I’m a bit of a movie buff so most of this is background noise for me, but Rabiger definitely writes in such a carefree way that it’s hard not to enjoy. He speaks on behalf of documentary filmmaking, but speaks in a way that it encapsulates that of regular film too.
Again, Word is dead for me so this post will consist of both note-like sentences and blog-worthy evaluation.
Plot is the organisation of situations, circumstances, and events that pressure a story’s characters.
“…the most fascinating characters often those contesting–heroically, and sometimes unsuccessfully– the way things simply are.” Think Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976), think the Crimson Bolt in Super (2010), think Frances Halliday in Frances Ha (2012). Think from the eccentric satirisation suburban/urban life of The ‘Burbs (1989) or Pain & Gain (2013) to a more understated Mean Streets (1973); the mundane re-imagined as the extraordinary. This is the basis for documentary.
A dramatic hero may be flawed and even pitiable. He or she may contest the way things are from outrage, self-righteousness, ignorance, innocent, obstinacy, conceit, or a host of other reasons.
Written more accessibly and in a more relaxed tone than the work of McKee (for the better), Rabiger knows his words aren’t to be taken as scripture and notes them as such, as opposed to the oppressive scribblings of the former. He seems less of the shouty guy from Adaptation. than McKee could ever try to be.
The three-act structure is an invaluable tool for organising story material. Apply it on a micro or a macro level–that is, to a single scene of the way scenes flow in an extended story.
The dramatic curve is an invaluable tool when you direct because with it you can interpret the unfolding action you’re filming and decide how to shoot it.
Rabiger’s point about how editing is really the “second chance to direct” struck me as particularly interesting, and a point which I will likely hold onto for future work. Apply the dramatic curve to your ideas, and use this judgement when shooting the action.
Pinpoint the apex or crisis of a scene, and the rest of the dramatic convention arranges itself naturally before and after the peak of the curve.
“Indeed, you find this escalation of pressure up to a crisis then lowering down to resolution in songs, symphonies [etc]…because it is as fundamental to human existence as… sex.” Love your work, Rabiger.
A beat is when someone in a scene registers an important and irreversible change. Often it’s when participants realise they have lost or gained an important goal. A beat signals a new phase of action, so you must film them astutely since they are your film’s most intense and dramatic moments.