Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Tropes of the Trade

This should help you out with your next TV script: Television Tropes & Idioms. Don't forget, if you are doing a love story, your characters must "meet cute." Come to think of it, does anyone on TV ever meet their girlfriend or boyfriend in any other way but cute? Does any character just meet their potential mate at church or at school or are introduced through a mutual friend? Do they ever just meet up at a party and say hey "do you want to go out?" Isn't there always and necessarily a contrivance to get the two together? Aren't jumbled packages, quaint misunderstandings, or prat falls always involved? Do we know a relationship is not real when "cute" is not a factor in a TV couples' meeting? Well that's why they call it a trope, eh?

How does the need to have a "cute" meeting with a potential mate factor into our own perceptions of the rightness or wrongness of a relationship?

10 comments:

  1. It all comes down to wanting a good story to tell friends and family. We should think of the most repellant stories of couple meetings.

    "I met my husband at the office. I felt sorry for him because no one else would go out with him. Eventually we got married because it was too much effort to date anyone else."

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  2. I prefer "meet dark" as a relationship trope.

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  3. Is that like Wuthering Heights lb?

    And Bunny, I like that story. It seems full comic and tragic potential.

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  4. The Power Walk is a wide shot of the main cast, shoulder to shoulder, suited up for battle and looking cool/determined/fierce, as they walk towards the camera, often in slow motion. Typically shot from a slightly lower than normal angle to add stature to the characters in the shot. Extra power can be gained from a dramatic backdrop, especially flames.

    The next time I come up we should film all of us bloggas doing this...

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  5. One of my favorite Power Walk shots ever is in Rushmore during that early sequence where they're showing all the clubs Max is a part of.

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  6. There is also a really good powerwalk in Donnie Darko.

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  7. MB and I "met cute" when I made him an Americano at Starbucks. But he had a girlfriend. Then we "met cute" again in graduate school when I realized he was friends with my friend Michael. And single. You know the rest.

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  8. I've granted my share of pity dates. And I'm quite lazy. I haven't been lazy enough to marry though. Fingers crossed.

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  9. Oh and excellent idea, E. We can all assemble at the Great Salt Lake. I might still have a weed burner (pre-CO2 days) which flamed up something fierce.

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  10. Anonymous2:58 PM

    I love the Rushmore scene! I wish I was that cool.

    I once met a cool woman in a cinco de mayo party at Clint's house. She wore Saucony's and agreed to an 'olives only' restaurant date.

    Johnny T.

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