Subtle Is Good

I'm not going to torture you with a Doctor Who reference this week. Instead, let's take a moment to discuss writing.

The current climate of movies is based around a society with the attention span of a fruit fly. I'm guilty of lacking focus. I can't spend five minutes on a project without thinking about books or eating or when I'm next going to see my family or friends. I should join the club.

To accomodate humanity's shrinking attention span, some movies and television shows have resorted to frantic stories, loud voices, and exciting characters. But More Isn't Always Better. Sometimes the subtle details of a character matter more than the overarching story, even if the story is this grand adventure that takes the audience through time and space.

This doesn't mean that Boring Is Better. A boring story means that there is nothing notable at all. The characters are one-dimensional, the setting is bland, and the story might as well have been written by a twelve-year-old. If a story is intriguing with small details and characters with enjoyable (or disagreeable) quirks, you don't have to include any explosions or sweeping CGI scenes to get people to like your film.

Just remember that it's the little things that count. Sometimes, they count more than the big picture. A writing tip to keep in mind.

~Will

"Breaking Bad" Should Be Called "Breaking Great"

Breaking Bad is a drama on AMC about Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher from Albuquerque, New Mexico, played by Bryan Cranston. After White is diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, he turns to a life of crime producing and selling methamphetamine (crystal meth) with a former student named Jesse Pinkman. It has been nominated for numerous awards including winning three consecutive Emmy Awards for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Cranston. Now in it’s fourth season it is less about Walt and his cancer for he is in a way the cancer in other people’s lives. He is bringing them down with him and putting them in danger as well.

Breaking Bad is one of the most suspenseful shows in television. Most shows play it safe and never put their lead in to much danger. Walter White’s brother-in-law even works for the Drug Enforcement Agency and is at times unbeknownst to him looking for his own brother-in-law, Mr. White. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan said in an interview that they try to paint themselves into corners that seem impossible to get out of. This forces them to be creative and new. Some of their creativity comes from editing. From the time lapse cutaways to actual unusual cuts during the scene, Breaking Bad is willing to take chances and break a lot of the “rules” to help show the effects of drugs or to make a symbolic point. A great example was in a recent episode from the latest season where Jesse is playing a violent video game and is getting haunting memories from when he had to shoot an innocent man named Gale to protect himself and Mr. White from dying.

The show also forces you to pay attention to every detail. This show is not most shows where if they want the audience to see something they will make it blatantly obvious with a cut of a close up or a musical cue. Breaking Bad is more of a puzzle. For instance in last Sunday’s episode Gus, who doubles as Mr. White’s boss and an owner of Los Pollos Hermanos, a fast food chain, attempted to poison the entire cartel in Mexico by poisoning their alcohol he gave them as a gift. To not drawn suspicious he was forced to drink to. However we did not know he poisoned it. In a scene afterwards we see him seemingly throw food or something in his mouth (it was an anti-dote) and then minutes later the cartel started dropping like flies. There is also suspicion and many freeze frames online that think that Mike, one of Gus’ men, was going to surprise and shoot Jesse in the back before he was shot himself from an alive member of the cartel. A lot of this I did not catch the first time and I can’t wait to watch episodes again and catch new things I never saw before.

Finally, there is a conspiracy online about Breaking Bad and its connections to color. My friend and I have noticed this but we went online to see if we were not crazy in thinking this. Others agree but are not quite sure yet what it all means. For example Mr. WHITE wore a lot of green and there was a lot of green in the set when he was cooking the original meth product, which omits a green gas. However after a new type of chemical was added and changed their product to blue he has wore a lot of blue and the set pieces became very blue. His wife Skylar and sister-in-law wear colors off of blue (light blue and purple respectively). Gus wears a lot of gold and forces his employees to wear a lot of gold either at Los Pollos Hermanos or even when Walt and Jesse cook meth for him. They trade in their colors for Gus’ as if Gus then owns them in those scenes. Even Jesse’s last name of PINKman is about a color. Only time will tell if this is just is fans conspiring or a deliberate detail in the genius show that is Breaking Bad.

The Greatest Movie of all TIME

For my first post I decided to write about my favorite movie of all time: Back to the Future. Originally Back to the Future came out in 1985 and starred Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly who with the use of Doc Brown’s DeLorean time machine is accidentally traveled back to his hometown in 1955. This is where he alters history and his own existence by bumping into his high school parents and ruining the first time they fell in love.

I have probably seen this movie (and the two sequels) hundreds of times and every time I find something new. I think this is why I love these movie so much. The production team including Director Robert Zemeckis and Executive Producer Steven Spielberg cared so much about the story and focused on so many details that many do not even know existed in the first few viewings. For example in its sequel they used actual sport statistics from 1955 so Biff Tannen, the antagonist of the films, could bet on these events and create an alternate future with this information he stole from 2015. They also use music from the time period and dress the sets with movie posters of movies that came out during the 1950s. Huey Lewis, a popular musician in the 1980s even makes a cameo in the first film as a teacher who tells Marty’s band that they are “too loud” to play at the school dance. It’s funny that he says that because Marty’s band is playing his own song!

One of the coolest details involves the sign for Twin (and later Lone) Pine Mall. The mall in town is explained by Doc to be named after old man Peabody, who used to own the land and had a “crazy idea” about breeding pine trees. Well when Marty travels back in time he crashes into Peabody’s barn and accidentally runs over one of his pine trees. Later in the movie when we return to the present day mall the sign has been changed to affect Marty’s time travel adventure. In my last viewing I also noticed that Marty’s house prominently has a set of electricity poles behind it perhaps foreshadowing the movie’s climax where a single lighting bolt hitting the clock tower will be what is necessary for Marty to make it back home to 1985.

The script is also great and was written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis. There is tons of set-up especially in the first film to events later in the movie. For example in the beginning of the film at the dinner table his sister brings up Marty’s parents first meeting. Later in the film you will actually see Marty accidentally take his father’s place thus altering history. I guess somebody should have paid attention at dinner! Also in the first few minutes of the film a lady downtown gives Marty a flyer to “Save the Clocktower!” and Marty just throws it into his pocket thinking nothing of it. However later it will help give Doc Brown the information about the lighting storm that helps Marty get home.

Finally throughout the trilogy Gale and Zemeckis convey the theme that history repeats itself. In every movie Marty experiences ironically similar events, whether it is waking up in a bed next to his mom thinking his adventures were all a dream, being chased by a Tannen family member around the courthouse, or seeing a Tannen get covered in a pile of manure. The writers use these similar yet different scenes to show that it is true history does in fact repeat itself. If only Marty and Doc realized this they would have a lot easier time traveling through time.

See the Back to the Future Poster

See the Mall Screenshot

See the Manure screenshots