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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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JAMES CAMERON: When
we buy a movie ticket,
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we're putting our--
we're creating
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a little bit of
a social contract
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with a bunch of people we never
met to go into a dark room
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and experience something and
be quiet and be passive and be
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submissive and not stop,
not stop the experience.
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The experience is in
a dominant position
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relative to our consciousness.
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And we do it
willingly because it's
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one of the few times in
our lives where we do that,
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and where we stop our
phone from ringing,
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and we give ourselves
that respite,
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and we give ourselves a moment,
might be a two-hour moment,
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might be a three-hour moment,
to experience something
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uninterrupted and unbroken.
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And if we have to get up
and go to the bathroom,
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you run because you don't
want to miss something.
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And that's a unique experience.
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I think as a filmmaker,
you know that you
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have a dominant or
authoritative position
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relative to the
audience's consciousness.
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And you have to
honor them, which
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is, I'm not going
to do something
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that-- that's so obvious you
can figure it out exactly.
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And you get to the end.
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And it's been predictable.
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But I also don't want to do
something that's intentionally
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obscure to where I'm just sort
of pirouetting how smart I am
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and all the big words I
can use, and you're lost.
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And we've all seen the ones
that strike that perfect balance
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where you're rewarded
for having paid attention
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and picking up the clues.
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And you go, aha.
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And I think there's one thing
that a lot of filmmakers
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take a while to
figure out, which
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is it's okay for the
audience to be ahead of you.
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It's okay because
the tension that
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goes before a reveal
or a cathartic moment
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is so much more delicious when
it's actually paid off in a way
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that you hope for than
some utter surprise that's
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not satisfying at all.
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Sometimes, filmmakers
create too much importance
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around the idea of
surprise versus paying off
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in a satisfying, satisfying way.
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It's all about this contract.
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It's about this dance
with the audience
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and honoring them and
encouraging them to participate
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and pay attention.
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[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
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Well, I can drive that loader.
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I have a class 2 rating.
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Be my guest.
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[LOADER WHIRRING]
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JAMES CAMERON: And
part of the way you
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do that is you plant something,
and then you pay it off.
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And you say, see how it works?
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I want to put something here.
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And you're going
to think about it,
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and then-- and then it's
going to be satisfying here.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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[SCREAMING]
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Get away from her, you bitch.
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[END PLAYBACK]
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JAMES CAMERON: So that
creates a bit of a promise
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that we're going to
continue to do that.
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We're going to do that right
through to the end of the film.
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The plant might be something
that only the audience knows,
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that that character needs
and wants and can't express.
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And you feel that I wish I
could just walk into the screen
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and shake that other person
and say, look at what
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this character's going through.
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You know, you want to
create that tension.
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You want to create that-- that
sense of wanting to be involved
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and playing and participating.
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It's participatory.
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People say that that
film is not interactive,
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that only games are--
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are an interactive medium.
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I don't think
that's true at all.
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I think films are
highly interactive.
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You can't change
the outcome, but you
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can imagine various outcomes in
real time as you're going on.
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You're playing out
those possibilities.
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It could go this way.
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It could go that way.
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It could be this, could be that.
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And if you play against
the audience's expectation
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in a satisfying
way, that's good.
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Keeps them playing the game.
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If you play to the
audience's expectation
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in a satisfying way, something
that they want to see
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happen, and then it happens--
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maybe it doesn't
happen the way they
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thought it was going to happen.
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Maybe it has to be earned
in a difficult way that's
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hard for the characters,
or maybe the character
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has to make the
sacrifice that you
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didn't see coming to get
that result that you wanted,
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you know.
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But this is all
part of the dance.
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They know all the gags.
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So the question is, how do
you play against it slightly?
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Or how do you use a little
bit of sleight of hand
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to disguise what you're doing?
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Or how do you lead
them on thinking
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that it's going to be one
thing and then switch track
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into something else?
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You know, you're doing
it at the writing stage.
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You should be going through the
script and saying, you know,
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what--
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what am I giving
the audience here?
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What expectation
does that create?
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How am I paying that off?
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Or how am I working against
that expectation later?
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It's very important
for filmmakers
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to ask themselves
these questions.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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Well, I think one of the first
principles of building tension
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is you have to care
about the character.
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And you have to
understand the jeopardy
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or at least that there is
jeopardy for that character.
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That might be anything from
a free-floating anxiety
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that something is
going to happen.
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And you don't know what it is.
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Because you've just walked
into an alien spacecraft.
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Or you just walked
into a haunted house.
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Or there's some kind of
really bad, negative outcome
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that's tied to a ticking clock.
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You know, the classic example
is the bomb under the table.
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Because I think time is a
factor on building tension.
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You have to believe
that it's not
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going to happen in two
weeks or in an hour.
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It's going to happen in the
next few seconds or maybe
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the next minute.
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So you have to be
invested in the outcome.
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You have to care
about the character.
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You have to be brought
in subjectively enough
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into the moment that
you're moving through the--
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the world, the space, the
journey with that character.
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And you have to have
enough outside information
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to know that that character is
going into increasing jeopardy.
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So crosscutting is a
good way to do that--
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cutting away to the
adversary or the train
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coming or whatever, whatever
the thing is that escalates,
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creating a constant
sense of escalation,
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creating a sense of frustration.
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[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
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Don't make me
bust you up, man.
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[GROANING]
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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[GLASS BREAKING]
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[GROANING]
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JAMES CAMERON: You're cutting
to a very mundane scene.
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But in the context of it
being a attention crosscutting
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scenario, it's a solution
that might happen but isn't
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gonna happen.
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And they could
have been saved but
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for had they just
answered the phone,
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or something has happened.
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The ringer got turned off.
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And you've established that.
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You're building tension
in all these ways.
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You have to be led to
believe as the audience
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that something is
going to happen soon,
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and then you prolong it.
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You don't just make it happen.
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You prolong it.
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So you've informed the audience
in some way stylistically
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that something bad is going to
happen, or something very bad
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could happen to your character,
and then you prolong.
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So you've told them
to be in that state,
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and then you suspend that
state and then hold them
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in that state.
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So they don't feel like it's
getting just snatched away
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from them before they've had a
chance to experience and feel
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it.
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Now, that might be a happy--
a state of happiness,
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might be a state of wonder.
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You don't want to give them
a little taste of wonder
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and then take it away.
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You want to stay in it.
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So tension is the same thing.
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So there's a
prolongation of tension,
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and that's usually done with
crosscutting two narratives
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that you feel are
converging to each other.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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There are entire films
that build tension
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across the arc of
the film, or there
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are films that build
tension across an entire act
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of the film, let's say.
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So "Titanic" would be an
example where tension slowly
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builds over time.
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Here's a clue.
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They got the iceberg warning.
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Captain puts it in his
pocket, doesn't do anything,
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tells them to speed up.
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[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
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Oh, not to worry.
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Quite normal for
this time of year.
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In fact, we're speeding up.
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I've just ordered
the last boilers lit.
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[END PLAYBACK]
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JAMES CAMERON: It's like,
well, wait a minute.
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There's an iceberg ahead.
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So you're building tension
at a relatively mild level.
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Once they hit the
iceberg, now you're
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building tension for
your main characters.
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Who's going to get off?
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How are they going to be saved?
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What are the obstacles that
are going to be in their path?
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Bad stuff is coming, and we
move relentlessly toward that.
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And we even, you know, release
the tension for a while.
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You know, Rose gets in the
lifeboat, and it's very sad.
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But you know at least
she's going to get away.
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Then she jumps back on the ship.
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Now you've just
ratcheted it up again.
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It's important to understand
the sort of the meta tension
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that can rise across an
entire section of a movie
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until it has some kind of
cathartic or pivotal ending.
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In that case, the ship
plunges, the scene on the raft.
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And Jack dies, and then
you get into the kind
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of series of codas
that kind of resolve
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the film emotionally
and thematically.
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But-- and the tension is
released at that point.
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And a great example, recent
example, is "Dunkirk."
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That's two hours-plus
of just rising tension.
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And it's very skillfully done.
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And the score is a
major component of that.
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It just builds and
builds and builds.
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And there's just this
feeling of dread and anxiety
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that builds across
that entire film
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until those characters
finally get pulled off
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that beach at the end.
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And they're on those
boats going home.
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And you feel like you've won.
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You've earned this feeling
of-- of delivery, of transport.
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And so, you know, that's
a case where it just
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was unrelenting across the
entire movie on a-- on a rising
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00:11:13,670 --> 00:11:14,330
curve.
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And that's an
incredible thing to be
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able to modulate
that-- that way.
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So tension is an art,
and it's a discipline.
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And it can come
in small amounts.
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It can come in longer sections.
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And it come-- and it can
come across an entire--
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entire story arc.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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[CHEERING]
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
19525
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