This week we started a series of writing activities to brush off the cobwebs, looked at various short films for analysis, discussed some of the basic elements of a film’s composition and style and most importantly discussed ‘theme‘. For us, theme is a word without a strict definition. It is a word with many possibilities. It is what we want to say to the audience. It is how we want to affect the audience. It is how we bring along our filmmaking collaborators and steer the ship on course. As a screenwriter, or as a visual artist, or as a photographer; as anyone who is trying to communicate anything through visual or audio representation, ask yourself these questions:
Where are you going?
What are your values?
What is your purpose?
What is in your head and heart that you want to transplant into the heads and hearts of your audience?
Ask these questions of any of the filmmakers and their short films that we have looked at this week. What answers can you find? Blog about it!
FYI – these films count as ‘screenings’ to be used for reflections for Project Brief 1.