We were talking in class today about maintaining unity of time and space when writing a scene. The rule of thumb is that within a script, scenes should be self-contained, with all the action occurring in one place and in linear time. Films break this rule all the time, of course, but that's the principle they want you to work with when you start out.
It occurs to me that one of the reasons the unity of space-time is so integral to filmmaking is because - like the three act structure and character that arises from conflict - it reflects the way we live our lives when there are no cuts. We can't skip forwards or backwards in time, can't snap our fingers and move from room to room. Life is very slow and very solid. At least in the day to day sense.
But in the broader arc of life, the long eye, we don't have the same respect for space as we do time. We move ourselves not just from room to room but from house to house, city to city. We can collapse the continuum and start a new scene somewhere else.
Pretty cool!
Cheers
Julia
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