Yesterday, I had a friend in town from the big city and we met a third friend out at a local festival. The three of us had lunch and then walked around the fest and art exhibits. What was interesting to me was the way the triangle worked. Two of us would walk ahead and then one would walk back and then the three of us would converge. In scripted life, it seems that triangles are fairly equal. You never forget that George Costanza is in the room when Jerry and Elaine have a conversation on Seinfeld. However, this joining and parting and rejoining is very interesting to me. I think it offers a lot of passive action that is rarely used in movies and T.V. except possibly soap operas, which I think are a breed unto themselves.
This balance required on T.V. where does it come from? I know there is some balance in threes and fours that helps story along and offers different balance than you can achieve with two people. When it's two people they tend to be more counterbalance and contrary like our main characters on Moonlighting or Remington Steel. Whereas the balance on ensemble shows allows for people to evolve and shift, and still keep a balance and keep it interesting. Think Sex in the City or ensemble shows like ER.
I think there are other issues with respect to balance in a specific scene, relating to the influence of cost. You don't want to have someone in a scene and have them have no real contribution to the plot or story or scene. That's waste and would tend to be edited out in re-writes etc. This all makes me wonder - what other kinds of influences are due to cost, even in this age of $100M movies?
No comments:
Post a Comment