Storytelling Through Film
Taught by Arthur Vincie
Arthur is a writer, director, and line producer. He recently wrote and directed Found In Time, a fantasy feature film, now in post-production. Caleb's Door, his first film, is now available on DVD and VOD through distributor Around The Scenes. His short films The Prayer Tree, Matter, Mornir/Mornen and Secret Language have screened at various film festivals and art venues in New York, Los Angeles, Texas, England and Germany. He's also line produced over a dozen independent feature films. Arthur's written articles for Indie Slate and Student Filmmaker magazines, and guest lectured at NYU, SVA, Mercy College, and Fairleigh Dickinson University. For more info visit Chaotic Sequence, his company's website.
Show or tell? In all art forms, there's a tension between image (show) and text (tell). Film and television are built on this tension. Do you tell the story through dialog, or do you show an image? Do you have the characters speak in facts, or in metaphors? Do the shots you choose strictly serve the narrative, or add subtext to it?
In this course, we'll look at scenes from several films and discuss the degree to which they show or tell their stories. We'll also talk about which method is better under certain circumstances, and how good filmmakers use both to their advantage.
Then we'll explore some techniques for "working image first" in our own projects. Students will be encouraged to bring in projects they're working on - poems, stories, scripts, photos, films, webisodes - and screen/read them during the second and third sessions for feedback and suggestions.
