{"id":301,"date":"2011-06-29T13:17:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T13:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/?p=301"},"modified":"2024-12-09T18:15:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T18:15:37","slug":"montage-sequence-friend-or-foe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/montage-sequence-friend-or-foe\/","title":{"rendered":"Montage Sequence – Friend or Foe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead of writing a bunch of short scenes with little or no dialogue as separate steps in your story, why not group them together in a sequence and count it as one scene?\u00a0 This way you can still give the audience the information they need but you compress the method in which you reveal it \u2013 adding pace to your story.<\/p>\n

Okay, you say, we\u2019ve seen this a zillion times in movies.. and it\u2019s called a \u201cmontage\u201d.\u00a0 A sequence of shots, typically put to music to show the condensed passage of time.\u00a0 It\u2019s a screenwriting<\/a> device that sometimes helps a script and sometimes, as with all over-used devices, hinders it.\u00a0 Just like anything you do when creating a screenplay you have to make sure that every story, character or stylistic element is justified.\u00a0 That means, asking yourself the question \u201cDoes it make sense to have this here?\u201d.<\/p>\n

The typical use of a montage sequence can be seen in movies like The Karate Kid<\/em> or Flashdance<\/em> \u2013 whereby the central character has to learn how to do karate or how to do a complicated dance routine.\u00a0 If the scenes were played in real time the audience would be sitting in the movie theater for weeks and would probably be a little bored.\u00a0 Similary, if you just jump to the scene where the Karate Kid does the \u201ccrane\u201d, the climax wouldn\u2019t have any impact and we\u2019d be asking ourselves how in hell did this scrawny little kid suddenly know how to do such an amazing karate kick!\u00a0 It just wouldn\u2019t be believable.<\/p>\n

So it is clear that in this example that a montage sequence is necessary.\u00a0 But the problem is, we\u2019ve seen them done so many times it forms a part of our instinctive cinematic language.\u00a0 This can be a good thing, because we know what\u2019s going on and don\u2019t have to be educated \u2013 we just accept it.\u00a0 But conversely, it doesn\u2019t really break any boundaries for the cinematic art form and can often be the choice of a lazy writer.<\/p>\n

If you decide that a montage sequence is absolutely the only way you can convey your character\u2019s emotional or physical development in a short passage of time then go ahead, use it, but try to be innovative.\u00a0 Maybe don\u2019t use music.\u00a0 Or perhaps use split-screen so the events unfold in condensed time in parallel to real-time events. Maybe you could even disguise the sequence through other techniques such as CGI, voice-over, flicking through pages of a book.. who knows, that\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n

The point is, whatever screenwriting device you use from your creative writing<\/a> toolbox, don\u2019t be lazy.\u00a0 Always force yourself to find a creative solution to your storytelling and never settle for something because it\u2019s the easy option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of writing a bunch of short scenes with little or no dialogue as separate steps in your story, why not group them together in a sequence and count it as one scene?\u00a0 This way you can still give the audience the information they need but you compress the method in which you reveal it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[23,108,109,11,107],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dan-bronzites-script-tips","tag-creative-writing","tag-montage","tag-montage-sequence","tag-screenwriting","tag-writing-style"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":682,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movieoutline.com\/screenwriting-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}