On Screen v. Off Screen

Restricting POV to what our protagonist directly sees is a really powerful tool.

Look at what Avatar did. For the first part of the film the audience was following Jake's POV exclusively.

We didn't see what was outside the doors until it opened. We only entered the safety briefing when he did. We only saw the aliens when he did. We were introduced to all the other characters when he did.

Then, when the audience had locked in on identifying with Jake we had brief snippets of what happened when he wasn't around ... but they were always the briefest of moments and they always pretty much directly related to his aims.

Later, during the final battle scenes, the cut-away to the antagonists started getting longer - but it still always focussed around the protagonist.

Even with films about world wide events like 'Independence Day' still focus on pretty much a single location & group of people. Sure, they cut it brief moments elsewhere to show how widespread it is .. but that isn't really a cost constraint. Just a snippet in front of a green screen and presto - you've got a brief moment showing that the ghosts are also appearing right on the Great Wall of China.

They are my thoughts on the subject.

Good luck !

Mac

Stunted said:

AW, I'm having a dilemma!

My screenplay is about CIA agents investigating a wide-spread supernatural event. Should I restrict the POV to the investigators, or should I cut to scenes of the event? It would definitely be cheaper to keep it just to the investigators, but it might be better narratively to show everything. Or maybe not. If you had to make this decision, what would be your considerations?

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A lot of stories go for a "limited omniscient" viewpoint. That is, they mostly stay with the hero or heroes, but will, every so often, move away to show bits and pieces of what the bad guys are planning.

You can see this strategy play out all the time. You can see it, just off hand, in Men in Black. Mostly, we stay with the heroes, but every so often, it'll cut away to show a brief scene, showing "bad guy preparations" -- not so much giving things away, but giving us just enough information so that we know what's coming -- so we know just a little bit more than the heroes. So that we get to say, "Oh, man, you poor suckers don't know what you're about to get yourselves into."

And you see pretty much the same thing in something as different as Lord of the Rings. Mostly we stay with the heroes - but it'll cut away every so often and show what Saruman is doing, or what's happening in Mordor.

That is, we get a glimpse of the progress of the bad guys, of the larger unfolding of events that are advancing toward the heroes or toward which our heroes are moving.

In fact, there are a lot times when it's definitely better to do this.

If you've got your heroes racing along a road to the rescue, it's better to cut ahead and show the raging river starting to undercut the bridge that they're not going to reach for sometime, rather than simply following them, having them show up at the bridge and having it give way without any warning.

That kind of construction is at the heart of any suspense scene.

NMS

I would definitely say that we need to see the Protagonists perspective above all. Simply because they are the ones you want us to pull for. We have to understand what they are going through before anybody else within the story.

As for showing scenes of the "Event", I think you need to ask yourself "Will it help the story to show X, Y, and Z; or will it hinder the story?" Personally, I like to try and keep things off screen as long as possible especially if the Protagonist is suppose to be figuring out something.

A good example of this is the movie "Basic" with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. Yes, we are introduced to Samuel L. Jackson's character (the assumed villain) very early but it's very brief. From there we follow the arc of the investigator who works with John Travolta to figure out a murder, all the while learning more about Samuel L. Jackson's character. Again, we see different versions of the event but because of the way the story is told we know we can't trust it. We don't actually see what truly happened until the main character figures it out for herself at the end of the movie.

If you actually do watch this I would suggest watching the interview with the writer James Vanderbilt because he goes through the whole thing from a writing perspective and shows how they did things. From that interview, you will probably want to watch it again.

As for issues of things being "cheaper", unless your producing it yourself (on a limited budget), you don't need to worry about money...let the producer do that. Besides you shouldn't put a price tag on the limits of your imagination.

I have used in a sci-fi script the classical "TV anchorman" Breaking news short, which quickly, and by means of snapshots and images, show you what you want to show. (Any kind of catastrophic event/alien invassion/economic summit you want). In 60' 70' films it was used a carroussel of several countries' TV headlines-Lewison films etc...

"Night of living dead" showed a kind of this thing BEFORE the zombie jumped off their tombs.

It is a cheap trick.