Greetings, Steemians and Steemettes!
So here is something funny that happened. I completely forgot that I still had another post I wanted to write! After having created two of them already today, my brain apparently started to kick in it's "done with posting, next on the list" routine. Me having had to leave the house for a couple hours also did it's part here I guess. But I wanted Saturday and Sunday to become triple post days for this month of July, so here I am!
I have been talking a lot about books around here, a bit about steemit and also about some topics that are more personal to me. This one will probably follow suit with the last part but may find some application to the others as well.
Tell me how you like these new designs. I really wanted to try something new for a change.
Who here likes movies?
Probably most of you. The film industry is huge and thriving and there is a movie for pretty much every genre. Quality is of course difficult to come by at times, but for some, even the lack of quality has it's charme. I liked movies ever since I was little even though I do not get to watch them so often. It did pick up a bit over the course of the last couple years though. I would like to believe that the MCU did it's part there.
A couple years ago, I stumbled over a youtube channel that I really enjoyed watching. Some of you may know it. It is the channel called Cinemasins. For those of you who do not know it, I suggest giving it a watch. The movie counts the "sins" popular movies commit in terms of reason, continuity and style. Not to be taken too seriously, the videos are mostly meant as a satiric way to express critic. Well, not mostly. They are made first and foremost for entertainment purposes, as are most things on Youtube.
My life with cinemasins
I have watched quite a lot of videos on their channel over the years and while I did appreciate their content, I also picked up that it did leave an impression on me. I started to become more sensitive to certain quirks and cliches many movies would resort to. A lot of these also apply to games which tend to be getting closer and closer to movies in their storytelling narrative.
Do you know the sensation of feeling that something in a movie or a game is handled awkwardly but you can't quite put your finger on it?
I do. And the time spend on their channel actually helped to make some sources for this appear more clear to me. And one of the worst offenders for this is, as you may have guessed from looking at this posts title.....
Narration
Oh, what a troublesome topic this has become for me watching movies. I do not use the words "necessary evil" lightly, but they do seem fitting here regarding this topic. Especially if you watch a fantastic movie, fantasy, sci-fi, you name it, narration seems to be inevitable.
Any kind of non-present day real world setting? Some kind of exposition is narrated to us right from the beginning.
And I hate it with a burning passion. There is this phrase that says "Show, don't tell". One would assume that this comes naturally to a film maker and one would be wrong. Now of course, narration doesn't equal narration. Quite often, Narration is being accompanied by interesting visuals, especially these days, the tools one can use for that come in handy. In other cases, the narration actually does serve a story purpose and this is something that can actually excite me, but more on that later.
So what exactly do I hate about narration?
It makes me feel cheated. If I watch a movie or play a game, I want to be able to immerse myself into the experience. I want to see, feel, live the experience. Having narration being shoved down my throat right from the start makes me feel like I am not supposed to immerse. Instead, I feel like being handed a card that gives me some rough directions with me having to improvise from there on out. Which is not the experience I was wishing to get.
It immediately makes the entire experience awkward. I sit there, listening to someone tell me things that I wish I could actually see! And it's not like that would take more time than this guy takes reading off of his script. Chances are that it would take much less.
Let us not focus too hard on the negative
After all, we are all about spreading positivity and useful information, right? If you have read so far and are still with me, I assume that you are taking an interest in this topic as well. So where am I going with this? Well, first of all, I want to talk about things that can be done instead of having someone telling you something. There may be some hidden value in doing that for us because telling people things is what we do here on steemit.
1. Show, don't tell.
I went to italy once and I could tell you in detail how much I liked the place we were staying. How beautiful the sunshine was, how amazed I was when I saw the Garda Lake for the first time. All of these things I could also express in a picture and it would hardly take away from the experience.
If you are into reading, you may find that this example can be applied to a lot of things. A simple motion in a fight, a characters visual description, describing a landscape, all of these things can be done in a manner of seconds by just showing them instead of telling. Of course, with this being a blogging page and neither a movie or a foto studio, losing a couple words about the things you are showing is a good thing.
On the other hand, having pictures helping you aid to relay your message is a great way of helping your cause. Especially if you use good editing to make the whole experience even more pleasant.
2. Make the narration an actual part of the experience.
There are some ways to have this be a possibility and to be fair, some of them are quite questionable as well. Taking names of characters as an example.
Who here felt awkward about characters using other characters names in very awkward ways just because the Movie/Game needs to have a way to relay the name of said character to us?
I know I did. And if you did, you probably also felt a bit awkward when you listened to characters narrating events to us that transpired to them in a way that makes it clear that they are talking to us, not to each other. Clunky narration tools that somehow feel like they are breaking the immersion even though they are trying to keep it.
When you have information that you want to relay, make it happen in an organic way. Ask yourself what kind of situation that makes sense in a given scenario that would be helpful for the overall narrative while relaying the necessary information.
Instead of having people start to use names in a really awkward fashion, just have them call them by each others names naturally. Nobody bats an eye if someone calls out for you if you are standing somewhere far away. Show off a sign or some paper that tells us the name of certain characters. The simple stuff.
3. Make the Narration part of the story.
I have actually only seen two cases where this has been done in quite outstanding ways. One example happened in a web series that I liked to watch a while ago. It is called "RWBY". I was a huge fan of it, mostly because of the art style, but the series sadly never lived up to it's hype.
There was one thing that I truly and completely adored, a story twist that nobody really saw coming. As with most things, the series, trailers aside, began with narration given to us by a woman. Three seasons later without ever having heard from that lady again, this happened.
AND IT WAS AMAZING!
I can enjoy a good plot twist. When I heard that lady start to talk again after a season that ended up being much darker than one would have guessed, especially considering the flow of the story up until that point, I felt like "Ah, some uplifting narration to calm the masses. Great."
But then she started to talk about herself and her intentions regarding the situations, still in that calming voice. I heard that and was like "Wait, what, you are an actual part in this?"
And when the words "To snuff it out" reached my brain, I was actually amazed.
In a series that has been mediocre aside from a couple strong points up until that point, the series took one thing that I hated and turned it into something that I loved. This was one of the greatest character reveals I have ever experienced. The series remained to be mediocre afterwards, in fact, it got even worse and the reveal let pretty much nowhere.
But MAN, was this one hell of an reveal!
But we only if ever get these kind of things once every blue moon. And I would have missed it if I wasn't one of these stubborn watchers that can't stop with something once he started. In most cases, this wouldn't pay off. I can only think of one other instance where a narrator suddenly ended up being someone crucial.
In summary
Narration is a troublesome topic. It can make something much better or it can make you feel like something has been halfassed into existence. Aside from the DTubers and Storytellers among us, most of this will probably not be of any real consequence. But it was something I really wanted to get out of my system because it was actually on my mind all week long.
And even if you are just a regular blog poster like me, you may have gotten some interesting ideas for ways to construct your future blog posts. After all, what we are doing is basically Narration, so doing our best at making it as pleasant and exciting for people is what we should aim for.
With that being said, I will see all of you tomorrow.
Read more of Papa Rodin!
Tell me how you like these new designs. Wanted to try something new for a change.
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