Why is STORY so hard for me ... how do you deal with it?

[BRANDON JAMESON]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8cpkwPAbY0

 

[Michael Tiemann]

[...] what I think i'm doing is mixed FK/IK spine, and using the tension in time where the two models conflict as my turn points. [...]

That sounds really cool!

And of course, the IK spine can create lots of tension. How else to explain the roles and ruts people fall into, and stay within, until some crisis either forces them out or extinguishes them forever?

 

[a whitmer]

In modern storytelling, creative and organic interpretaion of ideas will trump stories constructed - carefully or not - out of common SKUs (beats, folds, arcs, acts, etc). Film today has a highly interactive and accessible nature. Combine that with all the sound and visual technologies currently available to enhance the viewing experience (Red camera included), and our ability to create any imaginable reality. Writing for film must evolve along with everything else. Embracing the old beats and acts approach without question will mire your writing.

The past is by no mean irrelevant, but using all the cutting-edge technologies and business models to get a film produced and distributed, while ignoring the organic dynamics of screenwriting/storytelling is bound to bring you frustrations. Let it breathe, baby!

Studying Greek theater and reading every known book and studying favorite and successful filmmakers has its value, to be sure. But at the end of the day, it's just you and your story. The rest doesn't matter.



When I decide to write a story, I don’t think too much about what I want it to be. I just let things come naturally and this is how it turns out. It’s just how my subconscious works - Asqhar Farhadi, Academy Award winning director



Offer still stands to read your first ten pages.

Alex

 

[PatrickFaith]

In modern storytelling, creative and organic interpretaion of ideas will trump stories constructed - carefully or not - out of common SKUs (beats, folds, arcs, acts, etc). Film today has a highly interactive and accessible nature. Combine that with all the sound and visual technologies currently available to enhance the viewing experience (Red camera included), and our ability to create any imaginable reality. Writing for film must evolve along with everything else. Embracing the old beats and acts approach without question will mire your writing.

The past is by no mean irrelevant, but using all the cutting-edge technologies and business models to get a film produced and distributed, while ignoring the organic dynamics of screenwriting/storytelling is bound to bring you frustrations. Let it breathe, baby!

Studying Greek theater and reading every known book and studying favorite and successful filmmakers has its value, to be sure. But at the end of the day, it's just you and your story. The rest doesn't matter.

When I decide to write a story, I don’t think too much about what I want it to be. I just let things come naturally and this is how it turns out. It’s just how my subconscious works - Asqhar Farhadi, Academy Award winning director

Offer still stands to read your first ten pages.

Alex

I'm 100% with you on organic development and doing things that make sense to me personally, and not worrying about what a book says. Story I'm working on now is a re-entrant allegory concerning cancer (i.e. at a social,personal, cellular and quantum levels). It just so happens I spent the weekend correcting a story element on a proton pump that exists inside mitochondria that is responsible for breath/respiration, which btw looks to me like a old 8mm film projector sprocket where the light goes through. Also my personal approach to things is through simulations, which partially involves coding/instructions/writing, but the running model is what I study to know if my story is working. I recently built a semi public area in second life where I have a structured way of getting feedback on the story, doing a virtually walk through of the art work/storyboards/music and the simulations. So far this is helping me get feedback, with people connecting emotionally to it within 5-15 seconds (i'm not looking for technical response, but if they are touched by the story emotionally). Stepping back a bit, I realize my story covers over 2 billion years, visually zooms in/out at a factor of 10^19, covers for 4 feature films - so expecting it to be trivial isn't valid.

If I could say what I have learned from this thread and possible rename it: A good story should be hard to deal with.

 

[a whitmer]

If I could say what I have learned from this thread and possible rename it: A good story should be hard to deal with.

Maybe not hard to deal with / a good story will engage all of your resourses.

I wish I had a brain that could encompass even half of what you have here. How does one visit your second life? I'll give it a try, but again, even the simplest techie things can give me a meltdown.

a

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Stepping back a bit, I realize my story covers over 2 billion years, visually zooms in/out at a factor of 10^19, covers for 4 feature films - so expecting it to be trivial isn't valid.

Zooming from 8K to a single pixel (or vice-versa) is almost 10^4, so a 10^19 zoom range is about 5 of those back-to-back...if anybody is counting. Or, if you want to do it optically, it's about 64 passes through a 2:1 zoom, or 18 passes through an 12:1 zoom. (And for completeness, if you have one of those 90:1 TV zooms, it's about 10 passes through that.)

Fun!

 

[PatrickFaith]

Maybe not hard to deal with / a good story will engage all of your resourses.

I wish I had a brain that could encompass even half of what you have here. How does one visit your second life? I'll give it a try, but again, even the simplest techie things can give me a meltdown.

a

I will probably recode it in a few months with webGL/opengl interface, that way i can have a simple link where people can browse it on their normal computer & phones. Also the gaming interface can start to be developed around then. SL is real good for putting things together and having my techie poetry & writing friends review(i use to run the sims for international virtual poetry events a few years back), but it isn't for the techie feint of heart since you have to download a entire app and also create a user accounts (all available at secondlife.com ... but I'd say it was 10x harder then Facebook). Proton pumps and respiration is about the hardest thing to get a good handle on, it also directly effects everybody (I have no idea how many people realize they have a million nuclear turbines required to run when they breath, it's actually so insanely cool that people wouldn't even believe it in a sci-fi book). lmao ... which reminds me of the section in plato's republic where this guy is in a cave ...

 

[PatrickFaith]

Zooming from 8K to a single pixel (or vice-versa) is almost 10^4, so a 10^19 zoom range is about 5 of those back-to-back...if anybody is counting. Or, if you want to do it optically, it's about 64 passes through a 2:1 zoom, or 18 passes through an 12:1 zoom. (And for completeness, if you have one of those 90:1 TV zooms, it's about 10 passes through that.)

Fun!

Hey Michael, I need you to be my QA guy to check my math! One of the problems with my story is how things at a angstrom level are effected by large scale social events, and getting that into a compelling story that has legs for over an hour is where I have to constantly be creative. The first film fortunately only goes from from 10^-9 meters to 10^2 meters ...

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Hey Michael, I need you to be my QA guy to check my math!

No worries...I've been playing with much larger scales in my spare time (See http://mrob.com/users/chrisb/Fast-Growing_Hierarchy.pdf)

One of the problems with my story is how things at a angstrom level are effected by large scale social events, and getting that into a compelling story that has legs for over an hour is where I have to constantly be creative. The first film fortunately only goes from from 10^-9 meters to 10^2 meters ...

Damn! 10^-9 m = 1 nm, which is 250x smaller than the Abbe limit of green light, putting you solidly in the X-ray spectrum if you're going to image optically.

 

[Elsie N]

Hey Michael, I need you to be my QA guy to check my math! One of the problems with my story is how things at a angstrom level are effected by large scale social events, and getting that into a compelling story that has legs for over an hour is where I have to constantly be creative. The first film fortunately only goes from from 10^-9 meters to 10^2 meters ...

I'm going to assume the "angstrom" sized object you are referring to here is the mitochondria (legacy bacteria) in a cell, I've read in the past that taking Alpha lipoic acid can cause insult to the mitochondria which causes it to activate a longevity gene which benefits the mitochondria as well as the entire body... if that's the kind of interaction you were looking for.

Side note: Alpha Lipoic Acid is a synthesized version while R Lipoic Acid is the natural version with natural chirality... that is, the molecules have a natural twist.

 

[Elsie N]

Maybe not hard to deal with / a good story will engage all of your resourses.

I wish I had a brain that could encompass even half of what you have here. How does one visit your second life? I'll give it a try, but again, even the simplest techie things can give me a meltdown.

a

I think this is what makes Patrick's approach somewhat unique. That is, pulling story and production together into a state of symbiosis. Obviously a whole-brain approach.

 

[a whitmer]

It's no secret that some films are written for two audiences: the ones who just want to be entertained, and then those who are fully engaged with the deeper layers and meanings in the film (what the film is really about). You need the first audience to pay the expenses and hopefully make a profit. I think you'll have about 9 people in the second audience who actually get it, or most of it. It's the pyramid scheme behind film.

This goes beyond the simple double Intendre with its clever dialogue, or story withing a story. Matrix is good example. A whole lot of folks went to see it just for the effects and action. How many times did I hear - 'Oh dude, that was so cool!' And yeah, it was pretty cool, but more was going on ...



One can make a connection between the premise of The Matrix and Plato's Allegory of the Cave; once one accepts that The Matrix is an illusion, then the allegory of the cave becomes clear. The allegory is related to Plato's theory of Forms, which holds that the true essence of an object is not what we perceive with our senses, but rather its quality, and that most people perceive only the shadow of the object and are thus limited to false perception





a

 

[Elsie N]

It's no secret that some films are written for two audiences: the ones who just want to be entertained, and then those who are fully engaged with the deeper layers and meanings in the film (what the film is really about). You need the first audience to pay the expenses and hopefully make a profit. I think you'll have about 9 people in the second audience who actually get it, or most of it. It's the pyramid scheme behind film.

This goes beyond the simple double Intendre with its clever dialogue, or story withing a story. Matrix is good example. A whole lot of folks went to see it just for the effects and action. How many times did I hear - 'Oh dude, that was so cool!' And yeah, it was pretty cool, but more was going on ...



One can make a connection between the premise of The Matrix and Plato's Allegory of the Cave; once one accepts that The Matrix is an illusion, then the allegory of the cave becomes clear. The allegory is related to Plato's theory of Forms, which holds that the true essence of an object is not what we perceive with our senses, but rather its quality, and that most people perceive only the shadow of the object and are thus limited to false perception





a

I agree completely, but I think this can happen accidentally. That is, the writer/director are just trying to get a story on screen and somehow, subconsciously, tell the story in such a way that those who search for deeper meaning can find something to hang their hat on.

 

[a whitmer]

I'm sure it does happen accidently. A writer can be so well read that this 'borrowing' from multiples sources, be it Sumerian tablets, 8th century Japanese poetry, or 19th century Scottish fantacy novelist - or all three and then some - just pops out. This certainly doesn't mean that one who does not read much, if at all, cannot tell a compelling story that can translate into film, but my point is that when a writer does conscioulsy build two and three, or more layers into the story, it still needs to be entertaining to a large audience. An audience of 9 just isn't going to cut it. There needs to be a diciplined effort to keep a relatively easy-to-digest story running on the surface.

I do believe as well that a lot of entertainment, be it film or comics, is dumbed down to target directly that pyamid base, and without any real effort to be anything more than pulp entertainment. That is no less a valid business pursuit. Some years ago I was writing an article for a screenwriting magazine, and was asked to go back and simplify the language. They had some kind of number system they used to gauge complexity - or how many big words were used. I needed to bring this number down. Holy crap, this is an article for writers! Dumb it down, they said.


Take chess and American football for example. American football generates massive audiences, either through television or a stadium. The hype and focus ahead of and during important games can bring the country to a standstill. Ever watch a chess game? Or a game of Japanese Go? Can you see either stopping a train with a single move? Jimminy, watching bowling is bad enough. Of course football has its stratagies and spectacular plays (spectacular/spectator - appealing to one who looks on) and I really enjoy watching it, but these stratagies are more or less easy to understand, and supported by rough physical endurance and bashing of the horns. The size and speed of individual players, the distance they need to move, capitalizing on opportunities and mistakes, home advantage, weather conditions, noise and so many other factors can influence how a game is played, and its outcome. The stratgies in Chess or Go are far more 'mental' - and maybe even more complex, depending on one's criteria for 'complex' - and the only thing moving is the hand that hits the game clock. This is entertaining to very few people who can actually follow, and anticipate what one player's next move might be, or what move they themselves would make in a similar situation. The only way a mass audience is going to enjoy it is if pieces start blowiing up if unmoved after so many minutes. I'd watch that. I know when somebody fumbles in football. I have no idea when someone has made a fatal error in chess, or in how many moves this error will come to collect. Or what move the opposing player made to capitalize on the mistake without changing their overall stratagy. There are no whistles.

One reason I and so many others enjoyed The Di Vinci Code was because we could see what Professor Robert Langdon was thinking. How he was deciphering information. I suppose if those who are not chess players could see what a player was thinking, see the pieces move via their mind's eye, it could up the entertainment value. Or you could just add dancinig girls.

aw

 

[Greg McDonald]

In modern storytelling, creative and organic interpretaion of ideas will trump stories constructed - carefully or not - out of common SKUs (beats, folds, arcs, acts, etc). Film today has a highly interactive and accessible nature.

I see things like this written in brochures and on websites and in bios but I have no idea what they mean in reality. Can you give me one example of how a modern film, say from the last 1-2 years, is more interactive and accessible than a film from say, 20-25 years ago?

 

[a whitmer]

I see things like this written in brochures and on websites and in bios but I have no idea what they mean in reality. Can you give me one example of how a modern film, say from the last 1-2 years, is more interactive and accessible than a film from say, 20-25 years ago?

I will address 'accessibility' first ...


50 years ago was my first big screen experience. The Sound of Music was in town, so the family loaded up in the wagon and off we went across town to the only theatre around. We stood in line, we bought our tickets, our snacks, and got our seats - back when ushers actually were ushers, and intermission was part of the joy. It was a night out in all respects. A big life event that came along maybe 4 or 5 times a year. 25 years ago I drove to Blockbuster, browsed the titles, made a pick and took it home – with a reminder to please rewind. The advantage was that I could pause the film, and I could watch it several times during the rental period. The disadvantage was watching it on the then current television technology that wouldn’t catch up for some years. The whole movie experience was really lacking, at least compare to the ‘good ‘ol days’. I do think it was this feeling that drove the next television technologies.

Nowadays films are available – accessible – with the click of a button, or even by voice command. You can pick which scene you want to watch, enhance the quality, change the language, and probably a fistful of other options I have no idea how to use. The televisions are more or less current and watching a film at home can be engaging. But my issue with it is this ‘meh’ approach to the whole experience. You can watch part of the film and pause for later, or even for the next day or for the weekend. You can watch maybe twenty minutes, get bored with it and find another film to watch. It is soooo accessible these days, that it is right up there with about the same commitment as reaching into your pockets and counting your change. Certainly gone are the days when going to the movies was a real event.

Accessible also includes the making of the films. Good quality cameras, sound equipment, lights and editing equipment that can create a smorgasbord of effects are all readily available. One can find locations and actors and crews and funding via a number of online resources. If you truly are committed, you can make a film and get it ‘released’ in a number of ways. Practically anyone can be a filmmaker, and I do believe it is the new pulp fiction of our times. If and when all the dust settles, however, only a few greats will come out of it. A repeat of the paperback pulps. Even a cursory flipping through of short films on YouTube shows just how prevalent ‘filmmaking’ has become. One could argue that phenomenons like YouTube encouraged the spread of the art. Build it and they will come.

Short film has become a staple in the art, science and business of film. There is not much if any money in it, so a lot of up-and-coming filmmakers will use them to fine-tune their craft, and use these films as a calling card for paid work and hopefully that one big project that lights up the stage. Four of my favourite short films would be ‘Spin’, ‘Right Place’, ‘The Butterfly Circus’, and ‘My Name is Lisa’.

Spin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP59tQf_njc
Right Place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjkNlmsYwFo
Butterfly Circus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p98KAEif3bI
My Name is Lisa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiRHyzjb5SI


There, see how accessible those are?!

I am a member of a few writer forums, and you might be surprised just how many writers for film WILL NOT write for short film, or know little or nothing about it. Or what they do know is wrong. They have their eyes ONLY on the big sale of a spec screenplay, even with the odds stacked so fricken’ high against them. They want to stick to the tried-and-true (not) method of sending out queries, hoping to at least get read. And they sit in these forums for 15 or even more years bitching about the industry when all these filmmaking opportunities are sitting on their faces. When all these opportunities are readily accessible. Waaaay gone are the days where only a few studios ruled the industry. Independent film IS here, yet they choose to ignore it. Fathom that.

I do think that the Independent film industry will continue to grow for some time. And I do think that writing for film needs to catch up with all the technologies and accessibility film has, including the televisions (if we can even call them that anymore). I grew up on three-channel black and white TV, before uhf/vhf. Back when we’d sneak peeks into the back and watch the tubes glowing all amber. It was this big, mysterious box that brought magic into the house. It really meant something.

My point of all this, is that Patrick’s film is a product of all that came before, and will be released into whatever the current trend will be when that time comes. There might very well be a new ‘thing’ just around the corner none of us see coming. Something bigger than 3D. And it will be right there at our fingertips, and we can decide whether to commit to watching it start to finish, or in bits and pieces, or not finish it at all. Will Patrick’s film be interesting enough to keep us glued to our seats, be they in a theatre or at home, or on our handheld devices? He has to consider not only the story, but also the current environment in which it will be released - be it tomorrow or in three years - and the current attitudes and apathy audiences will have. Will it be pirated?

Actually I have stopped going to theatres. My last experience was so poor that I gave up the ‘event’ for life. We had some big dick getting phone call after phone call, disrupting the film, and no usher ever came to stop it. We can’t rewind the film and try to pick up the zone. That was it. Add getting your seat kicked by some asswipe who was certain I should be happy someone so amazing and perfect was taking the time to kick my seat. Add to that the ear-ripping volume films are played at, and the crunching of snacks, and I finally said F’it to the whole theatre idea. I have fond memories how it used to be when we were civil enough to respect the experience as a mutual gathering.

I can now watch The Sound of Music at home, and have some control over how I watch it, but no new technology has ever replaced the experience of seeing it on the big screens of yore, and the whole experience that went with it. Every red light on the way, every dressed-for-church family in line, and the popcorn with REAL butter. Penguin ushers, the rush to the snack counter - and bathrooms - during intermission, and the crisp bite of the night air when it was all over. Oh, and the beauty and elegant cadence of English in these films. Gone, gone, gone.


I have tons more to say, but need to eat.

alex

 

[Michael Tiemann]

[...]Add to that the ear-ripping volume films are played at [...] and I finally said F’it to the whole theatre idea.

This is what I hate the most--because it's just sloppy craft. I can totally understand the distaste one may have for parade of horribles that is the average American audience, but there is NO EXCUSE for sloppy craft, and it makes me feel like I've just wasted my time whenever I see it.

 

[Elsie N]

I will address 'accessibility' first ...


50 years ago was my first big screen experience. The Sound of Music was in town, so the family loaded up in the wagon and off we went across town to the only theatre around. We stood in line, we bought our tickets, our snacks, and got our seats - back when ushers actually were ushers, and intermission was part of the joy. It was a night out in all respects. A big life event that came along maybe 4 or 5 times a year. 25 years ago I drove to Blockbuster, browsed the titles, made a pick and took it home – with a reminder to please rewind. The advantage was that I could pause the film, and I could watch it several times during the rental period. The disadvantage was watching it on the then current television technology that wouldn’t catch up for some years. The whole movie experience was really lacking, at least compare to the ‘good ‘ol days’. I do think it was this feeling that drove the next television technologies.

Nowadays films are available – accessible – with the click of a button, or even by voice command. You can pick which scene you want to watch, enhance the quality, change the language, and probably a fistful of other options I have no idea how to use. The televisions are more or less current and watching a film at home can be engaging. But my issue with it is this ‘meh’ approach to the whole experience. You can watch part of the film and pause for later, or even for the next day or for the weekend. You can watch maybe twenty minutes, get bored with it and find another film to watch. It is soooo accessible these days, that it is right up there with about the same commitment as reaching into your pockets and counting your change. Certainly gone are the days when going to the movies was a real event.

Accessible also includes the making of the films. Good quality cameras, sound equipment, lights and editing equipment that can create a smorgasbord of effects are all readily available. One can find locations and actors and crews and funding via a number of online resources. If you truly are committed, you can make a film and get it ‘released’ in a number of ways. Practically anyone can be a filmmaker, and I do believe it is the new pulp fiction of our times. If and when all the dust settles, however, only a few greats will come out of it. A repeat of the paperback pulps. Even a cursory flipping through of short films on YouTube shows just how prevalent ‘filmmaking’ has become. One could argue that phenomenons like YouTube encouraged the spread of the art. Build it and they will come.

Short film has become a staple in the art, science and business of film. There is not much if any money in it, so a lot of up-and-coming filmmakers will use them to fine-tune their craft, and use these films as a calling card for paid work and hopefully that one big project that lights up the stage. Four of my favourite short films would be ‘Spin’, ‘Right Place’, ‘The Butterfly Circus’, and ‘My Name is Lisa’.

Spin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP59tQf_njc
Right Place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjkNlmsYwFo
Butterfly Circus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p98KAEif3bI
My Name is Lisa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiRHyzjb5SI


There, see how accessible those are?!

I am a member of a few writer forums, and you might be surprised just how many writers for film WILL NOT write for short film, or know little or nothing about it. Or what they do know is wrong. They have their eyes ONLY on the big sale of a spec screenplay, even with the odds stacked so fricken’ high against them. They want to stick to the tried-and-true (not) method of sending out queries, hoping to at least get read. And they sit in these forums for 15 or even more years bitching about the industry when all these filmmaking opportunities are sitting on their faces. When all these opportunities are readily accessible. Waaaay gone are the days where only a few studios ruled the industry. Independent film IS here, yet they choose to ignore it. Fathom that.

I do think that the Independent film industry will continue to grow for some time. And I do think that writing for film needs to catch up with all the technologies and accessibility film has, including the televisions (if we can even call them that anymore). I grew up on three-channel black and white TV, before uhf/vhf. Back when we’d sneak peeks into the back and watch the tubes glowing all amber. It was this big, mysterious box that brought magic into the house. It really meant something.

My point of all this, is that Patrick’s film is a product of all that came before, and will be released into whatever the current trend will be when that time comes. There might very well be a new ‘thing’ just around the corner none of us see coming. Something bigger than 3D. And it will be right there at our fingertips, and we can decide whether to commit to watching it start to finish, or in bits and pieces, or not finish it at all. Will Patrick’s film be interesting enough to keep us glued to our seats, be they in a theatre or at home, or on our handheld devices? He has to consider not only the story, but also the current environment in which it will be released - be it tomorrow or in three years - and the current attitudes and apathy audiences will have. Will it be pirated?

Actually I have stopped going to theatres. My last experience was so poor that I gave up the ‘event’ for life. We had some big dick getting phone call after phone call, disrupting the film, and no usher ever came to stop it. We can’t rewind the film and try to pick up the zone. That was it. Add getting your seat kicked by some asswipe who was certain I should be happy someone so amazing and perfect was taking the time to kick my seat. Add to that the ear-ripping volume films are played at, and the crunching of snacks, and I finally said F’it to the whole theatre idea. I have fond memories how it used to be when we were civil enough to respect the experience as a mutual gathering.

I can now watch The Sound of Music at home, and have some control over how I watch it, but no new technology has ever replaced the experience of seeing it on the big screens of yore, and the whole experience that went with it. Every red light on the way, every dressed-for-church family in line, and the popcorn with REAL butter. Penguin ushers, the rush to the snack counter - and bathrooms - during intermission, and the crisp bite of the night air when it was all over. Oh, and the beauty and elegant cadence of English in these films. Gone, gone, gone.

I have tons more to say, but need to eat.

alex

I've been saying here for years that the best result of the RED cameras will be to empower the Indie movie-maker. That was said at the time RED was promising to produce an affordable laser projector. (A cynic might suggest RED "sold out" to Big Hollywood (studios) to not disrupt exhibition if they would accept the use of their cameras in the mainstream.) ODEMAX also fit into that disruptive scenario.

If RED had followed through on the affordable laser projector, I could see movie clubs forming where they downloaded movies a-la-cart for the enjoyment of like-minded audiences on the movie club's big screen, or a movie-maker's traveling tent show where he or she exhibits their movie under the big top, much like a traveling circus.

 

[PatrickFaith]

I've been impaling myself on my follow focus today, but saw the thread update in the mourning as I was running around and have been pondering a point that you guys are focusing on. Basically I think what you guys are hitting at is the changing venue environment is changing story development and more fundamentally what a story even is. In my lingo the observer is the creator, so the observers space is modifying the creative space of the story.

 

[Craig Parkes]

The observer space has a huge impact on cinema:

A great example is Bollywood - India still has massive 1000 seat cinemas, which explains why big spectacle musicals with a bit of everything continue to be so successful, when you put 1000 people in one place it's almost impossible to have the quiet reverence to the big screen that people expect these days - rowdy audiences are catered to by even bigger, rowdier films which are easy to 'read' by the visuals and music.

The advent of the drive in had a huge impact on American cinema, and TV dialogue writing is so sophisticated today - because it has to compete with all the distractions of home - to get people to watch at home, you actually have to get them listening first, because their eyes might be on another screen. Fortunately technology allows people to rewind, so such sophisticated dialogue isn't a hindrance at all, but rather a hook to grab attention.

Spectacle for the sake of it will never cut it at home, not because technology means watching spectacle movies is disappointing at home, but because the environment has more distractions which makes it harder to be enveloped by that spectacle.

Cinema gives you room to breath and the bombast to blow away - but the style of story telling it encourages is absolutely impacted by the Observer Space.