Ab ovo

You start from scratch. No tricks, no shortcuts — the viewer enters the moment at the same time as your character, learns the setting, the constellation, the initial conflicts unfiltered and uncommented. This is ab ovo: the classic narrative approach that assumes nothing of the audience and needs no subsequent explanation. The film begins where the story actually begins — not in medias res, not with a voice-over crutch that spoon-feeds us the exposition.

On set, you notice the difference immediately. When you work ab ovo, you don't need expository plot scenes that are only there to explain the world to the viewer. Instead, your first images build the reality itself — through space, light, movement, sound. A scene in an apartment immediately shows you who lives there, what the financial situation is, what conflicts are simmering. Not through dialogue like "I've been unemployed for three years," but through surfaces, objects, glances. The editing supports this by taking time for these constructions — no rushed exposition cutting that changes angles every two seconds.

Classic example: You watch a film where a man walks into his office, and in four shots, you understand more about his status, his worries, and his hierarchy than through five minutes of explanatory dialogue. That's ab ovo. The opposite would be something like the James Bond opening, where the action has to be underway before we even know who Bond is — or the noir voice-over that recites the entire backstory to you.

Practically, this means for directing: you need patience and trust in the image. Your first shot is not decoration, but information. Every cut must make sense because you don't have the opportunity to quickly insert exposition later. Your actors must play more subtly because their faces and movements are constantly telling a story. And your editor must understand that "faster" doesn't mean "better" here — sometimes a shot simply needs five seconds longer so the viewer can absorb the details they need for the story.