Location Hunting

Before my music career gets started, I agreed to write a post illustrating my suggestions of breaking a town environment into individual "scenes," or for the purpose of this post, let's call them locations.  I felt that perhaps this could be made clearer by using an actual film, and for this I considered a number of possibilities.  There's the recent Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which has some of the elements I'm looking for (but not many), and has the benefit of being easily available for those who haven't seen the film ... but in fact, I don't think that film's a good example of what I want to convey.  The problem with using any film, of course, is that if the reader hasn't seen it, there isn't much benefit.

Two good examples I might turn to are 1993's Falling Down, a film that many people don't like, and which is now more than 30 years old and therefore not a familiar quality for many people, and 1953's Roman Holiday, which is thoroughly exquisite and which everyone really ought to see, but it's seventy years old now and quite out of the zeitgeist.

So I thought, instead of using a film, we could discuss film-making instead, seeing if that wouldn't be a more effective approach ... though to be frank, if the reader has very little understanding of the history of film, or hasn't seen many films, then this post isn't going to be of much use one way or the other.  Perhaps, however, something might be gained by my providing context.

Though there have always been movies made in the outdoors, right through the silent era, there were limitations on the sharpness that film stock could provide, especially in certain kinds of light and in certain locations.  As such, most dramatic films took place in a series of indoor locations; a typical film in the 1930s and 40s would feature the characters moving from an office to a private home, to a hotel lobby and then to some other public place, like a police station or a restaurant.  Momentary outdoor shots would then be fitted between these scenes for general effect.  For example, in the Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade and Miles Archer are met by Miss Wonderly in their office; there's a brief scene after where we see Miles getting shot; and then the police arrive at Sam Spade's rather cheap residence.  The shooting scene lasts about six seconds.

Long-term outdoor shooting was expensive, and usually required that the camera be mounted in a fixed location, so that it would capture all the movement in a given frame.  Buster Keaton uses this limitation to terrific effect in many silent films, as do other directors.  By the 1940s, lighting problems are overcome by producing stark contrasts between bright light and pure darkness, starting off the film noir genre, which used the contrast to film longer shots in the outdoors.  But by the 1950s, advancements in camera technology allowed filming in outdoor settings, during the day, much easier, in that cameras became more portable and versatile.  Thus, a Roman fountain could be filmed from all around the fountain, not just from one fixed point.  This started off a wave of American films that took place in Europe, which could be filmed luxuriantly enough to appease American audiences, and this in turn set off a craze for European tours.

Roman Holiday is an early example of this sort of travelogue piece.  While creating a satisfying and exhilirating story, the premise also allowed for specific parts of Rome in 1953 to be filmed in spectacular, clear black and white, while actually driving through the city, which would have been far more expensive and even impossible a few years earlier.  It matter to us, however, because to set up these shots, the film-makers need to scout locations in Rome, to decide where they'd be filmed from, and which places could be reasonably filmed and at which times of the day, given the crowds and the film's needs.

Location hunters, script in hand, were assigned to hunt for specific alleyways, streets, building faces ... a practice that still continues, especially for period pieces which must have not be anachronistic, or which can be sufficiently adjusted in CGI after being filmed.  The goal is to create the illusion of a continuous, unbroken cityscape while, in fact, being limited by the practical challenges of filming in real-world settings.  In many ways, dialogue often served to inform the audience about the characters' movements between locations, helping to maintain the coherence as they explain in advance, "We'll meet you at the Hotel des Arts," just before we cut to the hotel just mentioned.  This happens so often and gently in films that for the most part, the non-filmmaker simply fails to see it.

So, here is a leap. If we're building a narrative in a role-playing game, where we're outlining a town for a group of players, without wanting to build the whole town, one way to do it would be to present a series of locations that we invent, which we can then link together for the players, creating a verisimilitude and transitional environment without ever needing a map or list of streets for the characters to walk upon.

Though the actual game might hop about from location to location, so long as we provide a good, solid description for a given location, as a movie camera might, though using words, we can make the players feel that they're in that actual place.  And rather than needing to explain how they get from there to the next location, we can impose simple techniques like directing the players to the next spot (by saying, "the old man directs you to the Plaza Rufio, and you have no trouble finding it), or having the NPC walk along with the players while leading them from one location to the next.  Meanwhile, if we need a battle to take place, or have the characters witness a scene that fits into the narrative, giving them additional information about the adventure, we can have it happen here at the Plaza, or hear about it happening at the nearby dockside, which the players can then rush to, setting up the next location.

Thinking about this cinematically will aid considerably for imposing a structure on separate events occurring in separate places.

In building these locations, think about it as a location hunter would.  To make a fine scene for a film, we want there to be some sort of representation and notable landmark, such as a tall bell tower, a cathedral, castle, keep, monument or town square.  These serve as anchors in a sea of unfamiliarity, guiding the players and giving them things they can refer to which are easily remembered by everyone.  "The killing that took place under the clocktower," for example.

Other forms of landmark may not be unique, but may yet have memorable qualities that can be adapted to specific events that the characters witness.  An abandoned mansion, for example; a distinct looking graveyard; an orchard that grows a specific fruit, thus the "apple orchard," which the players find by "the west wall," and such.  Each little tag we add to the location provides something else by which it will be known to the players, and remembered.  "No, not that orchard, the other one that was all apples, the one near the west wall."  These simple labels make it easy for the players to structure the place in their minds, even though they only exist in the player's imaginations.

We don't want too many details, because then it becomes hard to remember.  We don't need to know which sort of apples, or how spaced the trees are, or how near they are to the wall, or what the wall is made of.  Experience will show that if we just give a few basic points about something, it's enough for the players to fix the location in their heads and concentrate on what happens there, rather than the exhaustive detail about something that in fact doesn't matter.

There are functional locations as well, such as a forge, a tavern, a town hall, a particular sort of workshop or mill.  There might be an outcropping of rock on the side of hill that the town bends around, and below the outcropping, a small garden next to a green-grey house.  There, the scene is set, we can describe what happens there.

We can add sounds, smells and textures if we want ... but remember, none of these things exist cinematically, as a picture, and the player cannot actually smell or hear any of the sounds we describe.  Therefore, don't overdo it.  If everything has a smell and everything has a strange sound, soon enough the players won't be able to link which smell or sound came from which place, and merely become confused.  Adding a smell won't hurt; "The graveyard stinks of dry rot," but focus on the players remembering that it's a graveyard, and not what it smells like.

There's an old writer's trope that the reader will give the main character the hair colour that they want, regardless of what the story might say.  Many readers are surprised, when they read a book a second time, that the character they thought had black hair and a handsome face, in face has sandy brown hair and isn't that good looking.  It's there in the text, but it was overlooked on the first reading and often readers still can't get rid of their first impression, even after they find that impression was wrong.  It's one reason why a lot of writers don't see the point in exhaustively describing the character of a story, which is a habit of many early 20th century writers, though it was far less common in the 19th century, and is somewhat less common now.  The reader won't remember, anyway.

Anyway, fix a location in mind.  See it from street level, as a camera does, not looking down as though at a map.  In the mind's eye, turn and see what the scene looks as our gaze sweeps left, then right.  Once its there, describe it to the players.  The scene can be "scouted out" in our notes long before the game starts, or when it's needed.  Give the scene a purpose for being part of the players' experience, just as it needs to have some purpose in a film, if that.s what we were choosing it for.

This is where the players see the first brigand during a general attack.  Over there, in that side alley, there are two more brigands.  In that window up there, a woman is leaning over to toss a bucket of water into the street; she stops, sees the first bandit ... but doesn't see the two from the alley entering her building.  There.  The players have been given their first experience in the developing campaign.  Do they separate to handle the first bandit, and the other two?  Do they let the scene play out to see what happens?  They have the benefit of the camera seeing more than the NPC woman does.  This gives the players power ... and by habit, by watching endless scenes in dramas and films, they'll comprehend that power without having to think about it.

Now, when we watch a film, we can practice our DMing by watching how the camera is revealing information about the scene to us, the audience, which the characters in the film don't have.  We want to set the players up as the audience ... but at the same time, they're also in the scene.  When a director sets the scene, it's the protagonists in the film who receive the most information, and logically, the players are the protagonists.  So, especially with a good film, there will be moments when it becomes apparent how the director is showing the protagonists what they have a choice to do.

In a film, of course, the director is also directing the protagonist ... but for us, the protagonists direct themselves.  We can only create the scene.  But what we tell the players, and how we reveal that — well, that was the point of the Show, Don't Tell post.  It's nice to bring this concept around, full circle.

Find a few free action films and test out this process for yourselves.  Good luck.