Welcome to The Film Podcast by WILDsound. WILDsound is a Film Festival, running Audience Feedback Filming sessions in Toronto, L.A, and Montreal, as well as running monthly writing competitions in Screenplays, Features, Spec Scrips, Novels, Poetry and many more. 

On today's Episode, we meet our hosts Matthew Toffolo and Kierston Drier as they break down what exactly a "walk and talk" shot is in film and television- as well as how and why they are used. 

 

SHOW NOTES 

DEFINITION: specifically in regards to film and television, a walk and talk shot is a story device, a narrative technique employed, often by the director to propel action and movement into a scene that would otherwise by dialogue heavy. 

• GENERAL EXAMPLE: You see this used a lot in Procedural shows like medical dramas, crime dramas, law drama, etc. The idea behind this is the actors are talking and sharing whatever information they have to in the scene, but the scene involves them walking through or to something. 
   
• • WHY IS IT USED
    Dialogue heavy scenes are often needed to establish a character backstory (Think that classic scene in a Rom-Com when the Characters have a hear to-to-heart while walking in the park), Explain a situation, or establish major conflict. We want to avoid exposition is most cases of writing, but when we MUST have a scene where exposition is happening, then that dialogue-heavy scene would get pretty boring if the characters were just standing there like talking heads. So a Walk-And-Talk shot does four things: 
    • It creates a sense of Urgency- those characters are getting somewhere!
    • It can link scenes together. Ex: The characters were in the boardroom and they shared important information that will affect them in the next scene when they enter the main office space. 
    • It establishes the lines as more casual (these details must be shared but they are not SO important that the characters have to STOP what they are doing to share it)
    • Psychologically, it establishes visual interest. As moving characters are more interesting to watch that non-moving one. 
      
       

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