How to Approach Dramatic Scenes: There's no use crying . . .
"I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.” -Frank Capra
When I see people doing dramatic scenes for their portfolio, it almost always is a scene of people crying. But despite the characters' intense emotions, these scenes rarely resonate with me. Why is that? I think it comes from a common misunderstanding of what a dramatic scene is. Let’s take a look at what makes a scene truly dramatic and see if we can find a better way to approach dramatic scenes for a story portfolio.
What defines drama as a genre? If you were to take a look at lists with the best drama movies, you might be surprised by some of the titles. Movies like The Shawshank Redemption, Schindler’s List, 12 Angry Men and It’s a Wonderful Life are expected. But in IMDB's top 10 drama movies, you'll also find The Dark Knight, Pulp Fiction, and The Fellowship of the Ring. But Batman punching up the joker or Samuel L Jackson eating your burger probably aren’t exactly what we think of when we want to do a dramatic scene for our portfolio, right?
It seems to me that people often equate "dramatic" with “tragic”. That’s how we end up with all those characters crying their hearts out. But this is a limited definition. According to Wikipedia drama is a genre ‘intended to be more serious than humorous in tone.’ And if we apply that definition to a portfolio sequence it just means that a dramatic scene should be more serious than comedic. This doesn’t mean the scene has to be sad, or even that it can’t be funny, it just means that the overall tone should be more serious.
Something that a lot of good drama movies do is combine genres. You’ve got movies like The Truman Show, or most Wes Anderson movies, that combine drama with comedy. The Godfather is a great example of a crime drama and a movie like Annie Hall is a romantic drama.Combining drama with other genres is a great technique to use in portfolio sequences too.
I think that another key element of a good dramatic scene is that it is emotional. But ‘emotional’ is also a tricky phrase, because we often use this term to describe people who are upset or distressed. So trying to do an emotional scene can easily lead right back to those crying characters. But sadness is only one of our emotions. We can also be happy, or angry, worried, or excited. And how we show our emotions differs from person to person too. So even if you do a sad scene, not all characters will show their sadness through tears.
Let’s look at some scenes that I consider to be excellent examples. Great dramatic scenes that that are not about people crying. I specifically looked up scenes that I also think are visually interesting, scenes that could work well if they were in a story portfolio:
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Christmas Party
A man who works for the British secret service is looking for his wife during the office’s Christmas party. He finds her outside, while she’s making out with one of his coworkers.
The very specific setting of a Secret Service Christmas party makes this scene visually interesting, while the very dramatic Russian anthem and the tipsy partygoers create an interesting contrast with the worried grey man, searching for his wife. Watch this scene on YouTube.
