🔧 One Small Change
From downright terrible un-salvageable stories, to spectacular stories that are already practically perfect… sometimes it just takes one small change to elevate a story to the highest level.
Nando v Movies
A Youtuber Nando v Movies has a video essay series called “One Small Change” where he takes one scene, and from there one small plot beat or character dialogue exchange, and then slightly nudges it ever so slightly — this in turn causes the entire story to be recontextualized in a completely brand-new light.
It is one thing to criticize and judge a story. Everybody has an opinion. But to be more objective and to back up your opinions, you will need/get to go a step higher/further to suggest and present the change.
That’s what I’ve applied with my film reviews: while I can whine all I want about whatever being bad, I always phrase it as “Things I’d Tweak”, and the alternative-universe stories that I unearth and discover become an adventure of their own.
On Rewriting
Now of course, there are many reasons why a good story may go sideways during production. Doing rewrites, we always have:
- The benefit of hindsight. Especially after seeing a final product on the big screen, because it’s harder to catch midway.
- The benefit of freedom: Studio executives have their own agenda (which may be good or bad), but they frequently bump shoulders with storywriting.
And the small change should be contained within a scene, even as far as changing one word in dialogue. Any bigger wouldn’t count as one small change ;)
But that word can flip the entire story upside down. You’d be surprised at how large a difference can result from one small change.