Screenwriting Masterclass | Scene Transitions

welcome to our master class today we are going to talk about scene transitions we talk about all the nitty-gritty and let's look at today's schedule [Music] so first question whose job is it anyway so should you as a screenwriter be concerned about a cut because ultimately that's going to happen in the edit right that's the director's job transitions are in the screenplay one of the elements that you select when you format your script one of six elements that's the scene headings description character name dialog parenthetical and that is transition transition is the cut two that flushes to the right and that introduces us to the next scene it used to be customary that you would always write the cut to in the screenplay that's going rapidly out of fashion so what is what is left for you as a screenwriter to be concerned about at all what what should you be worried about in terms of these transitions so first of all is the subject what are you going to show what are you going to write in your screenplay that is visible as the last element of the previous scene the first element of the next scene because that's how stories are told by juxtaposing images so that is your first role think about what is going to be in the scene rather than how are you going to transition from one scene to the next because yes very often that is the territory of the director however when we look at a few quotes about the topic come across this one pundits and gurus will argue that the eventual director won't appreciate them and would likely utilize their own technical and artistic choices anyway they're missing the point writing cinematically is very important for the spec screenwriter most readers are just looking for a great read plain and simple this is ken miyamoto you can look him up you want to know who he is this quote is from craig mason he says i find that directors tend to appreciate that you've written with transitions in mind because it's really important to them and frankly if you don't write with transitions in mind some directors aren't going to notice and they're just going to shoot what you wrote and then it won't connect so both really say you should be concerned about what these transitions will look like first reason it's a visual medium you need to think visually and how you go from one scene to the next that is critical on the page transitions look somewhat like this this is taken from the oscar-nominated screenplay for the disaster artist which was nominated for best adapted screenplay back in 19 sorry 2017. here you have a whole lot of cartoons normally you would never see this but if you read you understand this is a different character speaking directly to a camera each time with a cut in between from the same screenplay we have the traditional cut to at the end of scene introducing the next scene but to show that this is going out of fashion and there are other ways of writing the cut too as an alternative to leaving it out altogether we see how they incorporate it into the description which makes for a somewhat more elegant read your eyes don't have to go all the way to the right of the page it's just easier and it's it looks less cluttered on the page so that is a way of doing it i'm not saying that you should start doing it in all your screenplays right now there still may be people frowning upon it um here we have established screenwriters who okay we who get away with that sort of things now these are some of the considerations when you write a transition what other things you need to keep in mind in some instances most instances the transition needs to be fluid the viewer shouldn't even notice the reader shouldn't even notice we should be engaged in the story you should bring us elegantly smoothly from one scene to the next so there shouldn't be this sense of a rupture or a break however there are instances in the screenplay when you want to deliberately tell the reader to take a breather to take a step back we're now going to enter into a new territory a new stage of the script in those cases you might want to emphasize the transition and draw attention to it so those are two very different approaches and you need to know which one you're going to tackle when you write your transition back to that page from the screenplay of the disaster artist yes i love that movie i think that nomination was well deserved and i would have been just as happy if it won there are as i said elegant ways of seducing your viewer your reader from one scene into the next and this screenplay uses one right there early at the beginning so greg at the end of this scene asks a question would you want to do a scene together and that's how the scene ends on tommy's face we cut to the next scene and then in the next scene is the answer so that's one of the transition tricks that we found on the script notes podcast and here's the overview of the five question and answer that's a really powerful very easy one that you should keep in mind it really uh empowers uh the reading of the script thematic echo that's where two images one before and after transition answer each other have something to say so the start of the new scene says something about what we've just seen before i'll give you an example of that in a minute micro macro very effective if you want to create a more obvious rupture if you want to kind of shake your audience away music and sound maybe a bit more technical and we'll talk about subject and format in a minute it's very common it's often the territory of the director where we hear dialogue of the next scene in the previous scene or vice versa or you have a split screen where one part is already in the next scene and the other one is still in the previous scene so it's a music and sound to use that power of transition misdirection is a very cool one i'll give you quite a few examples misdirection is again one that draws attention to the transition rather than making it elegant smooth and unobtrusive great example of question and answer is in titanic [Music] so you want to go to a real party [Music] very clear the question itself creates tension we want to know what happens next we won't notice the transition we're immediately in that next scene and that then gives the answer to the question and attention is resolved an example of thematic transition thematic echo you've all seen a hope and you may not have realized how it worked exactly but here it is the academic approach to 2001's classic cut between the first and the second chapter this time without the music so it was the the cut from the first chapter that was called the dawn of man and by showing the technology basically what kubrick was saying what you've just witnessed which is the butchering of one animal by the other that was actually where mankind originated so it kind of brought in this element of violence and juxtaposed it with who we are today technology misdirection great transition in the movie highlander where we have a natural wipe and it gives us the sense that we're still in the car park but then we go to a very different place [Music] [Music] from highlander a misdirection where you believe that we're just leveling up in the car park and we stay in the same time but we do a flashback to the middle ages in order to properly understand these five transition tricks i'm going to make the distinction more clearly between subject and format so let's look at those five tricks again the question and answer is something that you write it has to do with the subject of your story it is something that's in the scene in the the first scene and then the transition scene it's not something technical you write it and then you do it you see the director can still make a different decision on set and have the question the question answered but usually that will not happen so that's subject it's not a technical decision in the in the edit in the post the thematic echo same here it's written in the screenplay the meaning will follow from the juxtaposing of the subject in the one scene and then the ensuing scene misdirection can be a bit of both misdirection can be a result of what you wrote but often the director themselves they can decide how they present the subject and and make you think that you're looking at something else by a crossfade or going from a wide to a tight shot you think you're still in the previous scene and then you widen and you see here in it in a different scene so that doesn't necessarily have to be written in the screenplay by the writer but i would say it mostly is and i'll give you a good example with script later in this class of such a misdirection the micro macro is i'd say almost exclusively technical because that's the director deciding on the type of shot whether you're going tight or wide and you see here in this in this list we're going from the writer's responsibility more and more closely to the director's responsibility we end with music and sound which is almost always a decision made in post and that is often to make that transition more seamless in cases where otherwise it might have felt like a rupture in the story there are more tricks than in the list by craig mason and john august and i wanted to give you a few that i found interesting or important one of them you already know you saw this scene earlier in our masterclass i played again and see if you can find out what sort of transition we have here without scream we have no power yes it's dangerous work and that's why i need you to be at your best i need scarers who are confident tenacious tough intimidating i need scarers like like james p sullivan hey good morning metropolis it's now five after the hour of six am in the big monster city so this is a variation on the same principle we see with question and answer we have a question then we have an answer here we have some sort of an announcement or a declaration a statement and then the illustration of that so i would call it an illustration and we'll have different forms of illustration where the next scene illustrates what we heard in dialogue in the previous scene another classic example comes from the matrix i think we can handle one little girl they sent two units they're bringing her down now no lieutenants your men are already dead so what this trick does is making this transition smooth elegant seamless by using anticipation we visualize the words from the previous scene as a viewer we anticipate what that would look like and then we get to see it and often there is a surprise often it is a little bit different from from expected often it gives us a different slant it gives us some surprise but sometimes this illustration is necessary because it's a complicated a difficult um or a transition that is concerning to to to the writer where you're not 100 sure whether the viewer will get it so then your illustration is going to explain it's going to guide us from one scene into the next and here's an example from little women where that was essential because we are moving forward in time from one season to the next and the narration clarifies that in the spring we turned orchard house upside down with preparations for meg to attend sally moffat's coming out it was from uh julian armstrong's little women 1994. if you want to check it out but it's a technique that you will have seen in other films making that transition from one time frame into the next more elegant by adding narration over the transition it's kind of like the lubricant to not jar the audience because you don't want them to be confused and lose the plot another type of transition that is really common that is not so i'd say inventive or or unusual but you do it all the time without even realizing it is the ellipsis alfred hitchcock said films are uh ordinary life with the boring bits cut out and that's exactly what this type of transition does it cuts out the boring bits [Music] so you can tell there was a whole lot of driving going on that it was not of interest to the story so we cut to the end of the trip and that's a form of ellipsis just leaving out the uninteresting bits at the same time we saw driving and movement motion is a very powerful way of creating transition from one scene to the next as well so i would add that to the list as one of the techniques i found that in one of the references by the way and um i'd like to share that with you guys i might put it in the email following up to this class in which i also give you the link to the download to the recording a transition that is rarely mentioned and i think it's a very important one if you're in the business of writing who done it in many who'd done it right after we see the crime we see the perpetrator and then we don't realize it then the whole film is going to be who is the perpetrator we already saw the perpetrator right after the the crime was committed committed we didn't see at the time of the crime uh who did it we saw it afterwards the other way around in crouching tiger hidden dragon we see a foreshadowing we see scene with a character who's seemingly innocent and then in the next scene we see the theft of a sword that we will later learn was essentially committed by the same innocent looking character so here she's preparing to go to sleep end of the day so she can't possibly be the perpetrator right but by placing the two scenes in each other's vicinity we've subliminally set up that connection [Music] there we go fleeting shadow the sword's going to be robbed and we'll learn later on that was the character we just saw so by creating a transition from or to the perpetrator of a crime that becomes the mystery of the story you have subliminally set up a reason for the audience to then accept when the truth is revealed at the end of the story a more common transition type is where we match shapes where we match a visual hawks it's often called a visual hook or a visual echo here's an example from edward scissorhands and the rest of the neighbors they're really very nice there's no need to be nervous they're so eager to meet you you just have to be yourself myself that's right just your own sweet [Music] self [Music] [Music] in this case you would write in the screenplay dissolve too why because that indicates a change of the the world or the time frame or the reality of the the scene in this case we go from the present to the past it's a memory of edward it could have been cut you can do a cut on a matching shape but in this case it was going into the flashback and flashbacks are really important when it comes to transitions you need to find a transition that is smooth so the audience buys the flashback and again they're not confused or jarred by it another great example of matching shapes is at the beginning of apocalypse now all the children are insane quite complex montage the use of that shape of the fan and the helicopter it was there was an audio pre-roll so that we we heard the audio of the helicopter while we were seeing the fan that is a way of making that transition smooth that could be a play of um friends of all couples in the in the edit and ultimately coming to this result but the camera movement that really focuses on the fan indicates otherwise so the the it was clearly uh shot that way on purpose to then be matched with the helicopter so matching shapes or visual hook a visual echo and nandi i saw your question we'll get back to the thematic echo in a minute so i hope to answer your question and by the way after this segment i'll have a brief pause and allow you all to ask questions another example of the matching shapes you can have when a photo is taken and then immediately thereafter we see the actual photo on the screen this is healthy confidential bloody christmas the press love to label officer why you should know this is bigger than the police board the grand jury's convening indictments may be handed down will you testify no sir i won't the reason these matching shapes work is they provide continuity so there's something in the next image that refers back to the previous image it makes it easier for us to follow to create a thread in our mind so continuity through this matching shapes now this technique of taking a photo and going back to it is used very often sometimes to create the cohesion outside the actual transition in the next shot in chinatown you you will see the photos taken then the drama continues and only then we have the transition referring back to the photo here's what i mean when you get so much publicity you got to get blase about it let's face it jake you're practically a movie star thank you for matty sure go ahead lee i'm seeing pre-lap um written on a few scripts and um the obviously the sound what's the the correct way of formatting that um haven't quite formulated it in my head when to use it when not to use it is there any guidance there um i would say prelap is one of those really technical terms that i would reserve for the director there's a very elegant way for the screenwriter to do it without even venturing into technical territory and that's by using voiceover by just having the the line of dialogue said in voice over over the previous scene and then we entered the next scene and that dialogue continues within the scene does that make sense it does and then it does definitely an additional question if that then becomes audio or score is that uh another technicality i'd say non-diegetic music as in the score that's composed after the fact that not not part of the story i wouldn't mention it i would not bring that into the into the film unless if you make it diegetic sometimes you have those instances and they work quite well where it feels like you have score music come in say you know you hear beethoven's ninth pl starts playing right at the end of the scene and then we go into the next scene and we see someone playing a gramophone record so the the non-diegetic then becomes diegetic in that case you can do it but otherwise i would stay away from it it's really director's territory all right let's keep going and we are going back to the three c's for those of you who were here for the class on writing style and writing the script we talked about the three c's that were clarity concision and color clarity concision and color i believe that the transition too must adhere to these qualities in their own way they need to be clear in the sense that when you are in your normal flow you don't want to stop and make the audience breathe at a juncture of an action sorry an act or a sequence if you want to create a continuous experience the transition must be clear it means we need to understand where we are and there needs to be an element of continuity so when we land in the new scene we feel at home we don't we're not disoriented that we don't have to you know figure out things before we can go back to the story because the worst thing that might happen is that we lose track of the story so clarity remains the number one rule here as well a transition two needs to be concise i had an example that i was going to play yesterday i decided not to do it because it's so long it's a transition in barry lyndon the sally kubrick film that is uh revered for its cinematographic qualities and there is this one transition where we cut from a character making an appointment for our hero and then we see the hero in that appointment and the shot goes from close up to extreme wide and it takes about 30 seconds that's not concise i don't think today you will get away with it except for an audience that is watching the film in a festival or you know in an outhouse theater but if you write for a living you don't write author work you write work that can be easily visualized and where the story keeps moving so your transition needs to be concise finally instead of color colorful i'd say it needs to be compelling this compelling can take two meanings if this the transition needs to be inobtrusive elegant smooth seamless and unconscious then there needs to be some sort of anticipation you need to want to go into the next scene and the question answer is a great example so that compels you to go into that next scene compelling when you want to highlight the transition would mean fun something that's fun to look at that elevates your cinematic experience i love that phrase and i think the highlander transition was a good example that's a compelling transition it's a transition you remember i saw this movie in the 1980s i still remember that transition and i went back to it for this class so these these are the three c's for the writing of transitions clear and concise just like the writing in in your style and compelling to keep the audience engaged with the film now the biggest chapter into this class time place and action this is how you define a scene a scene is identified or characterized by a unity of time place in action that's a definition comes from theater and in film it becomes somewhat fluid maybe in theater the action is fluid as well although time and plays are very clear when we jump forward in time we usually know in film when we change locations we usually know because we see it when an action changes it's not always equally clear because depending on who is experiencing the film they might see one action as being more important than another more prevalent but as a writer you should know what the action is usually the action relates to the objective of the character what are they trying to achieve in the in the scene so these three will help you in writing transitions because in a transition usually one of these will change because if they all stay the same you're still in the same scene and you have no transition there may be a new shot but you don't have a scene transition so in this class we're particularly interested in transitions from one scene to the next so at least one of these elements needs to change many cases and the clearest examples of scene transitions are where each of those change you need to create a clear break from where we were before in the next scene we're going to be a new time a new place and it's going to be a new action here is a scene from kung fu hassle or at least the transition from one scene to the next and you'll see everything changes with a clear and quite abrupt cut this man's just fallen out of the window we think he's dead huh cut is the equivalent of a cut to white so you saw the sky that's the same as you know cutting to white and then fading into the next scene or similar so it's a clean sweep so we go from one scene and then change all three elements for the next scene and to do that very clearly no confusion that we are essentially in a new time place in action is by cleaning the the frame and that could be by having one color go extremely close on one element one object that then fills the entire screen or in this case the sky another example of transition where everything changes is in the untouchables i warn you for the violence and the gourd it's going to be bloody but it's important because it shows the contrast with the scene that follows and there is a what i would call a thematic echo here as well [Music] now i lay me down to sleep i pray the lord my soul to keep if i do die before i make i pray the lord my soul to take amen this sort of transition with extreme contrast is common in horror films and the film was directed by brian de palma who's quite versed in the horror genre and so here what he wants to show is the difference in the worlds of al capone and eliot national eliteness it will try to catch al capone and the question that this transition calls for is is this man going to be up to the task he lives in this you know idyllic pristine um beautiful peaceful existence and he's going to have to leave that world and go into the world of al capone so we see what al capone is capable of so that that carries a thematic resonance when we cut from one scene into the next and that's what i would call it the thematic echo it is an example of a transition where everything changes time plays an action and it is underscored by the contrast between the two so it is it is blatantly obvious that these worlds are different in the next example from the sci-fi movie moon where in the point of view of the main character we'll see an accident that happens to them and then we see the cut to the next scene now it is obvious that there's a big difference between the two scenes and and he will have passed out it looks like he's in a hospital or in a sickbay or something but later in the story we'll learn that there was quite a more profound difference between those two shots between those two scenes and i think that is underscored by the fade out so we'll see at the end of the first scene that you'll see at the end of the first scene there's a fade out and then we come into what is essentially a new character and he opens with a profound question that may not seem that profound at the time when we watch the film but it gets its resonance later in foreign thank you [Music] where am i break strong break between the two scenes through the the fade out the fade to black and that also carries um thematic resonance in this respect but that only comes across later it's not immediately obvious but it's it's a sense of foreshadowing here a clear break change of time place in action as well um in this shot from garca partially director's job because i would say this is heavily colored even though we are in some sort of deserty environment and the hues are yellow and then we cut to a scene that has contrast in in every sense we go from dry to wet from yellow to blue from wide to more tight and it i think it's another good example of cleaning the frame going for a shot in the second half of the transition then where it fills the entire screen to really start from scratch almost guess it must be the light i miss me in our next example you'll get to see two transitions quickly uh succeeding one another one a fade out and then a cut into the next scene change of time place in action massive change in the story this is at a halfway point the midpoint reversal of little miss sunshine and that then is followed by another clear cut that is a response to the dialogue of olive in the second scene [Music] [Music] great example of concision here as well no times wasted we cut straight into the next action what does it look like in the screenplay and are we absolutely sure that this fade out was intended by the screenwriter well it was this is the script by michael arndt and clearly he's written at this midpoint reversal fade to black because he understands that this is a pivotal moment in the story literally pivotal in this sense and so it is in the script this is an example of a pre-roll lee this is exactly what we meant earlier instead of writing pre-roll you have the voice in voice-over and then we go into the scene and then all of this present in that scene i'm going to conclude our class today with a few examples where we have a unity of these three elements actually there's quite a few clips coming still and i hope we we get through it so we start with the unity of time and then we'll have examples of unity of place in action because that then becomes the element you can play with in this case the two scenes we see play at the same time so the time is continuous there's no rupture in the time only place an action change such as this example in et can you talk can you say hi good example of visual continuity matching shape between the frog and et's finger plays at the same time but there's a change in place and action this is from gravity now it seems that there's a continuity of action but there isn't if you look at the script and you really break down the story a new action starts she's just completed one job and she's going to start a new job inside the um the spacecraft so the place changes we go from exterior to interior the action changes uh the only thing that is continuous is time and often doors help us with making those barriers clear clearly signaling these thresholds and here the same happens in space gravity film that seems to be happening almost continuous you signal the breaks between the scenes using a change in place and action the next example is an interesting one i want you to pay attention this is from three billboards outside ebbing missouri and it's an example of a transition that is prepared we're very concerned about continuity we want to make sure the audience know where and when we are in this case so as we are with the main character in the car we see a few characters cross the street those are the characters that we will see in the next scene so the time is continuous place and action change but because we see those characters previously there is a a great sense of continuity and and the scene and the the film keeps flowing more a elegantly there will be where does that leave me and you [Music] sorry i'm late denise did you put up those billboards to [ __ ] with the cops yet they're up you go girl you go [ __ ] those cops up what the [ __ ] do you think you're doing well a bunch of billboards like that you didn't think there'd be some kind of ramifications legally big ramifications cedric you want me to explain the legal ramifications a little punk like you and don't calm cedric there is a continuity because we saw the characters previously but there's also a continuity in the dialogue and the swearing between the two characters i'm going to skip the next one that was from michael clayton we're going straight to west world continuous time but a clear break in the place in the action i don't know what to do [Music] it's a great contrast in the field we have the high-tech inter interior and then we go to the classic western exterior the time is continuous in the next example we have the opposite we go from the western environment to the high tech in westworld the tv series you'll see very different in pace the reason is that what you're going to see right now is at a juncture of acts so this is not just a break between scenes it's also a break between two larger structural elements so higher level structural elements and that's where you can have a transition that is a little bit more leisurely paced oh my god they're so lifelike look at that he's perfect perfect is boring i'm more interested in the bad guys [Music] [Music] my it takes its time for a reason it gets away with it westworld tv show transition where we have a continuing time change of place in action the next example is from the truman show and i think this is a really interesting example because time again is continuous but not only do place and action change they expand they expand massively for the experience of the viewer yeah i found him truman so i came by him by night sure this is a midpoint reversal where he meets with his dad and this is the new scene where we see the show creator so now we know there's a different storyline happening example of a natural wipe from sunset boulevard some of you may have seen this before end of act one it was all very queer but queer things were yet to come this is an example of a continuing place a unity of place time and action are going to change it's the end of the day we stay in the house we stay we even stay in the room but we end the the time we end the day with a natural wipe to black a really interesting example of the same but done differently technically is from laura that's the outer premature crime mystery murder mystery from 1944 in which the main character falls asleep he's a detective falls asleep in the apartment of the woman he believes was murdered was killed and whose murder he has been investigating and you'll see in this this scene he falls asleep in the next scene the woman walks into her apartment she's still alive but there is no cut so the transition is imaginary the transition is in our minds the camera motion is fluid so this could be seen as some form of [Applause] misdirection and this is the scene break and this is the new scene this is from laura movie by autopreminger1944 and she's the title character the movie was so popular that uh the the most popular name in 1945 for girls born in the us was laura and the theme that you heard this was composed by david rex and the composer that i once met is still so popular that it is used in the new apple plus movie with bill murray and rashida jones another of my favorites taylor sheridan this is from his film wind river where we have a strong continuity of place and a change of time and action yesterday alex a student of the the first session pointed out that this is a variation to the silence of the lambs example where in the finale we have an example of unity of time misdirection but then we have a changing of the place and the action here this the place stays the same so it's not the exact same example so the place has the unity but the time and the action change to understand what you're going to watch you need to know the story of wind river is about a girl who was raped and murdered and this team is going to investigate and they go to the trailer of the boyfriend the boyfriend is inside and they want to talk to him so this is what we see can i help you uh yeah i'm i'm looking for my knight in shining armor so wonderful example of a transition into a flashback by unity of place and there's misdirection because we believe that we're still in the present but we're not a similar example we have in titanic when we stay with the boat but we go back in time so it's a unity of place change of time and action titanic was called the ship of dreams and it was it really was [Music] this is written in the screenplay this is not a decision by the uh the director to implement this in the case of titanic james cameron was the writer and the director that was not the case in wind river taylor sheridan wrote it but hang on i think he no he did he did direct it i'll take it back so these are examples of writer directors of each of these films both wind river titanic and also our next example from lone star written and directed by john sayles after this clip i'm going to show you how he wrote it in the screenplay it's interesting it's not the way i would recommend it but it is clear nonetheless lone star unity of place changing the time and the action charlie is one of your old-fashioned bribe or bullets kind of sheriffs he took a healthy bite out of whatever moved through this county it was in here one night back when jimmy herrera ran the place started over a basket of tortillas [Music] doesn't agree with me but the pressure is right jimmy got a kitchen full of wet bags most of them relatives people really like chickens so and we have matthew mcconaughey becoming the lead in this film check it out lone star this is the place in the script and as you notice there is no slug line we have a change of place sorry a change of time and action there's no slug line we stay in the same place this is how sales wrote this we pan down to the table the food has changed tortillas are in a straw basket instead of plastic the jukebox changes to another song and the light dims slightly so the whole paragraph is already in the past so i would have placed the slug line above that just for clarity but maybe for readability and to indicate that this is the way he's going to film it he keeps the reader in the illusion and we read it in the exact same way we experience it on the screen we're not aware of the slug line as we watch the film we know that we're not aware that we are in a new scene we're really seduced into it but i wanted to give you two examples of unity of action where time and place change but the action remains the same that can make for a really interesting effect first example is from citizen kane i thought you'd see it my words [Music] so clear example of a continuing action although we have a crossfade the crossfade or the dissolve indicates a change in time so moving forward in time the place changes but the action is the same it's still the same character as singing this is from nightcrawler floors was then transferred to saint joseph's hospital in serious but stable condition after suffering smoke inhalation [Music] we'll see our main character sitting and observing this action the same way he was sitting observing the tv and although it's not the exact same physical action it is part of the bigger action of stealing the bike and then selling it i don't know i'll give you 500. this is a custom racing bicycle sir designed for competitive road cycling this bike has a lightweight space-age carbon frame and handlebars position to put the rider in a more aerodynamic posture so it's quite sophisticated it's not obvious from the first uh moment that this is a continuing action it is a clear break in time and place but later then we realized that he was all along planning to steal this barking and sell it here's one example from midsummer where we have a continuing action but a clear break in time and place [Music] so we're no longer in the apartment we're now on the plane similarly classic ending to north by northwest a similar action where initially we're on the rocks [Music] rushmore [Music] i know but i'm sentimental and a bonus transition with thematic resonance now hitchcock is the master he's the absolute master that transition from mount rushmore to the train is at the same time a great example of concision it is hitchcock cutting out the boring bits straight from the resolution of the tension to the aftermath and a couple together and then we have the the thematic uh shot at the end we know what that image means because after all hitchcock is a dirty old man isn't he end this class with the transition scenes we're familiar with establishing shots this is an example of day night day from the film gallipolis watch business well when you point 12 o'clock to the sun north is halfway between the hour hand and 12. can you ride pleasure yeah why just wonder why you didn't drive for the light horse didn't want to what are you going to join the infantry not joining anything but you got to be in it don't have to if you don't want to you got to be no i don't free country haven't you heard she's gonna be in it be ashamed of herself if i didn't fight him well that only proves one thing that you and i are different let's drop it eh you of all people should be going why me of all people um with this i wanted to show that essentially the first and the last out of transition is the walking that is the transition we also want to show the forward the movement forward in time and the dialogue in the middle is really the only story element transition scenes here's a transition scene from casablanca again changing of time unity of place we go from day to night and that's the intro into the scene that is classic so these are transition scenes the one you know is the establishing shot the outside of a building we had a few we had the the the sacred city in beijing the day night day and then repeated action when you have a series of shots sometimes they are also considered um [Music] transition scenes any questions um one question um an example of maybe micro macro i was thinking i wanted to jump to mama's adaptation the orchids i bet you it is the most common transition you will find but there's nothing that comes to mind right now i mean i had that i had that michael clayton example where we go on the basket of keys coming from the wide exterior to the basket of keys interior there's the the there's that uh barry linden where we have the two characters talk about the meeting and then at the meeting we see the table with the guns which is again micro macro um but if you if you start looking out for it you'll realize that that is a very very common transition it's not not unusual at all but i'm going to make a note and i think adaptation is a great example because yes the the orchids are the micro the the tight shot that then is followed by the wide thank you that makes sense katie says in whodunit you see the culprit right after the crime which is helpful because that's what i'm working on right now good excellent and orlean says i love the idea of transitioning asking a question yes that is the easiest and arguably one of the most powerful techniques use it it will make the read for your your readers or producers more easy nani says what i got out of this class was that we see all these transition films but now i realize how writer can use them to tighten the screenplay absolutely good well done guys thanks for joining i'm going to edit this all together i'll send you the link hopefully that'll happen within the next week alternatively it'll always be the rough version uploaded for your reference also in case you ever miss a class it'll always be there enjoy the rest of your weekend and i'm looking forward to seeing you guys in a week's time take care

Channel: The Story Department

Views: 484

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: how to write a script, screenwriter, scene transitions, fade, cut to

Id: muOqWrGDmsg

Length: 60min 10sec (3610 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021