Monthly Archives: February 2015

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 10, 2015

Posted under

Filmmaking

Comments

Leave a comment

6 Ways to Make Your Film Ineffective

© Ilyes Laszlo - Fotolia.comEvery month young filmmakers who want to learn a golden nugget of information approach me. They ask for secrets of the trade that they can use to boost their filmmaking skills to the next level. But, most of the time they are not ready for a higher level of skill and need to focus instead on what not to do – those things that stop them from being successful.

I’ve decided to share a list of items that make their films ineffective. The six items are common among many young filmmakers and I hope that this list will bring new insights to bear.

1. Kill Your Dreams
It’s far easier to pull a cast and crew together and make a movie when filmmakers compromise their work. In doing so, they quickly build a team of eager friends, but soon find that compromises weaken their original concept. The short film becomes an image piece instead of a story – Something that excites others, but rarely gets a second viewing.

Having judged in many film festivals, I’ve learned that teams with selected cast and crew based on each individual’s skills made the awarded films. Compromise was limited to ideas that strengthened the story, rather than appeased people to ensure their involvement.

2. Focus on Yourself
First-time filmmakers always talk about a great idea and how he plans to make an award-winning film. The conversation is all about the filmmaker placing his mark on society, but the end result is typically a movie that doesn’t make sense to the audience because it’s void of a beginning, middle or end.

Maintaining an audience perspective allows directors to work and test the imagery of his story with those outside of his inner circle. This unbiased feedback forces more creativity and demands a visualization of the story that can be received by people who know nothing about the synopsis or the director’s original vision. To survive, the story is forced into having a beginning, middle and end.

3. Try to Keep Everyone Happy
When a filmmaker needs to please his great aunt who funded the short film, or his mother who wants to make sure his short film is respectable, or his friends demand the film is cool, the filmmaker loses his passion and creates such a watered-down story that nobody cares to watch it.

Creating a story with universal appeal that holds true to the director’s heart becomes a powerful tool of passion that captivates even the greatest skeptic. Since film is an emotional medium it is critical that the director’s passion shows up in the story. This can only happen if it is his story and not one dictated by a board of investors.

4. Make Mediocrity Your Standard
Producing the exact same kind of story over and over again brings blandness to the theater experience that is sure to reduce the audience. Never expanding the budget to include higher-quality elements within a show, or experimenting with how the story is expressed, will lead to a show that is unworthy of a second viewing.

Experimentation is at the forefront of bringing a unique story to an audience in a new and refreshing way. While audiences like something that feels familiar, they also demand something new that they’ve never seen before. Every story requires a set piece that drives the story out of mediocrity and into the spotlight.

5. Treat Every Film The Same
Filmmakers that think genre requires repetitiveness of story will likely kill second viewings and possibly future viewings. Only those living in denial will continue to put up with a director that produces the same ole thing with every release.

Audiences love to work for their entertainment. They like their thinking to be provoked, without any part of the story being handed to them on a silver platter. People want to be able to figure out what’s happening in the story just before its revealed, not during the opening act. Responding to this audience need requires a director who is willing to differentiate his titles from his previous work and his competitors.

6. Make It Obvious Who You Don’t Like
Films that preach to the proverbial choir and avoid relating to the general public will quickly deflate the film’s potential reach and life span. Making the film for such a tight niche that even like-minded people with a different vantage point can’t relate to will surely shorten the film’s release window.

Universal stories reach millions of people with a film’s specific message. The more open the film is in relating to various people or interest groups, the more powerful the message shared.

Film is a social media that is driven by emotional appeals. Any use of the medium in other capacities weakens the message and the film’s power to trigger change within its audience. By working around the above mistakes, a filmmaker can influence his ideal audience along with millions more.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 6, 2015

Posted under

Filmmaking

Comments

Leave a comment

Knowledge Vs. Wisdom in Screenwriting

© Pixelbliss - Fotolia.comThe audience is always amazed when a character displays wisdom, rather than just knowledge. In fact, when the main character just spews out knowledge, they become two dimensional and preachy – As seen in numerous faith-based films.

The key is to have the main character demonstrate, not preach the wisdom needed in life. This demonstration draws the audience into the story and inspires them to implement the character’s principles within their own life. To accomplish this ideal, the writer needs to understand the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

British broadcast journalist Miles Kington simply explained it when he said, “There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable. Wisdom is knowing not to include it in a fruit salad.”

This topic was also discussed for decades using the perspective of book sense versus street sense. Everyone understands that learning about something and experiencing it first hand is very different. The thinking process alone and the conclusions drawn by those gaining knowledge or wisdom from a particular situation will generate significantly different outcomes depending upon his or her vantage point.

The same holds true for characters on the screen. This results in the audience buying into an argument from the character demonstrating gained wisdom versus discarding the information from a character who preaches the shared truth.

To demonstrate a character’s wisdom takes a substantial amount of time in crafting visual depictions on the screen that reveal the wisdom, while preaching characters can be written within minutes. Also, to demonstrate wisdom, it requires a director who can draw a performance out of an actor, rather than one who commands a specific performance.

Over the past few months I’ve consulted with a professional screenwriter in the Asia Pacific region for a major motion picture that will be first released in the east and then followed in the west. Since one of the media companies involved is a media ministry, the screenwriter chose to write several preaching scenes in act three.

While the knowledge expounded in the third act was accurate based on the media ministry’s beliefs, it killed the story. Thankfully, the decision-makers have agreed to a rewrite, which was a wonderful surprise – Yet, expected.

You see, the entire movie was about the main character gaining wisdom. In act one, she clearly lacks knowledge and by act two is manipulated into a poor lifestyle thanks to a dangling carrot of knowledge. But, the tables soon turn and she realizes the difference between wisdom and knowledge. By choice, she seeks wisdom and witnesses it’s impact on life, causing her to desire it all the more. But, instead of act three helping the audience to see the benefits of this newly acquired wisdom, she becomes a preacher that tells everyone knowledge.

Demonstrating wisdom causes the audience to desire a drink from the same cup that brought wisdom to bear in the first place. Knowledge is rarely accepted as a solution in any character’s life and most audiences discard it as not being proven or worth testing in his or her own life.

The key to inspiring an audience to greatness starts with a great character driven screenplay that demonstrates the wisdom gained, not the expounding of easily discarded knowledge. I find it ironic that faith-based screenwriters, who want to inspire their audience through the passing on of wisdom, choose to leave wisdom out of the stories and instead gives voice to the preaching of knowledge. Then again, it takes a significant commitment and some twenty revisions to write wisdom into screenplays and most faith-based screenwriters believe in going with one of his or her first three “God-inspired” drafts, for fear of losing the original message planted within his or her heart.

However, there is a difference between cultivating a planted message and killing it. The better the craftsman, the greater chance the message will rise to a place of understanding through demonstration to its audience. Therefore, faith-based screenwriters must learn to embrace rewrites, knowing that they will eventually get his or her writing up to the level that God actually intended. For without the demonstration, there is no reception of the message. And, even Jesus shared parables that demonstrated wisdom, rather than expounded knowledge.

Copyright © 2015 by CJ Powers
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 2, 2015

Posted under

Reviews

Comments

4 Comments

23 Blast Fails to Deliver an Incredible True Story

23 Blast ReviewAs a coach, I taught my football players how to execute the 23 Blast. It was a significant play and always gained more yardage than the 23 or the 23 power. The main reason it succeeded was due to overloading blockers advancing through the three hole at the line of scrimmage. In other words, two blockers would blast through, leading the 2 back through the 3 hole.

It was more than powerful and seldom defended with anything that might stop the play before a 5-7 yard gain. But it couldn’t be done with every play or the defensive line would just plug up the hole and allow the linebacker to leap over the mess to tackle the runner for a loss.

23 Blast, the movie, wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as one would hope. Thanks to the terrible music selection and slow paced editing, the film barely made it to a warm and fuzzy status enjoyed by Hallmark Channel fans. I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t supposed to be a hard-hitting football story.

The one redeeming quality of the film was the cast. The young actors did an incredible job with their authentic performances and helped me through the boring segments. In fact, the performances inspired me to look up the actors and find out what other films they were in.

23 Blast ReviewThe film was based on the true-life story of Travis Freeman, a boy who went blind and decided to continue playing football with the encouragement of those around him.

Having coached in a league with a blind player, I can tell you it’s both difficult to watch and extremely inspiring, especially when the team succeeds. Unfortunately, the film didn’t raise the inspirational level of impact to anything that resembled the real thing.

23 Blast is now available on video. The DVD comes with extra features including the Travis Freeman Story, an update on his friend Jerry Baker, bloopers, and a behind-the-scenes featurette with director Dylan Baker. The most fascinating part of the extras was the apology for the scene where the antagonist drinks beer.

I’ve got to say it was weird for three reasons. First, the antagonist lived a life filled with bad behavior and the audience understood that his drinking binge was one of those bad behaviors. However, the apology suggested that the antagonist was a bad person and someone needed to apologize for his life. But, the antagonist wasn’t a bad person. He was a person who lived in the shadow of greatness and he never felt that he could compete, which led him to choose a pity party lifestyle – Clearly a person who needed encouragement, not condemnation.

Second, the scene was done tastefully, while depicting a true-life situation. It depicted fact and needed no apology for having captured the essence of the two boy’s relationship. The only people in the audience that might require an apology are those who live in their own world or at least live in denial about reality.

Third, the drinking scene put drinking in perspective and made the protagonist’s life choices worth following and the antagonist’s life choices worth avoiding. No one should ever have to apologize for creating a scene that properly demonstrates right choices made by positive role models like the protagonist.

The bottom line is that 23 Blast is worth watching to see the great new actors and a realistic role-modeling scene about life choices. But, it’s also worth avoiding because the bad music and slow paced editing deflates the energy that football typically brings to the screen.