Telling not showinG
Imagine yeR like 6 years in school on show and tell day... and some kid comes up to the front of the class for his show and tell time.... and he has a box... he starts telling you about the scary thing in the box by saying "there is a scary and terrifying thing in this box, its very scary" he goes on to say "everyone is afraid of the thing in the box because it's so BAD and evil, it does bad things and evil things"
He goes on talking and talking about the thing in the box with no imagination... he's not being creative in his descriptions... he's not even describing anything... just telling you "how it is" supposedly without showing you any examples or anything besides his words ....with on the nose descriptions...
THEN finally after 5 minutes of him talking... the scary thing comes out of the box and kills someone, and there's scary music playing and so on to uphold accepted "scary" cliche's... NOW there would be a shock because someone got killed BUT there would be no surprise...
Now imagine the kid doing show and tell was not in real life BUT in a film...
Pretty fucking LAME right?
I just watched a few minutes of a short 3d animated series made by a team of professionals with no narrative experience and a first time director... I won't say what it was because it was embarrassing... but it did exactly that... characters talking about things that happened without showing the viewer anything... and not even with creative or suspenseful dialogue...just vanilla cliche'd on the nose wooden dialogue..VOMIT.... I guess that's what you would expect for a first time director eh? NAW I bet MOST of YOU would do a better job even if you never directed before because yeR probably passionate about stories and study and practice the craft ^ ^
MuthafuckERRRs need to know that film and animation is a conversation that has been going on for some time now before they got they mocap setup... I don't believe that "clothes make the man" and I know that GEAR or pure AESTHETICS DO NOT make the film... you can have the most amazing characters ever and the most epic detailed sets but if your characters stand around and say boring shit in a cliche way it is a guaranteeD faiL...
When I watch a film or series er whatever... I go "What the fuck is this saying?" If all it is saying is "LOOK HOW COOL I LOOK"... "I'M A FILM CAUSE CLICHE FILM THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN A FILMY WAY" I stop watching...
When I see a character I say "Who is this character? What do they want and where did they come from?" If the character says in one way or the other "I'M JUST LIKE THOSE OTHER CHARACTERS YOU KNOW AND LOVE FROM THOSE OTHER FILMS OR SHOWS EXCEPT I'M LIKE SHINIER AND I HAVE A SWEET HAT"... "I'M A GOOD GUY SO I DO GOOD THINGS"... "I'M A BAD GUY AND I DO BAD THINGS"
That's just like really shitty low level storytelling or filmmaking... black and white CRAP!
Read some good manga like Monster, Berserk, Black Jack, Battle Angel Last Order, Vagabond... to see what good storytelling, awesome dialogue, and LIVING breathing unique interesting characters is if ya don't know...
Watch some good Anime like Death Note, Monster, GunXSword, Ghost Hound... to see it in action...
One of the best films ever made in my opinion is HARAKIRI(1962) WATCH THAT if you want to see HOW to do dialogue and everything else right... it has one of the best actors ever in it as well in Tatsuya Nakadai...that d00d could do MORE with a glance than today's "actor's" can do by whatever histrionic'S today's re-actors call "acting" If you ask me they don't ACT they RE_ACT they can't create any emotion themselves they can only REACT to external things and they need the help of the themed music and the like to create the illusion of a performance... Nakadai could CREATE the emotion internally on his own and let it slowly permeate through this skin...He didn't need all those bells and whistles to make it seem like something was happening...
RANDOMLY: The popular youtube vlog style of EXCiTED SPEAKING, JUMPCUT, crazy music, JUMPCUT, Insert pop culture reference here, JUMPCUT....that's all bells and whistles... take it all away and ask yourself "What is this person actually saying IF anything?" If there is nothing there after all the bells and whistles then it was an external performance... the popular youtube style is in the same vein as pop music and popular films and shows if ya ask me... take away all the flash and what is left? BE SURE AND BUY YOUR OVALTINE is what's left! If you never saw "A Christmas Story" and don't get that reference...all that's left is a FUCKING COMMERCIAL usually ^ ^ or some type of self promotion or popular statement....
I'm pretty good cranky oL hater eh? ^_^
It just pisses me off when I see people taking lightly this art and craft that I respect so much...
It's like if you got a budget to pay animators and hire voice actors WHY don't you use that money to buy some fucking books to study the art and craft before saying 'I'M THE DIRECTOR so OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING"
How much money would be saved and how many CRAP films could have been avoided if most of the pompous hacks that call themselves "directors" actually gave a shit and dedicated themselves fully to the craft?
I've been messing with films for about 14 years now and I'm still a n00b! The challenge for me is not aesthetics or style or technical stuff or mood or emotion......the challenge for me is storytelling so whenever I watch or read anything by Tezuka I'm just amazed and humbled by his skill and passion at storytelling...
So when I see the stuff most of these hacks throw out these days I'm just like "WTF IS THIS CRAP?!" ^ ^ Cause I'm not impressed by anything other than they ability to raise money to get people to pay for the rubbish!
Ya know when yer passionate about a film er something and someone might tell you... "eh its just entertainment why do you take it so seriously? I just need to enjoy some good content now and then whilst I eat popcorn" While at that point I would be bleeding from my eyes with my hand at they throat!
Now do you want to spend your VALUABLE time and LIFE watching things made by people who don't give a fuck? or kinda give a fuck? OR someone who gives SO MUCH OF A FUCK they almost killed themselves to make the best thing they possibly could?
It's an easy choice me thinkS... but there's NOT ENOUGH PASSIONATE CREATORS making films! SO PLEASE! WE NEED YOU!
Ya see that was showing not telling... I wanted to tell you about how I'm tired of all these crap films that are put out and I want to watch stuff made by passionate people... and I just showed you how FUCKING CRAZY it makes me ^ ^
I believe in this life... we should dedicate our lives to SOMETHING... at the end of the day most people choose to dedicate they lives to they children and perpetuate the human race... and that's c00... if someone decides to dedicate they life to something outside of the norm that's their business... Myself... I'm a film/animation/music geek... that's what I create...that's what I live and breathe... a normal person may tell me that I "have no life" but to me MAKING FILMS IS LIFE so I have a great "life" right now... our life experience is entirely subjective...something that makes me happy like watching a great episode of BLACK JACK or animating an awesome shot may do nothing for a normal person....but that's my "life"... then I can talk to some normal d00d who's telling me about his sweet new truck, pimpin haus, vacation in Mexico and hot chicks he's banging and I'll be like YAWN....as I'm a filmmaker so that "life" doesn't mean anything to me...
Realize to be a FILMMAKER you must MAKE FILMS... you can't just talk about it...SHOW DON'T TELL
So let's go out and redefine what "life" is... let's give our liveS to the things were passionate about even if normally society says its TOTALLY GHEY and a WASTE OF TIME... If you ask me facebook is a waste of time but apparently it's a big part of having a "life" these days to most people 0_o
Brought to you by professional weirdo M dot Strange.