DZ-101: Oners - Creating Immediacy & Anchoring Action on the Page

Listen to understand how screenwriters direct the camera without calling shots.

Chas, Stu and Mel reunite to talk about writing the feel of camerawork in screenplays. We use “oners” — a long-playing continuous take — as a lens to talk about how some writers have “directed” from the page. We talk immediacy, camera positions, handovers, and anchoring action and more.

We breakdown the famous Copacabana shot from GOODFELLAS, the awe-inspiring chase sequence from THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, and the heart pounding ‘Zed attack’ from CHILDREN OF MEN. We also briefly discuss THE BOURNE IDENTITY, HEREDITARY, THE BEAR, ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN and TOUCH OF EVIL.

And we do this breakdown by closely reading the actual words on the page!

So thanks to Meegan May (of Starship Q Star) for performing the big print / action lines. Script Pages available on our Patreon -> https://www.patreon.com/posts/dz-99-scene-82312058

Thanks to Chris Walker for editing this episode.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

You're meant to be swept along with this action. In Children of Men, the script's... just bang, bang, bang. You can almost tell that it's happening simultaneously because of the mini slugs, you know, in the road, in the car, outside, inside. It's all felt as one.

— mel

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→ Read the transcript for this episode.

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CHAPTERS

• 00:00:13 – Cold Open
• 00:00:23 – ScriptUp Sponsorship
• 00:01:58 – Intro: Camerwork on the page
• 00:09:50 – Contrary Examples: The Bourne Identity and Hereditary
• 00:13:15 – Narrative Purpose and Oners
• 00:16:30 – Goodfellas - intro
• 00:16:57 – Goodfellas - excerpt
• 00:18:22 – Goodfellas - discussion
• 00:32:48 – The Adventures of Tintin - intro
• 00:34:14 – The Adventures of Tintin - excerpt
• 00:37:23 – The Adventures of Tintin - discussion
• 00:49:34 – Children of Men - intro
• 00:53:38 – Children of Men - excerpt
• 01:00:32 – Children of Men - discussion
• 01:12:24 – Key Learnings and Wrap Up
• 01:21:03 – Thanks to our Patreons

FILMS

• GOODFELLAS (1990) — (w) Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese (d) Martin Scorsese
• THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011) — (w) Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Steven Moffat (d) Steven Spielberg
• CHILDREN OF MEN (2006) — (w) Timothy J Sexton, David Arata, Alfonso Cuaron, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, P D James (d) Alfonso Cuaron

SCRIPTS

• Study the script: GOODFELLAS (1990) — Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese
• Study the script: THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011) — Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Steven Moffat
• Study the script: CHILDREN OF MEN (2006) — Timothy J Sexton, David Arata, Alfonso Cuaron, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, P D James

SHOT ZERO DEEP DIVES

• Time and space in staging "Oners"
• Time and space in staging "Oners"
• Time and space in staging "Oners"

LINKS

• SCRIPTS: The script Pages are available on our Patreon
• WATCH: Goodfellas, The"Copacabana" shot
• WATCH: The Adventures of TinTin, "Get that bird!"
• WATCH: Children of Men, "Zed's attack"
• WATCH: The Bourne Identity, "Escaping The American Embassy"
• WATCH: All The President's Men, "The Dahlberg Scene"

RELATED EPISODES

• DZ-16: Masters of Time and Whitespace
• DZ-60: Unfilmables 1 - Engaging imagination
• DZ-61: Unfilmables 2 - Moments of Awe
• DZ-62: Unfilmables 3 - As Ifs & Emotional Context

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Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2023/dz-101/