The first part of Until Dawn spends a lot of time establishing who the cast is and basically offering you a superficial snapshot of each character.
Sometimes a snapshot in a character actor's wallet will have great meaning to him, helping to navigate him through a complicated scene with spectacular results even if the audience has no idea of the existence of the wallet.
But if Mr. Gurney keeps his character snapshots small and slightly out of focus, he makes sure that his themes are as crystal clear as thesis statements.
Here it comes off beautifully, like a Picasso painting telling a story in a multi-dimensional series of superimposed snapshots as each character becomes ever more rounded and complete.
Baker tinkers with standard linearity, delivering a seeming jumble of episodic sketches, character snapshots, historical aperçus and religion lessons that nevertheless, arranged chronologically almost on the sly, get the story told, and her essential understanding of unadorned cause and effect comes through.
His character snapshots in such books as Creators: From Chaucer and Dürer to Picasso and Disney; Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle; Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky are loaded with piercing portraits of noted historical figures.
Momentary thoughts, ephemeral emotions...140 character snapshots of one's conscience.
It flies along, with Blum's fair-minded analysis of motive and a wide variety of memorable character snapshots.
MR: And it isn't just having snapshots of this character along the way, this character goes through an evolution by the end.
But, in fact, "a 40-ish stockbroker who is feeling a strong desire for marriage and a family" or a "professional, blue-eyed, blonde photographer who aspires to greater (career) opportunities" are snapshot descriptions of characters in a coming TV revival of "The Twilight Zone --written and released by a little-known company for 500 Hollywood agents who might have just the actor for the part.
