DZ-113: Tools For Filmmakers To Talk To The Audience

Listen if you want to explore how you can make your creative hand visible through meta-storytelling and structural choices!?! In our final (ha!) episode looking at Talking Directly to the Audience, we turn away from character-and-text based craft tools to look at other ways that filmmakers - whether they be directors, writers, editors, or anyone else - can make the audience feel their 'hand' more. To that end, Mel, Stu and Chas dive into ADAPTATION, STORIES WE TELL and THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION. We discuss structure (in particular how to structure more meta stories), the influence of TikTok and YouTube in portraying character authenticity, how to set up scenes where your characters can actually debate what your story is really about., and get into the gritty of where "in the story world" the communication from the filmmakers is. Ultimately, in exploring these three powerful films through this lens, we discover that these tools give filmmakers more control in conveying their theme. Quelle surprise. This episode brought to you by (drum roll) ArcStudio: go to https://www.arcstudiopro.com/draftzero for $30 off a pro subscription! Thanks to Chris Walker for his excellent editing this episode. As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes. LIKE THIS EPISODE? Send us feedback. Thanks to our Patrons, especially Lily, Paulo, Alexandre, Malay, Jennifer, Thomas, Randy, Jesse, Sandra, Theis and and Khrob. → Read the transcript for this episode. ——— "I would guess that some of the most watched content in the world has people talking directly to the camera and that's stuff that people watch on YouTube." — Stu Willis @ 00:06:13 ——— CHAPTERS 00:00:00 – Cold Open 00:00:28 – The Meta of Meta 00:04:20 – › How filmmakers speak without breaking immersion 00:07:48 – › Mapping the craft levers for filmmaker-to-audience communication 00:11:01 – ADAPTATION 00:14:11 – › How filmmakers communicate through diegetic versus direct address 00:20:30 – › When fiction blurs with reality in meta-storytelling 00:29:23 – › Structural devices versus overt meta-communication across all three films 00:34:28 – › What the work wants from its audience 00:36:43 – Sponsor: Arc Studio Pro 00:39:40 – Adaption (Part 2) 00:42:23 – STORIES WE TELL 00:44:24 – › Exposing the apparatus of documentary filmmaking 00:49:44 – › Reconstructed Super 8 footage and the ethics of misdirection 00:57:07 – › Sarah Polley's absence as subject and presence as author 01:07:55 – › Mapping diegetic control across the film's storytelling layers 01:12:13 – THE FORTY YEAR OLD VERSION 01:19:29 – › Black-and-white cinematography and the Woody Allen inversion 01:23:13 – › Locating the filmmaker's voice on the meta-storytelling spectrum 01:33:20 – › Extracting portable craft techniques from autobiographical filmmaking 01:43:39 – › Authenticity, truth, and what each film is ultimately arguing 01:48:14 – Wrap Up & Key Learnings 01:50:48 – › Black-and-white, artifice, and meta-techniques as thematic anchors 01:56:27 – › Sound design, structural play, and further viewing recommendations 02:01:24 – Many thanks to our Patreons <3 FILMS ADAPTATION (2002) — (w) Charlie Kaufman, Susan Orlean (d) Spike Jonze STORIES WE TELL (2012) — (w) Sarah Polley THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION (2020) — (w) Radha Blank EPISODES IN THE TALKING DIRECTLY TO THE AUDIENCE SERIES DZ-109: Talking DIRECTLY to your audience DZ-110: Voiceover DZ-111: Unreliable Narrators and FIGHT CLUB DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall DZ-113: Tools For Filmmakers To Talk To The Audience RELATED EPISODES DZ-53: Antagonists! 5 - vs Audience DZ-109: Talking DIRECTLY to your audience DZ-110: Voiceover DZ-111: Unreliable Narrators and FIGHT CLUB DZ-112: Breaking the 4th wall ——— More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser. We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter. Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2024/dz-113/