Effective Exposition

I recommend looking at the HBO movie RECOUNT as an excellent example of how to handle exposition. Danny Strong is telling the story of the 2000 Presidential Election Florida recount. He had lots and lots of very technical material to deliver to the audience. And never once does he just shove a chunk of it at the viewers, hoping to get past it as quickly as possible. It's usually delivered by one character explaining something to another character who genuinely doesn't have the information, and there is always an attitude behind either the giving or the getting of the information, usually both. Incredulity, amusement, shock, anger, even blank incomprehension -- these attitudes make expositional moments into character moments.

Notice also his use of intercutting. He frequently cuts between the Democratic and Republican camps discussing the same point of law. The intercutting puts the emphasis on the different approaches to the problem and, again, makes the scenes about attitudes, not legal procedure.

He also found real-life obstacles for his characters. The guy who had to chase Gore down to prevent him from making a concession speech? He really did have a busted knee. The lawyer who argued the case before the Supreme Court? He really is dyslexic and has to work without notes. These are the kinds of character details -- one more little thing to overcome -- that you want to invent for characters that you make up, and Danny was smart enough to discover and exploit them (in a good way) for his script.