Cinematic Angles

There's A Camera in Your Head

Here’s what you get with every Into the Storymaze: writing insights or a work-in-progress; something creative I’m digging; a highlight from my comics-writing credits; plus a quote that’s got me thinking — both about right now and what’s next.

Twisty Little Passages

My good friend Mark Bellusci and I run a podcast called Street Writers, to take writing off any high horse and talk it out as something you’ve got to take on in the back alleys every day, every assignment. One of the regular segments is “Take A Swing At This”, where we test out tips for getting the words going, or making the writing better. This transcript of that section gets into using the camera in your brain to stage a scene with different lenses, angles and points of view. It’s important to give yourself over to wandering the Storymaze. Having techniques like these at the ready is always good for the equally important task of finding your way back out…

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Dan: Write from different cinematic angles. And what I mean by that is, approach it in the same way that a film is thought of and written from different angles: there’s a far shot, there's a closeup, there's a two shot, there's an extreme closeup. The camera moves when you watch a movie. What is your writing camera doing, when you're thinking about the writing of something? And where I drew this from, the example that they had given was if a reporter was covering an event, you could park yourself in the southwest corner of that event and never move for two hours. And you're going to get just one perspective on that. Then when you go back to write that story, it's going to be about only what you saw from that one spot.

But what if you moved throughout those two hours? You start at the Southwest corner, you went up close to the stage. Maybe you went to a platform that overlooked the whole event, or the rooftop that overlooked an outside pavilion. You leaned into talking to policemen who were doing security for the event. Now you saw the whole thing from many perspectives.

And then when you went back and you wrote that story, you would have a far different point of view on how you are going to put that together. Even if you only chose one of those as your point of view for your writing, you would still have a much richer approach to the whole viewpoint of it.

Mark: You may not have to decide between the perspectives. You may start wide, you go through the process, get close, and then you start pulling out again.

So maybe there's something in that. If you have two characters talking and you're looking at it from an extreme wide. There’s tourists walking past and there's a dog being walked or a horse on a buggy or something like that. Those are all opportunities to paint a picture with your words.

And then as you start pulling in, let's do the extreme close. So now that could be your confrontation point. That could be your change in perspective, as somebody sees the other person's eye is twitching, to give away something like that.

I love everything that becomes visual when it comes to writing. Because it helps you write descriptive and helps you figure out your dialogue. If somebody is that close to you, maybe you say, “Step the fuck away from me!” 

Dan: And it's not even the literalness of the video or cinematic angles, and where you are positioned. It's how your perspective as a writer views a situation, the situation of your own creation, a situation of your observation. How do you  vary those points of view, to ultimately arrive in a stronger place?

Mark: And it helps you address your weaknesses. Because if you're a writer as I am, which would probably be a close or medium close [shot], where it's a lot of dialogue banter back and forth. You can find yourself tunnel visioned, not describe what's going on around these people, not describe the energy of the location or the possibility of somebody else coming into the scene.

It's a great reminder to pull back, in my case. And for other writers, they get to go in close because they're too shallow [way back out] on 20 characters, and they need to focus on two. 

Treasure Seekers

It’s hard to figure what Apple’s actual scheme is with Apple TV: it’s got limited reach, most people probably don’t even know about it, the cost isn’t better (or worse) than other streaming services, it’s got comparative general content, and the original exclusive content doesn’t seem to skew to a particular identity. I’ve only got it ‘cause it came as a trial freebie with the purchase of a new iPad. (Apple fanboy.)

All that said, that original content does serve up some gems. This Tom Hanks flick was originally intended for theaters, and like so much else got kicked out of the darkened room to make room for COVID. I don’t know how well it would have performed. A tale about WW 2 (“Huh? What was that?”) where the Nazis are enemies (“What? Get out of town!”) might seem quaint or too much of a stretch for some audiences.

But this is without a doubt one of the most taut, intense action dramas I’ve seen in a good long while. It was a literal back to back viewing, as after I finished, I called my family in for their own watch party. From a writing POV, the script seems to consist mostly of “Full right rudder!” and “30 degrees starboard!” But that only contributes to the intense concentration of the mission and the moments, as a fleet of destroyers must escort needed supply transports through a stretch of ocean crawling with U-boats. The search and destroy from both sides is intense, and felt like a whole new take on sea battles.

For a star and celebrity of Hanks’ level, it’s always amazing how he so effortlessly slips into an everyman character, and imbues him with flaws, humanity, emotion and intensity. Expertly paced, highly recommended. Get the Apple fan in your life to lend you their log in. (Shh, don’t tell Tim Cook! Or the ghost of Steve Jobs…)

The Comics Labyrinth

This isn’t one of the most captivating images I’ll share from my comics’ creation collection, but it’s certainly one of the most intriguing. All stories start with “What if…?” — and Marvel Comics had a long running title that allowed for an even deeper dive into that, where creative teams could suggest totally out there alternate takes on the established comic book universe, upending precious continuity with roads less (or never) traveled. “What if… the X-Men’s Jean Grey had never died?” “What if…Thanos ran a flower stand?” “What if… Thor was a frog?” (Wait a minute — that was an actual Walt Simonson story! Never mind there…)

The wonderful artist (and person) Mark Nelson and I pitched this one to editor Marc McLaurin: “What If… a magic infused Marvel Universe needed a SHIELD not committed to espionage, but concerned with keeping the supernatural in check? And what if the leader of that SHIELD wasn’t superspy Nick Fury… but sorcerer supreme Dr. Stephen Strange?”

This got WAY down the road in terms of being real: plot written, many pages illustrated, write-ups circulated through the sales department. The comic book crash of the mid-nineties sent it away into an alternate universe of its own, but not before Todd Klein had shared out a multiverse of cool logo designs. This was the final selection, and would have graced the cover. “What if…?”, indeed.

Web of Intrigue

Frauds master our minds; magicians, like poets and lovers, engage them in a permanent maze of possibilities.
— Adam Gopnik

Amazing Times

How’d we end up here together? Maybe a detour off the dark web! But I’m hoping it’s because you subscribed to this share-out of projects I’m working on plus things that have me jazzed. I’m D.G. Chichester. Which sounds very pretentious, and tweed jacket and pipe — so feel free to just call me “Dan”, and have a go at the last name as Chai (like the tea) Chester (just like it looks). I earned my word-cred writing comic book titles like Daredevil, Terror Inc., Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, along with all manner of digital widgets and websites in the world wide web of advertising. I keep my storytelling cred by trying new things —  this is one of ‘em. I like weird and sometimes creepy tales, so if things here bend that way — now you know why!

Folks seem to like the comic book adventures I’ve written, so if you haven’t checked one out — please do. Many are now available in fab collected editions.

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