Sound technique · used in 3 films
Using improvised or loosely scripted dialogue with false starts and interruptions. It has the rhythm of real speech, so it sounds like something actually said.
Examples
Stanley Kubrick · 1987
R. Lee Ermey was a real Marine drill instructor. His improvised speeches were so good that Kubrick kept them. The drill scenes have a verbal energy that scripted dialogue can't fake. The cruelty is too specific, too inventive and too exact in its rhythm for a writer to have made it up.
Where to see it: Ermey's opening inspection. The insults are so specific that they sound like things someone really said.
Richard Linklater · 1993
The actors were encouraged to improvise and shape their own characters, and Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson was largely written on the spot. The talk drifts and stops and starts like real teenagers. It never sounds like a script.
Where to see it: Wooderson on the football field: In the early morning, Wooderson tells Pink to "keep livin'" and stop worrying about what everyone expects of him.
Richard Linklater · 1995
Hawke and Delpy sound like they are improvising, even when the lines are scripted. Their sentences trail off, interrupt each other and circle back. That is why their closeness is as convincing as a real conversation.
Where to see it: The outdoor restaurant scene. Jesse confesses that he is cynical about romance. It comes out in stops and starts, and he sounds truly unsure.
Questions