Hi, I'm Michael.
This is Lessons from the Screenplay.
At its most basic level, a story is just information being communicated over time.
Sometimes it's plot information explained through dialogue.
"And over the next few days, you're going to be the human component in a Turing test."
Sometimes it's emotional information shared through music, visuals, and performance.
Regardless of the form it takes, every moment that passes in a film tells us something new.
Today I want to examine the way information is revealed in a film, and how it affects
the audience's experience.
Let's take a look at writer/director Alex Garland's smart, engaging thriller, Ex Machina.
An Unconventional Perspective
For every movie the screenwriter must choose the point of view from which the story will
be told.
On one end of the spectrum is a film like Fight Club
where there is a limited point of view.
The audience experiences the story along with the protagonist.
They can only see what the protagonist sees and only learn what the protagonist learns.
Toward the other end of the spectrum is a film like The Dark Knight, which has a more
omniscient point of view.
The story is not told solely through Batman's eyes,
instead inhabiting other perspectives as well.
Ultimately, the choice of perspective is a decision as to what information the audience
will encounter over the course of the story, and how they will experience it.
In Ex Machina, the point of view is primarily limited to Caleb.
There are notable exceptions, but for the most part, we experience the story along with him.
"Hello?"
This seems rational, because at first glance, Caleb appears to be the the protagonist.
But by the end of the film, we learn that his role in the test and in the story is not
what it seemed.
So for a moment, I would like to argue that Ava is the actual protagonist of Ex Machina.
Ava has the strongest desire—freedom—and faces the biggest obstacles.
She is actively doing battle with the main opponent, Nathan, as she manipulates Caleb
to help her escape.
And in the end, it's Ava who achieves her goals.
Now, to an extent, this is all semantics.
Ultimately, I don't think it's important to overanalyze who the "real" protagonist is.
If the story works, it works.
But I want to follow this thread because it allows us to examine the interesting choice
of perspective in Ex Machina.
The way The Great Gatsby is Gatsby's story as told through Nick Carraway,
Ex Machina is Ava's story as told through Caleb.
So what are the benefits of telling the story in this manner?
What if it had been told strictly from Ava's perspective?
Well, it wouldn't be very dynamic.
Ava spends most of the story locked in her room,
interacting almost exclusively with Caleb.
This would make for a pretty boring movie because she doesn't encounter enough new information
to be engaging.
Considering another option, if the film was told only from Nathan’s perspective
it would also be boring.
He spends most of the story getting drunk and waiting for Caleb to be predictably manipulated.
Plus, Nathan already knows what the real test is.
He starts the story with almost all the knowledge, so he also doesn't discover enough new
information to be engaging.
But Caleb is in a unique position to go from knowing nothing to knowing everything, and
it’s this journey of discovery that keeps the audience engaged.
In his book "The Anatomy of Story," John Truby calls this journey of discovery
the Revelation Sequence.
The revelation sequence is the order in which the audience discovers the key pieces of information
that force the main character to change their desire or motivation.
Let’s quickly list the seven reveals that Caleb, and therefore the audience, experiences
in Ex Machina.
Caleb learns he’s here to test an A.I.
AVA warns Caleb that Nathan is untrustworthy.
AVA implies she has romantic feelings for Caleb.
Nathan will kill AVA after the test is complete.
Nathan reveals the real test was to see if Ava could manipulate Caleb.
Caleb reveals he hacked Nathan the day before and Ava has already escaped.
Ava was just manipulating Caleb the whole time, and leaves him to die.
So what works so well about this sequence?
In his book, John Truby offers three aspects of a revelation sequence that ensure it builds properly.
The first is that the sequence of revelations must be logical.
The order of these reveals makes sense,
it’s believable that Caleb would experience them in this order.
The second aspect is they must build in intensity.
Truby acknowledges this is not always possible, but in this case I think it holds up.
Each new revelation adds pressure and increases the drama.
The last aspect is that the reveals must come at an increasing pace.
The first four reveals happen across pretty steady intervals.
But as the film heads toward its conclusion the reveals increase in frequency, creating
momentum and excitement.
Choosing to tell the story through Caleb's point of view offers the most compelling sequence
of revelations.
By isolating and examining the major reveals of your story, you get a window into the audience’s
experience, which can help ensure the film will be engaging.
Now that we've looked at revelations on a macro-scale, I want to zoom in and examine
how the control of information can affect engagement on a scene-by-scene level.
Don't Connect the Dots.
In their book "Notes on Directing," Frank Hauser and Russell Reich wrote:
"Don’t always connect all the dots."
"Give the audience a role in filling in what’s happening."
"That is, give them all the dots they need but don’t connect all the dots for them."
I think Ex Machina executes this exquisitely, but it does so by deviating from the screenplay
in several places.
Let's take a look at a couple examples.
In the first scene, we're very quickly shown that Caleb works at some kind of company,
and has won some kind of contest.
Immediately after, he is flying over a beautiful landscape,
presumably on his way to the prize destination.
This is the dialogue between Caleb and the helicopter pilot in the final film:
"How long until we get to his estate?"
"We've been flying over his estate for the past two hours."
From these two lines of dialogue we can infer three new pieces of information.
The contest apparently involves traveling to meet someone.
It's someone who is rich enough to own this estate, and who must be pretty isolated if
they've been flying over the estate for two hours.
Now let's look at this same scene in the screenplay.
It's nearly two and a half pages long, and it's full of exposition.
We're told that Caleb is a programmer who works for a search engine company, that he's
traveling to meet someone who is also a programmer and a recluse.
The pilot spells out that there is no one else around for a hundred miles, and Caleb
describes how he won a competition to spend a week with the CEO of the company, who is
so powerful that the president can't even get him on the phone.
This is all relevant information—information we, the audience, want to and need to know.
But we don't need to know it right now.
When we have a complete handle on what's going on,
we lean back and wait for something new to happen.
But when there's something we want to know, a puzzle we want solved, we lean forward and
engage with the film.
By leaving in only the last two lines of this scene, writer/director Alex Garland gives
us new dots and allows us to connect them, while teasing more dots to come.
So when Caleb finally meets Nathan, we're hanging on every word because we want to discover
what's going on.
"Caleb Smith."
We're engaged.
"Hey"
And it's just two people talking.
"Dude!"
Another good example is Session 5 with Ava.
In this scene, Ava asks Caleb a series of questions.
"Question one."
"What's your favorite color?"
At the end of the scene, she triggers a power failure so they can speak without Nathan watching.
"I want to be with you."
"Question five."
"Do you want to be with me?"
In the screenplay, we see Caleb's answer.
And the scene ends with him implying that he has a plan to out-smart Nathan.
We know precisely where he stands and now we're just waiting to see what his plan is.
But in the film, the scene ends with AVA's question unanswered.
"Do you want to be with me?"
Which makes us wonder what his answer was.
The film even gives us a few quiet shots where very little is happening
allowing us to think and process.
Maybe we're wondering what we might have said in his situation, or we're pretty sure what
his answer was and are wondering what he'll do next.
But the important part is that we're wondering.
We are engaged in the story.
This is why editing is sometimes referred to as the final re-write of a film.
Often the filmmakers can't know how much information an audience needs
until all the pieces are put together.
Sometimes an actor's performance conveys more in a glance than an entire paragraph of dialogue.
Regardless, these are important lessons for a writer to keep in mind.
In my very first video, I mentioned I appreciate films that respect the audience.
Ex Machina is a great example of a film that does exactly that.
It is designed to entertain while telling a smart, thought-provoking narrative.
It treats the audience like intelligent human beings, encouraging us to participate in the story
instead of turning our brains off.
I believe this is what every film should strive for.
By choosing to tell Ava's story primarily through Caleb's perspective, Alex Garland creates
the most engaging and compelling way of experiencing Ex Machina.
Hey guys.
Since this is my last video of 2016 I just wanted to say a very big thank you
to all of you for helping the channel grow.
You're amazing, I love you.
Please consider supporting this channel on Patreon because as many of you have pointed
out, I still need to do a video about Fight Club, and The Social Network, and Pulp Fiction,
and so on, and so on.
Have a very happy holidays, and I will see you in 2017.