Comments on: The wall of newspaper clippings

By: Drhaggis

Drhaggis — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:04:15 +0000

My wife and I call it the "crazy wall". Bonus points are given when little bits of yarn "connect the dots" between headlines, photos, and maps.

Lots of culprits with this cliche: Life, Lost, Fringe, Heroes. It's even more out of place now, with the decline of newspapers. The only people buying papers are people with a fixation or time travelers trying to find out the current date.

By: ape

ape — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:36:53 +0000

Crazy man clippings are still alive and well:

http://io9.com/5416482/four-new-iron-man-images-show-the-softer-side-of-whiplash/gallery/

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:15:51 +0000

The problem with moratoriums, is that there are always well done exceptions. The newspaper pages in Children of Men are used to block out the glass in a subway station, but if you look closely they give out all kinds of fun headlines.

By: Freezo

Freezo — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:46:03 +0000

Why not have some fun with this? Like, reveal the wall of a serial killer to be full of inkjet nozzle-cleaning printouts… (could even be part of his motivation :-)

By: Lex

Lex — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:46:10 +0000

We used the newspaper clipping wall cliché in our first movie, but we upped the craziness factor by having red yarn tied to push pins connecting the clippings. Nothing says insane stalker like a red string wall.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:31:33 +0000

I stand corrected on the “One Other Thing” thing (which I’ll gladly rename “The Columbo”). Apparently it does happen in real life. I still cringe at it in movies and tv shows.

By: davidwag

davidwag — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:11:07 +0000

Can we have a moratorium on a team of gunmen opening fire on our hero, but the hero never gets hit? It's fine in silly stuff like old-school Bond or even 24, but when you're striving for verite it strains disbelief (cf "Taken").

P.S. It doesn't count if your hero is shot once near the end just to give him one last obstacle before killing the last baddie.

By: Synthian

Synthian — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:21:31 +0000

Clark worked at the Daily Planet for a reason man… and remember the Batman SPINNING Newspaper Wipe? – Its not a pro-or con… just a memory. – Like the Dotted-Red-Line-Airplane-Travel in Indiana Jones and Casablanca. (Could be called moratorium-worthy cliche crap at the drop of a hat… but its really just our roots.)

By: Chip Street

Chip Street — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:05:11 +0000

I worked on a film earlier this year in the art department... my main job was to fabricate old yellowed newspaper clippings. There were four sets, one for each critical motivational event in the characters' life, or the cultural history of the setting.

"Town Has Long History of Relevant Events"

"Valuable Artwork Found, Worth Millions"

"Character Arrested for Heinous Crime"

"Character's Difficult Life a Plausible Explanation for Heinous Crime"

In addition to being asked to tweak the headlines so they carried more narrative juice (rather than sounding like real headlines) I was also asked to carefully craft the narrative of the news story, as the camera would languorously drift down so the audience could read the details.

Very lazy storytelling. But I must say the clippings looked great. Thanks, tea-stain.

On a related note, what about the occasional insert of a tv news story? Moves the plot along, give a reasonable purpose for exposition, and if inserted a few times can illustrate building public perception of primary plot? Just askin', not that I have any real reason or anything... cough

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:34:56 +0000

Uhhh, newspapers? They still have those? When I go crazy paranoid I just post the internets to my wall.

By: Dave Morris

Dave Morris — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:46:31 +0000

I was just watching the episode of Dollhouse where Agent Ballard has shut himself away behind a triple-locked door for a full-on obsession fest about the Dollhouse. And yep, there's the wall of clippings. (The multiple locks on the door are kind of a cliche too, but Joss and co get a funny line out of those.)

Thing is, it the computer era it's easy to be a closet obsessive. Nobody can see at a glance how many crazy conspiracy websites you've bookmarked. And if somebody shuts himself away like that in real life you're going to have the smell of unshowered sweat, unwashed dishes... sensory cues that the movie/TV audience can't get. So we need some good visual alternatives to the hoary old wall of clippings.