Inaugural Post!

Hello readers. My name is Steve, and I am starting this blog for a number of reasons. First of all, I love film and TV. I love traveling to other worlds and other realities which can show us something meaningful about our own world. As an aspiring writer, I want to discover what makes some films and TV shows better than others: what makes them more effective at telling a story, what evokes a stronger intellectual and emotional response, what styles paint a more compelling tapestry, and what works have the best things to tell us about our world and what it could be. I welcome comments and discussion, but only if it is constructive. 

I have often found myself, after watching a film or TV show, wondering how it could have been better constructed to achieve the stylistic vision and message they were going for, or how one way to structure a plot is better than another way that I have seen it done. Let me give you an opening example which my friends have heard about a few times by now:

I recently watched the first seasons of two crime television shows: The Killing on AMC and The Chicago Code on Fox (which has sadly been canceled). The Killing is a crime drama that strives to rid itself of the procedural rules that dominate the traditional networks: that every episode focuses on a different crime or set of crimes, and that everything always returns to the status quo at the end of each episode. Instead, it focused on one murder and the spiraling consequences throughout an entire family and community as a whole. The Chicago Code came from a largely similar goal: to tell a serialized crime drama; though it decided to focus on the effects of political corruption and the hunt to bring down its most potent offender in the city of Chicago. Both shows had an episode with a particular plot and character development: an inexperienced cop promises the victims of a crime that the perpetrator will be caught and brought to justice and the more experienced cop is unhappy with that statement.

In The Chicago Code, the experienced and battle-torn partner chews out the rookie cop for saying this to the victims, for it's something that he should never do. Throughout the episode he tells him through verbose dialogue that he was foolish and wrong. In The Killing however, when the rookie cop makes that statement, the experienced cop just glares at him for 5 seconds and then walks away. All of that unnecessary dialogue was contained in one look on the face of an actress, and it told the entire story. That was a powerful moment. In contrast, I felt that theme cheapened by The Chicago Code--by using exposition as demonstration, it diminished its power.

I will expand upon this idea, that exposition is an inferior means of telling a story or making a point, in a later post. I hope that this example serves as a good taste of what is to come! In addition to individual points about story telling and film-making, I intend to write regular reviews on both contemporary films and recent classics. Expect a review of the film Independence Day soon!

The sky is the limit, and I hope you come back for more!