Inneresting 41
issue 41
February 26, 2021
Once is random. Twice is a coincidence. After that, it means something.
A motif can take a lot of different forms in a film or TV show: A familiar object. A repeated line of dialogue. Even a color that keeps showing up.
These repetitions draw the audience’s attention and help make connections between different moments and ideas. A clear motif can strengthen a story, uniting separate scenes into a cohesive whole.
This video from the Warner Jordan Education YouTube account breaks down some basic motif concepts using examples from films like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Skyfall, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Musical Motifs Connecting WandaVision together
Be forewarned: There are spoilers in this video.
Anyone watching WandaVision knows the track from the end of Episode 7 is a certified bop, but it didn’t show up in a vacuum. In fact, every episode before it primed you to jump out of your seat when you heard it.
Nearly every episode of the series features a cheeky play on a sitcom theme song from a different decade, but these aren’t isolated parodies. This video from Artsy Omni shows the patterns and connections between each song.
More examples? If you insist…
In this post, Jacopo Francesco Mascoli collects examples of how the film Vertigo uses the color of clothing and lighting to show the evolving relationships between characters.
This discussion handout for Run Lola Run includes some suggestions for motifs to watch for as you view the film.
Jeff Smith talks through a motif built around a billboard in Red, the last part of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy.
Recurring images are a crucial ingredient in video essays by Kogonada about mirrors in the films of Ingmar Bergman and hands in the films of Robert Bresson.
Highland How-To: Tracking Your Motifs
Highland 2 has a flexible way to track information like motifs within your story. Just use Named Markers!
A marker allows you to add text as a short note that will appear both in your document and in the Navigator sidebar. They look like:
{{%m: label}}
This versatile tagging system lets you decide what information you need to track through your story, and gives you an easy way to jump around and find different instances of a motif (or any other repeating event).
To find more tips on how to get the most out of Highland 2, visit our Knowledge Base!
Other Cool Things
You’ve seen it, you use it, and now you can learn its story: Check out this history of the PDF file format to learn the origins of the ubiquitous document format that took the internet by storm.
Take a look at this short note that screenwriter Dan O’Bannon sent H.R. Giger to describe the kind of creatures and locations he was hoping Giger would design for the first Alien film.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
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