4 ms·

> television has developed increasingly dense visual shorthand What are some examples of this "visual shorthand"? Preferably examples from a popular show (like

> television has developed increasingly dense visual shorthand What are some examples of this "visual shorthand"? Preferably examples from a popular show (like The Simpsons) so I can really understand what you mean. Would a 1950's audience understand the visual shorthand if they saw today's TV, or is this something you have to grow up with?

shalmanese 12y ago
Sure. One common trope in sitcoms is one character saying "You'll never catch me doing X!", immediately smash cut to the character doing X. You've probably seen this trope performed a thousand times already. As a result, you've been trained to know how to interpret it. Scenes like this are useful for cutting through a lot of story very quickly. You no longer have to show how the character fought a losing battle and had their mind changed reluctantly. But it's become so ubiquitous, just playing a scene like this straight is perceived as kind of hacky because of how boring it is. So you see writers start to play around with the form. One common variation is that the character themselves are jolted by the rapidity of the cut, adding a layer of meta-winkingness to the trope. Another variation is that the camera pans out after the cut, revealing a mislead and that the character is, in fact, not doing X. Another, more concrete example from the sitcom New Girl, in what I consider to be the best episode (Cooler), there is an outstanding joke: To set the scene, Jess and Nick are room-mates, Jess is currently dating Sam & Jess and Nick have had a season long will-they/won't they simmering in the background. Jess and Nick get caught up in the loft's delightfully bizarre game, True American which results in them being forced to be locked in a room together until they kiss. Jess calls Sam in a panic and Jess and Nick sit down to have a heart to heart. If you have Netflix, you can see there scene here, starting from 17:06: http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70196145 http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70196145 Just as the previous scene is reaching an emotional climax, we hear Sam banging on the door and asking if Jess is alright. Jess says it's a false alarm and Sam asks what she's doing back there. Immediate smash cut to Sam chanting "kiss, kiss, kiss" along with the rest of the roommates. There's an incredibly amount of storytelling going on in that smash cut. We first are primed to believe, that Sam is the classic mid-second act obstacle and that we're about to enter a standard comedy of deception because we've seen that play out a million times before. By subverting our expectations That rug gets immediately pulled out from under us, showing that the central conflict of the episode is not external, it's Jess's internal struggle with liking two people. Next, it uses our knowledge of smash cuts to understand that in the intervening time, Sam's been explained the circumstances of the game by the other roommates and he's become caught up in it is now part of the mob. It also shows us that Sam does not view Nick as a romantic threat, giving us insight into the psychological state of the three main characters, and the foreshadowing that this obliviousness will come into play later. This is incredibly dense storytelling for a 13 second scene and it typifies how New Girl is able to juggle 5 or even 6 plots in a single 22 minute episode and make it feel effortless. But only if you understand the logic motivating the direction does the story come out. Such a scene would look confusingly arbitrary to a 1950's audience because they would not be trained on the tropes and how they're either supported or subverted.

shalmanese 12y ago

Sure. One common trope in sitcoms is one character saying "You'll never catch me doing X!", immediately smash cut to the character doing X. You've probably seen this trope performed a thousand times already. As a result, you've been trained to know how to interpret it. Scenes like this are useful for cutting through a lot of story very quickly. You no longer have to show how the character fought a losing battle and had their mind changed reluctantly. But it's become so ubiquitous, just playing a scene like this straight is perceived as kind of hacky because of how boring it is. So you see writers start to play around with the form. One common variation is that the character themselves are jolted by the rapidity of the cut, adding a layer of meta-winkingness to the trope. Another variation is that the camera pans out after the cut, revealing a mislead and that the character is, in fact, not doing X. Another, more concrete example from the sitcom New Girl, in what I consider to be the best episode (Cooler), there is an outstanding joke: To set the scene, Jess and Nick are room-mates, Jess is currently dating Sam & Jess and Nick have had a season long will-they/won't they simmering in the background. Jess and Nick get caught up in the loft's delightfully bizarre game, True American which results in them being forced to be locked in a room together until they kiss. Jess calls Sam in a panic and Jess and Nick sit down to have a heart to heart. If you have Netflix, you can see there scene here, starting from 17:06: http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70196145 http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70196145 Just as the previous scene is reaching an emotional climax, we hear Sam banging on the door and asking if Jess is alright. Jess says it's a false alarm and Sam asks what she's doing back there. Immediate smash cut to Sam chanting "kiss, kiss, kiss" along with the rest of the roommates. There's an incredibly amount of storytelling going on in that smash cut. We first are primed to believe, that Sam is the classic mid-second act obstacle and that we're about to enter a standard comedy of deception because we've seen that play out a million times before. By subverting our expectations That rug gets immediately pulled out from under us, showing that the central conflict of the episode is not external, it's Jess's internal struggle with liking two people. Next, it uses our knowledge of smash cuts to understand that in the intervening time, Sam's been explained the circumstances of the game by the other roommates and he's become caught up in it is now part of the mob. It also shows us that Sam does not view Nick as a romantic threat, giving us insight into the psychological state of the three main characters, and the foreshadowing that this obliviousness will come into play later. This is incredibly dense storytelling for a 13 second scene and it typifies how New Girl is able to juggle 5 or even 6 plots in a single 22 minute episode and make it feel effortless. But only if you understand the logic motivating the direction does the story come out. Such a scene would look confusingly arbitrary to a 1950's audience because they would not be trained on the tropes and how they're either supported or subverted.