What is Exposition in Screenwriting - 4 Keys to Writing Film Exposition That Works
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- What is exposition in screenwriting explained with some essential do’s and don’ts and various tips on how to deliver exposition the right way.
What is Film Exposition? ►► bit.ly/wi-ex
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Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction to Plato's Allegory of the Cave
00:35 - Definition & History
01:53 - Writing Tips for Exposition
05:47 - Titles & Narration
07:03 - Dialogue
09:00 - Media
10:20 - Mise en Scène
11:18 - Wrap Up
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Film Exposition Explained
What is exposition in screenwriting and why do writers struggle with it? In this video, we’ll investigate this necessary evil that plagues even the best writers. Including some basic strategies on how to deliver exposition organically to the audience and some ideas of where exposition can be more effective.
In general, bad exposition is noticed by the audience and good exposition slips by without drawing attention. But how is this done? Every movie has to find its own way of how to deliver exposition in screenwriting but there are some general do’s and don’ts you can try on any script.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Exposition
In writing exposition, there are at least four different approaches to make it work. The first is to disguise the information - Hitchcock said that exposition is a “pill that must be sugar-coated” so that the audience doesn’t realize they are receiving it. The second is to visualize the information, which goes back to a sacred commandment in screenwriting: show, don’t tell. In other words, if we can see it, there’s no need to explain it. The third method is to delay the information as long as possible.
Instead of telling the audience everything in Act One, saving some pieces will lure the audience in with anticipation. Finally, perhaps the most underused approach to writing exposition is to NOT deliver it at all. Ask yourself: does the audience really need to know this? What would happen if it was left unexplained? In many cases, this creates a more interesting and engaging form of storytelling.
How to Deliver Exposition
Because we’re working in film, there are many areas through which narrative exposition can be delivered. These include the more obvious outlets like on-screen text, narration and dialogue. But there are also opportunities that writers should explore, including the mise-en-scene or the media. But there is a fine line between using any of these elements for exposition - each can be unnatural or overdone and finding that balance is indeed tricky.
Writing exposition cannot be avoided but with these techniques, it can be managed and strategically employed to tell better and more immersive stories.
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Кино
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction to Exposition
00:35 - Definition & History
01:53 - Writing Tips for Exposition
05:47 - Titles & Narration
07:03 - Dialogue
09:00 - Media
10:20 - Mise en Scène
11:18 - Wrap Up
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I can’t believe this channel is free. This channel is a gold mine for filmmaker’s. So many things to learn yet taught so simply and subtly.
That's the goal :)
I agree this is unique
My thoughts exactly
Spread the good news!
I def feel like most "film accounts" are just complaining about the newest star wars now u know
I always thought exposition through conflict is a good tip. Having characters argue, or meet some sort of obstacle in a scene is a great place to hide exposition.
ok
Yeah that's a good idea.
@@dishevela I think in The Babadook, we only learn that the husband died when Amelia starts arguing with her sister
@@dishevela I would say Jumanji 2 is a good example of explaining exposition through obstacles, the rules of the game are not explained all at once, but instead throughout the movie, with some expositions even delayed as turning points as mentioned in the video (we don't know what happened to the guy who played before and never came back home until the second half of the movie)
@@dishevela in Pulp Fiction when Jules and Vincent argue about the foot massage, it raises the stakes for Vincent's outing with Mia
Brilliant. Just brilliant. No one explains the art of movie making anywhere as well as this channel. Highly educational, whilst being highly entertaining.
That's the goal!
Wisecrack is fine.
CineFix feels in same vein but for ranking
and
Filmento is the one where it could help if you could remember most basic of things and is most Entertaining Video output by him
This would probably sound obvious to some but I wanted to add it. Probably the best way in my opinion to sugarcoat exposition is when the information given says something about the character first and the world second. For exemple if your story is about magicians show the character searching for his wand because he lost it. That will tell the audience "you are going to watch a film about an irresponsible teenager and oh by the way - there will be magic too." The exposition is hidden, the pill is sweetened and we have a character through whose eyes we will be exploring the world.
Great advice thank you!
@@miguelfmyers Happy to help!
Nice!
great tip! thx
In the weapons training scene with Paul and Gurney in Dune (2021), there's this scene where Paul subtly "tests" his shield for a few seconds by tapping his weapon quickly onto the shield and then tapping it slowly, thus penetrating the shield. I think it was a really cool and almost seamless way of showing how the shields work in Dune!
Along with the color coding when a weapon gets through or is blocked 💯
nice
Also an incredibly cool concept for sci-fi tech that I never even thought of
Who needs film schools when you have this. This channel is so good.
Happy filming!
I heard a great way for breaking exposition to the audience is to have the main characters learn with the audience. Putting the audience in the shoes of the main characters helps both parties to understand what is happening and have the same reactions to new information. This also helps with making the characters more likable and relatable.
Yup, Inception is a great example of that
It is unfortunately one of the worst ways now, as it has become a bit overused, either by insertion of a 'rookie' character whose sole existence revolves around one of the veteran characters giving them a monologue or the amnesiac. That's not to say either case doesn't work if it is done right, but too often it isn't.
Just like with The Matrix. For about the first half hour of the movie, the Wachowskis have you asking "What is the Matrix?" and "What the hell is going on???" so often that, by the time Morpheus explains it to Neo, we the audience are all eager to learn with him. I took my little brother to see it a couple of months ago, as it was re-released in theaters before Resurrections, and when Morpheus asked "Do you want to know what it is?" I heard my brother actually reply "Yes, yes!"
@@StudioBinder I think that is typically how Nolan does it and he has to do it cause much of his work is hard scifi (even Memento is probably scifi). But what makes Nolan's use of it good is that he does not give all the information away. He explains only the fundamentals, then you as a viewer have to make inferences about the rules of the world he creates from those few tidbits of info.
I would say Mondays are the worst but Studiobinder exists.
Ey 😎
I'll never make a movie in my life but this channel has been an absolute goldmine of knowledge. It has helped me to critically view what I watch so that I can better understand and articulate what I did or did not like about it. It's the same with learning to read critically; you get so much more from it when you understand the mechanics of story telling.
I have similar thoughts
*Raiders of the Lost Ark*
Travelling from place to place using a map, and a camera tracking a red line moving to indicate the path of the journey, with a 50% opacity of the journey in reportage snippet cinematography.
Simple, effective, clean and, has the added benefit of John Williams score.
.💯👍
"This is Katana... " exposition dump made me LOL in the theater when I saw the dumpster fire of a movie the first time!
That was rough 😅
Lunchtime in Germany and a new "What Is"-Video from StudioBinder? Is today my birthday? 😆😍
Perfect pair :)
Excuse me, where has this channel been all my life?! *subscribes* Three things that won me over instantly:
1. Concise explanation. To-the-point, easy to understand;
2. Incredible video editing with spot-on visual examples (bonus points for not discriminating against old movies!);
3. Narrator's voice was clearly chosen for its capacity to be heard for hours on end without getting the watcher tired and I'm living for it!
You know what! That’s perfect timing 😊 because I’m gonna work on 3rd draft of my screenplay 😎👍 thanks guys, I will watch today…
Best of luck for your screenplay
Hoping we can see it in film soon
@@batmangotham6186 thank you so much 😊
This is!
What is?
Perfect Timing!
@StudioBinder
Happy writing!
@@StudioBinder thank you so much:)
Great video. You should make 2-4 more videos solely about Exposition.
There will definitely be more videos on writing techniques!
Enter the Void has had a very creative exposition delivery
👍
"And that concludes our exposition to exposition .. haha" What ending. As always guys, you killed it.
😂👌
These videos are always such a treat. Perfectly narrated, with excellent editing and music. Not to mention how great the lesson is. I've shown these videos to my screenwriting class and they adore them
Glad your class is enjoying them!
I can never get enough of your voice haha it's so charming
Thanks for listening :)
As a person getting into filmmaking, this channel is the best resource to learn about it... ❤️
Happy filming :)
No one teaches filmmaking for free like Studiobinder does 💯❤️🔥👌
Class in session!
You never fail to deliver. I'll never get tired of thanking you, your work is brilliant.
Happy to help!
The opening montage of Watchmen is one of the most brilliant pieces of exposition I've ever seen. The entire prequel is communicated through a series of moving stills over a 5 minute song.
You got the dopest narrator!
We definitely do
I love combining some of these techniques. Heist movies always combine the visual spectacle with the fast-paced dialogue to make exposition just as fun as an action scene
Great point!
The Camera Lenses Guide was helpful thanks guys ❤
Great to hear!
The others and Parasite have great unique exposition in Mise en scene form, well basically most of thriller and mystery movies have interesting exposition to uncover the truth and to engage the audiences in the same time, thanks for opening my mind about this topic
Definitely increases the audience's attention
Matrix exposition was awesome!!! When Morpheus tells Neo, he can't explain what the Matrix is but would rather show him what it is actually.
That was a great example of exposition!
I'm so glad they included "This is Katana". It's such an iconic piece of dialogue
Stuff of legend
My favorite piece of exposition is from The Curse of the Black Pearl. When Barbossa is telling his haunting ghost story and shows Elizabeth who he and the crew really are. Not only is the performance and dialogue terrific but the visuals do a great job emphasizing the curse, treasure, why they need Elizabeth, and how the crew became desperate zombie-ghost-pirates.
It’s like a free film school. Studio Binder is the best thing since lenses. I am so grateful for them. Truly. 🙏👏🙏
Exposition radio will always be my favorite cinematic device. Out of nowhere, "we interrupt this broadcast to bring you the following information that is key to the film..."
😂 classic technique
all your videos are amazing and very well explained and illustrated thank you very much!
The Suicide Squads exposition has really turned into a guilty pleasure to watch. It’s so unintentionally funny.
unintentional is the key point haha
This is a great video. I have watched it 3 times and took notes. Thank you soooo much for this.
Awesome!!! You guys make my Monday even more educational and I enjoy it a lot.
Thank you guys!!!
(Nice with Marvin Gaye’s What’s going on!!! An absolute classic!!!)
Making your Monday mornings better :)
As an aspiring screenwriter and filmmaker, every video is worth the follow.
This is really informative and this channel pretty instructive. I note that you start the dialogue for exposition part with a couple of spoofs rather than the original dramatic options. Anyway, I do want to refer to the film Vantage Point, which tells its story from multiple perspectives, going over the same 20 minutes repeatedly, revealing gradually more information with each loop. It then leaves this mode behind once it has served its purpose and delivers the concluding scenes along the more familiar action movie paths.
Wonderfully explained. Thanks 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Extremely timely video. Literally working on my screenplay
Good luck!
Thank you for a well-detailed video presentation about exposition. It motivates me to study more visual art.
Incredibly informative. Loved this one!
A word of caution about exposition: Once it stands out like a sore thumb in your awareness you run the risk of upsetting family and friends with your eye rolling, groans, and "GTFOH!" type of exclamations at poorly executed dialog dumps of it in that movie they insist you MUST SEE! The only thing worse than a character blatantly feeding the audience information by telling another character things that they already know is when your girlfriend or boyfriend thinks nothing of it.
haha the worst reaction
The whole...."hey sister who I haven't seen in 5 years, you actually came all the way from Sweden for mom and dad's anniversary?" Honestly, any time a sibling refers to another sibling by "her sister or hey brother...." siblings don't do that in real life!!
@@OlgaKuznetsova lol exactly! You can feel the cringe coming off the word (Sister/Brother) like steam when they do it. I die inside a little when Character A actually prefaces things with "You know..." especially when it refers to emotions or a mental state of Character B and/or refers to a place and time in backstory history that Character A wasn't present in, like: "John, you know what that day back in Saigon did to you!" lol
@@johnstrange6799 Yes! It's such fake talk!
In the opening scene of Wes Anderson's "The Isle of Dogs", the exposition is delivered by the dog Jupiter telling the backstory of the Kobayashi dynasty with traditional Japanese paintings followed by the haiku: "I turn my back. ON MANKIND. Frost on window-pane."
I love that film. The sound design instantly hooked me.
That was a fun one
This channel is pure gold! ❤
Beautiful video as always Studiobinder.
Thanks for watching!
The greatest beginning exposition dump I’ve ever seen in a film is the opening scene at the laundromat from Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. We as the viewers are thrown into the mess the characters have already created, and solely based on the characters talk about their situation can we fully grasp everything we need to know about them.
In my opinion, Interstellar has some of the best writing I have ever seen when it comes to exposition. It masterfully uses nearly every technique in this video and gives just enough information for you to understand in the moment. Piece by piece throughout the story you gather more and more knowledge, leaving you with a sense of mystery and intrigue about the world and a fascination with learning more.
I love it when exposition is only shown when the audience is salivating for it! Like little things are sprinkled throughout that make complete sense once you finally get the whole picture, and then you HAVE to watch the movie/show again to see how everything added up. I can't think of any examples at the moment, but when it happens, it's beautiful!
That's basically chekhov's Gun ;)
@@StudioBinder hahaha, yes, totally!!
Finally, an excellent quide. The section of do and don't is so helpful 😃
Glad you liked it!
Sir, your videos about telling stories through film help me learn the storytelling principles I need to write a novel, and, of course, a screenplay.
Thank you Studiobinder ❤
I think an interesting way to deliver exposition is using a sort of past-present narrative. Like, first we show something that has happened in the past, then we cut right to what is happening in the present. We keep slowly revealing some past events and gradually merge the two into just the present. This way the audience initially may feel confused due to the past-present thing, but pretty soon kind of starts thinking about the two narratives separately, and thus when it merges, it becomes much more interesting and they start feeling that they have been dropped right into, rather than told what's happening.
i didnt know that all that stuff was exposition. always thought it was mainly only certain things in act one and two. this was great thanks
One key note to exposition Ive learned through writing. Subtext is a good source for exposition
Well explained! As always, this channel helps me a lot. Salute! 💗
Cheers!
Nice, nice, nice studiobinder!! I kind of needed this right now.
Happy writing!
wonderful perfect movie examples, that's what I like from these videos! basil exposition, everybody got that lol hahahaha
Glad you liked it!
I always have problems when writing expositions. Now, I think I can use this video as a starting guide. Thank you very much Studiobinder.
Also, I really miss your director series in which you dissected the art of direction of each director. Is there any chance of return?
That series isn't going anywhere!
This ones minor but
'No country for Old Men' and the coin flip at the gas station. Anton says the Coin was made in 1958 and has been traveling for 22 years to give us the year the movie takes place.
That's a good example!
That's a hint, not direct expo. "2+2" is not the same as "4" in storytelling.
I absolutely love this channel!
Cheers!
Another banger! As usual…
I just thank for everything u put out❤one day I will mention u on the oscars
Superb! Thank you!
Very helpful. Thank you for continuous great content.
More on the way!
Well explained, as usual, thanks for another amazing video.
Cheers!
Incredible visualization of the concept :) Great narrative & Great edits :) Awesome & Thanks :)
Thanks for watching!
Always love your videos
Cheers!
cannot explain hw much am learning from this channel
I kinda love the opening shot form Sahara, the long single cut over the boat showing the exploits of the characters before the story starts.
There's a reason why you got 1M followers Studiobinder, u make an easy to understand yet rich & interesting educational videos about storytelling in cinema.
That's always the goal :)
My favorite channel ❤
We know many times heavy exposition is bad for a movie but still many of my favorite scenes in movies are scenes where a lot on info is dropped. Like Morpheus explaining what is the Matrix, or Luthor explaining his views about god and his plan to taint Superman in BvS, or those movies with clever ways to resume backstory as a narrated tale (as with the Deadly hallows)
It all comes down to execution
That's teaching the rookie, and is sometimes allowed by audiences because it happens in real life.
Clever choice for the ending song
😉
I was hooked from the moment it started to the end and I stumble upon this video by simply googling the word "Exposition". 🤯
Delighted to see Basil Exposition here :)
I would suggest Diagon Alley from the harry potter books and films. Changes the whole feeling. One location has a huge range of shops and services so its a great Show Don't Tell introduction to setting, a big slice of the world of wizadry for Harry and the Audience. Wands, his wealth, books, sweets. Much better than harry being told about things or slowly encountering a thing a chapter
Thanks for the video & explaination♥️♥️🙌🙌
Enjoy!
Thanks for your intelligent and soul approach to cinematography / Igor/ your Ukrainain self/studying actor, scenarist and producer thanks your great help
Thanks for watching!
I love the use of Back To The Future here when talking about communicating critical information to an audience. But the best exposition to me is in BttF2. Marty wakes up back in 1985, in a house that is not his, with people who should know him but don't, in a town barely recognizable to him, and *everything* is wrong.
Then Doc Brown literally busts out the blackboard and walks him (and us) through and engaging lesson on the dangers of time travel. Doc explains what happened, why it happened, and how to fix it. All of this in an engaging, high-energy presentation, complete with well-timed thunder.
Lovely. This was very helpful
Great to hear!
"What's going on" by Marvin Gaye was nice touch to end this video about exposition.
💖
Entertained and educated truly nothing better in life.
I love this Chanel it helped me alot.
That's why we're here!
Amazing exposition on exposition
Have to be thorough
i hope you guys do a video on writing subtext
We might!
Very great video today!
Glad you liked it!
You're really needed.
Doing our best :)
That was helpful. 4th wall Idea especially
Hope you put it to good use!
Great one 👌
Thank you 😊🙏
One of the coolest exposition in Midsommar. How the spell was made was embroidered on a fabric with images.
This vid literally popped up as I watched another studio binder analysis lol. Nice
Right on time!
Love this channel!
Love our viewers 💖
Great video as always. You say that mise en scene is the most subtle method of exposition, and as I have written most of my screenplay, I keep wondering: is it more effective to be subtle? When is it better to be subtle vs. unsubtle? Thanks so much!
When it comes to exposition, subtle is better
@@StudioBinder 💯
StudioBinder is a film school !
Expositions of Exposition! Awesome work :)
It's meta haha
Very useful
AMELIE has great exposition, sugar coated French pastry overload!
haha good point!
just love it
Enjoy!