Slight change of plans. I billed this installment last week as “A Unit Of Entertainment”—the importance of building a conflict and a resolution into every chapter of your serial fiction, and some tips on how—but that post’s turning into a term paper, plus I want to embed some examples from a specific story, so as soon as I wrestle the word count down and get clearance to reproduce a short script I did for a friend’s upcoming book, we’ll tackle that one.Probably next week.
In the meantime, this week’s post was cued by a question from a longtime listener/first-time caller.Christine asks: “I often overdo captions, probably because the theatre bug always makes me want to monologue, and captions can be a monologue broken up over corroborating or subverting images. What are the ideal ways to use a caption as a character-revealing and/or story-telling device in a short or long comic?”
This is an awesome question, because answering it gives me license to rant about my least-favorite narrative device in modern comics: multiple narration. You might want to put on a helmet for this. But first, let’s address Christine’s questions more directly.
Captions can be a great character-revealing device when they are used sparingly. First-person narrative captions, in particular, are a great way of letting us into the characters’ heads. But—as I keep insisting—comics is a visual medium. That means the writer has to be careful not to overuse captions in lieu of showing us the story. I wrote THE FLASH for DC for ten years using captions in the “first person immediate” tense, but that was a character choice—it made sense to me that the fastest man alive would be telling his stories in the moment. The danger was always the temptation to tell more than show. It’s deceptively, temptingly easy for a writer to overwrite captions because they’re generally the easiest part of scripting (it's so much easier to write monologue than dialogue). But the comics page is all about balance—words and images working in tandem to tell a story with depth and immediacy that that neither can accomplish alone.
Here are my pocket guidelines about caption use:
One: Err on the side of paucity. You really don’t want to have more than about twenty words in a caption, max—in script terms, no more than two lines of type across the page. (This applies to word balloons, as well, btw.) Any more than that runs the risk of creating a big block of type that’s just wearisome to read. And four of those in one panel and eleven of those on one page exhausts the reader. Don't make each page a chore.
Two: Always be aware that the caption creates a distance from the story that word balloons and thought balloons do not, same as v/o narration creates a distance in film. If there’s something about your story that demands that distance, go to it. But always ask yourself if dialogue might be a better way to immerse your reader more fully into the story.
Three, and most important: Find ONE VOICE for your captions. ONE.If your captions are third-person, stay with that. If they’re first-person, find ONE narrator and stick with him or her. Do not cross the streams. Do not interrupt the reader by confusing him as to who’s talking. And for the love of God, American superhero comics, stop having five different characters narrating a scene when all I, the reader, have to differentiate their voices is caption color. This has gotta stop. Frank Miller introduced multiple narration to mainstream comics twenty years ago with BATMAN: YEAR ONE, which was narrated half by Bruce Wayne (in scratchy, handwritten journal-entry captions) and Gordon (in faux-typewriting font captions). It worked then because it was fresh and exciting and the two voices and two caption styles were radically distinct. Now it is old, tired, and easy, and as storytelling tricks go it runs the risk of creating more confusion than insight.
(This makes my head hurt worse than anything in comics today: This month’s issue of Superteam X is tag-team narrated by everyone on the team plus their android butler, and immediately, I’m lost in a narrative where the voices are all the same but I’m supposed to know—and remember from panel to panel and page to page—that all the red captions are Team Leader’s, all the orange ones are Spunky Sidekick’s, all the blue ones are Plucky Speedster’s, etc. I’m not talking about a Rashomon set-up where Each Hero says to the group, “Okay, here’s what I think happened” and then we flash back to three pages that are clearly narrated from that particular POV. I’m talking about—I am not making this up—coming across an eight-page fight sequence with so many heroes narrating it that they ran out of colors. Martial Artist’s captions were medium-blue, Subatomic Guy’s captions were dark blue, everyone all sounded the exact same anyway, and the writer got to clock out at two-thirty rather than actually have to put some effort into integrating words and pictures. Multiple narration is very hard to do well and not for beginners.)
As in TV or film or the stage, comics captions/comics narration can be used ironically, can be used to reveal character, can be used to artfully step over the dull stuff...but they should work with the story you’re telling, not in isolation. Balance, balance, balance.
Ah, Stork Job. You started as the most depressing writers' room day ever -- "Hey, let's research Eastern European orphanage scams" -- and turned into our classic Mission: Impossible homage. This is the fun of doing Leverage. Bank Robbery bottle show, high-rise rappelling, classic Sting horse race heist, saving a church ... now going to Belgrade and finding a missing boy while butting heads with arms dealers. It's our little movie every week; sometimes crime-y and sometimes action-y.
Although I always cite late 60's TV as the model for the show, my Dad recently pointed out that I spent a great deal of my youth consuming the old Bantam Doc Savages from my Grandfather's cabin. Once you look at the Lester Dent master pulp fiction plot I internalized at age 12, I think we can safely say -- we're writing pulp here, people. Juicy, old school pulp.
This episode has one of my favorite scenes of the year in it, but it's spoilery, so we'll talk about it next week. The writer of the episode, Albert Kim, is a pretty great amateur photographer, although not quite as sharp as his wife Jennie. So, instead of my blathering let's look at spiffy backstage photos -- like the one above, showing first-time director Marc Roskin going over the script with Tim. Yes, Tim's hair is funny. There's a reason. Now, what else do we have in here (all pictures reveal a high-res version when clicked)...
The episode is very Beth-centric, by the way. Oh, and those weren't her parents who lived in that house she blew up. Now whether those nasty abusive people were still in there or not ... choose the answer that you like. We're never, ever going to tell you everything about these characters. For example, you have no idea exactly who Sophie was married to at age 17, do you? Or why when Eliot said "I don't like guns" in the pilot, he added "... you know that." to Nate. Why would Nate know that?
Let's see -- writer Albert Kim enjoying the thrill of the Steadicam under the expert guidance of our A Camera Operator, the legendary Gary Camp.
Hmm ... I can't show you a picture of Gina in her wardrobe for this episode, not only because it's too spoilery, but too mind-shatteringly ... sure, Moffat got her kit off. We're the ones who put her in boots and ... anyway, here's a lovely one of the gals instead:
Who else is doing this?
Nobody, sir. And finally -- "What is Howl Force?"
I cannot tell you. You are not ready for the soul-shredding truth behind Howl Force!
For those keeping track at home, this is actually Albert's second script of the year, which shot around sixth or seventh for the production cycle. His first script was the second episode shot, The Snow Job, which airs soonish. It'll be interesting to see Snow Job in that context. We were definitely still hacking out what the show exactly was at that point, and it's a much more contained crime/con game than later episodes. Big fun fact for that episode -- that actually is how you fake out an MRI.
Right, enough pimpage, let's get to those questions from last time. Spoilers now, because you can get all the episodes from iTunes and Amazon VOD.
Antonia:So are there any behind the scenes pics of whatever DB did to, how did you phrase it? Something about steamy?
Weirdly, that's the one episode I don't have pics from. Personally, I didn't get it. Apparently, though, chicks dig DB Sweeney s a tormented priest fighting to save a church with his fists and his heart. *shrugs*
Richard Jensen:Point the Second: "Toe pick"? (Puzzled look?)
From The Cutting Edge. Have your wife or girlfriend expain. I assure you she can.
Michael:'m curious to see if you got any right wing hate mail for the episode that portrayed security contractors in Iraq as greedy, corrupt and violent.
There was a bit of a kaffuffle on the TNT boards about the reservist health care isssue, but they were quickly shut down by actual veterans showing up and saying "Yeah, that's really happening." The sad thing is, a lot of the people who posted were talking about how there are all these great programs taking care of soldiers after combat. Which is true, but like all programs conceived by fallible humans and run by the government, people fall through the cracks. A lot of Americans just don't want to wrap their head round the fact that when it comes to the men and women who serve this country, we have to try harder, and saying were not a hundred percent there is somehow implying that we don't care, we're bad, the country is bad, blah blah blah. Policies are instruments of governments, which are run by men, who are elected by the people. The entire point of the goddam country is that these men are not special. Criticism of any policy or any of those men is not inherently unpatriotic. I hope that simple, binary way of looking at things is passing.
Oh, I'm sorry, the contractors? No, nobody had any problems with that.
Mike Cane:You mentioned Hardison footage cut out of Miracle. Was it actually shot? I hope you're saving all those bits.
That, and how Parker got the FBI car in Bank Shot, and a few others. Sadly, when we're cutting for time the stand-alone flashbacks are the first things to go. They'll show up on the DVD's.
Maya:Reading about all the magic that is done with the green screen shots I was wondering if the actors really are looking at what the audience sees on the six plasma screen TVs when they're filming all those conference room scenes.
About eighty percent of the time they're looking at the actual video playback of imagery, the other twenty green-screen. We usually only green-screen those shots when the episode requires images that are shot out of order, or if the playback hinks up the actors' timing.
Casey: So what was your major reference source for the cons as far as books or docs go? And which was your favorite?
We've got the reading list around here somewhere ... ugh, too late in the evening for me to dig it up. Start here and branch out, you can't go wrong. We wound up with a bookshelf of criminal biographies, tech hacking manuals, and the like we took pieces from as they amused us.
rrwood:One of the greatest challenges you, as the creator/writer, face in creating episodic television is the fact that we, the audience, know that things are always going to work out-- that the hero is always going to be back next week, and that deep, fundamental changes to the formula of the show are not going to happen. This means that the easiest tools you'd use to crank up the dramatic tension in say, a movie, are locked up and off limits to you, and you guys have to work your butts off to keep us interested. And in addition to the can't-kill-the-heroes straight-jacket, you guys have a number of other pretty obvious restrictions, given the nature of the show ...
Which is why all TV shows are really about the evolution of the characters' relationships. You don't know how that's going to turn out. Hell, Nate and Sophie wound up unspooling differently than we anticipated.
That said, the pulp model applies. We want you to be hooked enough on how they'll solve THIS problem that just popped up, and then the next ten minutes later ... our complications are varied enough, too -- not a medical mystery or straight crime procedural -- that at the very least the obstacles probably aren't ones you've seen before. Commenter kinesys actually answered this question pretty well in the original Comments.
Kathryn: One question about The Bank Job (based on the sneek peak): Elmore and Leonard? Was that a nod to the author, because that was my first thought when I heard the names. But then, being a Supernatural fan and the fact they use aliases based on rock music performers, I may just be trained to think that way.
Hardison chooses the aliases for all the fake ID's they have. They tend to have some significance to the heist at hand.
gwangung:Ha. Then you'd love a friend of mine's theatre in New York. He specializes in battle choreography theatre; every single one of his shows features multiple battles (10, 12, 15 at a time), spanning all sorts of disciplines. Why, yes, he also does shows for the NY Comic Con. Why yes, he almost always features female protagonists (dressed in skin tights, very popular with said Comic Con). One show was a Shakespearean zombie/kung fu pastiche....
Personally I disapprove -- aw hell, just post the damn website address.
Tal:Do you ever wish you had more time to devote, or the budget to devote existing time to different cons? Because some of the cons that seemed really interesting to me (getting the assistant to confess, modifying the text of a Congressional bill) seemed tossed off as asides.
Every week, kiddo. Every week. 42:30 is a bitch. I think by about halfway through the season, we finally found the right balance.
Daiv: Am i mistaken? Or is that a fridge full of Jones Soda (with Real Sugar) that Elliot is pulling from in the beginning? (though he clearly did not get a bottle of Soda).
Hardison has a thing for orange soda. Jones was nice enough to provide some delicious beverages. Everyone wins.
Anonymous:Love the show -- it's definitely my current favourite! Had a question though -- who pulled the switch with the pizza box and the briefcase at the end of 'The Bank Job'? Hardison was talking to the judge the whole time, Nate was shot, Sophie was tending to Nate ...
That's just how good they are.
Yes, that's the answer. Now walk away.
Seriously, though, that's both one of the bits cut for time, and one of the times when the physical layout of the bank, didn't match exactly what was needed for one of the switch moves (the counter is on the wrong side of the actors) . So sometimes, you let this stuff go. We had a similar issue in The Snow Job and even Two Horse had a bit which was much more convoluted and involved the outside walls of the entire stables, not stalls. Choreography on location sometimes just doesn't want to cooperate.
R.A Porter: (Bank Shot) was my favorite episode to date, with great scene chewing from Michael O'Neill.
He's a villain, baby. With a skinny tie! Seriously, this episode was pitched as "This is our Western." Michael absolutely nailed the big Western villain tone.
EmanG:OK, not a flame but a serious question. Why does Burn Notice get to keep shooting in Miami yet Leverage has to move away from Chicago to LA? I may be in AZ these days but I'm still a firm believer in/member of the Chicago production scene and I know that this show would be that much better in a place other than LA. I want to see a regional cinema. Stories from and set in Cleveland, Portland, Chicago, Kansas City. LIfe doesn't just happen in LA, a place stories and characters go to die in the sameness. Damnit, give me a livable wage in Phoenix and a writer that can live on the same and I'll give you programming about not just the characters, but the place they live in. And too many of us live in places not at all like LA not to have our stories told, our visuals sold. To not to at least try to have that represented, no?
Unfortunately shooting in a city requires much more than just actors and the willingness to work there. A certain level of infrastructure is needed to do a series as opposed to a short, one off movie, and Chicago just didn't have what we needed at that short notice and on our tiny, tiny budget. The fact that we were all clustered around the Doghouse post-production facility is to a great degree what allowed us to shoot the show independently. Even for bigger studios, shooting in other cities is often prohibitively costly as far as physical production goes. Remember, TV shows bleed millions of dollars while they shoot, and recoup almost none of it until foreign sales and DVD. LA is streamlined to keep those costs down.
Burn Notice "gets" to keep shooting in Miami because they get heart-stopping tax breaks and have a very good relationship with the city. (One of my favorite shows, btw)
That said, one of the main points of this blog, and why I always write about emerging technologies, is that I firmly believe we're at the point where people can begin to make local entertainment of the same technical quality as we shoot in LA. We still need to lick distribution -- hell even we haven't licked that problem entirely -- but there's no reason, if you think your city has stories to tell, you can't go get cameras and tell those stories.
Richard:Whoops. Hit post too quickly. One question: How plausible do you guys want the cons to be? Because my only real problem with this episode is the miraculous image editing. As someone who uses Photoshop professionally ...
As plausible as the medicine in House. Take that as you will. :P
kinesys: Oh. And how long before we discover that Hardison knows this weird chick named "Aleph"?
You came thisclose to an episode this year where Aldis got romantically involved with Aimee Garcia. You know Aimee, right?
And the reason I knew Chris Kane was because he was the guy who came thisclose to playing Sean Ronin on GF.
I fully expect to see Leverage/GF crossover fanfic by Friday, people. Chop chop!
Robert Emerson:One of the things I like most about how Christian Kane's fight scenes are ... not linear, but multi-directional and adaptive.
This ep was the first time I dragged my heel across the dirt, laying out "the fight line", just like Jackie Chan explained to me ten years ago. Main axis for shooting and choreography, with alternate actions happening off-axis to open up the fight space.
Now granted, Charlie Brewer has been doing fights and blowing shit up since I was in a bad prom tux, but he tolerates my obsession and even occasionally listens to me. For which I am forever grateful.
Denita: I also have a question. Which episode does Sam Anderson (Holland Manners from Angel) appear in? A few of us on Whedonesque have been wondering.
The abovementioned The Snow Job. With Danny Strong, as the co-villain.
Whew. That was a helluva mailbag. A new open thread tomorrow, and thanks as always for watching and spreading the word.
Oh, and if we get more people on Facebook than Closer, their co-exec has to buy me dinner. So feel free to spam the bastards.
Use these Comments for Stork thread business. Comments and questions.
One of the most difficult things I've had to learn how to do as a professional writer is deal with criticism. It's a very important part of the job and is absolutely essential in making one a better writer. But if you have an ego as gargantuan, fragile, and as in desperate need of validation as mine (and honestly, don't ALL writers?), it can either send you dancing naked through the streets or leave you weeping in the fetal position while you nurse the remaining drops of whiskey from the bottle clutched in your trembling hands.
I think the trick to dealing with criticism (aside from growing a very thick, impenetrable skin) is to learn which criticisms to take to heart, which to accept with a grain of salt, and which to just simply ignore. At first, my default rubric for accepting or dismissing criticism was usually binary. If the criticism praised me and my work, I accepted it. If it didn't, I dismissed it. That approach made sleeping at night a bit easier, but it didn't help me use those criticisms to better my writing.
Criticism that comes from my colleagues is the kind I quite often take to heart. Editors, fellow writers, teachers, professors, etc. usually have an understanding of what makes writing and/or story telling good (this is not true in all cases, obviously--there are hacks, dolts, and saboteurs in every walk of life). But another thing these people all have in common, other than experience with the written word, is that they genuinely wish to see me succeed. They want to help me write the best story that I can by telling me how I can improve. I'm fortunate to have befriended a group of professional and freakishly talented writers who have no problem telling me where I'm falling short. And that's the key. They're honest. Brutally honest. Yes, it can be heartbreaking when a person whom you respect and whose work you admire tells you that your latest attempt is, well, garbage. The nice thing is that they're willing to tell you WHY it's garbage and help you find a solution. Mind you, not find the solution for you, but guide you to finding the solution yourself. Teaching a man to fish and all.
The criticisms that I find myself taking with a grain of salt are the ones that come from friends (outside of the entertainment industry) and family. Their opinions are almost always suspect. My parents' opinions seem to fall into one of two categories: 1) Lukewarm praise or 2) I still don't understand why you didn't go to medical school (holiday dinners tend to be a bit awkward--"Stop encouraging the boy and tell him he needs a backup plan!"--raise your hand if you feel my pain).
My friends, however, are always positive. Always. No matter how ass-tastic I know the story is. This is nice whenever I'm feeling down and need an ego boost, but if I ever need help improving a story, there isn't much they can offer other than unconditional support.
But the criticisms that I find most difficult to deal with are ones that come in the form of reviews. Especially BAD reviews (and I've had my fair share of them. My absolute favorite bad review came from a reader who said that money spent on my comic was money better spent on a taco--a TACO!). It's never fun having someone tell you that you are suck incarnate, no matter how colorful their criticism might be (I've been told time and time again to never EVER read reviews, but I just can't help myself).
The difficulty comes in determining if the review has specific issues with my writing or if it's just angry rambling over my epic suckitude. For the longest time I never even saw a difference. I was so blinded over not being viewed as the greatest writer in all of space/time that I sneered a "What do they know?" before drowning myself in a vat of cheap grain alcohol.
But over time I've learned to differentiate between reviews that are deliberately caustic and those that might have legitimate reasons for being negative. The caustic ones never have anything constructive to say nor any insights as to where the story may be falling short. So I try to ignore those zero-calorie rantings (which can be very hard as the urge to hunt some of the meaner people down and stuff their esophaguses to bursting with rat feces can be quite overwhelming). However, if a reviewer complains that my story is difficult to follow, I'll look to see if other readers have the same comment (even if those comments are nasty). If there are then it's most likely an issue of poor story telling and something I should keep in mind when writing my next story.
Granted, you can't write for critics. You have to write for yourself. But sometimes even the meanest comments can be illuminating and helpful in their own way. There's definitely a heirarchy when it comes to which criticisms carry more weight, but quite often the most painful criticisms are the most beneficial. Certainly not always, but it's a good idea to look for faults in your story before looking for them in the reader.
... Two out of two writers named Mark Waid and John Rogers agree: Young Sherlock Holmes is worth a second look.
... "When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon." - The Last Good Kiss.
James Crumley was precisely as good as everyone says he was. I'm working through the back catalogue now.
... The 2008 Doctor Who Christmas Special was a helluva thing.
... Hey Far Cry 2: I'm an hour of my life into the game before I actually start playing, and then my character starts collapsing intermittently from malaria? Usually in the middle of firefights when I've managed to find something resembling fun? SCREW. YOU. I would like you to meet my friend Gears of War 2. He is not clever. His world is not a sandbox of delights. But he has given me an automatic rifle with a frikkin' chainsaw on it, and allows me to use it to my heart's content. And so I love him.
... And while we're talking gaming, spawning ahead of the Survivors and then jamming forklifts in the elevator door or at the end of the warehouse -- that is punk shit. Seriously.
... And while we're talking Survivors, that first season ending is precisely why I prefer closed season storytelling. Call out SPOILERS in the comments if you wish to discuss.
... I don't know why I didn't pimp it hard enough first time out, but Kevin Church and his 18 year old artist (Jesus Murphy) Michael Dake are doing great work in their serialized graphic novel Waimea. I love, love, love that clean art style. Which is my hint for them to make some sample images for bloggers to post. Ahem.
Welcome to the New Year. As my Grandfather used to toast: "May the best you've ever seen be the worst you ever see."
In the Comments: the book/comic/movie/TV show/song/band you kept annoying your friends with during 2008.
