Back to Basics

Have you ever seen old black and white footage of professional basketball players? Their jump shot form was by the book. Elbow tucked, back straight, with no deviation. It looks down right silly to us now, but kids in elementary school still learn form by the book. The pros today have amazing results but it appears they’ve never even seen the book. They constantly break the form rules with amazing success.

Filmmaking has been doing the same thing for many years. Storytelling has changed from Mr. Smith goes to Washington to Dexter. Storytellers know the form but choose to break the rules to set the audience off kilter.
We live in a post modern world where morality is an object that can be moved and manipulated to open new storylines. Would a show about a serial killer have worked in a black and white era? Heavens no. There were vigilantes, say The Lone Ranger, but he only shot the gun out of the bad guys hand and never got revenge himself. More recently the 80’s TV show The A-Team glorified those outside the law but even though 1,000 rounds of ammo were shot each episode no one seemed to get hit. Today it’s acceptable for a lone wolf to be judge, jury, and literally executioner. Despite the tectonic shift the writers remember the basics such as the lead character needs to be liked by the audience so Dexter, for instance, has a son, a respectable job, a vulnerability because he doesn’t know how to act around people, and a serial killer’s code that saves the innocent and punishes the guilty.

Another popular example is the transformation of a dorky, average guy named Walter. He starts out as the “everyman” but over the course of a few seasons he becomes a methamphetamine kingpin. A delicate balance was needed in Breaking Bad because dealing meth is not to be dismissed just because you had a bad day at the office. The audience knows meth is horrible drug that ruins people’s lives so to overcome their moral outrage what must the writers do to bring the audience back from the initial shock of his new career choice? First off they give Walter cancer and a kid with special needs. Walt’s desire to provide for his family and not leave them a mountain of medical bills is a very sympathetic endearing factor for the audience. After a while my wife like most of the audience started to cheer for the meth dealer! Breaking Bad breaks the rules by understanding them. All the other main characters, save the son, seem worse than Walt by comparison including his DEA brother-in-law. By understanding the rules you can use the breaking of rules to your advantage. This post was about breaking the storytelling rules to stand out, in subsequent posts I’ll cover some of the basics of production that should be adhered to most of the time.