Our protagonist in this episode is a 'secret' until the final reveal - Thuringwethil's spying is what ties the episode together, and everything is seen through her eyes.
Since that won't be obvious on first viewing, we are also leaning heavily on the Frame to give us a storyline that carries through from the beginning of the episode until the end. So, Bilbo is our faux-protagonist until we get to the final reveal.
And, even though Fingolfin is only in Act 4, the characters will talk about him throughout, which hopefully makes his presence anticipated.
Hopefully, that will be enough to make up for the disjointed storytelling!
A-plot (secret) - Thuringwethil spies on the Noldor in Beleriand
B-plot - Bilbo meets Bard's family, visits Erebor, and sees Dain's interest in protection from dragons (or is it elves?)
C-plot - Each kingdom of the Noldor we visit is in a different stage of completion and militancy.
A lot of what will make this episode work would be the directorial choices of how to convey Thuringwethil's presence behind the camera. You can give hints in the stage direction part of the script, but at the end of the day it's difficult to show a character who is not on screen, especially when you want to 'surprise' the audience with who it might be.
Think of the different ways a TV show conveys phone conversations. The most conventional, normal way of doing that is to show both characters on both sides of the phone call, so that the viewer is familiar with each speaker's surroundings and facial expression, any distractions, etc. This is especially true if both speakers are main characters. Occasionally, there's a reason to show only one side of the call, while still hearing the dialogue from the other side. Maybe you don't want to pull the viewer out of the scene. Maybe one voice is an 'incidental' character reporting information but not important in and of themselves. Maybe someone has dialed just before falling unconscious, so you want to show the viewer the slumped body while the voice on the other end keeps asking if someone is there.... In this case, the phone itself becomes the presence of the other person in the scene. And, more rarely, you see and hear only one side of a conversation, and have to surmise what was said based on the character's reaction. That's good for raising the drama level in 'shocking news' scenes. And, I guess, rarest of all would be a 'phone call scene' with music over it, so you see the person take a phone call, and see their reaction, but hear none of the dialogue at all.
Obviously there are no phone calls in this episode . But we do have to convey Thuringwethil's presence without giving away her presence, and that's going to take a lot of attention to detail. We made sure there was one 'blatant hint' in each act, but we likely need other details as well. One scene I'm worried about is the training montage. It is at the beginning of the Act, where we have just been seeing everything from her birds-eye view in the transition. It seems unlikely that Thuringwethil would sit perched in a tree for a month watching Maedhros train. We intend to show changes of outfits for the elves to indicate that these are different days. Should we also show changes in vantage point to indicate that Thuringwethil's viewpoint is not fixed? Or should everything be from one particular location, which we show later as a good spot for a blind?
As a 'for instance'.... I don't know if we'll show the full transition between each site, to give the audience a feel of the distances and the map, but if we do, there's the opportunity for Thuringwethil to fly through Nevrast. And if she does, when she gets to the lake, a whole flight of birds could take off. It might just look dramatic at the moment, but once you know the camera is a person, it becomes more clear that she has startled the birds by flying over them.
Here's a map of Thuringwethil's travels in this episode, for reference:
Since that won't be obvious on first viewing, we are also leaning heavily on the Frame to give us a storyline that carries through from the beginning of the episode until the end. So, Bilbo is our faux-protagonist until we get to the final reveal.
And, even though Fingolfin is only in Act 4, the characters will talk about him throughout, which hopefully makes his presence anticipated.
Hopefully, that will be enough to make up for the disjointed storytelling!
A-plot (secret) - Thuringwethil spies on the Noldor in Beleriand
B-plot - Bilbo meets Bard's family, visits Erebor, and sees Dain's interest in protection from dragons (or is it elves?)
C-plot - Each kingdom of the Noldor we visit is in a different stage of completion and militancy.
A lot of what will make this episode work would be the directorial choices of how to convey Thuringwethil's presence behind the camera. You can give hints in the stage direction part of the script, but at the end of the day it's difficult to show a character who is not on screen, especially when you want to 'surprise' the audience with who it might be.
Think of the different ways a TV show conveys phone conversations. The most conventional, normal way of doing that is to show both characters on both sides of the phone call, so that the viewer is familiar with each speaker's surroundings and facial expression, any distractions, etc. This is especially true if both speakers are main characters. Occasionally, there's a reason to show only one side of the call, while still hearing the dialogue from the other side. Maybe you don't want to pull the viewer out of the scene. Maybe one voice is an 'incidental' character reporting information but not important in and of themselves. Maybe someone has dialed just before falling unconscious, so you want to show the viewer the slumped body while the voice on the other end keeps asking if someone is there.... In this case, the phone itself becomes the presence of the other person in the scene. And, more rarely, you see and hear only one side of a conversation, and have to surmise what was said based on the character's reaction. That's good for raising the drama level in 'shocking news' scenes. And, I guess, rarest of all would be a 'phone call scene' with music over it, so you see the person take a phone call, and see their reaction, but hear none of the dialogue at all.
Obviously there are no phone calls in this episode . But we do have to convey Thuringwethil's presence without giving away her presence, and that's going to take a lot of attention to detail. We made sure there was one 'blatant hint' in each act, but we likely need other details as well. One scene I'm worried about is the training montage. It is at the beginning of the Act, where we have just been seeing everything from her birds-eye view in the transition. It seems unlikely that Thuringwethil would sit perched in a tree for a month watching Maedhros train. We intend to show changes of outfits for the elves to indicate that these are different days. Should we also show changes in vantage point to indicate that Thuringwethil's viewpoint is not fixed? Or should everything be from one particular location, which we show later as a good spot for a blind?
As a 'for instance'.... I don't know if we'll show the full transition between each site, to give the audience a feel of the distances and the map, but if we do, there's the opportunity for Thuringwethil to fly through Nevrast. And if she does, when she gets to the lake, a whole flight of birds could take off. It might just look dramatic at the moment, but once you know the camera is a person, it becomes more clear that she has startled the birds by flying over them.
Here's a map of Thuringwethil's travels in this episode, for reference:
Last edited: