My wife and I have been renting five or so videos a week as a way to keep my storytelling inspirations flowing. The first week we started doing this, it was easy to find some great classics like "Being There" with Peter Sellers, "Forrest Gump", "The Matrix", and "As Good As It Gets". The second week was also fairly easy--all we had to do was pick the titles that had the best actors, like Denzel Washington, Anthony Hopkins, Clive Owen, Emma Thompson, Hillary Swank, etc. After three weeks, however, we noticed something disconcerting: it was getting more difficult to find great movies that had great stories. In the fifth week of our movie-watching adventures, we rented the five best films we could find. To our disappointment, we had to turn off the DVD player on four of them after about 20 minutes--the stories were that bad.
That's the main reason I started this blog: to try and help bring some focus on what makes great movies, so hopefully screenwriters and filmmakers will stop making the sad specimens we've seen of late. One can always hope.
As those who have ever purchased a house can attest, the three most important factors in determining a property's value is location, location, and location. Likewise, in any movie, the story is preeminent, and it, more than anything else, will determine a film's success or failure.
Here then are the basic ingredients for a great movie:
1) STORY: Start off with a really great story
2) ACTING: Add in competent actors giving believable performances
3) SETTING: Add in interesting locations with solid cinematography
4) EDITING: Edit the film so it sizzles
5) DISTRIBUTION: Distribute the film to the widest audience
In the subsequent entries, I will endeavor to expound on these five areas, elucidating the main ideas with Occam's Razor, and providing references to the best books and articles for those who desire more in-depth reading.
So, with no further ado, let us begin...
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