films, the festival circuit, seed-funding or development investment very often tied to director-producer teams. Or, at the very least, unless the director knows and is friends with a screenwriter they only have themselves to rely on for material until they can afford the luxury of paying for, or being paid to direct, a script written by someone else.

Thus the long established tradition of the director-driven short-film with a purpose.

Short films may certainly be a viable and dynamic medium for the creation of cinematic art but artistic merit unto itself is very rarely the impetus for making a short film. The purpose of the overwhelming majority of short films produced every year around the world is two-fold:  a) as a viable way for you to learn about writing, directing and filmmaking with limited resources (witness the fact that film schools the world over are predicated on the making of short films), and b) as a professional calling-card; a micro-showcase of ability with which to convince producers and financiers of your worthiness to make larger, longer cinematic works.

Artistic merit unto itself is very rarely
the impetus for making a short film.

Calling-Card and Learning Tool – these are the driving forces behind the creation of so many short films every year. And yet, somewhat ironically, a great many short films fundamentally fail to fulfill either purpose. Entertaining or intriguing they may well be, but if the purpose in writing and making them was to learn about making longer works – and producing a calling card to prove you are capable of making longer works – then they are most often sorely lacking. Whilst navel-gazing and self-indulgence are curses that afflict too many short films the bigger, and more universal, problem may be simply that the format of the short-film itself is not conducive to these intended purposes.

A great many short films fundamentally
fail to fulfill either purpose.

The short film falls short as a Learning exercise because making a short film runs the risk of only really teaching you about making short-films. The relevance of short film structures, patterns and conventions to feature and long-form drama are tenuous at best. And this is only right and proper; a good short should Not be simply a feature film shoved into a small space. That is a recipe for disaster. Slice-of-life, the punch-line joke, the microcosm observation, the intimate poetic rendering are perfectly fitting structures and styles for short films and indeed can make for wonderful audience engagement and experience. But, these things are rarely viable outside of the short-film format; or at the very least do not inspire confidence in financiers and funding bodies looking to make longer projects.

Making a short film runs the risk of only really
teaching you about making short-films.

A short film, regardless of how good it is as an artwork, is unlikely to effectively demonstrate you can sustain character arcs or that you understand classical story-telling structure. A short film doesn’t prove you know how to develop story over time or construct consistent dramatic tension and release in a longer form. Similarly a short film will struggle to demonstrate that you understand audiences and genre and know how to engage a broad audience. Without these things a short film presents little real evidence you have what it takes to write and make a viable feature or long-form drama.

A short film presents little real evidence
you have what it takes to write.

Referring to this mode of the Writer-Director immediately carries the moniker of the Auteur; a singular vision author of a film and a mode of filmmaking that very often (as expressed by the French New Wave fathers of Auteur Theory) focuses on the Visual rather than the Literary, the Composition rather than the Narrative. Whilst few might openly agree that the Director is the sole or even primary Author of a film (certainly not the often sidelined screenwriters of the world) the fact remains that the idea of the Auteur-Director has firmly stuck since the 1960’s and lead directly to the very diretor-centric mind-sets that permeate Hollywood and national cinemas outside of the US.

But there is a different model beyond writer-directors, not necessarily a new model but one with increasing prominence that perhaps leads us away from director-centric modes and prompts us to rethink the functionality of the short film as calling-card/learning tool for filmmakers.

(on to Part 2)

Mike Jones has a diverse background in screen media crossing writing, technical production and academic research. He is an award winning teacher, author and currently lecturer in Screen Studies at the Australian Film TV and Radio School. www.mikejones.tv

photo credit: Cameron Cassan

FINISH?

It seems significant that I would use the word ‘Finish’ in regard to games. As it’s the self-same word I would use for a book, it implies certain things. Chief among these implications are notions of linear Progression, Finality and Inevitability. For many game theorists these three concept terms are somewhat of an anathema.

Games are supposed to be non-linear, open-systems rather than closed ones, they are player-controlled and thus are distinct and apart from cinema and literature. Similarly, by nature of being player-controlled they are, in theory, without inevitability.

But there remains the fact that I ‘Finish’ games all the time and then converse with my gaming friends on topics such as “what did you think of the ending of…” knowing that there is commonality in the ending we all experienced. This tells us important things about games that perhaps position them far closer to cinema and literature than many may suppose.

This tells us important things about games that perhaps position them far closer to cinema and literature than many may suppose.

Despite player ‘choices’ and ‘actions’ the conclusion of a game is none the less pre-ordained. Just as a book or film a game has to be ‘authored’. There may be variations but even when multiple endings are available they are none the less pre-determined and pre-scripted. Are they really any different from alternate endings supplied as DVD extras?

Aside from being predetermined, game endings are also Inevitable. Leaving aside the idea that a player may quit and give up – which is no different to failing to finish a novel or walking out of a movie theatre – the player Will reach the conclusion as defined by the game’s creators. For all the threats of character death and dismemberment, failing and frustration, these only act in a temporal way, serving to dictate how long may take to finish not whether the player will or can finish.

IT’S INEVITABLE

So if games have inevitable, pre-determined endings and that they do not rely on ideas of ‘IF’ for ‘success’ – what do they rely on?

If we look at long-form TV drama (whose dramatic duration, structure and complexity most closely resembles that of a narrative game – far more than the comparative shallowness and of feature film) the consistent is not as much IF a character/player will ‘survive’ or ‘triumph’ (in whatever manner that may be) but rather HOW they do so?

The primary concern for the audience
subsequently is not so much IF Walt will escape
from his various predicaments but How…?

Take the superb American drama series Breaking Bad. An ordinary suburban science teacher is forced through illness (imminent death from advanced lung cancer) economic hardship and family pressure (a pregnant wife and a disabled son) to engage in the illegal activity of cooking crystal meth and entering the illegal drug trade. The character of Walt faces various trials and tribulations as he enters a world he knows nothing of as a classic fish-out-of-water narrative. The primary concern for the audience subsequently is not so much IF Walt will escape from his various predicaments but How…?

WHY?

There are many reasons for this perspective – particularly in character-drama – not the least of which being that the viewer is invariably aware that the season has numerous episodes still to play out and more whole seasons to follow.

So, despite how desperate the situation is for the character the viewer unavoidably knows that it’s not a question of IF. We watch to see the HOW; experience the solution-finding and circumstance-shifting that will (inevitably) allow the character to continue to progress.

Likewise in a game, the player unavoidably knows that ‘dying’ is simply a case of re-spawning and trying again, it has no consequence for ‘IF’. Indeed there are rarely narrative consequences for ‘dying’ at all and when there is they are largely inconsequential to the end result of ‘finishing’ the game.

This leads us to consider what non-linear in narrative gaming really means? On the surface it simply suggests that there is no pre-defined order of events. But this does not of itself mean that there is No beginning and No end. Non-linear doesn’t mean Non-progressive.

NON-LINEAR?

A game by it’s very nature must have a Beginning and an End and so there is linear progression. Even if there are multiple start points and multiple end points there is still unavoidable movement between a Point A and a Point B. Non-linear in gaming simply suggests that the order in which the steps are taken from natural beginning to unavoidable pre-defined end, has controlled flexibility.

And yet even this idea of a small amount of non-linearity is flawed as there is no modern computer game yet created that doesn’t require and insist on imposing certain events at particular points. In almost any major game the non-linear sections are simply the narratively inconsequential ones. The player may go directly to the next pre-determined and completely linear event or faff around with smaller events in whatever order they like before moving on to the progressive, linear ones.

Dare I be so bold as to suggest the idea of Non-linear in gaming is a myth altogether? Even so-called Sandbox games (GTA, Oblivion, etc) have a completely linear, pre-defined spine-structure to them that the player must and does follow (short of giving up). The non-linear illusion is in the busy-work, side-quests and preparation time that may or may not be spent before moving through the pre-defined linear phases.

Dare I be so bold as to suggest
the idea of Non-linear in gaming
is a myth altogether?

So if non-linearity is a myth, game endings are pre-determined and (short of the player giving up) completing the game is inevitable Why do we play..? For the same reason we watch long form TV drama – to experience the How…

What makes us play through to the finish is not so much a desire to see IF the player can be ‘successful’ (a test of skill more in line with sport than cinema) but rather to see and, moreover, experience How that end is arrived at?

BALANCE

So, we watch the character of Walt from Breaking Bad walk into a bad ass drug dealer’s apartment with total subconscious confidence that he will survive and triumph (because there are still 2 episodes yet to go). And in watching we worry, fret and feel dramatically tense not for IF he’ll survive but HOW he is going to turn the tables? The trick to crafting this kind of drama as a screenwriter is to strike a delicate balance.

On one hand the situation must be dire enough that the viewer can’t envision how the character can possibly survive/triumph? Yet on the other, when a solution/escape/victory is achieved, it is in such a way that, despite having not been foreseen, seems wholly plausible. Such dramatic situations are distinctly Aristotelian, the classic Reversal of Fortune, a feeling state for the viewer simultaneously startling yet (should have been) predictable as they slap their foreheads and remark “Bugger me, of course. I should have seen it but I didn’t until it happened!”

The trick to crafting this kind of drama as a screenwriter
is to strike a delicate balance.

Here Breaking Bad provides a perfect example of just this. The character of Walt – an ordinary man pushed to the edge by circumstance – marches into a violent drug dealers den to demand money. Seemingly a suicide mission. How will he triumph and escape? Then, when Walt holds up a handful of what we believe to be drugs, says defiantly “that’s not crystal meth” and throws it the floor creating an almighty explosion, we are immediately reminded of the key element we have forgotten.

Walt on the outside is a frail and sick middle aged man, but his secret power is in his mind and his knowledge of chemistry. The thrill of the scene is not in seeing IF Walt will escape but rather experiencing HOW he turns the tables. The clever craftsmanship of the scene is in the fact that the inverting event is entirely plausible, but not easily predictable.

EVALUATION TOOL

How this idea connects to gaming, and may be used to understand why too many games become dull and mindless, is to evaluate whether the game is relying on IF rather than HOW? I would suggest that shallow, un-effecting game experiences come when the emphasis for the player is framed on seeing IF the player can survive, IF they can get through? Whereas truly engaging games accept the premise that success is inevitable (because the player can and will re-spawn/re-start at will) and instead frame their drama and tension aesthetics around HOW the player might get through, the solutions, surprises and circumstances that may by open to them to explore? In this mode a real and tangible currency of engagement is shaped by the questions of What strategy will the player use? What unexpected things may happen? What skills will they employ? And, more importantly, What ethical judgement will they exert? What personality will they embrace in their actions?

This principle stands across genres of gaming. Whether it be the platformer puzzler of Braid where the much celebrated Reversal-of-Fortune ending is pre-determined and yet the thrill is in HOW the player manipulates time to get there.

Engagement is generated by detailed exploration, by
questions posed, by circumstance and problem solving exhibited;
not by end results or finishing points.

Whether it be a stock standard First Person Shooter such as Half Life or Fear where killing bad guys is inevitable but the experience is in the HOW of determining the manner by which bad guys will be dispatched – be it sniping from a distance, all guns blazing frontal assault, or surreptitious sneaking around avoiding contact altogether.

Whether it be large-scale RPG’s like Mass Effec and DragonAge where victory ‘saving the realm’ is inevitable but the game experience is forged by how skill-points are assigned to shape the avatar’s persona, how strategies are executed and how relationships are built between characters. Just as with long-form TV drama the experience of engagement is generated by detailed exploration, by questions posed, by circumstance and problem solving exhibited; not by end results or finishing points.

WHY CARE?

So in the end what’s all this about and why should screenwriters and filmmakers care?

My contention is really very simple. Rather than assuming games are unique, special and outside of traditional understandings, it is far more useful to look for the consistencies and similarities between games and other forms of cinema.

The similarities tell us more about what’s unique and special in gaming than the differences. Understanding the similarities allows us to see the trajectory of games as a branch extending from the known into the unknown, rather than the ignorant stumbling in the dark that goes on when games are viewed in isolation.

We have more than a century of understanding about cinematic storytelling, 2,000 odd years since Aristotle laid foundations of narrative and engagement; this is knowledge which is as much – if not more – about the human condition than it is about the aesthetics of screen media. It would be arrogant to disregard that understanding in an effort to reinforce games as unique and special. And by working from the common stem of understanding dramatic tension we prop open the door to bring that wealth of knowledge held by screenwriters and filmmakers into the gaming fold.

Cinema can really only be defined as the ‘art of the moving image’ and as such Gaming is Cinema; just another means to create and experience narrative through moving pictures. As screen-writers we should be looking to embrace gaming from a foundation of what we already know about how screen-stories work. We may find there is more common ground than we think.

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Mike Jones has a diverse background in screen media, writing and academic research. He has nearly fifteen years experience in technical production and has written widely on screen industry trends, penning more than two hundred published essays, articles and reviews along with three books for students of screen media. Currently Mike is Lecturer in Screen Studies at the Australian Film TV and Radio School.

photo credit: RebeccaPollard (Gamer)

photo credit: h.koppdelaney (Journey)