A movie is a bath. Here's how to deal with subaquatic hard matter.

A new semester at your cloud-based absurdist film school. Plus: the convoluted backstory behind exposition.

Sep 26, 2022

Dear Students, Alumni, Faculty, and Trespassers,

A new semester has begun at Unfound Peoples Videotechnic (UPV). And in our hearts.

There is no school news to report. Nothing! Everything is fine and even. A tranquil sea.

Instead, we start the term’s first newsletter with an intro and a bumper ‘instruction.’

‘Instruction’ is the basic unit of filmmaking knowledge at the UPV. A single instruction evokes a single element of filmmaking language or technique. Between two and 999 words per instruction, sensibly arranged, for the student/reader to ponder.

These instructions can be combined in a modular fashion to interrogate a broader aspect of filmmaking.

There are usually one or two such instructions per newsletter. But this term we’ll start with four. The broad aspect is exposition. The component instructions are Exposition; Hard Matter; Your Exposition Options; and The Subtlety Myth.

But first, a brief word.

New Film Students

First, a brief word to any film teachers who are reading: why not share this newsletter with your (new) students and encourage them to subscribe?

For now, this bulletin is a ~monthly delivery of filmmaking technique/thought/inspiration. There are occasional extras and additional resources. There are plans to expand a little next semester.

There is also a website: unfound.video.

New instruction: Exposition

Regular visitors to the UPV website enjoy the regular addition of instructional texts. Here follows an expanded copy of the latest.

In filmmaking, exposition is the in-film presentation of extraneous information. Information that:

Belongs in the movie’s universe but
Would not ordinarily surface in the scenes the filmmaker planned to present and
May enhance the audience’s understanding of what is going on so
The filmmaker fits it in somehow.

For example, on-screen text or intrusive background dialogue might explain:

Why the gravity in that landscape hardly seems effective.
Why they are wearing those hats.
The meaning of that facial expression.
Why they are being like that to each other.

Context that the filmmaker thinks the audience needs to make sense of the film. Facts. Details. Histories. Measurements. Catalysts.

Common vehicles for exposition include:

Voiceover.
Crawling text.
Credit sequence.
Flashback.
Clunky dialogue.
Greek chorus.
The name of the film.
So-called “sexposition.”

Exposition is an exposure that explains. But need it explain? Some of life’s most enjoyable exposures really explain nothing at all.

You’ve created a wonderful, complex world for your movie. Enjoy the freedom to exposit information that really explains nothing at all. Exposition ‘for the hell of it.’ What else might you expose?

Exposition II: Hard Matter

Exposition can optimise a film’s structure. And exposition can optimise the audience’s experience of the ‘main film.’ But scholars and cinephiles look at exposition with suspicion. Why?

Here’s why. A movie is a bath. Exposition, in its purest form, exists ‘outside of the bath.’ So, the scholar or cinephile who is bathing feels discomfort when the hard matter of exposition brushes up against them in the water.

Therefore, the filmmaker must consider if, when, and how to append ‘extra’ information to her movie. And how much.

Exposition is an ‘exposure that explains.’ More like an imposition, really. A printing-on, a moving around, an announcement, of facts outside of their proper place. Imposing themselves into the audience’s understanding and changing everything.

Exposition III: Options

Exposition is an exposure. An exposure of information that the filmmaker considers essential for the audience’s understanding and/or enjoyment of the film. An exposure is a deliberate revelation. A revelation of something hidden beneath the physical, emotional, or temporal surface.

But exposition is also an explanation.

How else might we imagine exposition?

As an ‘invisible tutorial’ for the viewer.
As a blister, manifesting the simmering pus beneath the film’s surface.

What might you achieve with a well-placed exposition? You might:

Convey the underlying mechanics of the movie.
Draw connections to other works the audience can use to navigate your movie.
Dispel an illusion that preceding parts of the movie may have conjured.
Trace relationships between disparate elements of your movie’s world.
Illustrate how your hero is, in essence, a mindless flesh blanket wrapped around a formative tragedy (I.e. Loss of wife, mother, childhood pet, homeland).
Adjust the expectations of the audience (and, for that matter, the crew).

Exposition can function as an entirely new movie placed, like a transparency, over your primary movie. Exposition and music are alike in this way.

This is why exposition and music can be interchangeable. Both are powerful, alien tools in the hands of a filmmaker who feels awkward about her material.

Exposition IV: The Subtlety Myth

Everybody says exposition should be subtle. Gentle. In an ideal world, they say, the audience won’t notice the exposition for what it is.

Nobody knows who said this first. It could have been somebody terrible. It is best to make your own mind up on the matter.

Tabula rasa

Scroll to the end for this episode’s reading, viewing, and listening list. Other than that, I won’t hold you any longer - you probably want to go and buy a ton of new term stationery. Your recommendations are invited in the comments section.

Thanks for reading.

~Graeme Cole.

(Principal)

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