Storytelling for the screen
Part 1
Montage Project:
Development
Introduction to Montage:
What is a montage? Watch this short video:
Some key points:
Montage is a collection of images and/or video clips often with sound/music...
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that tells a story and/or give a cinematic experience...
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that makes the audience feel something and/or think something.
Activity Montage
Another type of montage is the activity montage. It's a montage that shows a type of action that a character engages in but it only shows the highlights. One of the most famous examples is from the movie, Rocky. It's so famous that it's become a cliche or to put it another way, you see it in every sports movie that's out there, the training montage. Here's the famous Rocky montage.
Here are some things to look for in an activity montage:
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What are the emotions that you are feeling? Why?
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What are some of the thoughts that you're thinking? Why?
This one is from last summer's filmmaking class. They did their own training montage. Again, what are you feeling when watching it? Why?
What are you thinking? Why?
This called "running montage" by delaney.
Check out this montage from the movie, School of Rock. It's a good example of the training montage but it follows a group of middle schoolers learning how to become a rock band.
Thematic Montages
We'll talk about how some montages' main purpose is to give the audience an emotional experience and an intellectual experience.
In essence, you should feel something when watching thematic montages. And you should be thinking about something.
Watch this montage and ask yourself:
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What emotion am I feeling? Why?
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What ideas am I thinking? Why?
Make Your Own Activity Montage
Now it's your turn. Think of activities that you could film around your home and area. It could be athletic, it could be artistic, it could be intellectual, it could be familial. The main elements you want to think about:
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Can you show it? Think visual.
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Is it compelling to watch for an audience?
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Does it include some kind of change?
Now pick one of your ideas. And then...
Write down all of the different parts of that activity. What happens at the beginning? How does it develop? How does it end? Are there conflicts involved?
This could be the blueprint of your first film.
Make Your Own Thematic Montage:
Think of a strong emotion you've felt recently. Anger? Happiness? Love? Hate? Inspiration? Loneliness? Sadness? Hope? Worry?
Write down that emotion down.
Think of as many different images that remind you of that emotion.
Write down those images. Use details as much as you can. Think of the five senses. Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell.
Test to see if those images evoke that emotion for another person.
A volunteer will read the images from their list to the class and see if they can guess the emotion.
Discuss in essence that this is a thematic montage. A collection of images that create emotion.
They can also convey ideas. If you add some kind of text.
With the emotion in mind, think of texts that remind you of that emotion.
Write down a list of different texts that create that emotion like:
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poems
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song lyrics
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journal entries
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famous quotes
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short stories
You could build a film around this text and make a film.
Here are some examples:
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In between is a short montage film by Katie Specter, one of my students. She wrote a song and then made a music video based on it. I think it does a good job of capturing the bittersweet nature of friendship and time and savoring the moments of friendship.
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Covid 19 is a short montage film by Kyla Cook who made this film in the first month of the quarantine. I think she does some interesting things with the way she uses a pipe-like attachment to the camera and surveys the empty streets of the city and combines that with the music and the audio clips of news reporters. You get that sense of desperation and chaos that we all felt at this time.
Homework
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Decide which kind of montage you'll do: Activity or Thematic?
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Maybe you want to do something else. That's fine, just let me know.
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Once you pick your type of montage, then decide upon an activity or theme.
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Think about what emotions you want to convey to the audience.
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Think about if you want your audience to think about the story or about the themes through a poem or song.
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Think about all of the images that you will be putting into this montage. Note. Not all but many montages use a lot of images. For example, "running montage" had about 30 shots in that 1-minute film. That's about 1 shot per 2 seconds. That's not unusual so try to think of as many images as you can.
Bonus Content
Here are some more montages I really enjoy. Check them out: