Game of Thrones Analysis

The TV series Game of Thrones is structured much like a sitcom, as it jumps from character to character following their story and how it intertwines with the rest. What it does more remarkably than others however, is the sheer amount of different characters it follows and yet still manages to address them frequently enough so the audience doesn't get bored or forgets all the different stories going on at the same time. This is helped out partly due to the length of each episode and each season, each episode being just shy of an hour long and the series containing 10 episodes, as well as the way it is all cut together. For example, I have chosen a short scene from episode 3 of season 2 around 26 minutes in where Tyrion Lannister is talking to 3 different characters in his office, all at separate times so they are being spoken to individually and aren't aware that the others have been spoken to either. Now normally, having these separate conversations would take some time to happen with arranging them to come in at separate times e.c.t., but this sequence is edited in a way to mask all these transitional periods and save time.

The scene starts on a wide shot of the room with both characters in the centre of the frame, this is to establish the location and the characters in the conversation. After a brief interaction, Tryion walks away to a table out of shot and the framing changes to show him at the table with the other character in soft focus over his shoulder.

It then cuts away to a close up of him pouring wine into a goblet and then, as he starts to walk away, it cuts back to the same wide shot at the start apart from with a different person in the chair.

This same technique is then repeated with Tyrion walking off screen from a wide and then back in when the other character changes.

This is a very effective and entertaining technique of editing as it not only saves time like I said previously, but it also wraps the audience into the narrative more by showing more interactions between characters, giving the audience a better view on what they are like and how they are important in the story. It also shows that the important character in the scene and narrative at this point is Tyrion, as he is the one who seemingly controls the pace of the scene and is always the one that is in shot. Finally it progresses the narrative in a clear but clever way as it is easy to follow as well as being aesthetically well done.
The reason I chose to analyse this scene is to use the convention it does of showing the most important character on screen at almost all times, and apply that to the Night Journey cut I'm doing at the moment. This is to create empathy as well as engagement with one of the characters and focus on what they are doing to allow the audience to understand what is actually occurring within the scene. As we are having problems with creating a clear narrative in our edit, hopefully this research will enable us to progress and create a better, clearer final film.