keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

This is the seventh and last in a series analyzing a scene from The Grapes of Wrath . This entry is about suspense and surprise. When people think of suspense in movies, they tend to think of film makers like Alfred Hitchcock or big set pieces where you're on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen. All sporting events are built around suspense. Who will win? Will there be any memorable plays or blunders? Game shows and competitions are the same. Who will be voted off the island or eliminated? While the above are certainly good examples of suspense, suspense is actually at the root of any kind of storytelling. Suspense is anything that makes you wonder what will happen next. If you've ever watched a story and guessed early on how it comes out, it's boring to sit through. Why bother to watch if you know what's going to happen? Audiences want to know what will happen, but not too soon . The audience is counting on the storyteller to keep it in suspen...

This is the sixth in a series analyzing a scene from The Grapes of Wrath . This entry is about character arc. People change. They change as they age and as they experience new things. In drama, the conflict is a crucible for altering the main character's view of the world and him- or herself. Using Casablanca as an example, the Humphrey Bogart character starts out emotionally dead due to a failed love affair. His past political activities and his way of relating to others have both been frozen. When he is forced to confront his lost love, he undergoes a painful transformation. By the end of the film, he is once more alive emotionally and committed politically. The thaw that takes place over the course of the story is the Bogart character's arc. As John Truby writes in The Anatomy of Story , “Drama is a code of maturity. The focal point is the moment of change, the impact , when a person breaks free of habits and weaknesses and ghosts from his past and transforms...

This is the fifth in a series analyzing a scene from The Grapes of Wrath . For this entry, I want to talk about business. Business is what performers do in a scene besides delivering dialogue. An awful lot of animation, especially TV animation, has degenerated into talking heads. All the audience sees on screen are shots of characters talking. The animator spends a lot of time figuring out where to put in an arm gesture or a head bob to keep the character alive while the dialogue is delivered. It's boring for both the animator and the audience. It's better for everyone if a character has something to do in addition to speaking and the obvious thing is to give the character something to do that relates to the setting or the meaning of the scene. Business is something that is usually not in the script and is the creation of the director and the actors in working out the staging of a scene. The above scene is in a roadside diner and there are obvious bits of business as a ...

This is the fourth in a series analyzing a scene from The Grapes of Wrath . For this entry, I want to talk about conflict, obstacles and resolution. There are three types of conflict: character vs. character, character vs. circumstances, and character vs. self. In the past, these were often referred to as man vs. man, man vs. nature and man vs. self. What's important is understanding that without conflict, there is no drama. If Pa Joad walks in and asks for a 10 cent loaf of bread and they sell it to him, the scene is over. Furthermore, we've learned nothing new about the characters or the world they live in. Conflict by itself is valuable for what it reveals. The other important thing to realize is that there can be more than one kind of conflict in a scene. The more levels of conflict there are, the more interesting the scene and the more information gets revealed. In the above scene, we clearly have character vs. character. Pa Joad wants to buy bread and the waitres...

This is the third in a series analyzing a scene from The Grapes of Wrath . For this entry, I want to talk about the concepts of objective and motive. These two things are the motor behind every actor in every scene. An objective is a concrete thing that a character wants to accomplish. The motive is the reason the objective is important. The objective is the what and the motive is the why. The example I always give my students is that if the classroom is on fire, our objective is to get out the door. Our motive is to stay alive. In the scene above, Pa Joad's objective is to buy bread. His motive is the well-being of his family members. That same motive is what causes him to ask about the candy and then to purchase some for this children. The waitress's objective is to sit down next to the truck driver and hear a dirty joke. Her motive is pleasure. The cook's objective is to cook whatever is ordered. His motive is to earn a living so that he can survive. The tru...

This is the second in a series analyzing the elements in a scene from The Grapes of Wrath . For this entry, I want to talk about personality and how it affects the scene's action. The act of buying a loaf of bread is not particularly dramatic; it's not the kind of scene that performers fight to do. Yet, we learn an awful lot about Pa Joad, played by Russell Simpson, through his attempt. First, he is polite. While his conversation is with a waitress, not a profession high on the social scale, he always ends his sentences with "Ma'am." He never raises his voice to her, even when she doesn't cooperate. He is also persistent. While the waitress keeps throwing roadblocks in his way, he doesn't give up. He explains the reasons for his actions and provides as much detail as is necessary to move things forward. While he is quiet and deferential, he is also proud. When the waitress tries to get 15 cents out of him for the loaf and he can't afford it, ...

I'm going to do something different for several entries. What's above is a scene from The Grapes of Wrath , based on the novel by John Steinbeck, screenplay by Nunnally Johnson and directed by John Ford. The scene is only 3 minutes long and not central to the plot of the film. However, it is like a one act play that has all the necessary elements for drama. I became aware as an animator that a good performance depends very much on the script. Good actors with a bad script are fighting an uphill battle. There are many elements that have to be present in order for a performance to work. I eventually composed a list of these elements that can be summarized with the clumsy acronym spomcorbass , and I want to examine this scene in light of these elements. They are: S etting P ersonality O bjective M otive C onflict O bstacles R esolution B usiness A rc S uspense S urprise In the past, I didn't pay much attention to setting, but I've come to realize how critical it is. ...