FILMandMOVIEmaking.com

Just what makes you want to rush from the cinema and tell everyone you know (and many you don’t know) about your experience, good or bad?

Could it be the high emotions you’ve experienced looking out for your hero and fighting against the antagonist?

It’s different for all of us. For some it might just be the inspiring music. Often overlooked by audiences, the music holds the movie together. It binds the different stages of the film into one continuous loop so we don’t see the edges, unless of course we’re shown the boundaries by the different layers of music.

Occasionally, one actor will stand out above all the others. We’ll tell our friends how wonderful the actor is, what a show they put on, but without direction, makeup, props, special effects and wardrobe, how good were they?

Is it the director’s style or the editor’s ability to chop and change direction or a combination of the two? You’ll know you’re in a certain director’s movie purely by the way the scenes change and float around you.

Is it the screenplay? Of course it’s the screenplay – without it there wouldn’t be a movie, but you do need all of the other elements to make up the total ‘event’ for you. Without a quality screenplay the cast and crew won’t be able to make a hit from a monster. The screenplay may have been crafted over for several months with numerous re-writes.

The craft takes time to learn. To ensure we’re engaged from the very first scene; to make certain that we’re happy to go along with the movie even when it’s unbelievable; to guarantee we’ll be there to the bitter end, whatever the surprises, whatever the ending. That all takes a skill we often criticise, without knowing better, but we know what we like and we know what we don’t like and we don’t mind being surprised. Whatever the reviews might tell us, we make up our own mind during the movie, as long as the reviews didn’t stop us buying tickets in the first place.