Literally Non-Literal

It’s Not As Complicated As It Sounds

One of the key concepts that I teach is something I refer to as Literal and Non-Literal imagery. This deals with combining words and images to communicate ideas. This is the very heart of filmmaking and possibly the most important tool in a filmmakers kit. As filmmakers we have to communicate ideas using sound and picture. When these two things are working together they can communicate immensely complicated concepts in seconds.

Foundation

To understand how this works we need to understand how people interact with film. About 100 years ago this Russian dude named Lev Kuleshov did an experiment. In the experiment he alternated from a shot of Vsevolod Pudovkin, a famous actor at the time, to a shot of a bowl of soup, to Pudovkin, then a girl in a coffin, to Pudovkin, then a woman on a couch. Audiences were amazed at Pudovkin’s performance. They said he expressed pensiveness over forgotten soup, deep sorrow over the loss of a child, and lust for the woman on the couch. The trick here was that each shot of Pudovkin was the same shot. His face was the same each time. The audience interpreted his, intentionally blank, expression to have meaning based on the images it was juxtaposed to. To put it another way, two images placed side by side create a third idea. Take a look at Kuleshov’s experiment and listen to Hitchcock describe how it works. These guys are smarter than I am and it will make more sense if you listen to them.

The Basic Idea

Combining images creates ideas in the viewer. When you add audio such as music, sound effects, and dialog it adds another element to the equation. As writers we really only have influence over the dialog. We have some influence over sound effects, but not much, and far less influence over the music. So how do we use what Kuleshov taught us in writing? We use Literal and Non-Literal imagery.

Building On The Basics

Last week I asked you to consider 3 things.

1. Show it don't say it.
2. If you show it don't say it.
3. If you show it say it.

What do these mean? First, if it’s at all possible don’t have characters talk about something, show the something. If they’re talking about a bank robbery, show the bank robbery. If they’re talking about a space ship, show the space ship. Second, when you show something, don’t describe what the audience can see. Characters shouldn’t go around telling us what we’ve already seen. It’s tedious and shows a lack of trust in the viewer. If you show a bank robbery don’t follow it up with the characters saying “wow, we just robbed a bank and this is how we did it.” The third point is tricky, showing what you say. Since film is a visual medium you should show everything you possibly can. If two people claim to be in love, show that they’re in love. In film words are only as good as the actions that back them up.

Alright, take a moment to absorb these two concepts.

·      Images juxtaposed generate ideas in the audience that neither image can generate on it’s own.

·      Dialog should support what is seen but not describe it.

Here’s a break for you to let that sink in before I move on.

Literal and Non-Literal Imagery

With those two concepts in mind let’s discuss Literal and Non-Literal imagery. Literal imagery is when the image is exactly what is being said. Non-Literal imagery is when what is being said is unrelated to the image. The images and words are only connected because they are played together.

Here’s an example. Imagine that the words are being spoken as the image plays on screen.

“A tree in the mist.”

“I had forgotten what it was like to be home.”

“The universe is a vast and complex place.”

The first example is literal. That is literally a tree in the mist. There’s no complexity and it simply describes what you can already see. This fails to use the power of juxtaposing words and pictures to create new ideas.

The second example is less literal but it still gives a sense of what we’re looking at. The person speaking is probably telling us that this tree has something to do with being home. It might also generate some other more esoteric ideas in the viewer. Maybe the mist is a symbol of lost memories and so forth.

The third example might be the least literal since the image isn’t complex, vast, or the universe. What ideas does this pairing of words and image conjure in your mind?

A Range Of Possibilities

So that’s Literal and Non-Literal imagery. You don’t want to be all Non-Literal in your work and you don’t want to be all Literal in your work. Think of it as a sliding scale. You can go to the extremes but usually you want to keep things in the middle. You want to keep the combination of words and images on topic but not so Non-Literal that it’s a fight to make any sense of what’s going on or so literal that the audience is constantly being told what they already know.

When in doubt be Non-Literal.

Questions? Comments? Does this make any sense? Let me know in the comments. Tell us what you think the combination of images and words mean in the examples.

And now more pages.