Part Contrast Montage, part Meanwhile Scene, this trope is a Slice of Life montage that shows a series of brief scenes of different people in various situations. Can come with or without narration, the narrative version having a high likelihood of dropping statistics related to the scene at hand. Often used as an establishing scene.
Shares similarities with Practical Voice-Over, which makes the narration and related clips diegetic by means of a news report. Contrast Recap by Audit (an event's aftermath reveals or sums up what happened) and Montage Out. Might overlap with "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, used post-climax, if also narrated.
Examples:
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- The original ad campaign for Crystal Pepsi used the Trope Namer, Van Halen's "Right Now", for more or less all of 1993. Its commercials were straight examples of this, styled after the song's music video.
Anime & Manga
- Bleach: One of the most memorable is when Don Kanonji tries to form a civilian spirit-fighting team and recruits Ichigo's sisters. Hilarity Ensues.
- A Certain Scientific Railgun: In "Eternal Party", Janie opens her eyes to see Febri watching her. Febri wishes her a good morning, then calls Nunotaba over. She presents a huge rice ball, saying she made this for both Janie and Shinobu. Thanking her tearfully, Shinobu says she, too, has a lot of things she wants the twin girls to see.
- One Piece: Each chapter has a title page that shows exactly one scene in the life of a character the Straw Hats have met before. Often, these title pages make a story when put together and even reveal some important facts.
- The Summer Hikaru Died: As Yoshiki and "Hikaru" leave school on their bikes in "Replacement", it cuts to their classmates and the Tsujinaka family going about their afternoons while a school jazz club practices their music.
Films — Animation
- KPop Demon Hunters: With "Soda Pop" and the Saja Boys going viral, they announce on social media that their fandom has reached the 50 million count. As they take turns to speak, we're shown various Joseung Saja preying on the 'Pride' and stealing their souls for Gwi-Ma. Particularly poignant is the "And to our fans, thank you. We really feed off your energy". The camera then slides from the latest victim to a news report on missing people reports having tripled, and then to a shower of souls going straight to Gwi-Ma's maw in the demon realm.
- The Laws of Eternity: Right after Niches tells Ryuta that most of his peers have already awakened to the "fact" that no one has to rely on God nor Buddha, the film cuts to a montage of people denying the existence of spirits and saying that freedom of religion also means freedom of not believing.
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: When the protagonist trio finally manages to clear Perrito's first obstacle in the Dark Forest, we cut to a face-on-the-sky montage of them, alongside Goldi plus the bears and Jack Horner plus the Baker's dozen traversing the place with determined expressions.
Films — Live-Action
- American Beauty: Lester's My Life Flashed Before My Eyes montage is intercut with scenes of all major characters in their locations reacting to the gunshot going off.
- The Boat That Rocked: The various side characters listening to Radio rock.
- The Darjeeling Limited: It shows what is happening to the cast while playing The Rolling Stones song "Play with Fire".
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): There's a montage showing what Yondu, Nova Prime Rael, Officer Dey, and the Guardians themselves are doing after the Final Battle while "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" plays.
- Lucy: The film opens with sped-up scenes of the day beginning in Taipei.
- Marley & Me: Used with the John Grogan character, showing him doing different things and writing about them while also getting to know Marley.
- Three Colors Trilogy: The film's ending is a montage of most of the major characters at one moment, all of them affected in some way by Patrice's death or Julie's actions.
- Titanic (1997): As the ship is sinking, different people in all parts of the ship are shown reacting to the imminent ends of their lives.
Literature
- Angelmaker: When members of the old Night Market get the news that Joe Spork's putting a job together.
Live-Action TV
- Community: "Anthropology 101" opens the second season scrolling right through a long constructed set of the group's individual bedrooms as the characters go about their morning routine.note
- Flashpoint: When it's not doing a How We Got Here cut, tends to use this, showing the police officers and the eventual suspects on a crash course, usually unknowingly.
- Heroes: It enjoys doing this in openings. Probably a good idea, considering its large cast.
- Hi-de-Hi!: In "Desire in the Mickey Mouse Grotto", the opening scenes of the episode involve the cast being woken up and going through their morning routine.
- M*A*S*H: In "The Party", we see each of the characters reacting to the letter they receive from home from their parents (Charles, Hawkeye, Klinger, Margaret, Radar) or relatives (Col. Potter to his wife, Father Mulcahy to his sister). They read the letters while in the jeep going back to camp, then the driver of the jeep has to swerve to avoid something in the road, and then we go to the next jeep of characters.
- My So-Called Life: In "The Zit", Mr. Rinaldi reads from The Metamorphosis — specifically, the part where Gregor has woken up and realized he's turned into a bug. As he narrates, we see clips of boys ogling Sharon, Rayanne playing it up for boys in the hall, and Rickie being uncomfortable in the boys' bathroom, among other things.
- Saturday Night Live: Spoofed the Crystal Pepsi campaign with mock commercials for "Crystal Gravy".
- Yes, Dear: Before the Hughes family encounters a cop in "Pimpin' Ain't Easy", a short montage featuring Logan engaging in some Slice of Life activities — i.e. walking down the street, riding in a carousel, and playing hockey with other kids — as he's still streaking takes place, all while "The Streak" by Ray Stevens plays in the background.
Music
- Van Halen:
- The Trope Namer and Trope Codifier, if not Trope Maker, is the song "Right Now"
. Frequently parodied.
- Then-frontman Sammy Hagar did another "Right Now" years later with "Cosmic Universal Fashion".
- The Trope Namer and Trope Codifier, if not Trope Maker, is the song "Right Now"
Theatre
- Heathers: The Musical: "Beautiful", the opening song, is at first Veronica's diary entry for September 1st, 1989. As she muses on how growing up to teenagehood has caused her classmates go from friendly primary kids to cruel and individualist high school seniors. The moment she stops singing, the backing chorus hurls all sorts of insults, showing that, no matter how you present yourself, you'll always be negatively judged. Meanwhile, the background cast enacts à la tableau bullying scenes intermingled with people anxiously going about their day.
Video Games
- World of Warcraft: The first cinematic trailer starts with a woman narrating the impending war between the once united Horde and Alliance, now that the Burning Legion has been expunged from Azeroth. What follows is a collection of clips, each one introducing the mortal races belonging to each faction in their most iconic class as they prepare to face each other and, later, engage in combat. The dwarf hunter and his bear against the shamanic Tauren, the Night Elf druid against the brutish Orc warrior, and the human mage against the Forsaken warlock.
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner: The cartoon "No Hands on Deck!" has a montage of Homestar going around announcing his plans to build a deck for all and sundry.
Web Comics
- Archipelago: Every now and then, when a day is spent on the sub and nothing plotty happens, there is an assortment of panels with sub's crew each doing their own thing: having tea, reading, talking, napping and so on. One nice (if somewhat spoilery) example would be book 8, page 10, en route to Penumbra Island.
- City of Somnus: Chapter 13 opens with Paollo, his guards and Odette going through the day: waking up, having breakfast, exercising, studying, talking to Sakhalin, chatting, working in the dream world (this part contrasts Paollo fumbling his work to Odette succeeding at her lessons) and so on.
- Ever Blue: Luna and Ten enjoying Summer Festival in Flore, with browsing in the market, games, and watching the parade.
Web Video
- ''One Hundred Yard Stare": It has episode three, which is one of these.
Western Animation
- Metalocalypse: In "Renovationklok", Skwisgaar wonders what happened to the Klokateers who were let go after their checks bounced. They're shown holding signs for work ("Will roadie for food."), getting in soup lines, waiting for jobs at hardware stores, mugging people, robbing stores, washing windshields, and donating sperm.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): "Supper Villain" and "Just Desserts" both open with one, showing Mr. Smith going about his daily life. In the first one, he's bored with his mundane life as a factory worker and family man, but getting up to something sinister behind closed doors. In the sequel episode, after terrorizing the Powerpuff family in the first one, he's now in prison, living a remarkably similar life as he did before.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Often seen as the citizens of Bikini Bottom react to Spongebob's latest antics (like broadcasting Patrick's Giftedly Bad song over the airwaves).
