Caught in a compromising position, it’s only natural for a character to immediately deny that all the visible evidence isn’t telling the whole story.
In North by Northwest, Roger Thornhill goes to the UN to track down the man he believes kidnapped, interrogated, and forcibly intoxicated him the night before. While talking to the actual owner of the house Thornhill was held at, an assassin throws a knife into the man’s back. As Thornhill reacts by pulling the knife out, all he can shout to the crowd surrounding him is “Listen to me, I had nothing to do with this!”
It’s a Wrong Man setup within a Wrong Man setup: The people who kidnapped Thornhill and framed him for murder think that he’s actually George Kaplan. Being photographed at the scene of a murder and being pursued by both law enforcement and the mysterious men who think he’s a spy, this setup elevates that moment of confusion and gives momentum to the rest of the movie.
Without those larger reasons behind it, denying what it looks like you did (or are doing) can be a quickly defused (and a little tired) joke:
So where does it work? What helps take this relatable moment of embarrassment or confusion and make it land for an audience?
Die Hard spins this type of moment, highlighted by David Duprey, where Hans Gruber pretends to be a hostage. Instead of giving the audience “It’s not what it looks like,” from Gruber when John McClane catches him moving around inside the building, Gruber’s fake out turns the tables and forces McClane to declare that he’s not one of the armed thieves despite what he looks like.
Oscar Blakeborough takes us through a scene from Fight Club where the narrator engineers a misunderstanding by beating himself up in his boss’s office, staging the moment so he can blackmail his boss. It’s a combination of the stakes, showing exactly how far the Narrator is willing to go to achieve his goal, and the editing of the moment when other people first come into the scene that elevate this potentially trope-y beat:
The magic tricks and narrative structure of The Prestige rely on misdirecting the audience and convincing them that what they think they’ve seen isn’t quite the truth. Mike D’Angelo breaks down how the editing of the sequence introducing The Transported Man illusion plays with the audience, simultaneously telling them it is and it isn’t what it looks like.
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WGA + SAG-AFTRA
Yesterday SAG-AFTRA announced they are also going on strike. While the full details are still coming out over what was offered in the negotiations, it’s clear that many of the disagreements between SAG-AFTRA and the studios share common ground with issues the WGA raised during negotiations. For example, on AI:
During the 2023 round of negotiations, the union has been seeking to codify consent and compensation terms for performers when their work is ingested into AI technology, and create guardrails around potential uses. The AMPTP said it offered a “groundbreaking AI proposal which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator and national executive director, on July 13 denounced the proposal for only paying background performers for one day of work in exchange for the rights to their digital likeness “for the rest of eternity with no compensation.” He added, “If you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”
How long will these strikes go for? It depends on when studios make a good faith effort to return to the bargaining table, where the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are waiting to finish negotiating a fair contract. That good faith effort is key to any negotiations, as SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher pointed out during the press conference Q&A:
And getting a 12-day extension is unprecedented in this union. We did it in good faith; they didn’t come back with anything. They duped us so that they can keep promoting their summer movies another 12 days. They went behind closed doors. They kept canceling our meetings with them. It was really very discouraging and disheartening.
We want to remind you of ways you can participate and support the effort to create a fair contract protecting the future of writing as a profession!
If you are interested and able, join a picket line and show your support. The Writers Guild also has a list of other ways to help.
Okay, this Write Sprint is exactly what it looks like.
Each week we post a comment thread for writers to meet up, cheer each other on, and put some words on the page with a Write Sprint.
What’s a Write Sprint?
John wrote up an explanation, but here’s the short version: Set a timer for 60 minutes, close down all distractions, and do nothing but write until that timer goes off.
Shout out to last week’s Sprinters Mark Leiren-Young, Brian Matusz, Elyse Moretti Forbes, and John Harvey!
New for you to Weekend Read!
This week’s collection brings together some memorable workplaces from TV, including Abbott Elementary, Superstore, and Ted Lasso!
Whether you unlocked the Pro version or downloaded it for free, you can check out these pilot scripts and add them to your library.
Weekend Read 2 fits screenplays perfectly on your iPhone or iPad. No more squint, pinch & zoom when trying to read on the go.
This new update to Weekend Read also makes it easy to add and share notes on a script while on-the-go, and the Read-Aloud feature lets you go eyes-free and listen to your scripts narrated in a range of high-quality voices.
See for yourself—Download Weekend Read 2 from the App Store!
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Michael Ignatieff covers the anxiety of influence when looking at the ways systems that require innovative creative thought often fail to foster that creativity in individuals.
What else is Inneresting?
Henry Boseley argues that Rotton Tomatoes measures the wrong things, or at least presents data in the wrong way. He suggests that an average of critical reactions isn’t helpful in making viewing decisions, and people should seek out specific critics who share your taste:
Om Malik watches the Arnold Schwarzenegger docu-series and reviews it as an example of content pollution: cheap, optimized content that “floods the zone” and makes finding worthwhile information more difficult.
Reading the room
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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🗣 Have ideas for future topics (or just want to say hello)? Reach out to Chris via email at inneresting@johnaugust.com, Mastodon @ccsont@mastodon.art, or Threads @ccsont@threads.net