What happens when a TV show is going over budget, but still has more of its season left? Or, conversely, what if the show knows it wants to put more money into a later episode and is looking for ways to save up ahead of time? Usually either of these could mean trying to come up with an episode that sticks primarily to pre-existing sets (preferably only a single one), and uses few characters or extras who are not already paid as series regulars.
Read MoreIt’s the return of the hour long shows, this time with The Magicians. Specifically looking at how this pilot works in terms of being the start of a serialized show, whereas most everything else I have looked at so far have been either episodic or serial-episodic.
Read MoreBy separating characters into different groups, each with its own main character to follow, it creates the ability to give more time to the minor characters, as well as attention to each of the five Infinity Stones that Thanos has yet to gather. But this also creates its own issue. It isn’t enough to just separate into groups; the stories need to be unified or else the whole movie can feel like just a jumble of disparate elements.
Read MoreIn order to look at how Avengers: Infinity War pulls off this insane task, I’m going to break it into two parts. This first part will be about efficiency of time. I’m going to break down the opening scene of the movie in order to look at just how much is done in a short period.
Read MoreComing back for another pilot, this time with My Hero Academia. That’s right. Switching things up so much that an anime is taking centre stage.
Read MoreI’ve been playing Minecraft off and on for something like seven or eight years at this point. I’ve probably sunk more hours into it than any other game (a number I hope to never be told…). And so, when I started writing about video games on Unsupervised Nerds, this was one that came to my mind fairly early on.
Read MoreHow I Met Your Mother is a sitcom that feels like it aims for both. Though it is episodic to an extent, it tells the audience right away that there is an ending to this. Even in the title alone, the series calls its shot about a major plot point for the finale.
Read MoreI recently started playing Persona 5 (a few years late, sure, but better than never). It’s a dungeon crawler JRPG. Even with the shallowest understanding of what is going in this game, it is hard to ignore how often psychological terms are thrown about. I quickly learned that it wasn’t just psychology in general being referenced, but more specifically the works of Carl Jung. I was curious how deep it all goes and needed to find at least a baseline understanding of what the game was referencing.
Read MoreThe Sexy Brutale is a top-down style puzzle game with an interesting premise: the whole game essentially boils down to replaying the same ten-minute period over and over again in order to save nine guests from being murdered.
Read MoreAs mentioned in my first Feature Writing Journal, I decided to take a look at Definitely, Maybe (2008), written and directed by Adam Brooks.
Read MoreHere comes another Structuring the Pilot, this time taking a look at The Office (US).
I wanted to breakdown a sitcom, because of how different they are from an hour-long drama. They have half the amount of time to tell a story and focus more on finding the humor in situations (shocking, giving the genre name) than being story driven.
Read MoreWith Supernatural starting up its final season, it felt like a fun idea to look back at its pilot and see how it worked. So, without further ado, a breakdown of how it’s pilot was structured.
Read MoreEver want a way to kill off some, or all, the main characters of your show, only to have them be totally fine by the end of the episode? Maybe you’re looking to get the most bang for your buck reusing a gag without its repetition being without purpose? Or how about wanting a character to grow and have an entire arc with little to no in-universe time passing at all? We’ll I’ve got the trope for you!
Read More“Lucky Penny” is one of the purest distillations of How I Met Your Mother. From theme, to structure, this episode is one that demonstrates exactly what the series aims to be as a whole.
Read MoreGone Home is of a much slower sort, built not on complicated mechanics but on tone and story. This is a game where if you let yourself be immersed in it, you will be rewarded, especially by how much emotional weight it brings to a short two-hour play time.
Read MoreWhen Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 came out a couple weeks ago, I rushed to buy it. I love the Black Ops series, mainly because of Zombies Mode. This time around, rather then vending machines that the player can purchase perks from (which still exist in the Aether story levels), the Chaos story levels have players get their perks from gods.
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