Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Don't shove theme down my throat

So I went to a short film festival a few weekends back. Okay, maybe more than a few weekends back. But you understand what I'm getting at. I go almost every year to this festival. Usually there are some good ones, okay ones, and some even close to bad ones.

This year, I went to an earlier time/hour than normal. So maybe that's why I wasn't really loving any of the films. Maybe they save the best ones for the later hours. But, what I did notice that wasn't working in pretty much all of them was that they all were forcing theme in our faces. Hitting us over the heads with it. But guess what? Theme is only supposed to be obvious to the writer! Not the people watching your film!

If you're watching a film and you come away thinking, "This movie was obviously about the family bonds", then that writer did not do their job. For instance, when you watch The Godfather, did you walk out going, wow, what a close family! Probably not. You probably just loved the drama and the fighting between the mob and all the Italians. It's not until you probably took a film class did you really think about wow, that was really about family and the loyalty between relatives and the loyalty with the mob family. Nowhere in the film did any of the characters say out loud, "I"m loyal to you." No! That would have been awful.

Some people swear that you have to have theme at the start of writing your script. Others say you don't and say it's okay if you stumble upon it and then pepper it throughout once you realize what it is. I say as long as you find the theme and put it in, who cares when you put it in. I personally put my theme in after I've started. Sure, I might have what I think is theme at the start. But sometimes, another real theme emerges and then that's what it becomes. The fact is, it doesn't matter when you find it. It just matters that you don't hit your audience over the head with it. Or I promise, your film will not resonate the way you think it will.

So get to writing that script. Add your theme. But just don't be so obvious, okay?

Happy writing!

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