- This intercutting of the elaborate dressing rituals of De Merteuil and Valmont continues, without dialogue. - Essentially, as the script makes clear in the last shot of the sequence that follows, we are watching as squires gird two seasoned warriors for battle. - In the anteroom to Valmont’s dressing room, a mask covers Valmont’s face as a servant blows powder onto his wig. - In the sequence that follows, battle of a sort is joined between these two characters in the grand salon of Mme de Merteuil’s town house.. - The nature of the crosscutting indicates both that there is a parallel between the characters and that they are dressing to meet one another in a contest of some sort. - Brief references to clothing, accessories, furniture, and setting establish that the story takes place in the. - late 18th century—in fact, just before the French Revolution. - Just explain that it’s better if there is no discussion of the material at the time.. - In the next exercise we will ask you to do something similar, working from your recollection of the previous exercise rather than what you have written down. - Most of the questions you will ask your character are those actors often ask themselves (as the characters they are playing) before going onstage or in front of a camera. - SECOND ASSIGNMENT: REWRITING IN FORMAT Throughout the book, the assignments, as opposed to the exercises, will ben- efit from reading and discussion in class or, again, if you are working on your own, with friends who have some idea of the writing process. - The second part of the assignment is to revise the revision, keeping only those details that seem essential (again, no need as yet to figure out why),. - Aim at leaving yourself enough time before handing in the work to put it away for a day or two before doing the final revision—you will gain some detachment from the material and may see possibilities that you’d previ- ously overlooked.. - Besides conveying what (as we have noted) philosopher Susanne Langer calls “the feeling-tone” of a film or tape, aural images can expand the frame in terms of offscreen space and extend the meaning of what is being shown, by using sound as metaphor. - 1 When these images are an integral part of the story, they usually originate in the script.. - 2 He applies this principle to great effect in a scene from his film Pickpocket, in which the impoverished hero stands behind a prosperous- looking couple at a racetrack, trying to get up the courage to make an attempt on the wallet in the woman’s pocketbook. - We hear the blaring announcement of the next race over a loudspeaker, a bell’s loud clanging, the pounding of hooves, and cries of a crowd we can’t see but that seems to be all around us.. - Because of the background sound, as well as the reactions of the couple as they follow the race, we believe that it is going on somewhere “behind” us and so are able to focus our entire attention on the inner struggle of the main character.. - Another example, which uses offscreen sound to create a rising sense of unease in both main character and audience, is from an independent feature called The Passage, which was written and directed by Pat Cooper, one of the authors of this book.. - In the film, a ghost story, a writer called Michael Donovan has left his wife in New York and gone to a desolate part of Cape Cod to do research on 19th- century shipwrecks. - ing the sea at a spot where shipwrecks once were common, and he immerses himself in the history of the place. - In the morning, MICHAEL at the dining table, typing from his notes.. - As in his dream of the previous night, the door under the eaves is open in the reflected image. - He crosses to pry it open, and finds a long low dark space that runs the length of the room. - He returns them both to the trunk and closes the lid, then straightens up to catch sight of himself in the looking glass.. - He goes out of the room, closing the door after him.. - With the invisible panther padding along behind her, growling, she races to a large swimming pool in the basement and throws herself in. - She quickly swims to the middle of the pool and begins to scream for help, as the echoing sound of the invis- ible cat’s snarls ricochets off the tiled walls of the big room.
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