The Five Tasks of the Filmmaker

Abstract A reflection on the five tasks discussed in this chapter is considered as informative of the filmmaker’s perspectives and decision-making processes, an awareness of which is indispensable in the understanding of practical aesthetics. The communication of information, a fundamental aspect of the filmmaker’s art, should facilitate the audience’s comprehension, be neither vague nor confusing, and not be overdone. It may be direct, implied, ambiguous, concealed, revealed, portioned out or delivered in a single instant, or conveyed visually, through sound or dialogue—perhaps in increments the audience must connect for further realization. Emotion—the filmmaker’s most profound currency—is regarded also as the most important aspect of audience engagement. Orchestration, rather than the register of emotion, is considered in terms of its effective flow, as are the means by which the filmmaker evokes emotion—story, incident, character, performance, staging, camera, cutting, sound and music, and the control of tone and energy. The stimulation of visceral/tactile/neural sensation, illustrated by examples, is understood as touching on the raw humanity cinema reveals. Eroticism is recognized as presented primarily through a white male straight perspective for decades, although more recently conveyed from more diverse standpoints. Aspects of “creative vision” (often unconscious on the filmmaker’s part) are listed as theme, thematic question, tone, and voice, each examined, as are the ways of understanding theme. The chapter posits the paramount task of the filmmaker as the telling of the story. The filmmaker’s “two vectors” involve the screen as window into the fiction and address to the audience.