[How to: TV] Layering scenes

While talking to DBS last week, he mentioned that the biggest thing he’d learned from writing on Insiders’ Guide was to ‘layer scenes’. To have at least 2 (but more like 3 or 4) things going on. Part of this is to do with subtext, part of it’s about having stuff going on in the background and still more is about keeping the scene alive, filled with energy and keeping the viewer engaged.

The idea is to make scenes multi-dimensional as well.

So now we’ve got the starts of a checklist:

• What’s the scene about: Stakes and Conflicts.
• What’s the scene really about: Subtext.
• What else is going on: background stories – and secondary characters.
• Off-screen stories: (see the sound design commentary track on the Se7en DVD for many examples of this).
• How should the scene make us feel: Emotion