Marvel’s The Avengers — Movies for Lawyers — The Act Of Communication Point Of View
From Katherine:
You are right. Not normally my kind of catharsis. When Alan suggested going to see The Avengers I thought that I might get a glimpse of the British TV Series from the 60s. Okay, I seriously had a hankering to see Diana Rigg wearing one of those fabulous Emma Peel outfits. No offense to your 1998 attempt, Uma, but in my heart I am still a young teenage girl with chubby thighs who actually believes she might some day have Diana’s legs.
My husband, sons, and daughters-in-law all loved it. SO. Go ahead and see it – it is a blockbuster and making a ton of money and it is the summer and you won’t have to think too hard and you will laugh a lot. There. Now – onto what you can learn from it as a lawyer…
All of the action and fight sequences are shot in tiny disjointed frames. The cool part about this is that it is totally reminiscent of comic book action sequences from Marvel comics… “Kablam!” “Pow!”…but without the words superimposed over the action. It also allows the very economical use of green screen shooting. This means the producers avoided the more expensive shooting of a whole battle scene at once from different angles.
Here’s the part I want you to pay attention to when you see the movie, though – it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to follow the story during this chopped up sequences. I kept thinking, “Who won? Who is winning? What is going on here anyway?” So true of trial stories as well – if you just offer a bunch of tiny “picture facts” that are detailed in and of themselves but don’t help a judge or juror get a big picture of what is going on, you are in big trouble. I kept thinking, “This kind of storytelling is what makes causation so difficult to either prove or disprove in a lawsuit.”
So eat your popcorn and enjoy. But if you follow every single one of those sequences then more power to you.
TIP: Is your trial story a bunch of chopped up bits or does it fit together into an easily understandable big picture?
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