How to hint at something subtle in the background

You put it in the description of the setting. Hide it a bit in the description of other objects that are also seen but less relevant. It works less well on paper, but if the director does a good job in the end, it will turn out to be something an audience could miss.

INT:JAKE'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM - DAY

Sunlight slashes through the curtains, illuminating his assorted collection of DVD's scattered about the room. Dust motes float in the sunlight, landing on the covers of the disks. "Hells Kitchen", "Crusades", "Blood Lust" and "Death's Door" are illuminated by the golden light.

On the shelves, more DVD's of violent films are prominent.

A cat winds it's way through the room, searching for the food from its empty dish.




Something like that. You describe the elements you want the camera to linger on. Titles can either be in "Italics" or in CAPS - I've seen them both ways.

danshaw said:

Hi all

Quick question. I was wondering how to indicate that theres an object in the background that the audience "might" notice.

My script starts off in a mans apartment, slowly exploring his bookshelves/dvd collection etc. I want a certain film to be in the collection which is relevent to the ending. If the audience sees it, then thats great, if they dont notice, then it doesnt matter too much as there will be othr objects later on. I plan to put a few of these things scattered through the film, so just wondered how best to write this....

Thanks as always

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This is one of the conundrums that storytellers often face and that's very difficult to deal with -- the thing that the audience is supposed to both remember and yet forget.

And it's very difficult because of the innately sparse and innately "intentional" nature of the dramatic landscape.

The cold cruel fact is, if you zoom in on a close shot of something -- or, within a script zoom in in the form of a detailed description of something, the viewer or the reader is likely to want to expect that there's a reason why a particular detail has been selected for that "close shot."

On the other hand, if it's the equivalent of a pan across a shelf -- there's a trophy, there's a photo, there's a half-eaten sandwich -- then there's no close shot.

That is, there's nothing that's particularly memorable.

Here's the problem. What you always want, when you have the "moment of revelation" -- the pay-off, is to have that instant, "Ah hah" -- that moment when the pieces instantly come together.

It's the equivalent of a punch line. But if the audience (or the reader) has to be reminded of what that earlier moment was, because it's really completely slipped their minds -- then it doesn't work.

The key is that they have to *remember* it -- but not understand its significance. That is, they can't realize when they are exposed to the information in question, that they've just been given a "set-up" for something else.

The only really effective way to accomplish this isn't to "bury" the information in question, but to *use* it in some other way. To make it seem as if it's there for some other reason, to pay it off. Then the reader or the audience will remember it, but they won't remember it as a loose thread, but as something that was simply introduced, developed, and paid off -- now move on to the next thing.

Then, when you reach the critical point -- that "paid off" thing is suddenly revealed in it's true purpose -- and that's the real pay off. That's the surprise.

You've shown them the set-up, yet they haven't seen it -- because you've hidden it in plain sight.

NMS

danshaw said:

My script starts off in a mans apartment, slowly exploring his bookshelves/dvd collection etc. I want a certain film to be in the collection which is relevent to the ending.

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Be careful.

1. Probably 50% of the bad scripts I've read start off 'in a character's apartment slowly exploring his bookshelves/DVD collection etc'. It's such a cliche that if I read a script like that now I'm immediately in 'do I really want to read any more of this?' mode.

2. You have to make the requirement to show this object abundantly clear in the script so it's given the importance that it requires when the movie is shot and edited.

Personally I'd scrap the idea and find some other way to show this. What you want is to be sure that the audience sees the clue but doesn't realise until the end of the movie; misdirection is likely to work much better than showing a DVD case and hoping people remember it two hours later. Say you see him watching the movie in a scene which is about something else entirely; of course then you have to get the rights to show part of the movie in your movie, which could be a problem if you don't have a Hollywood budget.