I watched a clip the other day where Hitchcock discusses tension and tension relief. He begins by discussing exposition. The example used is a bunch of guys sitting at a table talking baseball. Boring. But add a suitcase bomb underneath the table and everything changes. Now we pay close attention to the discussion.

Interestingly, he points out that at the end of the scene, the bomb has to go off. He said this was a mistake he had often made in his career, not setting off the bomb. The reason is that you spend several minutes building the tension in the audience, and once you build it up, if there is no release for it, the audience gets frustrated.

I used something similar, I think,  playing music in my club. You slowly build energy with a series of songs, until you hit them with that one that drives them wild. But then you slow it up a little, let the energy reboot. This way you can build the energy in steps, with each peak being higher than the last, until you have them at a fever pitch.

Ever since I started writing screen, I've had it my mind that something similar should be possible in film. Knowing how to do it is the problem. My first challenge has been to learn how to build tension. It's a real struggle, to be honest. It's not enough to have a threat. You also have to have an emotional involvement with the characters, which means the audience has to care about them. Then you have to build this threat gradually, not just throw it in there. "Ticking time bomb" for example.

Seeing the Hitchcock clip made me realize that, just like the club crowd dancing, you have to build this tension in steps. That means you have to build tension, then have relief(the bomb goes off), and then start building it again after a brief interlude. Man, this is tough work!

I hope someone out there has some suggestions on this. This is a problem that relates to pacing too. And since the interlude is also needed, that has to be considered. Obviously comedy is a filler, or sometimes maybe some brief, interesting dialogue. Any thoughts appreciated!

Here's some articles:

http://lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/2010/06/creating-tension.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_4489322_create-tension-fictional-scene.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/154093/how_to_dramatically_increase_tension_pg3.html?cat=38

I've posted on this issue before and had some good lists of ways of creating tension, but I can't find them.

It's relatively easy really, more mechanical than anything else.

Thanks for the links, Rick, just read through them. It's always useful to think of ways to increase tension, to learn techniques for that.

I think my main point for consideration today was tension relief and how it fits into pacing. So you have:

1) gradual tension building to a peak
2) tension relief
3) tension free interlude
4) repeat cycle.

And the idea is each peak should build progressively higher.

Sometimes tension relief is a problem. In the Hitchcock example, we have a bomb explode at the end of the scene. But not all scenes have an obvious tension relief resolution.

It may be that this is just stuff a writer has to find a way to do, and there's no real tricks or techniques. Or maybe my understanding of this kind of pacing is flawed. It just seemed to me that in the current feature I am writing, it might be the case I am not providing tension relief in some scenes. I just hadn't thought about the need for relief until I saw the Hitchcock clip.

I watched a lot of clips recently on youtube from interviews with directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Tarantino, Kubrick, and Hitchcock. Very interesting stuff. What these guys think about when they're filming is very different than what a lot of analysts and reviewers think they're thinking of. Of course, who can say what is subconsciously in their minds when they're filming. Tarantino and Scorcese are very articulate in talking about what was on there minds when they made certain films. the Hitchcock clips were very much about technique. In fact, he even makes a point of saying he really doesn't care what the story's about, as long as he can evoke certain emotional responses. Which, as you said, is very technical.

Thanks for the links, as always.

When Hitchcock's talking about tension relief, he means pay off to the scene.

It's frustrating the audience by not giving them a climax to their emotion...it just fizzles out to nothing.

It's like building up a fight between two arch enemies, then not shooting it.

All you have to do is resolve it, one way or another.

Whether it's an argument over whether to eat Chinese or Italian or a life and death situation, the second it's resolved there's no tension.

Hitchcock talks a lot of crap tbh. I think he liked to amuse himself by making fun of interviewers.

For instance he would always talk about how you should be able to watch films and know what they are about without listening to the diaogue and would say "I've written the film, I just need to add dialogue"...as though it were an inconsequential afterthought...but if you watch his films a lot of them are full of dialogue and largely built around it eg Strangers on a Train. The whole thing is largely just a series of conversations.

Kevin, what you're talking about here is what I see as a day on the ski slopes...

You take a series of chair lifts up the mountain.  It's an enjoyable ride up.  You see the beauty of the mountain and all the different options down.  Then, you get to the top, so, of course, you go ski down.

Sometimes, you'll go all the way to the bottom, and start over again on your climb back up, but usually, you'll only go down a ways, and take another chair back up.

This goes on all day until the last ride up and the final ascent down.

It's just like a good script/movie should be...a mix of relaxing chairlift rides up, and invigorating, intense races down.