What ONE piece of screenwriting or filmmaking advice has been the most useful to you in your career and why?
The best piece of advice I was ever given regarding filmmaking was courtesy of my first tutor in film production, Roger Knott-Fayle. He always emphasized that filmmaking, on every level, is all about communication.
From the outset, the aim of making a film is to communicate a story, an idea, an emotion to an audience. In pitching scripts or story ideas, I try and make sure that the person or people I’m talking to get what it is that I’m trying to tell them. If they don’t get it, if the story isn’t working for them, then it’s my job to find another, better, more effective way of communicating it to them. The same goes for making the film – clarity of communication is everything. If the audience can’t get what you’re trying to tell them, then you’ve lost them. That doesn’t mean that you can’t make complex or nuanced or ambiguous work, it just means that the complexity, the nuances, the ambiguity all have to be effectively communicated.
Communication is the key component of filmmaking. You need to find ways of translating what’s going on in your head into a form that someone else can understand. You can’t make any assumptions – an audience doesn’t know anything until you tell them it. So use whatever means you have at your disposal to make sure that they get the clearest, most precise version of your vision possible
Steven
Steven has just completed his second feature, the action-horror Dead Mine for HBO Asia. Full bio here https://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/speakers/steven-sheil
Posted by a member of the London Screenwriters’ Festival team.
