Inneresting 20
issue 20
August 28, 2020
Picking up the Pace with Transitions
Screenwriting often uses transitions like CUT TO:
and DISSOLVE TO:
, but what’s really going on when we call out the transition from one scene to the next?
In this week’s blog post, we look at the how’s and why’s of transitions with examples from Crazy Rich Asians, Lady Bird, and Silver Linings Playbook.
More examples of transitions (and thinking like an editor)
A video focused on the uses of the dissolve between shots.
A collection of creative and memorable transitions from Stranger Things.
Alfred Hitchcock talks about editing, focusing on Psycho and the Kuleshov Effect.
A supercut of Yasujiro Ozu’s “pillow shot” transitions that demonstrate how to use a transition shot to create a pause to bridge scenes together.
We Need to Go Deeper — Transitions In Transitions
Transitions help move a story forward, and we’ve seen plenty examples of how to use them, but what happens when you need to write a transition that flows through an intermediate transition?
It’s a specific problem, and John has some suggestions in this blog post to keep things clear on the page – including distinguishing between cinematic transitions and literary ones.
How About Some Related Longreads?
(Otherwise known as books.)
If you want to dig in for more ideas about what you can do when cutting two moments together, go back to the OG of cinematic montage, Sergei Eisenstein and his book Film Form.
For a good counterpoint, consider Andre Bazin’s What Is Cinema?, which includes his writing about the possibilities of long takes and continuous action.
Or if you’re interested in how other types of art influence making movies, check out Angela Della Vacche’s Cinema and Painting or her collaboration with Brian Price, Color, The Film Reader.
Highland How-To: Forcing Transitions
Highland automatically recognizes most transitions (such as CUT TO:
or DISSOLVE TO:
) if you write them in ALL CAPS and put a : at the end. No tabs or right-alignment necessary.
But sometimes you need a right-aligned transition for something that Highland doesn’t automatically format. No problem.
You can force text to be formatted as a transition by starting or ending a line with >
.
Sara’s eyes flutter. She GASPS and then --
DARKNESS. >
For more tips on Fountain Syntax and how to tweak the way Highland 2 displays your writing, check out our knowledge base for additional tips.
Other Cool Things
According to the 1919 Screenwriting Manual Ten Million Photoplay Plots, there are only 37 types of stories for a film. Somehow “Velocipede Heist” didn’t make the list.
A discussion of Chamber Cinema (movies with limited locations) from earlier this year that’s worth revisiting for people considering produceable ideas for this moment.
If you want to make smarter choices when telling stories about destruction from space, try using this chart that estimates the destructive force of different-sized asteroids hitting Earth.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
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