Movie Monday: Part II, The Conflict
Last week for Movie Monday, we explored the first part of the story arc, called the Exposition, of the Redstart Residence Short Documentary. If you haven’t already, I recommend you read Part I, The Exposition first to gather all the background information you need for this series and this film. This week, we are focusing on the second part of the story arc - the conflict, or rising action.
What is the Rising Action?
As we learned last week, the Exposition, or first act of the story, gives context for the film. Along with that, there is always a situation that occurs called the inciting incident, which triggers the rise in tension as the story enters the second act. As the characters attempt to resolve the initial inciting incident, they encounter many more challenges along the way, leading to growth and a final resolution. Take a look at how we handled the rising action in the Redstart Residence Short Documentary below.
Redstart Residence: Rising Action
In the exposition of the film, we learn of the inciting incident, which is that Betsey wants to design and build a home and has hired Arc Three to do so. As we enter the second act, we dive into the challenges, or conflicts, that the team faced while designing the home. The first challenge we encounter is that they initially wanted to renovate the existing home on the property, but soon discovered that it would be just as expensive to build from scratch, so they went with the latter option. In reality, this was a big turning point for the project, however we didn’t want to dwell too much on this, since we wanted to explore the design process of the actual home. And not spend too much time on the design of the home that wasn’t actually built. So we needed to establish this pivot quickly and then move onto the remaining challenges that the team faced with designing a custom home from the ground up.
Next, we needed to establish the design goals for the home in order to introduce the conflict. It was actually a bit difficult for me to establish these succinctly and in a way that made sense when cutting between Garrett and Bryson. They each explained the goals in slightly different ways and in much more depth than the film shows, which is common with most clients. Oftentimes, we shoot the interviews for 1-2 hours and then our job is to cut it down anywhere from 2-5-minutes. It’s almost like fitting a puzzle together in the editing room, trying different pieces until it fits just right.
Around 2:15, Garrett voices the thesis of this film, which is “quality design with limited square footage.” From there, we are able to explore the conflict through three distinct challenges within that overarching theme. There were many more challenges and anecdotes that we could have told of this home. If you think about it, the process of designing and building a home takes months and years sometimes, so of course there are going to be countless hurdles to clear. But this is a short film, so we needed to narrow it down. Within storytelling, there is a technique called the rule of three, and I employ this often. It suggests that an idea is more powerful or “sticky” when presented in threes. I use this all the time in writing, whether for films, blogs or even Instagram captions (see what I did there?). Personally, I think ideas are much more satisfying when presented in threes.
These are the three challenges they encountered in trying to accomplish the design goals:
How do we make this small foot print feel larger than it is? Solution: Add volume and Light.
The proportions of the initial design felt off. Solution: Make the art gallery part of large volume entertaining space.
How do you transition from a big open public space to an intimate, cozy private space? Solution: Use a library as a transition space.
Each challenge builds to the next as they find solutions along the way. Spatially, we are also working left to right as we tackle each challenge: Public Space > Art Gallery > Private Space. One of the challenges I always face in creating films in the home industry is to establish the space in a way that makes sense to someone who has never been there before. In tackling a conflict from each distinct part of the home, we gave flow to the film and to the physical space of the home.
This wraps up Part 2, The Conflict! Please feel free to reach out with any questions about storytelling, and be sure to stay tuned next week when we explore Part 3, The Climax!