The parts we overlook in stories are its best bits

Taking a completely different route from my previous post. A more stimulating and coherent one. Okay I'm not gonna promise coherence, there might be memes in this. I thought we'd talk a bit about storytelling. Specifically those elements that (at times) go unnoticed by the audience, despite the sweat and tears put into them by its creator.

Okay that sentence is a mouthful, let me just zoom back a bit. World building, I'm talking about world building. Second, I'm using storytelling to mean books, movies, games, etc. If we have a story we have storytelling, bam! Third, this is not at all a criticism at the audience - or not directly anyway.

Fourth: There is no fourth, let's just get the ball rolling. Goooooooooooo.

Let's start with this man:

The Departed

Martin Scorsese, living legend. He has made some of the best movies and you should watch all of them. All. Of. Them.
Anyway! In his movie The Departed we have a scene where one of the main characters is handed a note with a number on it (long story short: Payment).

I couldn't find a good gif so... this but drama-y

Now it is not relevant to us watching it what number was on that paper, but Scorsese had to know and so asked his expert on the area. He chose not to add it to the movie, at no point do we see what number is written, but it helped the story in a small way that its director knew. Also, in a movie that's very cloak and daggers, us not knowing something is emblematic of the whole story.

Not that exciting? I'm easing you into it. Let me give you another example:

Bladerunner

50% of this movie embodies this concept. People in the streets are talking some kind of combination of all the largest languages, muddled together. There is an incredible fashion sense. Unbelievable architecture. World building takes place in Sci-Fi and Fantasy a lot, these movies are trying to transport you to another world. Now, obviously people noticed these things but they played second fiddle to what was ultimately most important: The story. However, this is the kind of story that benefits from world building; second fiddle is equally important in this orchestra. The clothes, the speech; all of it helps to set us in a world we ultimately don't understand and so with these elements we are able to digest the story.

Let's move on to the final one. This will get dark, so allow me to set the mood appropriately.

Hannibal (TV)

Hannibal is one of my all time favorite tv shows and it is dark y'all. Not as in "They should fire whoever is working the light fixtures". No it is dark as in death is the easy part. To put it differently, it is hard for me to describe this show without using the word poison. Everything in this show feels bad for you, the framing, lighting, visuals, music, any line from Hannibal (The character). At no time do I not feel uneasy. Let me loop back around with what I said about Bladerunner. In the same way that Bladerunner helps us understand this new world we're temporarily visiting, Hannibal helps us understand its way of evil (It also has some interesting things to say about death, but another time). If you ever (re)watch the show, I'd love it if you paid attention to the way the camera is framed, how the background is used, sound (or absence thereof), clothing, etc. I left this vague deliberately, this is more of an invitation to watch it for yourself (but seriously, don’t binge it, for your own sake); also with the intention that you can form your own opinions/thoughts/feelings.

Lastly, I also wanted to touch on The Witcher 3 and Hellboy’s lived in worlds. Ultimately it felt better to just talk about Bladerunner, since they all would be about the same idea.

And just to leave it on a question, what are some of your favorite world building elements? I’d love to know as I’m always looking for a good recommendation!