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With the advent of the digital film technology, anyone can now make
a film—short film or full-length—with a mini digital video
camera and a computer for editing. Aspiring filmmakers invest time,
money and effort in all the technical aspects of filmmaking to
achieve that “indie feel and look” akin to independently
produced films.
But most of the time, they forget the most
crucial thing: the storytelling.
I see a lot of films that don’t bother with
crafting the proper dramaturgy, logical plotting and believable
characterizations. Some may even ask: what dramaturgy? That’s the
three-act structure for you: the beginning, middle and end or, in
scriptwriting, Act I, II and II. Yes, a story should have a
beginning, a middle and an end as Aristotle aptly put it, even if
French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said “but not
necessarily in that order.”
I have conversed with filmmakers who openly
admit that of all the filmmaking aspects, their weakest suit is
scriptwriting. They just wing it, they say, because they can deliver
well in terms of directing and editing anyway. That just horrifies
me. No wonder there are loads of digitally made films that end up
wasting a viewer’s time: the filmmakers didn’t bother polishing
their stories and how they will unfold the dramaturgy to make it
interesting. They think savvy editing transitions and cool
camerawork will do the trick. Wrong. No matter how well your pulse
is as an editor and no matter how focused you are as a director, if
you don’t know and understand what the story of the film is and
who the characters are, the film will fall flat on its face.
Aspiring filmmakers, especially those who want
to be directors, should focus on studying two important aspects of
filmmaking besides directing: scriptwriting and acting. A director
should know how to extract those motivations from their actors, and
he or she should also know how to understand a script’s nuances,
characterizations, and the higher level of meanings that the film
evokes.
Taking scriptwriting workshops might help. At
the UP Film Institute, veteran scriptwriter Armando “Bing” Lao
will hold an advanced scriptwriting workshop this October. This
scribe will also hold one, the basic scriptwriting workshop, for
those who have absolutely no background in media, film or the arts,
designed for those who just want to try their hand at scripting a
film for once in their life. You can check out the details at
upfilminstitute.multiply.com. There are other scriptwriting
workshops held every now and then in the metro. Try to find them on
the Internet or in different cinema e-groups around.
Future filmmakers should invest time and effort
in understanding the nuances of film storytelling so that they
won’t waste their viewers’ time and effort in seeing their
films. After all, cinema watching should be a pleasurable experience
for all.
Comments? Suggestions? E-mail libay.scribevibe@gmail.com.
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