In the making of my animated short, I felt that there was something lacking in the emotional investment that the audience needs to make. That statement above pointed out in neon bold letters the problem I think I had.
The one below struck me.
"Remember the goal we are after? We want to give the audience an emotionally satisfying experience."
It was a section from a book "Directing The Story" - by Francis Glebas.
Most of it is something that is common sense about but often something that you do not give serious thought. Its a really good book to get your hands on.
Some useful notes about it.
- "The most important thing about making a movie is that it must be about something big, important and significant. Otherwise why should we care. "
It has to say something important about the particular subject matter. i.e friendship, love.
- "Show the audience why your characters are absolutely driven to do what they do"
- "Characters drive stories, like characters who go after a goal and face obstacles, make decisions, then take actions of life changing consequences."
- "It has to speak to something that we can relate to". Does not have to be a big story. But got to be big issues. e.g family, honor, law, crime, freedom, guilt. etc...
- "Something has to be at stake" e.g Have to show what the consequence is if the mission fail."
There is a paragraph about the hero's journey, about creating obstacles which is already covered in many other books. So I wont get into it.
But in summary
- We watch movies to feel good. Meet that need in your audience
- Make sure your story is about something that matters
- Aim at providing an emotionally satisfying experience for your audience but works at a structural level
- The secret of storytelling is story-delaying. There is a whole repertoire of story-delaying tactics based on the control of info of who gets to know what, when and how to tease your audience by making them wait.
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