Probably not even in your longest baths did your mind arrive at such a peculiar question. But a very important person has already thought about it: Noam Chomsky.
If you studied literature in college, you know him as the father of Modern Linguistics because of his unique interpretation of human language: an innate and biological attribute that is shared by all of us. In other words, for Chomsky, if a Martian were to come to Earth he would see all the languages on our planet as “accents” of the same universal language system of the human species. (To learn more, read this Text about Chomsky in Galileu Magazine)
Why are we telling you this? Because we want you to start rethinking the concept of language and communication, and how to use them in your videos for better storytelling.
While communication is understood as a simpler concept, observed in animals and humans, of the transmission of meaning, Language is something much more complex. Language is a verbal and nonverbal system of symbols, signs, and signs that structure the way we communicate thoughts and ideas. And as filmmakers, we have access to many languages in our videos: verbal, imaginary, sound, symbolic, popular, and many others.
The advantage that cinema has over other media is the ability to combine many different languages around the same idea., and reinforce it in every way. Let's understand better with an example: Manuela's wait for her son in the movie “All About My Mother”.
Image: film “All About My Mother” by Pedro Almodóvar.
In the long shot above, we see Manuela, the main character, waiting for her son at the exit of the theater in front of the poster for the play “A Streetcar Called Desire”. When we look at it inattentively, it seems like a still scene with no meaning for the narrative, but we realize much more if we decide to analyze the scene better in context with the story.
Thinking that the film is about Manuela's life after the death of her son, Estéban, and her search for meaning in the past and in her life before the boy was born, this scene can be interpreted as a visual representation of the story. She, alone, wearing a red coat, a symbol of love and intensity, waits for her son in front of the poster of the play she played in when she was younger with his father. However, the father is actually a transvestite who played the main female role, the same as the actress in the poster.
That's the main difference between communication and language. While from the point of view of communication this is just a woman on a red wall, through language this is an interface of several meanings that intertwine and tell a story.
Continuing, the filmmaker's role is to use this knowledge to tell a narrative, which according to the dictionary is the”exhibition of an event or series of events, more or less linked, real or imaginary, through words or images”. In other words, as filmmakers we we transform ideas into images and sounds so that they have a sensory and narrative appeal in people.
Unlike the book, where the entire narrative will be through written language, we have to concatenate several means to create that narrative together. And for that, we have to develop a work that thinks about the macro as well as the micro.
For you to enhance your languages in the service of storytelling, it is important that you understand the role of each one in your final vision. In other words, a beautiful color palette combined with a beautiful setting don't make a coherent narrative on their own because it may be that nothing is connecting that palette and that scenario to a primary objective.
To do this, you need to ask yourself some key questions that only you can ask yourself.
But here are some suggestions:
After these steps you can start making aesthetic decisions, because now you know what they're trying to achieve. Now, your color palette isn't blue just because it's pretty, but because you want to enhance the protagonist's feeling of coolness and rationality, for example.
Now that we understand the difference between communication, language and storytelling and how to create a coherent language, we need to structure these processes so that they are clear and accessible throughout the production.
We suggest that you create a central organization document, but there are thousands of ways in which this organization can be done, in addition to understanding that this is a personal process. So we will give just a few basic principles that make up a good strategy so that you can guide yourself and adjust your personal style. They are: redundancy, accessibility, readability, and specificity.
The first principle of a good plan, especially when it comes to aesthetic choices that are difficult to characterize, is redundancy. What we mean by that is: Repeat information, however obvious or repeated it may seem.
On the moodboard, storyboard, screenplay, or any other important document, repeat the information that's vital to you, whether it's the soundtrack, shot, color palette, expression, tone, or any other aspect that you consider a differential of your final product. For example, did you know that director Edgar Wright placed the songs from the soundtrack in link format within the screenplay for “In the Rhythm of Escape”? That's because the movie depends on the songs to keep its rhythm, and it was impossible for the director to have anyone read the script without these excerpts of music playing in the background.
In addition, redundancy becomes even more important if you work in teams, where people don't always read every document or even all of those entire documents. Shall we repeat it again? Repetition.
Your organizing method can't be disorganized, right?
By legibility, we mean that it is a document:
When information is not accessible, we are content to remind ourselves in the first place. And we made mistakes because of that.
Leave the information you need in places where it will be easily accessed and that can be referenced at any time. And again, this is even more important if you work as a team. Accessibility keeps everyone around the same flow and protects you from answering questions that have already been answered.
Who knows how to save a list of essentials as a cell phone background or print a copy of the script for everyone involved in the project?
Tell someone that your favorite color is blue and they will think of all the blues in the world, except your favorite.
It is important that your document is specific so that you have focus and assertiveness during recordings, in addition to being able to create a Strong vision from the start. That is, specify colors, textures, lighting, shots, ideas, and everything else you can think of with as many concrete examples as possible.
Thus, not only do you waste less time recording, but you structure your thinking around ideas that are much better formed and real.
With all these techniques we hope that you have been able to develop your perception of the infinite possibilities of communication within a film and how to structure those possibilities within concrete plans. Now, if a Martian comes to Earth, you're more than ready to send your pitch!
