When starting of as filmmakers, a lot of people confuse being unclear with being deep and sophisticated. I used to think the same, now I know nothing is further from the truth. By trying to be different and deep by making a story hard to understand, not wanting to follow "traditional story structure", using over the top metaphors, telling the story non-linear and telling the story in a way that is often considered more "advanced" storytelling you are actually telling the story exactly as what you'd get when asking a five-year old to tell you a story. Behaving like a five-year old isn't as sophisticated as people like to make it.
People tend to be afraid to give out too much information, especially at the beginning of the story, thinking that it will ruin the tension of the story, but the opposite is true. Not giving out enough information is what will ruin the tension.
As a storyteller you need to tell your audience what they should worry about for them to worry about anything (other than paying their bills). An audience never has any responsibility to listen to you, it is your responsibility to make them want to listen and making them want to listen and pay attention to you is almost impossible if they don't know what you're talking about.
Tension is created by making the audience worry, worry is created by making the audience ask questions and hope for answers. The questions the audience ask should be, and this is important, about the characters and not the plot. "Why does he behave that way?" or "How will she solve that problem?" These are questions that will connect to your audience stronger and make them want to watch more than questions about the plot, like "What is going to happen?" or "In what way will this end?". The reason for this is that stories are meant to communicate a message to us and we receive and connect with that message by empathizing with the characters in the story, we relive their actions through them and learn from their choices and mistakes. What happens in the movie is only a bi-product of the personality of the character, the how she behaves and why she does it. If we start thinking about what is happening, or the plot, we lose the connection to the characters, the soul of film and its message. Although we may see the message, we never get an emotional connection to it, and although we understand the message, it has no meaning to us. If an audience, after the first 10 minutes still asks "What is this film about?" the filmmaker will have a very hard time getting them back.
Movie spoilers are a myth, knowing the ending before seeing the film seldom takes anything away from a good story. Very few movies have a twist ending, and those that do, and do it well, are still as enjoyable, if not more so, the following viewings. Generally, knowing the ending makes the story better and increases its tension by posing more questions about the characters "Why did he end up in this situation?" or "How will her next action move her closer or further from the ending?". Knowing the ending makes the message of the film clearer and allows a stronger emotional connection from the audience by stopping the audience from asking questions about the plot allowing them to empathise more with the characters.
Some great movies start of with showing the ending, like in one of my favorites Isao Takahatas "Grave of Fireflies", but revealing the ending doesn't mean actually showing it. More often it is done by foreshadowing the ending and teasing with the characters potential, and hence, how the film ends, an ending that should always feel inevitable for the audience.
The Hero's Journey school of storytelling likes to draw the storyline in a circle to better illustrate that the beginning and the end of the story are tightly connected and very similar. This is because the best way to show the characters development is to show the character in a similar situation at the end as to a situation she was in the beginning and show how she now is acting differently due to her experiences.
Hitchcock used to create tension by revealing information, not by hiding it. Revealing the ending will not ruin the film because the most important part of the film is the path that the character takes to reach the ending and the change of character this path achieves. The hunt is more exiting than the catch.
A lot of the information in this post is learnt from Brian McDonald who recently wrote a post about the same subject called "Tell 'em What You're Gonna Tell 'em" where he also linked to a study that supported the opinion.
Hope you have enjoyed reading my post.
Peter Hertzberg
People tend to be afraid to give out too much information, especially at the beginning of the story, thinking that it will ruin the tension of the story, but the opposite is true. Not giving out enough information is what will ruin the tension.
As a storyteller you need to tell your audience what they should worry about for them to worry about anything (other than paying their bills). An audience never has any responsibility to listen to you, it is your responsibility to make them want to listen and making them want to listen and pay attention to you is almost impossible if they don't know what you're talking about.
Tension is created by making the audience worry, worry is created by making the audience ask questions and hope for answers. The questions the audience ask should be, and this is important, about the characters and not the plot. "Why does he behave that way?" or "How will she solve that problem?" These are questions that will connect to your audience stronger and make them want to watch more than questions about the plot, like "What is going to happen?" or "In what way will this end?". The reason for this is that stories are meant to communicate a message to us and we receive and connect with that message by empathizing with the characters in the story, we relive their actions through them and learn from their choices and mistakes. What happens in the movie is only a bi-product of the personality of the character, the how she behaves and why she does it. If we start thinking about what is happening, or the plot, we lose the connection to the characters, the soul of film and its message. Although we may see the message, we never get an emotional connection to it, and although we understand the message, it has no meaning to us. If an audience, after the first 10 minutes still asks "What is this film about?" the filmmaker will have a very hard time getting them back.
Movie spoilers are a myth, knowing the ending before seeing the film seldom takes anything away from a good story. Very few movies have a twist ending, and those that do, and do it well, are still as enjoyable, if not more so, the following viewings. Generally, knowing the ending makes the story better and increases its tension by posing more questions about the characters "Why did he end up in this situation?" or "How will her next action move her closer or further from the ending?". Knowing the ending makes the message of the film clearer and allows a stronger emotional connection from the audience by stopping the audience from asking questions about the plot allowing them to empathise more with the characters.
Some great movies start of with showing the ending, like in one of my favorites Isao Takahatas "Grave of Fireflies", but revealing the ending doesn't mean actually showing it. More often it is done by foreshadowing the ending and teasing with the characters potential, and hence, how the film ends, an ending that should always feel inevitable for the audience.
The Hero's Journey school of storytelling likes to draw the storyline in a circle to better illustrate that the beginning and the end of the story are tightly connected and very similar. This is because the best way to show the characters development is to show the character in a similar situation at the end as to a situation she was in the beginning and show how she now is acting differently due to her experiences.
Hitchcock used to create tension by revealing information, not by hiding it. Revealing the ending will not ruin the film because the most important part of the film is the path that the character takes to reach the ending and the change of character this path achieves. The hunt is more exiting than the catch.
A lot of the information in this post is learnt from Brian McDonald who recently wrote a post about the same subject called "Tell 'em What You're Gonna Tell 'em" where he also linked to a study that supported the opinion.
Hope you have enjoyed reading my post.
Peter Hertzberg
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