"(Technically, when you look at the image below, you can see that the shot has been reframed and restaged. In the previous shot, the hero’s right foot stepped on a dead body. then slipped forward and twisted right. But in this angle, the hero is standing four feet forward, to the left of the dead body — his foot is not anywhere close to the corpse that supposedly tripped him. I approve of this image; it’s beautiful, superior cinematography, which nobody in a normal audience will ever realize was restaged. One lesson here is that the audience won’t notice physical inconsistencies, as long as the visual progression remains beautiful, logical, and meaningful.)"
This tickled my brain a little...I think now that I must "see" this sort of thing very frequently in film, but either I don't notice because the scene is swiftly moving along and I have to keep up, or my mind just fills in information in order to make the inconsistency make sense. Even as you laid the reframing of this shot out in plain view, I caught myself trying to explain the reframe like this, "Maybe idiot gambler just stumbled forward as the stranger was grabbing his shirt..." I wonder how many times I've filled in information like this without noticing myself doing it at all. I suspect this has implications for communication in general, too.
Thanks for this homework assignment! BTW, I enjoyed working on chiasms, too. Now it's a little hard to stop using them, actually! That's not a complaint, it's just kinda funny. I get a little excited when I see them outside of my own writing, too...it be like, "Ah-ha! I know what that is..."
Thanks Bridgette, always nice to talk to you. This psychological phenomenon, of learning a new skill or pattern, and then suddenly recognizing that pattern everywhere, is referred to as the "frequency illusion" or the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon". It's an important part of language, that in naming something, we create a mental category in our mind which allows us to master a new skill or tool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
"This tickled my brain a little...I think now that I must "see" this sort of thing very frequently in film, but either I don't notice because the scene is swiftly moving along and I have to keep up, or my mind just fills in information in order to make the inconsistency make sense. Even as you laid the reframing of this shot out in plain view, I caught myself trying to explain the reframe like this, "Maybe idiot gambler just stumbled forward as the stranger was grabbing his shirt..." I wonder how many times I've filled in information like this without noticing myself doing it at all. I suspect this has implications for communication in general, too."
/
Yes, this is one of the most important parts of communication, that A + B = C. In film, this is referred to as the "Kuleshov effect", which is that we can create synergy, coincidence, mirrors, or juxtaposition between combinations of information. Comics do this in a very formalized manner, with captions/text and images/panels/artwork. Layering information allows us to unlock a lot of the higher technical potential of narrative and communication, because now we can be suggestive or evocative with our content, by using implication and subtext as a useful tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect
/
The goal here is to draw in the audience, so that their imagination enhances the content available.
Squid Game is the most watched show in the history of Netflix, with more than 1.6 billion views. I wrote this analysis of the first episode — there are 8 more episodes I didn't dissect, if you care to watch them.
In "The Simple Art of Murder", Raymond Chandler walks through the past 100 years of mysteries, and explains how to write a compelling antihero set in a grim world. I think this section is particularly relevant, because it outlines how to write a Nietzschean hero:
"The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters
can rule nations and almost rule cities, in which hotels and apartment houses and celebrated restaurants are owned
by men who made their money out of brothels, in which a screen star can be the fingerman for a mob, and the nice
man down the hall is a boss of the numbers racket; a world where a judge with a cellar full of bootleg liquor can
send a man to jail for having a pint in his pocket, where the mayor of your town may have condoned murder as an
instrument of moneymaking, where no man can walk down a dark street in safety because law and order are things
we talk about but refrain from practising; a world where you may witness a hold-up in broad daylight and see who
did it, but you will fade quickly back into the crowd rather than tell anyone, because the hold-up men may have
friends with long guns, or the police may not like your testimony, and in any case the shyster for the defense will be
allowed to abuse and vilify you in open court, before a jury of selected morons, without any but the most
perfunctory interference from a political judge.
It is not a very fragrant world, but it is the world you live in, and certain writers with tough minds and a cool spirit of
detachment can make very interesting and even amusing patterns out of it. It is not funny that a man should be
killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what
we call civilization. All this still is not quite enough.
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and
it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man
must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be
such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual
man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of
it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do
not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am
quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively
poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He
has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s
insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a
proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively
sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a
hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of
awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were
enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in."
Also, I recommend this essay where Ian Fleming explains how he created the James Bond franchise, and what makes his novels a global sensation:
Yes, you understood it exactly. Literally everything that happens in a scene is a beat.
You are correct that this kind of analysis is very impractical to do on a regular basis. It's slow, and time-consuming, and as I mention above, usually you are better off writing new content, rather than overanalyzing existing material.
My point is, this is how to break down complex narratives into their smallest possible elements. This mostly provides 2 functions:
1.) When stuck, you can write down everything that is supposed to happen in your scene, and most of the time it will immediately become obvious why your story, or essay, or poem isn't working.
2.) When analyzing a complex professional movie or novel you don't understand, break it down into the smallest pieces to figure out what techniques are being used to create an exotic feeling in the audience.
To answer your last question, no, not every beat needs to build tension.
This is one of the big misunderstandings of fiction. Yes, all stories are based on conflict. Without dramatic tension, there is no story. But afterwards, there needs to be catharsis, which is an emotional exploration and interpretation of the previous conflict.
Stories can be quiet and gentle and slow, exploring the consequences of suffering, transformation, betrayal, and tragedy.
Thanks, I needed that reminder of my chief enemy, procrastination
Also thank you for the reminder of just how dystopic and gruesome media has become.. give them gladiators and they shall have their need for and strength for rebellion assuaged
Love ya BP, we know you're the one in the mask and we pray you spare us or are able to high stakes teach us before the other psychos get us
I have so many kind words. Really, I would kiss your lotus feet. I feel like I've found a master or one of the first trained mentats. Your writing is brilliant and has me laughing aloud and thinking deeply. I'm reading all of it as homework and I feel like I've stumbled on holy writ and genuine prophetic and visionary power. And dreaming. It's given me hope. Finally, someone who understands, and is articulate, and has a vision that's not a totally lame and zombified Atlantis reboot! You're right that God is not on their side. And that we're at a pinch point for a better timeline. Take care of yourself. You have a lot to do as Emperor of the Frogs before all is said and done. And don't underestimate us female autists. We're not all entirely bamboozled by our sexual powers and lonely pedestals.
This article is one of the early installments in what's planned to be a long-running series of tutorials breaking down literary, media techniques. Both for beginners, and advanced writers.
This series began with a tutorial about "Chiasmus", a prose technique:
I don't expect the rest of my tutorials to be this long, excess length is undesirable, but they will be as granular and autistic as they need to be.
One of the major problems of the modern publishing, film, and television industries has been the disappearance of a minor league ecosystem, where talented young writers could develop and learn. The macroeconomic reasons behind this are complex, it's worth a deeper exploration at some point. But one obvious example would be how book publishers expect polished debut novels, and no longer invest in short stories.
This is similar to expecting runners to finish a marathon at a competitive speed, without any previous jogs.
I'm a humble anon shytpoaster, who may or may not be a professional novelist and screenwriter in my Namefag public life.
The short answer is that yes, I have been formally, classically trained in the history and application of cinema, which I use IRL. But I prefer to keep the details vague, and hide behind the mask of anonymity.
Artistic freedom is dead; Woke propaganda suffocates the entertainment industry. We "Frogs" are building a subversive, parallel art scene in the digital, fringe ghetto of FrogTwitter — my friends Lomez, ZeroHPLovecraft, Aristophanes, Conan_esq, and Paulos MythPilot are some of the most notable figures in this nascent subculture.
Eventually we will outcompete and replace the traditional institutions, but this will take years. There's a massive amount of untapped talent among the Frogs, brilliant autodidacts who are bold and fresh and provocative. But they lack technical polish, which I plan to correct (in the small way that I can).
My motives are primarily selfish; it's liberating to have free artistic expression after years of self-censorship. And my own skills are improving at a fast pace; by teaching others, I teach myself. Writing these tutorials forces me to explicitly articulate insights that I already know, but didn't organize in a clear, structured format.
Brb, gonna watch Squid Game now...
In the meantime...
"(Technically, when you look at the image below, you can see that the shot has been reframed and restaged. In the previous shot, the hero’s right foot stepped on a dead body. then slipped forward and twisted right. But in this angle, the hero is standing four feet forward, to the left of the dead body — his foot is not anywhere close to the corpse that supposedly tripped him. I approve of this image; it’s beautiful, superior cinematography, which nobody in a normal audience will ever realize was restaged. One lesson here is that the audience won’t notice physical inconsistencies, as long as the visual progression remains beautiful, logical, and meaningful.)"
This tickled my brain a little...I think now that I must "see" this sort of thing very frequently in film, but either I don't notice because the scene is swiftly moving along and I have to keep up, or my mind just fills in information in order to make the inconsistency make sense. Even as you laid the reframing of this shot out in plain view, I caught myself trying to explain the reframe like this, "Maybe idiot gambler just stumbled forward as the stranger was grabbing his shirt..." I wonder how many times I've filled in information like this without noticing myself doing it at all. I suspect this has implications for communication in general, too.
Thanks for this homework assignment! BTW, I enjoyed working on chiasms, too. Now it's a little hard to stop using them, actually! That's not a complaint, it's just kinda funny. I get a little excited when I see them outside of my own writing, too...it be like, "Ah-ha! I know what that is..."
I hope you have a wonderful Holiday!
Thanks Bridgette, always nice to talk to you. This psychological phenomenon, of learning a new skill or pattern, and then suddenly recognizing that pattern everywhere, is referred to as the "frequency illusion" or the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon". It's an important part of language, that in naming something, we create a mental category in our mind which allows us to master a new skill or tool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
"This tickled my brain a little...I think now that I must "see" this sort of thing very frequently in film, but either I don't notice because the scene is swiftly moving along and I have to keep up, or my mind just fills in information in order to make the inconsistency make sense. Even as you laid the reframing of this shot out in plain view, I caught myself trying to explain the reframe like this, "Maybe idiot gambler just stumbled forward as the stranger was grabbing his shirt..." I wonder how many times I've filled in information like this without noticing myself doing it at all. I suspect this has implications for communication in general, too."
/
Yes, this is one of the most important parts of communication, that A + B = C. In film, this is referred to as the "Kuleshov effect", which is that we can create synergy, coincidence, mirrors, or juxtaposition between combinations of information. Comics do this in a very formalized manner, with captions/text and images/panels/artwork. Layering information allows us to unlock a lot of the higher technical potential of narrative and communication, because now we can be suggestive or evocative with our content, by using implication and subtext as a useful tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect
/
The goal here is to draw in the audience, so that their imagination enhances the content available.
I'd heard of Baader-Meinhoff before, but not the Kuleshov effect. I'll have to read this article, but memes immediately come to mind.
yes, exactly
I watched the episode to understand this essay - I wasn't expecting you to spoil the whole show.
Squid Game is the most watched show in the history of Netflix, with more than 1.6 billion views. I wrote this analysis of the first episode — there are 8 more episodes I didn't dissect, if you care to watch them.
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2021/11/17/squid-game-ranked-most-watched-show-on-netflix-ever#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSquid%20Game%E2%80%9D%20is%20officially%20Netflix's,with%201.6%20billion%20hours%20viewed.
No idea how i wasn't subscribed. Thank you for putting in the work on this.
Do you have any book recommendations on craft...writing or cinematic?
Sure bro, tons of recommendations.
I will be publishing tutorials eventually, would like to publish an article every 2 weeks, just been busy.
There are 2 brilliant essays which I recommend to everyone:
https://mysteryfictions.web.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/17139/2018/08/Chandler-Simple-Art-of-Murder.pdf
In "The Simple Art of Murder", Raymond Chandler walks through the past 100 years of mysteries, and explains how to write a compelling antihero set in a grim world. I think this section is particularly relevant, because it outlines how to write a Nietzschean hero:
"The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters
can rule nations and almost rule cities, in which hotels and apartment houses and celebrated restaurants are owned
by men who made their money out of brothels, in which a screen star can be the fingerman for a mob, and the nice
man down the hall is a boss of the numbers racket; a world where a judge with a cellar full of bootleg liquor can
send a man to jail for having a pint in his pocket, where the mayor of your town may have condoned murder as an
instrument of moneymaking, where no man can walk down a dark street in safety because law and order are things
we talk about but refrain from practising; a world where you may witness a hold-up in broad daylight and see who
did it, but you will fade quickly back into the crowd rather than tell anyone, because the hold-up men may have
friends with long guns, or the police may not like your testimony, and in any case the shyster for the defense will be
allowed to abuse and vilify you in open court, before a jury of selected morons, without any but the most
perfunctory interference from a political judge.
It is not a very fragrant world, but it is the world you live in, and certain writers with tough minds and a cool spirit of
detachment can make very interesting and even amusing patterns out of it. It is not funny that a man should be
killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what
we call civilization. All this still is not quite enough.
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and
it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man
must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be
such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual
man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of
it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do
not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am
quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively
poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He
has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s
insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a
proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively
sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a
hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of
awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were
enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in."
Also, I recommend this essay where Ian Fleming explains how he created the James Bond franchise, and what makes his novels a global sensation:
https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thriller/
How can you tell what is a beat and what isn't? It seems like literally everything that happens in a scene is a beat.
And you are saying that each beat ought to build tension otherwise it is not worth including in the story, right?
Good question.
Yes, you understood it exactly. Literally everything that happens in a scene is a beat.
You are correct that this kind of analysis is very impractical to do on a regular basis. It's slow, and time-consuming, and as I mention above, usually you are better off writing new content, rather than overanalyzing existing material.
My point is, this is how to break down complex narratives into their smallest possible elements. This mostly provides 2 functions:
1.) When stuck, you can write down everything that is supposed to happen in your scene, and most of the time it will immediately become obvious why your story, or essay, or poem isn't working.
2.) When analyzing a complex professional movie or novel you don't understand, break it down into the smallest pieces to figure out what techniques are being used to create an exotic feeling in the audience.
To answer your last question, no, not every beat needs to build tension.
This is one of the big misunderstandings of fiction. Yes, all stories are based on conflict. Without dramatic tension, there is no story. But afterwards, there needs to be catharsis, which is an emotional exploration and interpretation of the previous conflict.
Stories can be quiet and gentle and slow, exploring the consequences of suffering, transformation, betrayal, and tragedy.
Thanks, I needed that reminder of my chief enemy, procrastination
Also thank you for the reminder of just how dystopic and gruesome media has become.. give them gladiators and they shall have their need for and strength for rebellion assuaged
Love ya BP, we know you're the one in the mask and we pray you spare us or are able to high stakes teach us before the other psychos get us
Much love to you bro
I'm a woman
Yikes, let's just be frens.
I know, we're pretty scary when love is involved. Ok, frens
Kek, I'm just here to Fedpoast and build the art scene with my fellow autodidact Autist weirdos.
Thank you again for your kind words, you were very flattering, and I can relate to the struggle.
I have so many kind words. Really, I would kiss your lotus feet. I feel like I've found a master or one of the first trained mentats. Your writing is brilliant and has me laughing aloud and thinking deeply. I'm reading all of it as homework and I feel like I've stumbled on holy writ and genuine prophetic and visionary power. And dreaming. It's given me hope. Finally, someone who understands, and is articulate, and has a vision that's not a totally lame and zombified Atlantis reboot! You're right that God is not on their side. And that we're at a pinch point for a better timeline. Take care of yourself. You have a lot to do as Emperor of the Frogs before all is said and done. And don't underestimate us female autists. We're not all entirely bamboozled by our sexual powers and lonely pedestals.
Thanks bro, very kind.
I always appreciate promotion, thank you.
This article is one of the early installments in what's planned to be a long-running series of tutorials breaking down literary, media techniques. Both for beginners, and advanced writers.
This series began with a tutorial about "Chiasmus", a prose technique:
https://billionairepsycho.substack.com/p/storytelling-101-chiasmus
I don't expect the rest of my tutorials to be this long, excess length is undesirable, but they will be as granular and autistic as they need to be.
One of the major problems of the modern publishing, film, and television industries has been the disappearance of a minor league ecosystem, where talented young writers could develop and learn. The macroeconomic reasons behind this are complex, it's worth a deeper exploration at some point. But one obvious example would be how book publishers expect polished debut novels, and no longer invest in short stories.
This is similar to expecting runners to finish a marathon at a competitive speed, without any previous jogs.
I'm a humble anon shytpoaster, who may or may not be a professional novelist and screenwriter in my Namefag public life.
The short answer is that yes, I have been formally, classically trained in the history and application of cinema, which I use IRL. But I prefer to keep the details vague, and hide behind the mask of anonymity.
Artistic freedom is dead; Woke propaganda suffocates the entertainment industry. We "Frogs" are building a subversive, parallel art scene in the digital, fringe ghetto of FrogTwitter — my friends Lomez, ZeroHPLovecraft, Aristophanes, Conan_esq, and Paulos MythPilot are some of the most notable figures in this nascent subculture.
Eventually we will outcompete and replace the traditional institutions, but this will take years. There's a massive amount of untapped talent among the Frogs, brilliant autodidacts who are bold and fresh and provocative. But they lack technical polish, which I plan to correct (in the small way that I can).
My motives are primarily selfish; it's liberating to have free artistic expression after years of self-censorship. And my own skills are improving at a fast pace; by teaching others, I teach myself. Writing these tutorials forces me to explicitly articulate insights that I already know, but didn't organize in a clear, structured format.
Very cool!
Also, I liked what I read of your story so far. Looking forward to reading more later.