...provides the reader or the audience the background, the plot, the setting, the supporting characters, and the theme to help us understand the story.
As a very neophyte screenwriter I've been attentively watching several of my favorite TV shows and observed how the writers crafted their expositions. Of course, wishing to have the luxury of reading the script at the same time the episode was aired would have been cool but I can only do so much. Sure, there are DVD sets and
Ebay (hahaa) but I can't certainly buy all of them. I can only choose. Anyways, here are a few of them...
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| Credit www.tvovermind.zap2it.com |
For
Supernatural, concise crafting of the Winchester brothers dialogue (not too wordy) delivered the plot quickly and the who's who they had to deal with. The
What was usually presented through reading unexplained deaths in the newspaper like from
Season Three: The Kids are Alright. Given the nomadic lifestyle and their type of job, the brothers used newspapers as a source to check out killings or disappearances, which they could tell had a supernatural cause connected to it. Information gathering on a certain lore was through the internet, the local library or their father's journal , which was heavily used from
Season One and
Season Two, I think). I can't recall if in the third season the journal was prominent. I may have to wait for the reruns. Through later seasons, the newspapers were very handy and information passed by their family friend/fellow hunter, Bobby, would launch the brothers into full on investigative mode.
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| Credit www.mywatchmovies.blogspot.com |
For
Smallville, the characters have to lay it out for the audience a little. Exposition was delivered between two or three characters, depending which
big three of week story is it. The presentation sort of followed one of the characters thought processes like a normal brainstorming session to deduce either the motive of the antagonist (an example between calculating Tessa and feisty Chloe in
Season Nine: Sacrifice or the solution of a problem the main characters were facing like in
Season Six: Justice.
For
Stargate: Atlantis,
Dr. Rodney McKay usually provides the background of what the team has encountered as being the closest expert in Ancients and their technology. An example from
Season One: Hot Zone. I sometimes found that giving the scientist the whole brunt of the story (in several other episodes) can be a bit tiresome and drag everything down. Would a particular episode fared better if the exposition was given to another 'expert' or it was broken down with another semi-regular character? Maybe.
Something to remember for the day: "Good exposition, however, never simply "dumps" information in our lap." Read more from
The Script Lab.
Now, let's try to apply it with my drafts.
