Don’t Forget the Story

One of my favorite books about filmmaking is “On Directing Film” by David Mamet.  This book has become a WK manual in the art of directing.

While the book covers many subjects, one of the most important takeaways is the idea of super-objective.  Every film, every marketing video, every commercial has an overarching goal that it wants to accomplish. Since a  film is broken down into scenes, sequences, and shots, the first question to ask yourself when you are writing, filming, or editing is:  Does this shot forward the sequence, does this sequence forward the scene, does this scene forward the super-objective?  I don’t care how great the dialogue is, how creative the camera moves are, how awesome the depth of field, if it doesn’t further the story, cut it.

A shot has to earn its way into the film.  Let’s not allow our stories to be ruined by emotional attachments to shots.  In the art of filmmaking, let’s not forget the story.