also, gintama is good but sometimes it is... problematic
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
also, gintama is good but sometimes it is... problematic
Wait... Gintama is done?? That's news to me, I watched the last episode available like last year which ended midstream with a "oh hey we thought we were going to be done, but the mangaka needs a bit longer to wrap things up"
Was that... Was that a bit? It's hard to tell sometimes with Gintama
I must begrudgingly admit that episode 3 of Hawkeye ripped pretty hard
Scenes had multiple games! Conflicting character dynamics were established in ways that were earned! Action sequences had escalations and punchlines! There was a half-decent portrayal of different levels of hearing loss!
A runtime of 38 minutes!!!!
I could've used more Zahn, but it feels like he's gonna come back based off his day-rate
+11
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I must begrudgingly admit that episode 3 of Hawkeye ripped pretty hard
Scenes had multiple games! Conflicting character dynamics were established in ways that were earned! Action sequences had escalations and punchlines! There was a half-decent portrayal of different levels of hearing loss!
A runtime of 38 minutes!!!!
I could've used more Zahn, but it feels like he's gonna come back based off his day-rate
Is this a term of art?
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
I must begrudgingly admit that episode 3 of Hawkeye ripped pretty hard
Scenes had multiple games! Conflicting character dynamics were established in ways that were earned! Action sequences had escalations and punchlines! There was a half-decent portrayal of different levels of hearing loss!
A runtime of 38 minutes!!!!
I could've used more Zahn, but it feels like he's gonna come back based off his day-rate
I’m really assuming he will be, yeah. Hopefully at least.
But yeah, that episode was super satisfying and it moved along so well. It’s wild how much character development, plot progression, AND cool ass action set pieces they accomplished in under 40 minutes and it never felt rushed. Echo’s flashback scenes were really well done, and that phone call with Clint’s son was just as impressive a bit of filmmaking as the Children-of-Men-as-fuck long take car scene.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
I must begrudgingly admit that episode 3 of Hawkeye ripped pretty hard
Scenes had multiple games! Conflicting character dynamics were established in ways that were earned! Action sequences had escalations and punchlines! There was a half-decent portrayal of different levels of hearing loss!
A runtime of 38 minutes!!!!
I could've used more Zahn, but it feels like he's gonna come back based off his day-rate
Is this a term of art?
Ah, shit, sorry. It's when a scene establishes a set of rules, plays with them, and has a payoff. A "game" is ancillary to the plot, something that seasons the scene but doesn't drive it.
In episode three of Hawkeye, since we're talking about it, the quiver of unpredictable arrows is a game. We're told the rules ("bunch of arrows in here, person pulling doesn't know what's what"), we see different results of that setup, we hit a payoff.
But on the not-action side, there're the scenes of miscommunication. Where the scene establishes who can communicate with whom, and there are limits. There's a setup of what the communication channels are, there are beats of comedic misinterpretation, there's a payoff where people are perfectly in sync or perfectly out of sync depending on which is more satisfying.
I apologize, I feel like I'm better at writing than I am at talking about writing, and I'm barely good at writing. But I guess my summarized definition of a game would be "A story that plays out within a scene"
Yup, Hit-Monkey is still pretty good; loving this series. Now they just have to stick the landing.
Yup, stuck it.
Even had a whole thing about the circle of life abuse and violence.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I must begrudgingly admit that episode 3 of Hawkeye ripped pretty hard
Scenes had multiple games! Conflicting character dynamics were established in ways that were earned! Action sequences had escalations and punchlines! There was a half-decent portrayal of different levels of hearing loss!
A runtime of 38 minutes!!!!
I could've used more Zahn, but it feels like he's gonna come back based off his day-rate
Is this a term of art?
Ah, shit, sorry. It's when a scene establishes a set of rules, plays with them, and has a payoff. A "game" is ancillary to the plot, something that seasons the scene but doesn't drive it.
In episode three of Hawkeye, since we're talking about it, the quiver of unpredictable arrows is a game. We're told the rules ("bunch of arrows in here, person pulling doesn't know what's what"), we see different results of that setup, we hit a payoff.
But on the not-action side, there're the scenes of miscommunication. Where the scene establishes who can communicate with whom, and there are limits. There's a setup of what the communication channels are, there are beats of comedic misinterpretation, there's a payoff where people are perfectly in sync or perfectly out of sync depending on which is more satisfying.
I apologize, I feel like I'm better at writing than I am at talking about writing, and I'm barely good at writing. But I guess my summarized definition of a game would be "A story that plays out within a scene"
Dude, you provide a unique and welcome insight that I love. This stuff is really interesting.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
+37
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
“Killing people is dope, but so is knowing who Tom Petty is.”
Hit Monkey continues to have just, wonderful dialogue.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
Black Widow and Hawkeye have both been...handled pretty badly in the MCU so far, in different ways, and it's really surprising to me that the post Endgame MCU stuff I've liked the most has been...the Black Widow movie and the Hawkeye show. It helps that both have largely centered around building up the new characters that are set to take up the mantle, and it really helps that both Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld are really good actors who are doing a fair bit to elevate the material.
I dunno, I'm trying to figure out why they can put something together like this and have it work and also put out Loki, which I thought was really bad
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Black Widow and Hawkeye have both been...handled pretty badly in the MCU so far, in different ways, and it's really surprising to me that the post Endgame MCU stuff I've liked the most has been...the Black Widow movie and the Hawkeye show. It helps that both have largely centered around building up the new characters that are set to take up the mantle, and it really helps that both Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld are really good actors who are doing a fair bit to elevate the material.
I dunno, I'm trying to figure out why they can put something together like this and have it work and also put out Loki, which I thought was really bad
Neither Black Widow nor Hawkeye are being used to set up the next Thanos, so they get to do their own thing. The MCU metaplot is what drags most of the individual entries down
I absolutely loved season 1, so I am here for this bullshit.
I am still not sure if Raised By Wolves was really fuckin' dumb, or really fuckin' smart
But I do know it looks and acts like nothing else on television, so yeah I'll show up for that
Yeah it's a weird one for sure
I actually hated the first two episodes and dropped it initially, only jumping back in on a random whim, and it turned into one of my favourite shows of the past few years
Also something about the title sequence terrifies the shit out of me and I love it
I have participated in much of the poking fun at Netflix’s Bebop online. I figured I should be fair to the show and at least watch the first episode. So I did.
I must begrudgingly admit that episode 3 of Hawkeye ripped pretty hard
Scenes had multiple games! Conflicting character dynamics were established in ways that were earned! Action sequences had escalations and punchlines! There was a half-decent portrayal of different levels of hearing loss!
A runtime of 38 minutes!!!!
I could've used more Zahn, but it feels like he's gonna come back based off his day-rate
Is this a term of art?
Ah, shit, sorry. It's when a scene establishes a set of rules, plays with them, and has a payoff. A "game" is ancillary to the plot, something that seasons the scene but doesn't drive it.
In episode three of Hawkeye, since we're talking about it, the quiver of unpredictable arrows is a game. We're told the rules ("bunch of arrows in here, person pulling doesn't know what's what"), we see different results of that setup, we hit a payoff.
But on the not-action side, there're the scenes of miscommunication. Where the scene establishes who can communicate with whom, and there are limits. There's a setup of what the communication channels are, there are beats of comedic misinterpretation, there's a payoff where people are perfectly in sync or perfectly out of sync depending on which is more satisfying.
I apologize, I feel like I'm better at writing than I am at talking about writing, and I'm barely good at writing. But I guess my summarized definition of a game would be "A story that plays out within a scene"
Dude, you provide a unique and welcome insight that I love. This stuff is really interesting.
Circling back to this not out of ego, but because I don't want to inadvertently lead anybody astray:
"Scene games" aren't really an industry-wide term or anything, it's just one of the ways I choose to talk about scenes. I've never taken a screenwriting class, I don't have a college degree, I taught myself writing by going to the WGA library and reading stacks of scripts and pulling them apart and seeing what made them tick. And so a lot of my terminology is kinda made up, or misappropriated, and could very well get me made fun of by colleagues some day.
Like, it was actually in a UCB improv 201 class that I took in my mid-twenties where I learned the term "game of a scene." And it was meant more as a guide for improvisers - how to give a shape and a rhythm to improvisation instead of throwing random garbage at the wall, how to identify what's working and defining it, heightening it, giving a payoff. For a whole bunch of improvisers talking about what they mean when they say, "game of a scene," here's a really great piece: https://www.vulture.com/2012/11/improvs-babel-defining-the-game-of-the-scene.html
And when I was reading stacks and stacks of scripts, when I started watching TV through that dissectionist lens, I noticed that scenes that had their own, self-contained games, in addition to whatever bigger overall plot beats were happening, were more entertaining to me personally. And I decided to study those, and figure out how to fold that kind of work fold it into my own stuff. I genuinely don't know if there's a "proper" name in the industry for this concept, all my shit's ad hoc - don't quote me on any of this shit.
Interestingly (to me, anyway), it's much more common to see scene games in comedies than in dramas. My theory there is that more comedy writers have done improv than drama writers, but that's largely speculation. The sitcom Speechless has a really dynamite scene game in the pilot - a mom and her son are having a heart-to-heart chat at the end of the episode. Sitcoms have done a million of em. The plot of the scene is about their emotional connection, about getting on the same page, about getting the emotional catharsis for that particular storyline. But the conversation is taking place as they're on one of those free-fall carnival rides, where you're slowly raised up dozens of feet and suddenly dropped back down. So this heartfelt conversation keeps getting interrupted by sudden spikes of the characters screaming and falling. There's a plot: characters reconcile. There's a game - they keep plummeting in the middle of sentences, with escalating emotional responses to same.
To me, scene games keep every moment of the show entertaining. Where somebody could walk in, see the show for the first time, and have SOMETHING self-contained and satisfying. They might not know these people or these plots, they might not have any investment, but a game gives them something discrete, something satisfying all it's own. They can think, "Oh, huh, that was cool. This show seems alright." And then they can go back and get the context for all the other shit, enjoy the rest of it, but you've given them tangible proof that this is a show that cares about entertaining its audience and not wasting their time. You've given them an onramp.
There are a lot of dramas where scenes are purely exposition-delivery systems, where a scene is only as interesting as what it does for the plot. It is very, very easy for me to... Stop watching those. I'm not saying that every scene needs to be completely standalone-entertaining, that you can't ever have a detective just run a plate and get a clue, but a show that cares as much about its moment-to-moment storytelling as its longterm plot is one I'm gonna like a whole hell of a lot more than one that doesn't. To circle back to what sparked this whole massive digression from me, it's the difference between Falcon/Winter Soldier and episode three of Hawkeye.
I think a lot of drama writers have an aversion to comedy, almost? Or, at the least, a condescending view of it. It's something that belongs segregated off in its own little corner of television, never to sully the sanctity of drama. But if scene games are good enough for The motherfucking Wire, they're good enough for me. (I was gonna cap this off by posting "The 'Fuck' Scene" from The Wire. But there are crime scene photos with nudity in em, so, uh, maybe look it up on your own time)
I mean, it's pretty how Fiasco runs. What is the scene? What the stakes in that scene between the characters there? What's the gimmick to set this scene apart from the others in the story and more broadly other scenes of this type? How does it play out and what do these things tell us about the characters in this specific context? Does it play into our expectations? Subvert them? Are the stakes suddenly different from what what we thought they were intially?
All sorts of knobs and levers to fiddle with to not just have everything serve the overall design, but add nuance and shading to the proceedings.
Matev on
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
I mean, it's pretty how Fiasco runs. What is the scene? What the stakes in that scene between the characters there? What's the gimmick to set this scene apart from the others in the story and more broadly other scenes of this type? How does it play out and what do these things tell us about the characters in this specific context? Does it play into our expectations? Subvert them? Are the stakes suddenly different from what what we thought they were intially?
All sorts of knobs and levers to fiddle with to not just have everything serve the overall design, but add nuance and shading to the proceedings.
My first TV boss is an ardent tabletop player, and he regularly rants about how aspiring drama writers should spend less time watching panels and more time playing Fiasco. He was even on that Wil Wheaton tabletop show back in the day, playing Fiasco.
So, uh, good instincts!
+17
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
There's a segment in one of the Fiasco supplemental books that talks about using Fiasco as a writing aid for fiction (as well as segments discussing its use for actors and educators). Sort of a roundtable interview affair, and I believe the TV writer in question is one of the people included in it.
+6
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
That's interesting stuff still, Pooro. It's funny, because I am familiar with improv scene games (theater nerd here) so the logic does track. It's good to know that it isn't a term of art, but it's still useful in writing terms.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Posts
I mean, having a world-wide quest for a less revealing swimsuit WOULD explain some of the outfits.
and at all future points, as the show is done
also, gintama is good but sometimes it is... problematic
Extremely problematic.
Maybe it's an episode where he finally fails to not be funny
Wait... Gintama is done?? That's news to me, I watched the last episode available like last year which ended midstream with a "oh hey we thought we were going to be done, but the mangaka needs a bit longer to wrap things up"
Was that... Was that a bit? It's hard to tell sometimes with Gintama
Scenes had multiple games! Conflicting character dynamics were established in ways that were earned! Action sequences had escalations and punchlines! There was a half-decent portrayal of different levels of hearing loss!
A runtime of 38 minutes!!!!
I could've used more Zahn, but it feels like he's gonna come back based off his day-rate
Is this a term of art?
I’m really assuming he will be, yeah. Hopefully at least.
But yeah, that episode was super satisfying and it moved along so well. It’s wild how much character development, plot progression, AND cool ass action set pieces they accomplished in under 40 minutes and it never felt rushed. Echo’s flashback scenes were really well done, and that phone call with Clint’s son was just as impressive a bit of filmmaking as the Children-of-Men-as-fuck long take car scene.
Ah, shit, sorry. It's when a scene establishes a set of rules, plays with them, and has a payoff. A "game" is ancillary to the plot, something that seasons the scene but doesn't drive it.
In episode three of Hawkeye, since we're talking about it, the quiver of unpredictable arrows is a game. We're told the rules ("bunch of arrows in here, person pulling doesn't know what's what"), we see different results of that setup, we hit a payoff.
But on the not-action side, there're the scenes of miscommunication. Where the scene establishes who can communicate with whom, and there are limits. There's a setup of what the communication channels are, there are beats of comedic misinterpretation, there's a payoff where people are perfectly in sync or perfectly out of sync depending on which is more satisfying.
I apologize, I feel like I'm better at writing than I am at talking about writing, and I'm barely good at writing. But I guess my summarized definition of a game would be "A story that plays out within a scene"
"absolutely not, let's see where this goes."
I absolutely loved season 1, so I am here for this bullshit.
I am still not sure if Raised By Wolves was really fuckin' dumb, or really fuckin' smart
But I do know it looks and acts like nothing else on television, so yeah I'll show up for that
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
And we're getting Zari tag-teaming???
Even had a whole thing about the circle of life abuse and violence.
Dude, you provide a unique and welcome insight that I love. This stuff is really interesting.
Hit Monkey continues to have just, wonderful dialogue.
I dunno, I'm trying to figure out why they can put something together like this and have it work and also put out Loki, which I thought was really bad
Neither Black Widow nor Hawkeye are being used to set up the next Thanos, so they get to do their own thing. The MCU metaplot is what drags most of the individual entries down
Yeah it's a weird one for sure
I actually hated the first two episodes and dropped it initially, only jumping back in on a random whim, and it turned into one of my favourite shows of the past few years
Also something about the title sequence terrifies the shit out of me and I love it
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
My fucking god, this episode is a 43 minute long panic attack.
8 years later, and I still can't fathom how this aired on NBC.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
But hey this week's episode was all about magic characters and we got to see
And we called the Kanye joke coming a mile away.
Hopefully the next one is better.
I thought the second episode was a lot better.
Anyway, Netflix’s Bebop sucks out loud.
What a remarkable show. I have no idea how they do it.
Edit: Like, this sounds sarcastic, but I would watch a full sixty minutes on how they tag and sort their footage.
How to enjoy wine is a fever dream
Then the bang guy baby shower happened
It has become mine and the SOs new fav show to watch after partaking in special treats.
Every episode is just such a damn journey.
Circling back to this not out of ego, but because I don't want to inadvertently lead anybody astray:
"Scene games" aren't really an industry-wide term or anything, it's just one of the ways I choose to talk about scenes. I've never taken a screenwriting class, I don't have a college degree, I taught myself writing by going to the WGA library and reading stacks of scripts and pulling them apart and seeing what made them tick. And so a lot of my terminology is kinda made up, or misappropriated, and could very well get me made fun of by colleagues some day.
Like, it was actually in a UCB improv 201 class that I took in my mid-twenties where I learned the term "game of a scene." And it was meant more as a guide for improvisers - how to give a shape and a rhythm to improvisation instead of throwing random garbage at the wall, how to identify what's working and defining it, heightening it, giving a payoff. For a whole bunch of improvisers talking about what they mean when they say, "game of a scene," here's a really great piece: https://www.vulture.com/2012/11/improvs-babel-defining-the-game-of-the-scene.html
And when I was reading stacks and stacks of scripts, when I started watching TV through that dissectionist lens, I noticed that scenes that had their own, self-contained games, in addition to whatever bigger overall plot beats were happening, were more entertaining to me personally. And I decided to study those, and figure out how to fold that kind of work fold it into my own stuff. I genuinely don't know if there's a "proper" name in the industry for this concept, all my shit's ad hoc - don't quote me on any of this shit.
Interestingly (to me, anyway), it's much more common to see scene games in comedies than in dramas. My theory there is that more comedy writers have done improv than drama writers, but that's largely speculation. The sitcom Speechless has a really dynamite scene game in the pilot - a mom and her son are having a heart-to-heart chat at the end of the episode. Sitcoms have done a million of em. The plot of the scene is about their emotional connection, about getting on the same page, about getting the emotional catharsis for that particular storyline. But the conversation is taking place as they're on one of those free-fall carnival rides, where you're slowly raised up dozens of feet and suddenly dropped back down. So this heartfelt conversation keeps getting interrupted by sudden spikes of the characters screaming and falling. There's a plot: characters reconcile. There's a game - they keep plummeting in the middle of sentences, with escalating emotional responses to same.
To me, scene games keep every moment of the show entertaining. Where somebody could walk in, see the show for the first time, and have SOMETHING self-contained and satisfying. They might not know these people or these plots, they might not have any investment, but a game gives them something discrete, something satisfying all it's own. They can think, "Oh, huh, that was cool. This show seems alright." And then they can go back and get the context for all the other shit, enjoy the rest of it, but you've given them tangible proof that this is a show that cares about entertaining its audience and not wasting their time. You've given them an onramp.
There are a lot of dramas where scenes are purely exposition-delivery systems, where a scene is only as interesting as what it does for the plot. It is very, very easy for me to... Stop watching those. I'm not saying that every scene needs to be completely standalone-entertaining, that you can't ever have a detective just run a plate and get a clue, but a show that cares as much about its moment-to-moment storytelling as its longterm plot is one I'm gonna like a whole hell of a lot more than one that doesn't. To circle back to what sparked this whole massive digression from me, it's the difference between Falcon/Winter Soldier and episode three of Hawkeye.
I think a lot of drama writers have an aversion to comedy, almost? Or, at the least, a condescending view of it. It's something that belongs segregated off in its own little corner of television, never to sully the sanctity of drama. But if scene games are good enough for The motherfucking Wire, they're good enough for me. (I was gonna cap this off by posting "The 'Fuck' Scene" from The Wire. But there are crime scene photos with nudity in em, so, uh, maybe look it up on your own time)
All sorts of knobs and levers to fiddle with to not just have everything serve the overall design, but add nuance and shading to the proceedings.
My first TV boss is an ardent tabletop player, and he regularly rants about how aspiring drama writers should spend less time watching panels and more time playing Fiasco. He was even on that Wil Wheaton tabletop show back in the day, playing Fiasco.
So, uh, good instincts!