The Complete Online Filmmaking Reference - Film Distribution ...

Film Storytelling
The Art of Storytelling
Storytelling is about presenting a series of events as words, images and sounds that are of such interest and
novelty to an audience that they become fully engaged in the presentation. Stories teach and entertain.
Every filmmaker must learn storytelling because the entire basis of filmmaking, of the entire multi-billion dollar
filmmaking industry, is built on the insatiable human desire to experience stories.
There isn't a single set of rules that you can learn to become a good storytelling filmmaker but there are many
guidelines and tricks that have been used and refined over the centuries that you can learn and call upon as you
weave your storytelling magic. Any rules you try to make up will always have exceptions and sometimes the
opposite is just as true.
In the hands of great storytellers the breaking of the rules can make the story even more engaging. In
Hitchcock's Psycho the hero appears to be Marian Crane, but she gets killed 1/3 of the way into the story. The
antagonist seems to be Norman Bate's mother, but she's dead. The classic storytelling guidelines are broken right
and left but the result is a totally engaging and highly emotional story.
Storytelling for filmmakers - The story's world
The world of the story needs to be described to the audience. For most stories this may be just the everyday
world they are familiar with but many stories are about a different time or place, real or imagined, and the
audience needs to know the important rules of how this world operates.
The storyteller in turn needs to construct the world such that s/he doesn't have to break any of the rules of the
world in telling the story. Audience's do not like it when their expectations of what is possible in the world of the
story are suddenly changed by the storyteller.
The character's world
Just like a story needs a consistent world to take place in, each character needs his/her own consistent world of
experiences and beliefs that will determine how they behave. In fact a story is driven by the personalities of the
main characters as they behave in the way they must due to their own private view of the world.
The basic behavior of the characters should not change during the story until something the characters learn
during the story changes their beliefs. This basic change in the beliefs of the hero is ultimately the point of all
good stories. The audience, who is emphasizing with the hero, gets to share in the emotions and enlightenment of
learning what the hero learns.
Screenplay conflict
The most important element of any engaging story is conflict. Stories must have at least one clear, central
conflict. The conflict must be one your audience can relate to because it might be similar to a conflict they have
or could experience. In experiencing the story they get to experience the emotions and lessons of the protagonist
as s/he deals with trying to solve the conflict.
The basis of conflict is that two people both want the same thing, they want it very badly, but they can't both
have it. At all times the two main characters should be trying to get what they want and prevent the other from
getting it. The conflict should not just be about a minor misunderstanding but a real do-or-die, I can't go on living
if I can't have this, kind of conflict. Achieving the thing should be very, very difficult but not quite impossible.
The story should always focus on the main conflict. The story shouldn't wander off into side-stories unless they
directly relate to the theme of the central conflict. This is especially true for movies where you have about two
hours at the most to tell your story.
The conflict that is central to the story should be the most important event in the characters lives, and maybe the
most important event in the history of the world. Eventually the hero will have to deal with the conflict in a final
crisis.
Screenplay characters