Juxtaposition

Today I felt the urge to talk about how my filmmaking experience helps me with writing, and how it hinders.

The first item I wanted to discuss is Juxtaposition. Basically juxtaposition is placing two or more unrelated objects together and creating meaning that isn't there without the other object. For instance, in film, you have a shot of a very thin man, dressed shabbily, looking down. Then you cut to an overhead shot looking down and on a table you see an empty bowl, clean. The viewer would create meaning between these two shots, the man is hungry and has no food to eat.

Juxtaposition doesn't even have to be as blatent as that, or as direct a meaning. I blogged awhile back about a bad dream I had, pretty freaky to me and to a few fellow readers who let me know as such. The daily video that I choose for that blog was the opening for the old cartoon show Strawberry Shortcake, a very innocent thing, but when in combination with the creepy dream, the repetitive quality most kid's songs have, now seemed creepy... as in "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" kinda creepy.

"Intense amusement." That is an example used in Chapter 1 of Inevitable of juxtaposition in literature. One doesn't have to do with the other, but combined they create new meaning.

Sometimes the combination of two things can add some insight, rather than confusion about a character. In Chapter 1 again, Sam is making pizza dough by hand. How very domestic of her, but at the same time, she's swearing and punching it, how very UN-domestic of her. This shows insight into her character, but also shows that she has conflicting elements of her personality.

Writing in first person it is a tad more difficult to write juxtaposition between scenes but it can be done, the missing space needs to be accounted for however. Juxtaposition is used a lot to create suspense, eerie, creepy suspense. You have a killer on the loose who preys upon young girls, you've just seen him slaughter someone. End chapter. Next chapter opener? Why a young girl playing with her dolls of course.

Juxtaposition comes naturally to the story teller most of the time. Stories need conflict. Conflict of imagery is a good way to create an unsettling mood and enhance suspense. If you are a writer, filmmaker or any story teller really... try using juxtaposition consciously. Feel a scene doesn't cut the suspense mustard? Use conflicting images and see how the mood shifts.

Tomorrow's blog will be about setting the mood and how to take movie imagery and put it into words.

Here is an example of very POOR juxtaposition. These two separate commercials ran back to back.