My favorite is:
Interior, room full of people.
Someone walks in and looks at someone. “We need to speak in private. Give us the room.”
Everyone else leaves.
I’m pretty sure this happens because they don’t want to set up an extra room for filming, but once I started noticing it I can’t unsee it. It makes a little more sense when the person is like the president or whatever, but a lot of times they’re just a manager. In reality they’d just step into another office or the hallway.
Try it, you’ll be a CEO within the week.
It hits different when working remote. Just kick them out of the call lol
Hey Janet, can you hold back for a minute after the call? Thanks for coming everyone, have a great day.
Oof, Janet is staying after the class.
Be the boss and it hits different. I have asked for a room and never had any issues with everyone wanting to leave …
It’s one of those annoying tropes common to a particular type of American TV show. Another annoying one is when someone says “I can explain” then doesn’t.
I know of you. When you end a phone conversation you don’t say “goodbye” you just hang up on people after you’ve expressed your last thought.
For business calls, a lot of them do end that way. Especially if I’m talking to someone down the aisle from me. 90% of my work conversations go something like this:
call coworker “Hey, it’s so and so, I’m going to be delayed on site for 20 minutes.”
“Alright, we’ve got a new thing in thirty minutes, so you’re good.”
“I’ll call you if anything changes, but based on what’s going on, I’ll make the thirty minutes.”
“Great, thanks.”
one of you hangs up
“Great, thanks” is the appropriate version of “goodbye”.
Besides, business calls are often harder to end than teenager romance ones.
i love phatic expressions
TIL phatic. nice!
Never say thanks either.
My wife and I do that. She’s a little more abrupt than me though. I often find myself staring at the phone, “Did she hang up?”
OTOH, when she talks to her family back home it sounds like Midwesterners trying to leave the house.
“OK mom, bye bye, I love you!”
“OK bye bye don’t forget to <whatever>”
“OK bye bye!”
“OK I love you!”
This is likely to go another stanza. There will also be an extra stanza for each person on the other end.
This is my mother’s husband on the phone and I find it so rude but just deal with it now.
I always though this was how you did it in the USA?!!
I just assume they write weird behaviors like that to save a few seconds of screen time.
This latest Rom Com is so realistic, but did we have to stop the plot every time a character needed to take a shit?
Time is one factor, but mainly to avoid unexciting and unnecessary dialogue.
In real life we have a lot of conversations which are purely transactional and not very fun. Nobody needs to listen to characters on screen going back and forth like “See you tonight” “At the bar?” “Yeah, the bar, 6PM.” “I’ve gotta drop the kids off at 6, can we do 7…?” - It’s boring, and it doesn’t advance the story.
Just cut the conversation short. The audience will quicky see the when and where immediately for themselves when the scene changes to the bar and the guy walks in, “Sorry I’m late, had to drop off the kids.”
I like all the bullshitting that goes on in Tarantino films, feels like real human dialog. Yeah, they’re more snappy than real life, but conversations takes weird turns like real life.
Right. It’s not always especially plot relevant, but the way Tarantino does it the dialog reveals a lot about the characters and their (conflicting) personalities, so it’s very interesting and worth having :)
Somehow DDG understood my search terms and gave me the correct link when I didn’t even remember the name of the show:
Oh look, there was a fire.
it’s those asides that make the film feel alive though. fleshed out. can’t be the entire dialogue, but if your film is direct A→B→C ect ect ect the characters feel one dimensional.
Ironically a common writing technique is B->C dialog.
Basically cutting out the preamble and post dialog. Most times even in my writing I include “Hello” since that would stand out, but generally get right to the point.
You see this a lot in movies too, if done well it blends in since your scene is focusing on the action and not rambling on.
There are exceptions (teens talking may include a “no you hang up” trope for comedic effect) but that’s used sparingly.
Fr this. Like do you people really want to have to sit through every ounce of tedium in your media? Let the writers have their shorthands, please.
In movies people never close doors behind themselves.
Or say goodbye on the phone, they just hang up…
I also leave for work as soon as my breakfast hits the table.
And I never say goodbye on the phone.
Has this ever happened to youuuuuuuuuu~?
One of my favorite scenes in American Dad is when Stan does this, and Francine calls back and says, 'Bitch, did you just hang up on me?"
The worst part about the first one is that they never bring up the breakfast again and they just make something else for dinner. Like they just threw away hundreds of dollars of food and had no problem with it???
Also, your job or daily duties allow you to make intercontinental flights whenever you want and for how long you need.
I get that people generally want fiction to take them out of their lives, but the protagonists always being rich or doing rich things with no explanation takes me out.
Stephen King often has an author for the protagonist. But they’re always wildly successful authors that have enough money to handle whatever the plot calls for.
Stephen King often has an author for the protagonist. But they’re always wildly successful authors that have enough money to handle whatever the plot calls for.
You mean, kinda like himself after his first successes?
The man always said, “Write what you know.” And boy does he!
He’s gets off the rails writing stuff he’s not familiar with. Guns and science fiction come to mind, just painfully ignorant, so off base it take me out for a minute.
Not the worst example, but it comes to mind:
Retired cop is going into a situation where he’s very likely to encounter violence. He’s got a 9mm Glock, standard police firearm, and an old six shooter. He thinks about it a moment and picks the revolver. Excuse me say what? Why would a cop ditch his own service weapon in favor of an old revolver?!
He sometimes makes up guns that do not exist. As with anything, the man has all the pull in the world to run his ideas by experts. Sometimes I think, this is outside his experience and he never asked and no one corrected him? I so want to call him up, “Look my man, you’re my favorite all-time author. Think you could run the science fiction and gun stuff by me for a smell test?”
Maybe didn’t want to leave shell casings behind?
Other than that, I got nothing
This really bothered me in the (3rd season of?) Umbrella academy. You two have kids. You are the only parents of your kids, why did you both come on this pointless adventure?!
I’m also gonna stand up right now and storm out without touching my dinner.
Hi. I am introvert. I also make plans to meet up with people later and don’t need a time or place because I have no interest in actually meeting up later to begin with.
Probably why I have never noticed this in anything. 🤔
OK let’s hangout later.
