88. Efficient Storytelling 🔗
January 1, 2022
In which I note that screen-era storytelling has gotten brutally efficient — lean narrative with no wasted beats, like amygdala assembly programming — citing Cobra Kai, The Expanse, and Stranger Things as examples of a mannerist late stage that may be on the cusp of disruption.
🔗
Storytelling has gotten so damn efficient due to screen media. A well-scripted modern TV show moves along incredibly briskly. It’s like Lean Storytelling. Shortest path through the beats of the hero’s journeys. It’s barely even writing. It’s amygdala assembly programming.
🔗
Nothing forces efficiency more than knowing every minute of screen time is costing 10s to 100s of thousands. No time to dawdle. Can lead to mechanical effects sometimes, but damn the machine works.
Slick is the word. It’s not always good storytelling but it’s slick.
Slick is the word. It’s not always good storytelling but it’s slick.
🔗
Wonder if there’s a way to measure this. The Expanse, Stranger Things, Cobra Kai have struck ne as especially brutally efficient.
🔗
It’s like tourists on a package bus tour in Europe. “If it’s Tuesday it must be Brussels” type pacing.
🔗
It’s the sign of a mannerist late stage or something. Like we’re on the cusp of a leap out of this local minimum with a young new kind of storytelling that can afford to be sloppy and loose because it makes big gains on an unexpected vector.
🔗
Funny how people think this is either obviously a bad thing or obviously a good thing. 🤣
Can’t just let it be a thing huh
Can’t just let it be a thing huh
🔗
Examples: Cobra Kai, The Expanse….
Not a single missed beat or sloppy discursive scene. No spezzatura. No weird narrative conceits overindulged.
Not a single missed beat or sloppy discursive scene. No spezzatura. No weird narrative conceits overindulged.