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From Issue 10: Exposition by Simon Kent
It happens in every script. Sooner or later a character has to give a speech that informs everyone – his or her fellow characters and the viewers – exactly what is about to happen. Making this process believable and not disruptive to the flow of a screenplay is always a challenge, but particularly so in the Crime or Mystery story where the attraction lies in how the problem is solved by the protagonist(s). In these scripts the writer needs to set up the scenario as quickly as possible to get to the meat of the story where the hero(es) entertain and amaze their audience. ...Or do they? In its purest form, exposition is simply a statement of information. It sets up the plot but doesn’t move the plot forward. It is a static element: this is where we stand right now and this is what we build on. Such information can be dealt with in a number of different ways, making the process of receiving exposition enjoyable and an accepted part of a screenplay for the audience, as satisfying as the resolution and conclusion. As we shall see, exposition can be treated as a separate event in a screenplay, or can be integrated smoothly into the script, either by involving an ‘exposition’ character, or by attaching an emotional dimension to the exposition. Making exposition enjoyable as an event in itself requires separating it from the protagonist and can mean that the giving of information is turned into a spectacle. James Bond has M to tell him what to do and why he needs to do it. Q gives him the gadgets by which he will achieve the objectives. Even in the early Bond films, both scenes were treated as set pieces. Bond flirts with Moneypenny on his way in or out (or both) of M’s office and Q’s incredible devices provide a comic interlude prior to – or as a relief from – Bond’s more serious escapades. Mike Myer’s Austin Powers films have taken this to a logical and ridiculous conclusion by naming Power’s own British Intelligence contact Basil Exposition. In both the television series and the 2000 film version of Charlie’s Angels, the exposition character is almost entirely denied an on-screen appearance, reduced instead to a voice on an intercom. This has novelty value and makes Charlie’s exposition speeches more acceptable to the audience. There is something charmingly mysterious about a millionaire who has set up a private investigation agency consisting of three attractive and effective female operatives but then never sees them. However, this trick doesn’t solve the exposition challenge entirely. Charlie’s disembodied voice is ideal for providing leading interaction such as:
However, the writers still need the sidekick character of Bosley to have a physical presence in the Angels’ world, not least to handle the ‘prop’ side of the exposition process, showing pictures, paperwork and, in the film, playing the video. Exposition frequently provides a great excuse for impressive multimedia presentations. Q’s gadgets are a case in point, so too is the use of cine film projection by George Cowley in several episodes of The Professionals. In each case the visual element offsets the otherwise heavy-handed dialogue. Possibly the most inventive multimedia exposition is carried out by Rupert Giles in Hush, season 4, Episode 10 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (written and directed by Joss Whedon). In this episode, a group of demons called The Gentlemen have stolen the voices of everyone living in Sunnydale, including the protagonists. Armed with an overhead projector, felt-tipped pens and a cassette recorder playing Danse Macabre, Giles gives a presentation about The Gentlemen dealing with questions and interruptions from the rest of the gang submitted through sign language and by scribbling on personal white boards strung around their necks.In Fastlane, the contemporary and somewhat over the top US crime show created by John McNamara and McG (director of the Charlie’s Angels film in 2000), Police Lieutenant Billie Chamber’s exposition speeches are accompanied by glossy ‘flashback’ scenes. Chambers has recruited male cops Van Roy and Deaqon Hayes to work undercover, initially to find the killers of Andre Hayes, Van’s LAPD partner and Hayes’ brother. However, the visuals that accompany Chamber’s exposition are not for the benefit of her charges; they are for the audience alone. A stylish, slow-motion, atmospheric and often extremely violent depiction of the bad guys they’re out to get this week, these sequences not only perform the useful task of breaking up her speeches but by introducing the bad guys there’s no need to recap or engineer a positive identification of them later in the episode. While Charlie always keeps his distance from the cases his Angels solve, Billie has a physical presence in Fastlane and is active in every case. In Mighty Blue (writers Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec, director Guy Norman Bee, 2002) she uses an undercover cop (Alexa Tan) to help arrange a drugs exchange that will set up underground villain Jackson. But Alexa is no ordinary cop:
There is irony in this warning since it is Deaq and not Van who ends up ‘shizzling’ Alexa’s ‘wizzle’. This emotional attachment leads to Alexa blowing her undercover identity in front of Jackson in order to save Deaq’s life. Jackson consequently kills Alexa, triggering Billie to take angry and bloody revenge on Jackson. At the programme’s conclusion, ‘justice’ of a kind has been carried out on Jackson, but more important is the message that this is a hard line of work and undercover cops cannot afford to have sensitive, loving sides. Cont. in Issue 10
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