How to create films with connection.

I'd like to follow up yesterday's blog with a discussion on 'How' we create connection through film.

The first option is to tell 'Our' stories. Think 'Boy', 'Once Were Warrior's and Louis Sutherland's recent film 'Shopping'. We connect when we see ourselves in film or characters we relate to. This was an old trick used by the NZ film Unit. In early day's of NZ film they used to shoot dramas locally, town by town, with scenes of local events and people. A quick and easy way to get people to the movies was the promise of seeing the thing they most enjoyed watching...themselves.

Telling 'Our stories' is a good niche market option but it doesn't work as well for the masses. Going town to town is not sustainable. Studio films need to have mass market recognition and appeal...but that doesn't mean they should lack connection.  How then do we create connection in these type of films?

Many films try to connect through creating familiar social and political backdrops. The Dark Knight Rises used the financial crisis, Iron Man 3 had a villain that visually took inspiration from all too familiar terrorist imagery. These are very overt ways of creating connection and when handled badly can become offencive, stereotypical and insensitive. When handled well they help us see ourselves and our world better.

Generally connection making is seen as the job of the director. His role is to identify universal themes and societal connections then pull them out for the audience at the right moment.  I would like to suggest that connection is not solely a role for the director and that like the task of audience engagement it is a collaborative task requiring the input of many artisans.

So what is the process for bringing out connection through many artists rather than just one?

If you want to have a film that connects to people on many levels then you need the input of many people. This doesn't mean 100 director's. What it means is many artists contributing solutions to a problem rather than many artist delivering one persons solution to the problem. When a leader allows his team to respond to the universal themes he is tackling rather than just the cinematic solution he has envisioned then the work becomes alive to far greater potential. The work then can connect through many eyes seeing the one idea. The work is no less focused but it is no longer narrow. Working in this way might sound risky but it isn't. On the contrary the work becomes more exciting, energetic and alive. Just like the resulting art should be and will be. To create the art and films we want we must first make the way we work and the environment we work in a piece of art in it's own right.

When the many artists that make the film connect with it then a much larger community of audience will connect with it too.  This way of working is referred to as working in the unknown. This might sound scary to an investor who wants to know what they're investing in. They shouldn't fear. Great artists know exactly what they're doing. The unknown is not in themselves or their craft. The unknown is the potential of where their knowledge will lead. We shouldn't be afraid of this potential we should be embracing it.