You wouldn’t think I’d get much out of a YouTube channel
called Lessons from the Screenplay, but Michael isn’t so much fixated on the
nuts and bolts of screenwriting – devote so many pages to Act I, that kind of
thing – as he is story structure. For film buffs, these videos offer great
insight into what makes great movies work so well. And for aspiring novelists
like myself, there’s a whole lot of transferable knowledge to be gleamed from
these pieces.
Case in point: Michael’s examination of the control of
information in Ex
Machina.
In this video essay, Michael takes a look at how the author
can control the reveal of information solely based on which character’s
perspective the audience/reader shares in a given scene. It’s a deeper dive
into point of view than the internal first-person/omniscient third-person
perspectives we all learned in school, and it’s something I’d been thinking
about given the branching storylines in the book I’m writing.
The essay also takes a look at the importance of the
revelation sequence during the characters’ (and audience’s) journey of
discovery, as well as when to connect – and not
connect – the dots. With any luck, by the time I'm done I'll have done these things correctly.
If you haven’t seen Ex
Machina yet, two things you should know:
- This video is full of spoilers.
- You really should check out this movie – it’s excellent.
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