Not storytelling. It is not that storytelling is bad it is just that storytelling is a literary term and film is so much more than literature. Considering the possibilities of film shouldn’t we set the medium free by thinking in terms of storyshowing? When writing one tells a story and it can be beautiful but the image is surrounded by words with film the image merges directly into the viewer’s mind, pure and autonomous. How powerful that is and if we remember that, always thoughtful of that power, the content and form meet providing more emotional engagement with the aesthetics and the content for the viewer. Storyshowing is way more effective than stodgy, literary storytelling. Film and the CGI effects available to us in this age make anything possible on the screen. Even things that go beyond words are possible.
In our short film Noun9 we faced the dilemma of how to storytell about a man who was trapped by his need to define himself and his girlfriend as a noun. How in words do you tell that? We realized you don’t. We had to change our approach to show it, not tell it. Then the possibilities of the medium opened up to us. We could envision this concept instead of trying to put it into words and CGI provided the images. Moving-sound images that beautifully and gracefully mingle with the mind of the viewer. Not words and words and exposition that confuse and take up time and block the experience. Concept-creation and concept-experience, in images not words, goes right to the center of the brain bypassing those hang-ups people get when you try and tell them something. Just show it.
