In Praise of Great Exposition 

Hey folks, I recorded this video before it was announced so I didn't have time to include it in th ad-read but you can now give Nebula as a gift: gift.nebula.tv/thomasflight

I think the spirit of "show don't tell" becomes clearer when you realize the rule applies not just to visual media, but also to novels, where we can't literally "see" anything that happens. Everything is "told" to us in some sense, but within that we can still make the distinction. "Show don't tell" really means something closer to "Don't state, demonstrate."

Oh my god I spend so much time thinking about bad exposition, thank you for this. “Diana, we’ve been married for seven years, I think I know what kind of cake you want for your fortieth birthday party. My name’s Steve by the way.”

Another factor is just how interested is the audience in getting the information delivered by the exposition? Like, in the Matrix, there's a scene where Morpheus just tells Neo what's going on in the real world. It's an extended minutes long sequence of pure exposition, delivered mostly through dialogue of one character talking. But it works, mostly because it's information that the audience has been teased with for the whole first act. They care a lot about getting all this revealed, so their tolerance for an extended exposition dump is as high as it can be. I think similar exposition dumps usually don't work because the viewer doesn't care enough about what's being revealed. The movie hasn't invested the time to make them care.

My favourite "exposition" is in the original Blade Runner when Deckard goes to the burlesque dance club and there's a boa snake in the changing rooms. He asks the dancer "is this real?" and she responds with "if that were real do you think i would work in a place like this?" to this day it blows my mind. that bit of dialogue tells you about the state of the fauna on earth and the economy and her social status ahhhh

You know a movie is about to have the siblings kill each other if it starts out with one of them joyously saying “BROTHER!”

"Do you remember that time when you..." with a LOOOOOT more detail than would be necessary in a normal conversation.

Your video made me realize something about the exposition in "Arrival". When you watch Dr. Banks watch television news, the exposition is no longer about aliens arriving. The most amazing thing in the history of the world JUST happened - and she's watching it alone in a dark house. She doesn't even rush to be with her mother. in one minute, we understand just how profoundly alone Dr. Banks is - and she never utters a word.

The walter junior water heater scene (5:17) also shows a lot in the tone and reactions. There's no money AND Walter is ashamed in front of his son AND Skyler stresses about holding the family together. Breaking bad is great at moving multiple playing pieces with each event.

I think the only genre of film where I love “forced” exposition is heist films. Oceans introducing each member to showcase their skills, give me MORE

This is one of the main reasons I love Denis Villeneueve's films. In a good example, Alejandro's character in Sicario was originally supposed to have a lot more dialogue, with scenes of him expositing his whole backstory to Kate, but Villeneuve and del Toro decided it would be much more interesting to illustrate and slowly reveal this through his actions and snippets of speech, and adds so much intrigue and mystery to his character.

That exposition scene from Three Body Problem is so unforgivable to me because the book has such a brilliant cinematic scene that explains how the accelerators are going against all of physics. The POV character is talking to a physicist friend of his who is drunk. The drunk friend is at a pool table and does an experiment. He knocks a ball into a pocket. Then he makes his friend move the whole pool table around the room three times to repeat the experiment in different parts of the room. By the end he's out of breath and barely finished his metaphor: the pool tables give the same result no matter the location of the table, but the accelerators are all giving different results. And as soon as he explains it, he passed out. End scene.

the only "hello, brother" i accept is Buster from Arrested Development

“Somehow Palpatine returned”

At a writing convention I went to earlier this year, an author called Matthew Bockholt gave a presentation on another approach to the "Show, Don't Tell" concept he called, "Write What You Can't Say." There was a lot to it, but basically, taking the time to present an idea rather than reporting facts, to give an audience questions to fill in themselves rather than always give the answer right away. I think that's the kind of worldbuilding or scene-setting I enjoy most as a reader or audience member. He also suggested making the first draft without worrying about the specifics of how the exposition looks so it can be whittled into a more intriguing form later.

To be fair, in English people did address each other by title or familial relationship a lot more than they do now, & it is still very common in other languages, such as Korean. That example is set in Tudor England. It could be argued that people greeting each other like that is also creating a feel for the setting as well as being exposition.

my favourite FAVOURITE instance of exposition / infodumping is the opening to Hot Fuzz, where we get fed bullet-fast background info on nicolas angel telling us how proficient and overly-seriously he takes job as a cop. any other movie would have taken the show-don't-tell rule literally and decided to show us the protag at a crime scene and solving the case quickly, while the other cops roll their eyes and whisper among themselves about how stick-in-the-mud the protag is. that technically works, but it also 1) takes a lot of time 2) has been overdone to hell and back. by going the complete opposite route of just telling us everything right away, Hot Fuzz can get to the main story as quickly as possible WHILE STILL being able to give us ridiculous extra info (such as angel being a biking expert) that doesn't really matter to the story but tells us a lot about who angel is as a person. it also fits the overall vibe of the movie, a fast-paced over-the-top comedy. also, the crafty part of this infodump is that it doesn't tell you everything--it tells you JUST ENOUGH to get the story started. it doesn't tell you that angel's coworkers are jealous of him and dislike him and want him out of their precinct; they show this to us later on. it doesn't tell you angel takes his job so seriously that he has no friends and has trouble keeping his girlfriend; this is revealed when he has an argument with her later. and one last bit that makes this infodumping work: it's a voiceover that makes sense within the context of the movie itself. it's not just the protagonist telling the audience his own backstory; it's his sergeant reading through angel's profile before meeting with him. does it break the "show don't tell" advice? yes. but does it work? is it entertaining? does it give you the right amount of information without feeling forced and awkward? yes, and i think that matters more!

look at that subtle off-white room lighting. the tasteful script writing. oh my god. it even has a nebula ad read.

The problem with ending a video by segueing into an ad-read is that it ends up feeling like the video never ended properly. That is why I prefer midroll ads on RU-vid to the ones at the end.

For me, one of the greatest exposition scenes in movie history is in the first pirates of the Caribbean. It's really random but the scene between Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley on the Black Pearl where he explains his curse and the medallion and finishes by biting the Apple and telling her she better start believing in ghost stories cuz she's in the one. The camera, the acting, the script, the set, this scene lives rent free in my mind as one of the greatest exposition scenes of all time despite it telling more than showing.

Exposition, when done perfectly, is capable of delivering the most emotional scene in the film. My favourite example is in How To Train Your Dragon 2 when Valka says the line "..but a mother never forgets". That line was so smooth and gut wrenching.

"Nobody really talks like this." -someone who clearly has never hung out with me and sister

One of my fav exposition is when Mike in Better Call Saul tell story about his son. It was so heartbreakingly written and Jonathan Banks's delivery is top notch

I appreciate you clarifying that show don't tell can be about subtext - that the "showing" can still be with words rather than images. In my search for a similarly concise or pithy expression, I refer to this corollary as "Say; don't explain."

My favorite writing hack: When a character does something unbelievable, have them say, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

7:50 i didn't see that scene the same way. i thought she was just mocking a drunk man looking for small talk and trying to make advances to see how he'd react.

Another great moment of the exposition infodump comes from my all-time favorite film, Casablanca. The movie opens with a disembodied, authoritative voiceover explaining the refugee situation in World War 2. Interestingly, we don’t get this kind of omniscient, independent narrator played straight anymore; it shows up in comedies sometimes (see Arrested Development), or the narrator is one of the characters. The Casablanca exposition pairs visuals and riding dramatic tension through music and intonation to make this information seem important. This background helps us understand later plot points, such as the importance of a flight to Lisbon. Then (if I recall correctly) the film proper opens with the radio broadcast about the stealing of letters of transit. It’s brief, punchy, and sets up the vital MacGuffin for the plot. Then, the film switches over to extremely show-don’t-tell mode, and stays there most of the time. We watch interactions of multiple groups of refugees in the streets of Casablanca, and we FEEL their emotional states, the threats they live under, and what they’re hoping to achieve. Casablanca is just a masterclass of everything.

surprised fleabag wasn't mentioned, i feel like that show is the prime example of good exposition dumping

Primer is my favorite example of invisible exposition. The characters never sound like they're speaking for the benefit of the audience. You're there as a fly on the wall, listening to the characters talk to each other and if you pay close enough attention, you can start to piece together what they're doing...just in time to understand the reveal when the character understands it.

Seeing someone bring up "Before Sunrise" makes me so happy. It's such a great example of natural dialogue!! I adore that movie.

I like it when the exposition actually has an effect on the scene/characters. One shining example is Aliens, when Ripley is in the briefing meeting: she's finding out first-hand what happened to her colleagues, while also trying to impress upon the committee how lethal this creature is, while we also get to see how dismissive said committee can be (the foreshadowing itself is its own reason to be pissed off on Ripley's behalf) ... the marriage of the situation + writing + Sigourney Weaver's pitch-perfect acting manages to pump a dense amount of backstory + setup into one scene, and justifies Ripley's emotions/behaviour throughout - her anger, defiance, caution, distrust, grief, survivor/mother/badass-ness - all in one scene, in one room. It's exposition very well executed, charged with cause-and-effect that both belongs in this sci-fi otherworld and is very tangible and easy to sympathise with as an audience. Also, Black Mirror, especially the first two seasons. Masterclass in exposition, how it moves the short story along one choice, meaningful reveal at a time.

0:07 me and my sister DEFINITELY talk like this.... but to your credit, we probably do it because it is awkward, and inspired from awkward media.

heavy voice over enjoyer here, and one thing i love about it is how it can set the tone so well, for example Galadriel in lotr and Travis Bickle from taxis drivers opening monologue set the tone perfectly. extra shoutout to adaptation (2002) for being one of my other favorite uses of voice over.

Exposition works when it’s in service of an argument. People naturally exposit when trying to convince others. “I wanted to be a gangster.” Works because the movie is Henry’s argument for why he loved the life, literally ending on him explaining how bad life is without it.

Personnaly, I love the introduction of 10 Cloverfield lane. There is almost no dialogue in the first minutes, and yet you learn everything you need to know about the main character.

A fantastic example of voiceover is in The Batman. The whole introductory monologue is a journal entry. It gives crucial information about the setting and the psyche of the protagonist. Plus it’s stinkin cool.

Some of the best use of inworld-media exposition has to be the TV montage from Shaun of the Dead.

Actually, my sister and I call each other "Sister/Brother" followed by our names. Something like, "Sister Jane!", and she responds with "Hello Brother John!" So, some people do talk like that ;)

I think a great example of exposition is used in the Malayalam movie mayanadhi . It's about an aspiring actress and her ex boyfriend (who is also a convict on the run ) meeting up 1 yr after their breakup (or more like him ghosting her ) . It isn't a conventional movie that is compartmentalised into different acts . In fact the whole movie begins with the 2 main leads meeting unexpectedly after their breakup, we as a audience isn't given a unnecessary narration as to what has happened , instead we pick it up from their conversation , their is little to no acknowledgement of the audience , in fact it feels like 2 ppl having a conversation and we are prying on them . And throughout the film we know little about the male lead apart from that he is her ex boyfriend and that he is on the run . We only get to know more of him from a conversation the female lead has with a friend of hers . And that was such a breath of fresh air to witness. For once the audience has to listen to the conversations to actually understand the story rather than everything thrown on their faces .

Thanks for bringing up 12 Angry Men!! What an absolute writing masterclass of a movie. I need to rewatch it, it's been a year or two.

I think a brilliant bit of exposition/world-building is the opening scene of Children Of Men.

Okay, YES. 12 Angry Men! One of my favorites of all time and just rewatched a few days ago. It's incredible in its subtle yet strong exposition through a dialogue-driven, singular location movie. I think all of the examples you used for displaying great feats of exposition done well treat the audience with respect and have them engage with the story rather than sit back and be told everything. Great video, Thomas!!

When you said, "Exposition is always going to be more interesting to the audience when we understand why this information is important to the characters", I immediately thought of the finale of "Chernobyl" in which Legasov explains the nuclear meltdown at Dyatlov & Co.'s trial-we need to know, it's what the whole series is building up to, how this awful catastrophe occurred, but it's also important for the in-world "audience" (those present at the trial) because they must make a legal determination based on their understanding of the events. It's also important for Legasov to communicate the information because in doing so he's able to expose the government's negligence. AHHH, SO GOOD! Great video 😃

I don't know why it stuck with me, but _Frasier_ was always very good at it: Roz: Your brother called. He'll meet you at . Frasier: Oh good. Niles and I got reservations at this prestigious new restaurant. Roz: Episodic sitcoms had to redo a little exposition every time because you always had new viewers, and when they could do it quickly and smoothly it's a useful skill.

My favourite expository voiceover, at least off the top of my head right now, is Taxi Driver, because it gives you the view of Travis Bickle's fairly insane mind parallel to the more objective view of the camera, making it not just useful to speed up exposition, but something you could not get as well otherwise. Those kind of unique insights are probably the greatest advantage books have over films, where internal monologue is so easy.

I think Memento has a great twist on this, in that a character has to tell himself what he doesn't know, because he can't retain information for any length of time.

great video! for me personally, Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron is the manifestation of "show, don't tell" I love this movie so much for example in the first scene, they made use of the "TV broadcast exposition" while also introducing us to the main character to a certain extent AND having a dramatic (and by the way well shot) scene that reveals how instable the country is, in which the story takes place

MY favourite bit of expo from Only Lovers Left Alive is when Eve talks to the plant using its scientific name, and she says it's too early (or too late) to be out this time of year or something along those lines. Like yeah, someone who lives 600 years would totally notice tiny things like that. If I were to ever write an immortal character I'm using that line as inspiration

recently saw a movie that started with a press conference where journalists asked a lot of questions and had them answered. That felt plausible and organic.

One of my favourite ways to deliver exposition is when it happens in the middle of a big chase / action scene. The Bourne or Terminator series have loads of these.

Every time I hear someone say "hot water heater" I die a little inside.

In the short film "The Hire - The Follow", a short film Wong Kar Wai made for BMW, Mickey Rourke's character asks Clive Owen's "You have a wife?" to which Owen's character replies ever so sharply "Not anymore". This answer, paired with the sarcasticly toned delivery, gives us so much insight into this character, not only does it show the viewers so much about the characters approach to the world and to other people, but it also delivers substantial information about his personal history and atleast 2 crucial moments of his life, making us know AND feel the character a little bit better.

17:27 would that be considered good exposition

Glad to see you used Severance as an example. Really looking forward to season 2. Everyone should see it!

bro this mf has been carrying film analysis youtube on his back for years now like at a certain point we need to start talking about how his legacy measures up against goats like every frame a painting

I know that it is a different media, but Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events books have great exposition. I can't put it into words, but I savored every bit of information about the characters and the world.

"He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders just before she died"

I'm glad you included the three body problem because I couldn't stand the dialogue.

glad you mentioned arrival. it shows in a "dazzling" way, where the start of the movie starts off with the audience being shown some weird vision that doesnt really make any sense. the alien's language, is shown. it makes the audience feel engaged, through their own capacity to pay attention or rather to see "what is going on" because of these showings. the emotional payoff at the end wouldn't be possible without some sense of showing, because SHOWING is one of the themes of the entire movie. showing, which is really observing (to show is to show to someone), isn't possible without time. moreover showing love isn't possible without time, feeling pain isn't possible without time.

theres a malayalam short film called "night call" here on youtube. it only has one character and takes place in his house. i think it has done an excellent job in doing exposition the correct way. u might find it a bit awkward cuz its another language tho.

for the point at 3:00 you clearly havent met busy PIs, the data might be a week or two old an this is the first time he talks to her ...

I just watched Blink Twice and I actually thought the way they tried to hit home with some of the twists landed well... But then sadly they had moments that really broke the moments of good story telling. A supporting character asking a well exposed bit character: "Hey, you were in the Marines right?" "Yeah" (His first speaking line after about being in the movie for an hour - coincidentally right before a dramatic action scene) "Be a hero twice and get me some ice"

I immediately thought of the Severance pilot when I saw this video pop up in my feed. Creating a situation in which the exposition comes so naturally, which works two-fold (to introduce Helly's innie into this world and to help Mark getting used to his new tasks), is one of the most brilliant ways around it that I've seen, while keeping the audience gripped on just how this world works.

First scene that came to mind for me was Snowpiercer when they get to the classroom and use the kids/video to inform the backstory of how everyone got here, while also adding this creepy cult-like devotion the higher class passengers have for Wilford, making the whole environment more unsettling and daunting.

I appreciate the notice at the beginning of the video that it’s also available on Nebula. I encountered your channel by the algorithm recommending this video, and I otherwise wouldn’t have known you’re a Nebula creator. Saw the notice, hopped over to Nebula, and got to watch the extended version easy peasy

Man I love severance I hope it gets a second season soon. But yeah I think that opening scene is stellar, plus on top of that I think that the visual set up does a lot to help as well. The start of the scene has Helly sprawled out on a conference table. It's a relatively mundane setting, but obviously that's not how a table work, and then of course the only other sense of life is this strange voice coming out of a small box asking "Who Are you?" repeatedly. And then as she gets up, she looks around the room and you see that there are no windows and only one door, which is locked. So before you actually even learn anything about the characters or the setting, it's already setting you up for this setting to simultaneously feel mundane, but also uncomfortable and probably a little fucked up. It waits to give you the exposition because by creating this sense of uncomfort and dread first, I think that *that* is what makes you *want* to hear the exposition, because suddenly now you want to know just what is going on as much as the character does.

I do actually greet my sibilings with "Hello Brother" or "Hello Seeester" but it's always a reference to Arrested Development.

Always a good day when Thomas posts a video

8:20 You should watch 12 angry men. Period. One of the greatest movies ever made - its concept, acting and style are timeless. A great example of flawless storytelling. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but you can learn a lot from it about great storytelling.

The City of Brass trilogy is literature, not cinema, but its exposition is the best I’ve ever seen. You read the first book and it feels like a whole, complex, and complete story, but once you read the rest of the series you realize the first book was literally entirely exposition. It blew my mind. The series also does the dual perspective thing, which I enjoy, but while in most books with this type of writing, the separate characters meet each other within 5-10 chapters, if not right off the bat, in City of Brass they don’t even know the other exists until about 200 pages in. And even then, it takes another 50 for them to actually get to know each other, and by the end of the first book the romance (even the inkling of it) hasn’t even started yet. The story is driven by the plot and character development, not by the romance, which is so refreshing.

"I am your father" is NOT an exposition. It's a plot twist. It's a fucking climax. Exposition is the setting of information necessary to understanding the background of a narrative. Not every information given through dialog is exposition. Expository information can be given through other means. Exposition can be shown, it doesn't have to be told.

2:24 funny, I came across this video randomly, and that was exactly my feeling when I saw this scene while trying to watch this series, I immediately thought: "wait, is this the first time they are seeing each other? Is it possible that they have never talked about this before? or is it just because the camera is present now?" (I gave up watching right at the end of this ep)

gotta get a sopranos series like you did the wire

Furiosa's opening motorcycle chase was great exposition.

I feel like when someone understands “show don’t tell” well enough, they can tell to show.

On the same note of “12 Angry Men,” reading/watching plays is a fantastic way of learning how to do well done exposition dialogue. The modern play is usually written to have broad appeal production-wise so it can be produced in a large number of theaters with varying budgets, but that also means you can’t rely on a set or directorial choices to tell the whole story. Some pieces of info are vital for the audience to know, so the characters HAVE to say them in some way or another. A Raisin in the Sun (and its film adaptation) is another great example of the characters using dialogue to establish certain story beats (like the Younger’s financial troubles, Walter’s desires that lead to his errors in judgment, Beneatha’s attitudes about education and Afrocentricism, etc) that couldn’t be shown on a stage.

"Nobody really talks like this..." I always just say "sister" when getting my sister, and she almost always just says "brother".

We appreciate your efforts. We hope to see more content like this.

I'm glad someone's explaining why 3BP is so awkward

I think attack on titan is one of the best examples that showcases how to use exposition, in essence the story is entirely a quest for exposition till season 4, small reveals that the characters seek out and some they don’t, and it is entirely rewarding and natural

12:20 Come to think about it, it's great how that sequence subverts the awful "turn on the TV and the important newsdump happens to be broadcasting" trope by having Actual Relevant Breaking News interrupt the established status quo. Children of Men did that subversion brilliantly in its first scene, too.

My all-time favorite use of voiceover is _The Informant!_ [SPOILERS] ... As much as it is exposition, it's also just the main character's inner monologue as he gradually succumbs to bipolar disorder. The narration becomes increasingly eccentric and rapid-fire until he can't keep up with his own thoughts. And then when he gets treatment, it's gone.

Great perspective on this important aspect of storytelling. Another related thing is stories told without dialogue, such as many of the comics of Thomas Ott. Not only are they easily accessible to all languages, but the masterful way he commands the 'show, don't tell' concept is amazing to see.

It's also HUGE to remember that 'show don't tell' looks so different across formats! Dialogue is the most interesting and effective way to characterize in novels and prose, whereas less dialogue more movement is best for scripts like plays and screenplays. Hence why novel writers have trouble applying their skills to screenplays and vise-versa

Shout out to le Carré, whose novels are unparalleled in their ability to show you who characters are, what the look like, how they move and speak, without describing any of it. Once you notice it it's spooky how well he does it. Also shout out to the opening of Lord of the Rings, which breaks all the rules and looks on paper like terribly clunky exposition, but somehow the musical score and Cate Blanchett's voiceover work make it perfect.

was wondering if you went to school for film or cinematography? how’d you become so knowledgeable

Quentin Tarantino. A master screenwriter who crafts stylized expository dialogue that seems natural to the characters. I love how his characters often move the action forward with dialogue by building suspense and conflict. Example: my favourite two scenes in "Inglorious Basterds" is the opening scene with Landa calmly confronting the farmer hiding Jewish refugees in his basement, and the cafe "strudel" scene with Landa, Joseph Goebbels and Shosanna. That scene almost seems like a farce as Goebbels and his entourage make plans to show a Nazi propaganda film in Shosanna's theatre while she tries to control her terror at being seated next to Landa.

In the recent film La Chimera, there's the best exposition dump ever - I was just getting frustrated with the film for not being clear enough when a folk band turn up and start singing about the main character. They explain everything in a fun, ironic, meta way (an equally fun montage accompanies it) and I was back on board!

Your Walter Junior example doesn't really work as an example of telling over showing... because it literally is a show don't tell moment. Just because the "showing" is done through dialogue, doesn't automatically mean it's a "telling" moment. The writer's intention to inform us on the White's financial situation is SHOWN to us through the tension created through Walt Jr's complaining. There are some great examples of telling over showing, but that maybe wasn't the best one

I'll stop praising the Homestuck sequel's Yiffany reveal when I'm dead. A chapter's worth of sparse buildup, the denial-fueled thought of "no, she can't be talking about a kid," a timeline defined by feelings jams that uses frustrating timeskip epilogue tropes as an existential threat, culminating in one of the most dread-inducing secret-revealing conversations I've ever read, with the full name reveal giving a brief moment of reluctant hilarity while also being the most shocking part. All this information is left to stew in the reader's mind until the next bonus update, where Dirk finds out about it and we start to realize what this kid really is. She's the pharmakon. We still haven't seen her in action yet. The readers are anxiously waiting to see her. Then the story takes this as a challenge. It is actively trying to change your mind. This is a good idea. This character is interesting and the culmination of everything this half of the story was building to. Look how cool she is and how refreshingly angry her internal dialogue is. You want to root for her. She is the victim of a timeline that matters very little, and she should not exist. It's working. People are coming around on her. They're being sold on it. The only issue is that every time the new team uses her to her full potential and writes things the previous writers could hypothetically already have been planning, people see it as "fixing bad writing" somehow.

I always thought another good way to convey exposition is to set up a mystery. That way, you’ll get the audiences attention and make them want to know what’s going on. Jurassic Park does a great job at this. It opens with a worker getting mauled by a dinosaur. This gets the audience thinking, “how are there dinosaurs in the present day?” Then, when the scientists arrive on the island and see a living breathing dinosaur, they want to know how this was possible just as much as the audience does. Another key part is when and how to answer that mystery. JP does this by conveying the exposition on how they brought dinosaurs back through a theme park tour, fitting since that’s What Jurassic Park was intended to be. This also shows how the park views the dinosaurs as little more than attractions to generate profit.

Denis Villeneuve is great. Arrival is a highly underrated film. Sicario, Prisoners, the Dune films, Blade Runner 2049. I think on the topic of voiceovers, what makes Fight Club so effective is that we have an unreliable narrator. Without all his exposition, we wouldn't feel the same shock at the twist when it's revealed he is Tyler Durden all along.

It's so funny that you used TBP clips because I just started watching it, and I was rolling my eyes at the scenes you showed and several more. It's just so freaking heavy handed. Look! This person is smart! See how smart they are? This person is weak. Look at them being weak! You see it?

My favourite film that quietly bleeds drips and drabs of exposition was the first John Wick film, especially before any sequel films came out, because there was so much mystique around John, with so many "Who is this guy? What is this universe?" and only getting crumbs and hints of answers which had a great way of capturing interest

Favorite recent TV example of a delayed payoff exposition. "The Last of Us" Pilot. Ellie passing the time in Tess and Joel's apartment ***SPOILER*** Flips open the music book. Notices that a "Bill and Frank" have a code involving what decade a song comes from. Ellie pretends to have heard an 80s song on the radio while Joel was napping, his reaction confirms that "80s" means trouble. (And shows something of their personalities.) The 1987 Depeche Mode song "Never Let Me Down Again" closes the episode - but it's not soundtrack. It's on the radio in the now-empty apartment. At the end of the next episode alert viewers know that Tess's desperate idea to get Ellie to Bill and Frank probably won't work. At the end of the third episode Joel shows Ellie the "dead man's switch" Bill had, starting the 80s playlist after a certain period of inattention. Ellie is like I-toldya-so. And we remember the pilot had ended with Joel, Tess, and Ellie missing what was essentially Bill and Frank's death notice.

This is so good. I've just finished watching 3 Body Problem and that was one of my issues with it, exactly that scene where they talk about what their careers is so abrupt. when they could have just put them in a scene doing their work or just asking how their nanofiber work is going, or when the final test happening. How does it become this bad though? is it laziness, lack of QA or unexperienced? Wasn't expecting it to be that bad in 3 Body Problem.

The video touches on this, but I think it's important to emphasize that "showing" can be just as awkward and unnatural as "telling" can be, if it doesn't really make sense for a character to be doing a particular action, or if it arises from something that seems contrived and implausible. In some ways this is worse than simply having contrived or implausible plot, because at least bad plot is serving the story ultimately, whereas bad plot that's only there to serve an expository goal sticks out even worse. One technique that can be very effective for having a character simply deliver a lot of exposition is when it occurs in the form of a confession of some sort. Like Salieri in the film Amadeus, he offers a lot of background information about himself and his relationship with Mozart, but he has a dramatic motivation for doing so. His guilt and remorse over his belief that he caused Mozart's death is tormenting him and he is desperate for absolution. Or in Nabokov's "Lolita", Humbert Humbert is nominally offering a confession about his criminal pedophilia, but in doing so is revealing very subtly how manipulative and self-serving his explanations and excuses are, he's essentially showing us very slowly what a monster he really is by attempting to con the audience with his charm and intelligence. His motivation is the opposite of Salieri's. Humbert is desperately attempting to evade real moral accountability for his actions. Both of these examples are very satisfying from the standpoint of storytelling, as the character's psychological motivations are both the source of the plot and the reason they choose to reveal the information that we are given.

I think one of my favorite opening scenes is "Murder On The Orient Express" (1974). There's no dialogue. Just vague images, newspaper clippings, and really creepy music. The best part is it then drops you in another situation, leaving the audience to wonder, "What was that about?" until the murder mystery comes up and it's like, "Ohhh...."

I love @ThomasFlight emphasizing that these pat rules like "show, don't tell" depend on the context. I love the world building in the 2018 movie "Prospect" in part, because so much of the dialogue contributes to the world building without feel gratuitously expository. There is a LOT of exposition and backstory, but much of it feels like like organic characterization and theme building. The facts shared often don't matter, and even when they do, the scene adds character context. ***SPOILER, some exposition that does more** 1. We learn over a speaker why Damon and Cee MUST finish work and get off the moon in time. Cee learns her Dad didn't disclose a major risk. 2. We learn Cee's mom is dead from Damon reciting backstory. Cee learns, again, the he doesn't tell her basic stuff like where she was born. We learn that Damon can show fondness for his daughter but only when drugged and a small part of me is creeped out by him mentioning how much she looks like her mother in that state. 3. Harvesting demonstration, the movie's plainest fact reveal: it takes patience and dexterity, and poses an explosion risk. This knowledge generates suspense when Ezra later repeats the entire procedure with one hand, his non-dominant one. Mainly about plot, though the outcome shows Cee's tactical knack and their growing teamwork. 4. Ezra likes to tell (back) stories and we are treated to a tedious one, but I think this makes his later speechless distress (when confronted with the loss of his dominant arm) more compelling, and his instinct to re-anchor himself with his words feels natural and a relief. 5. Sater backstory conveys info that does matter, but in the moment it's an uncomfrtable interval to doubt Ezra's trustworthiness along with Cee. 6. Cee's description of her beloved YA novel, her fanfic, and her Dad baggage: as fun as The Streamer Girl sounds, it's there to show Cee tentatively feeling safe with Ezra, show that olive branch rewarded by him, and to bask in Cee feeling seen by Ezra in a way her father did not.

i think what's also relevant by the "telling" of the walter jr. scene that might be missed in a "showing" is his tone, his specific feelings on the hot water-that he is not just frustrated about not having it but frustrated at his parents (and more specifically his father) for not fixing it. we also get to see skylar and walter's reactions and begin to build their emotional landscapes as well