Saturday, July 23, 2016
How should TV shows and movies depict texting?
The Verge: How do you translate our increasingly digital lives into compelling, dynamic on-screen action? It’s one of the biggest questions facing the people making 21st century film and TV, and it remains largely unresolved. Some directors are setting their entire movies within the contexts of desktop screens and captured webcam footage; others are sticking with traditional conversations and analog characters, even if it means their show-worlds are more and more distant from the way we actually talk and live. Others still are trying to find a middle ground between convention and realism, with mixed results.
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7 comments:
This is definitely a predicament that filmmakers face today. Having a character read a text aloud feels clunky and fake, and doesn't even make sense unless they're telling a friend about the text they received. However, making viewers read the text entirely on their own makes the creators rely on the viewers dedication to reading the information presented. If the viewer isn't totally invested and doesn't bother to read, then they could miss important pieces of the plot. Also, I feel often filmmakers try to overdo their onscreen presentation of texting; thinking viewers want the entire texting experience. However, simplicity is often the most effective. If texting is used wisely, the viewers should understand the recipient/sender of the text, and don't need superfluous animation that realistically shows all the animation of an iPhone. I personally love the way Sherlock depicts texting; I think its minimalistic but in a new, innovative way that makes sense.
This article raises a fundamental question about the encounter of our actual and digital life today. It's a fact that years ago, people started to call each other instead of having real face-to-face conversation, which has posed a serious challenge to the film/TV directors; however, recently, they don't even use phone call, but text message instead. Vivid facial expression and long monologue become distant and strange to the audience, and it's the first task for the directors to find a way to cooperate this cold digital way of communication into a film/TV that seeks a human connection between characters and audience. I personally agree with the article (and the video) that many shows make a bad choice on their approach, but certain shows, like Sherlock and The Social Network, and recently Mr. Robot, develop a good way of showing it-- the plot is more fluent and quick-moving, and the design of desktop windows and text message can be elegant. This is definitely a threshold in 21th century, but certain works have passed it. What bothers me more is the same question in theatre. While film/TV can shift their scene and show audience the digital screen easily, there's no way theatre can do that. Rich, emotional characters are the essence of theatre, while this form of art has become more and more distant to the mass. It would be an even harder work for theatre directors to figure out a way, but I'm certain that it can survive in the overwhelming challenge of digital addiction.
I think that the way texts are presented in movies needs to depend on the style of movie. Although it is a cheesy example, I liked the way The Fault in Our Stars handled texting. In that movie, characters very frequently exchange texts that we can see. If all of the characters have iPhones, showing the texts on the screen in the iMessage format can be very aesthetically pleasing. However, not all movies call for blue bubbles to be popping up all over the screen. For longer chunks of text, it can be more efficient to have them read as a voice over either by the character or a third party narrator, but this produces a Disney channel original movie feel which is probably not what the director had in mind. By far the most difficult texting situation is when the text need to look polished. It is easy to incorporate texting into a teenage comedy, but in cases where text are being exchanged between sophisticated people, finding a presentation format that looks polished enough is not an easy task.
I believe that the way texting should be depicted relies heavily on the movie or show, and the amount of attention the creators can reasonably expect from the audience. In House of Cards, I believe the creators understand that they have a fanbase that does pay attention and will recognize the benefits of that depiction in terms of the multiple layers there are to such a complex plot. However, If a tune-out sitcom (i.e. Bob's Burgers, Big Bang Theory, etc) attempted to use such a method the majority of their viewers would fail to comprehend or would not be paying enough attention to read it. I think the producers must make an informed decision when deciding how they want to display the text and also realize that the way they display the conversation is in itself a plot point and must be managed accordingly.
I believe that the way texting should be depicted relies heavily on the movie or show, and the amount of attention the creators can reasonably expect from the audience. In House of Cards, I believe the creators understand that they have a fanbase that does pay attention and will recognize the benefits of that depiction in terms of the multiple layers there are to such a complex plot. However, If a tune-out sitcom (i.e. Bob's Burgers, Big Bang Theory, etc) attempted to use such a method the majority of their viewers would fail to comprehend or would not be paying enough attention to read it. I think the producers must make an informed decision when deciding how they want to display the text and also realize that the way they display the conversation is in itself a plot point and must be managed accordingly.
I think the way texting on screen is portrayed depends on the style of the thing it is set in. The one they talk a lot about in this article is Sherlock and I agree that that is probably one of the best ways someone has done text on screen. It was especially suited for the show and it works quite well with the characters. However, and I honestly don’t remember what show or movie this was, but in my opinion the best way I’ve seen texting done on screen was when the text wrapped around buildings and walls and all different places. It was hard to read, but it fit the style of the show perfectly. Another one of the best ways I’ve seen texting done was in a commercial for health insurance. The actors did not speak but you saw their texts on one side of the screen while on the other side you saw their reactions.
I actually never really thought about how this was an issue until now, but now that I'm thinking about it, there's really no perfect way to do television texting. It always feels fake and I feel like it always distracts from the narrative the show or movie had been building. I agree that Amy Schumer's show did it well; I remember watching that episode. I think especially because the format is an iPhone format of texting so it doesn't feel "fake," but it seems entirely how anyone would text. I think the question of how a director should address texting depends on the kind of movie or show it is. A comedy I think has more leverage to do something that might not perfectly flow in the narrative. A drama, maybe not so much. I think if I were faced with this issue, I might just do voiceovers of the characters thought process while they were texting. So you can hear both the thoughts they had writing the text, and the text itself as they're typing it out. But, again, that depends on the genre of the work. In general, I think television texting is weirdly cheesy and weird. I do prefer the "talking out loud" method they mentioned, even though it's not the hyper realism that usually goes on in television. Maybe I just don't mind it because I'm a theatre person. This issue can also be applied to theatre, and may be even harder for theatre people to solve, because they can't do all of the post-production things that TV people can. I think their only viable options would be the "talk out loud" method or projections maybe.
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