WE SEE the car explode

[Joe G.]

Pulling a few bad examples does not prove the case that the technique is somehow terrible.

The usage and the context is what matters. Oscar-winning films have used this technique for a long time (as has been touched upon above).

"We see" is useful when you want to reveal something to the audience, the viewer, without necessarily revealing it to the characters. In most other situations it can be considered a waste of words, a style choice.

Where it works, it works. Nothing more to see here.

 

[alexwhitmer]

Does this mean we should agree that different techniques work for different writers and that we should allow that writer to use any method he deems creatively necessary to convey the message and story?

I think the best example of just that is Quentin Tarantino.

If you write for yourself, or with a prodution group who has no qualms either way, then by all means write how it best caters to the story and to the folks who will be married to it all through production. In my someday book I harp on this quite a bit. You can write your screenplay on a bar napkin for that matter, so long as you are the one in control of that script and its production. If you wrote for spec, however, I caution against the use - or over-use is probably a better slant - of we, of ING verbs, adverbs, and the verb to be.

 

[Antony M]

I am not a writer, but...

Without using "We see..." or "We hear..." how do you distinguish between an explosion which you see AND hear on screen, and an explosion offscreen which you only hear?

 

[alexwhitmer]

See and hear ...

EXT. BUSY DOWNTOWN INTERSECTION - NIGHT

Jack and Takako exit a cab, dash across the street toward a club. Suddenly, a deafening explosion rips apart a nearby car, knocks Jack and Takako to the pavement. Shattered glass rains down.

Hear ...

EXT. BUSY DOWNTOWN INTERSECTION - NIGHT

Jack and Takako exit a cab, dash across the street toward a club. A distant , unseen explosion echoes through the city canyon, startles Jack and Takako.

JACK
WTF was that?

The remnant of a car headlight drops next to his feet.

 

[Kholi Hicks]

See and hear ...

EXT. BUSY DOWNTOWN INTERSECTION - NIGHT

Jack and Takako exit a cab, dash across the street toward a club. Suddenly, a deafening explosion rips apart a nearby car, knocks Jack and Takako to the pavement. Shattered glass rains down.

Hear ...

EXT. BUSY DOWNTOWN INTERSECTION - NIGHT

Jack and Takako exit a cab, dash across the street toward a club. A distant , unseen explosion echoes through the city canyon, startles Jack and Takako.

JACK
WTF was that?

The remnant of a car headlight drops next to his feet.

To each their own, obviously. It's strange to see "we see" or "we hear", that doesn't make it bad. As Ruairi already exhibited, plenty of the best writers in cinematic history use such.

In your above example, you spell out a ton. To me, it's not a very good example of writing what's seen or what's heard in a captivating fashion.

I'm not going to tell you it's bad, though, because at the end of the day it gets the point across in some way. And, so, the same respect should be paid to those choosing to write in a fashion that illustrates their points the best way they know how.

 

[Joe G.]

"WIDER
A regular math classroom used as a detention after hours. We see signs of an old school dressed to be more modern: green chalkboards, repainted walls..."

"He looks at George. As he talks, we see he has a gold front tooth..."

"We see the image of the Plutonium canister with old Dr. Brown next to it..."

"Through the windshield we see arms and legs flailing about..."

"In the background, the DeLorean zooms off, and we see light from the offscreen TIME TRAVEL GLOW..."​

-Back to the Future, by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale

(Utterly terrible?)