The Art of Exposition - Best and Worst of Exposition in Film/Television

I just hate when it isn't diegetic
 
Watched Baby Driver for the first time yesterday and you get this cop-out 20 minutes in. The "is he slow?" scene ten minutes prior was fine for exposition, and it might be that the lines in this bit are edited too closely together to seem natural, but it's D-tier spoonfeeding.
 
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I think in movies and televison, as long as you have something interesting visually going on the screen at the same time, you can get away with doing a succinct dump of information in about 1-2 minutes. Some things can be pieced together organically, but if you can dole out exposition without slowing the pace down too much, that's the ideal.

Books are different since depending on the genre your audience can be either used to that or looking for it. It's been a while since I read a book, sadly, so I can't say what way works best for what genre or type of story. Internet based projects like wiki stories and worldbuilding collaborations can just have as much as you want, since that is part of the draw. The rules for the written word are very bendable.

Video games are interesting since the player can diverge from the main plot stuff to read or talk to others about the world. As long as it is optional and you're not stuck in a dialog tree or document with no escape, you can cram a bunch of random shit in. For the main missions, it shouldn't interrupt the flow of the game or keep the player stuck in one place just listening to something endlessly for too long. Letting the player choose how much they experience or not is fine, Doom 2016 is a prime example of this. Some players like longer cutscenes and long dialog like in RPGs, and you can capitalize on it there.

I think the best way to tell exposition is to keep it laconic, and if possible, present it as a bit of a story in itself. Telling a mini-tale within a tale can help, and can help not derail the entire work.

Edit: if you're prone to too much exposition, ask yourself if the audience needs to know this right now for the story to make sense. Spreading it out helps. If you're prone to underexplaining, talk to someone who doesn't know about your storu and plainly explain some parts to them. Take note of what questions they ask, and you can integrate the more integral ones in.
 
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AMHOLIO said:
I think in movies and televison, as long as you have something interesting visually going on the screen at the same time, you can get away with doing a succinct dump of information in about 1-2 minutes. Some things can be pieced together organically, but if you can dole out exposition without slowing the pace down too much, that's the ideal.

Books are different since depending on the genre your audience can be either used to that or looking for it. It's been a while since I read a book, sadly, so I can't say what way works best for what genre or type of story. Internet based projects like wiki stories and worldbuilding collaborations can just have as much as you want, since that is part of the draw. The rules for the written word are very bendable.

Video games are interesting since the player can diverge from the main plot stuff to read or talk to others about the world. As long as it is optional and you're not stuck in a dialog tree or document with no escape, you can cram a bunch of random shit in. For the main missions, it shouldn't interrupt the flow of the game or keep the player stuck in one place just listening to something endlessly for too long. Letting the player choose how much they experience or not is fine, Doom 2016 is a prime example of this. Some players like longer cutscenes and long dialog like in RPGs, and you can capitalize on it there.

I think the best way to tell exposition is to keep it laconic, and if possible, present it as a bit of a story in itself. Telling a mini-tale within a tale can help, and can help not derail the entire work.

Edit: if you're prone to too much exposition, ask yourself if the audience needs to know this right now for the story to make sense. Spreading it out helps. If you're prone to underexplaining, talk to someone who doesn't know about your storu and plainly explain some parts to them. Take note of what questions they ask, and you can integrate the more integral ones in.
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This is the worst exposition now.
 
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episode-4-crawl_24e24e6f.jpeg

Whatever happened to "show, don't tell"? I didn't buy a movie ticket to read a novel, George.
 
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Dagoth AMOGUS said:
The most famous example of all would be the scrolling text in the beginning of Star Wars.

I understand the rule “show, don’t tell” but that shouldn’t be a hard law, you know?
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Calandrino said:
View attachment 6130643

Whatever happened to "show, don't tell"? I didn't buy a movie ticket to read a novel, George.
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What's amazing is that I actually DID read the thread, I just have brain damage or something, I dunno
 
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