Basic Establishing and Transitioning in WYNONNA EARP "Constant Cravings"
Having Fun, Creating Movement, and Hiding Demons, all in one!
This scene from Wynonna Earp 1.06 “Constant Cravings” is a great example of doing something ‘basic’ while having fun. It has a clear idea how it’s going to transition from the prior scene; it establishes who is who and where so it can get down to the meat of the scene, and it introduces its villain but hides some key details until the reveal will have the most impact.
The scene leading in ends with Wynonna delivering the button “so how do you feel about cows?” and Melanie Scrofano sexily-and/or-hilariously (pending your personal tastes) chomping a donut — fun, slightly cryptic, with a musical stinger to boot.
The next series of shots get straight to work.
Movement
One thing many shows do — particularly network genre shows, which have a lower budget and smaller shoot time than most — do to help make feel dynamic and look fancy is moving establishing shots, often coming out from behind an object such as a trunk, lamp, fridge door, etc.
This shot comes from behind a fencepost to turn into a quite wide shot, revealing farm which ties into those mysterious ‘cows’ Wynonna was talking about. (please note though you can’t see the cows you CAN hear them . . . much cheaper this way!)
A truck drives in the distance of that wide, drawing attention as the only moving element. The next shot shows the same truck. So far, so simple.
The third shot (0:13) is also moving and also shows the truck, however this shot has changed drasticallly; it’s a medium, inside and dark and red instead of outside with lights and blues, and as it pulls back from a window it reveals a lot of what certainly look like cow parts scattered over the kitchen table.
Into that shot THWOCKS a cleaver, wielded by a backlit man in a hat — the sign of a mysterious villain for sure.
Reusing / Continuing Shots
Remember that moving shot which opens the scene? As it comes out from behind a fencepost, it’s clearly meant to be the opening shot; however while in that setup they continued rolling on Wynonna and Dolls walking to the house.
Sure, as Brian De Palma says, ‘coverage’ is a dirty word . . . but that doesn’t mean covering a scene is bad. If you can extend a shot and get something else interesting in one setup, especially on a lower-end TV budget, do it. It’s often worth it even if you may not use the shot in the edit; don’t forget network TV means you must be EXACT with episode length and the difference between having to chop your scene to bits or lose that really cool shot may be having a shot just like this to save your arse IE help keep the conversation rolling smoothly, or cover ADR of entirely new lines which bring your runtime down 30 seconds.
Who Is Who And Where
Wynonna and Dolls climb from the car and walk up to the porch, talking / exposition-dumping for us, but with movement. When Wynonna mentions the creepy guy on the porch, it goes from a two-shot of those two to a direct reverse with the man framed between them.
We still haven’t seen his face, but he’s obviously wearing the same large hat we saw silhouetted from inside, so we know it’s the guy who was just chopping up cow (we hope) parts in the kitchen.
After a return to Wynonna and Dolls, we get a closeup of Hat Guy . . . and it becomes obvious why his face has been hidden til now because there’s no way to read ‘glowing red eyes and bandana pulled up like a bank robber’ but bad and/or demonic news, especially when paired with blood-stained jeans and oh look a meat cleaver.
It would be less dramatic if the shot inside revealed glowing eyes to us, because then we as an audience are way ahead of Wynonna and Dolls. But it would also be less interesting if our first glimpse of him is ‘some guy on a porch’ rather than ‘cleaver-wielding dude who can clearly see a car approaching is prepared to confront our heroes.’
Shooting him in silhouette allows the creepy vibes but still holds out on the full reveal until it’s most effective: having its cake and eating it too where ‘cake’ is “seeing a creepy dude who means business” and ‘eating it’ is “only seeing his Cleaver Demon self in full when he’s face-to-face with our heroes.”
Cue a very short foot chase while Wynonna makes puns and draws her gun . . .
Point of View
We already broke down how the ‘kill shot’ section of this scene uses point of view, and it’s very cool, so go take a look at that — we’ll wait.
And Get Out
The scene ends with Wynonna noting their Tate said the plural ‘us’ but she and Dolls have only seen (and blown into purgatory) one revenant, “so who the hell is us?” she asks . . . as the camera zoooooms out.
This shot isn’t just dramatic, it insinuates someone watching from a distance - a perfect button on a scene which underscores its content.
Takeaways
The scene before ends with a snarky line in a closeup; this scene starts with a wide moving shot and then ends with a dramatic shot insinuating someone is watching.
Scene breaks (especially if you have commercials in between!) are places which all too easily lose your viewers. If your transitions can be funny, dramatic, visually appealing, contrasting or matching, clever, sparking curiosity, or preferably multiple of the above, you’ll keep interest.
If you have characters to meet or secrets to reveal, consider what may be most effective — or if there are two things you want to get across, how you can manage to do both, as this scene does.
Meanwhile it’s perfectly fine to use basic setups, shot-reverse-shots, etc. through your scene, especially as 1. it allows you keep clear who is where 2. it will keep you on-budget and within your episodic runtime 3. it actually even better enables you to play with POV, crash-zooms, etc., because using them judiciously will make them stand out.
And if you get the chance to have your hero chomp a donut? Always do that.
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Wynonna Earp