[Quick Summary: The ABC Sports team must figure out how to report a hostage-terrorist situation nearby their 1972 Munich Olympics broadcast location.]
PROGRAMMING NOTE: For this year's 2025 Oscar roundup, I'm going to feature my single favorite line from each of the 10 scripts.
In this script, I liked the propulsive energy, much of which is told through visuals.
For example, Roone Arledge, President of ABC Sports, was journalist who understood instinctually how to to tell the story via visuals.
How does one SHOW instinct? Usually through actions rather than dialogue, because it's a spontaneous "feel" rather than a calculated thought.
For example, in the scene below:
- Roone Arledge, President of ABC Sports, tells the director to cut away from the winner, Mark Spitz, and toward the "hopelessly exhausted face of the German swimmer."
- The tv director questions the decision, but directs the camera as instructed.
- The commentator picks up on Arledge's thinking and smoothly gives context, i.e., what it means for this German swimmer at the Munich Games.
- Arledge's journalistic instinct honed in on the big picture: not just the game itself, but the personal, as well as the larger geo-political realities.
- This demonstrates so well the art of instinct: Arledge knew the more interesting angle (and less commonplace one) would be the losing athlete, rather than the winner.
INT. ABC SPORTS' 1972 OLYMPICS STUDIO, CONTROL ROOM
...On the main monitor: the hopelessly exhausted face of the German swimmer. The commentator immediately understands Roone's decision and rounds out the narrative.
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: This is an example of how to let the audience put 2 + 2 together.
September 5 (2024)
by Moritz Binder & Tim Fehlbaum, and Alex David
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