Pacing/Speeding Up Time

[hubbabubbs]

Kinda a newbie question here, but who am I kidding.

Reading dpat's notes on Six Days in the SCB forum, he mentioned the pace going to fast, pertaining to the waiter's speedy delivery. Which brings me to my question.
Obviously you aren't going to write thirty pages to cover a 30 minute meal. I think proverbial rule of thumb is like one and a half pages or something. Otherwise audience gets bored...or hungry.

So your options are to come in late, or leave early, or both. But what if you need something that happens at both the ordering and the near-check please? I suppose you could set up landmark progressions in food/drink consumption; like Rosie finishes of the remaining White Sambuca with a flourish, Hung-Li sets his chopsticks across his rice bowl, Mike twirls some more spaghetti onto his fork. How is this done exactly? Speeding up time. Right now (rough draft) I have said everything I need to in a page and a third. So insert chit-chat, or insert more stuff to layer in meaning?

[xhouseboy]

It's a simple time cut within the same scene, if I'm reading your your question correctly.

[dpaterso]

Heh heh, all I meant was, the waiter seemed to bring their drinks pretty fast, so a couple of extra lines of dialogue to make the reaction time more plausible might fit, no big deal. But for longer scenes, as x suggests, maybe something like:

The waiters set steaming bowls of food on the table.

BOB
Ah, my favorite, long duck dong!

LATER (mini-slug) or TIME CUT: (right-justified)

The plates are empty, everyone sits back and pats their stomachs.

-Derek
My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57)
Stop reading this and get some writing done instead.

[BottomlessCup]

Some screenwriting book somewhere has a great chapter on this. I remember because it's where I learned to call it "synapse."

But I don't remember which one it is.


It's been my experience writing, reading, and watching scripts that this issue doesn't matter much. The audience won't notice. Have you ever watched a scene and thought, "Wait. Didn't they just sit down? Why is the food gone?"

Write it compressed, just the important stuff. The passing of time will be covered naturally in the shot cuts, which isn't your job.

[hubbabubbs]

kewl thanks

[xhouseboy]

It's been my experience writing, reading, and watching scripts that this issue doesn't matter much. The audience won't notice. Have you ever watched a scene and thought, "Wait. Didn't they just sit down? Why is the food gone?"

Write it compressed, just the important stuff. The passing of time will be covered naturally in the shot cuts, which isn't your job.

Bottomless, just out of curiosity, are you suggesting that a scene like hubbabubs, which in real life might last a couple of hours with numerous dialogue interchanges, should be written from beginning to end without mentioning in the script that there's been a time lapse, say between one conversation thread and the next?

IMO, it's not that an audience don't notice small time jumps, it's that they naturally accept them. And the reason for this lies with how the writer has structured the scene, and how the director then films that scene.

Some established pro writers will use the directions - Cut to a few minutes later - in order to clarify this. Spec scripts normally rely on the time cut. The shot cuts may not be the writer's responsibility when it comes to shooting these scenes, but in the writing process it's normally a good idea to mention the fact that the reason your scene isn't joined up from beginning to end is due to a time lapse.

[BottomlessCup]

Some established pro writers will use the directions - Cut to a few minutes later - in order to clarify this. Spec scripts normally rely on the time cut. The shot cuts may not be the writer's responsibility when it comes to shooting these scenes, but in the writing process it's normally a good idea to mention the fact that the reason your scene isn't joined up from beginning to end is due to a time lapse.

Also good advice.

IMO, it depends on the scene's context and thee length of the lapse. Personally, I don't like using time cuts, becuase it's cutting from a scene to itself. I prefer to find a way to do it more smoothly, without awkward format hardware.

[StephieM]

IMO, it's not that an audience don't notice small time jumps, it's that they naturally accept them. And the reason for this lies with how the writer has structured the scene, and how the director then films that scene.

Nice point. But I think it all goes hand in hand. When I'm watching a good film, the time lapse to me becomes not only acceptable, but believable. And when something is believable enough to accept, it becomes hardly noticable. (okay that was confusing). Not only does that come from structure and direction, but it also comes from good action and setup.

Notice how screen time also works the other way around when a few seconds seems to last an eternity.

Imagine a film where there's a ticking bomb in a downtown building (shouldn't be too hard to imagine). The bomb is in the basement and there's thirty seconds left on the bomb. The hero and the villain are fighting it out on the roof. In real time, the possiblility of the hero winning the fight and getting from the roof to the basement in 30 seconds would be next to nil, but it can be done. The trick is to make it believable so the audience doesn't notice. If they don't notice then it becomes acceptable.

Steph
I don't know what I just said, but it sounded good at the time. :)

[clockwork]

Hey Steph, not seen you about the place recently. Where've you been? Explain yourself!http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/Emotewhip.gif

[StephieM]

Hey Steph, not seen you about the place recently. Where've you been? Explain yourself!

I was abducted by aliens but they brought me home when I refused to populate their planet and become their queen. :D

Seriously, just going through a hard time. Thanks for thinking of me. :)

Steph