Questionable Advice for Your Film

by Jonathan Kieran, New Orleans Film Festival Programmer

Despite the truism that “no one knows anything” when it comes to what makes a successful film, there’s an awful lot of advice pointed at filmmakers. And I’m about to jump right into that pile of people who ought to know better than to try to speak with authority on the matter. I guess I’m compelled to do this because I find much of what’s handed out as filmmaking advice to be generic, obvious, and/or repetitive.

This is particularly true when the source of advice is festival programmers, perhaps because we’re not quite comfortable with our role as gatekeepers, or we’re afraid of Heisenberging up our submissions — that is, influencing the very thing we’re supposed to be observing. So you get innocuous pointers like “figure out a festival’s vibe before you submit” and “don’t make your film too long.”

Let’s take a step past the usual textbook stuff and consider some arguable, tendentious, even questionable advice. And I mean that as an invitation! All advice is not good for all films or all people, and arguing with bad advice often sharpens your own point of view and makes your artistic values more explicit. Trust me on this; I went to film school.

Think of a Different Title

To appreciate this fully it helps to picture how a festival programmer first encounters your film: as one title in a list of titles on an online platform, a list that is perhaps hundreds long. The name of your film is quite seriously the initial germ around which a bunch of associations and impressions will (if things go well) cluster. Is your title mysterious? Is it evocative? Does it suggest images or feelings?

Or does it just say what’s in the tin? Are you making a film about a character named Ava? Please consider not naming your film Ava. (Believe it or not, I’m not trying to roast the 2020 film Ava. when you have Jessica Chastain and $30 million to sell your film, you can name it whatever you want).

Even confusion is an okay result of your title. I once screened a film called KLOK, and there’s a reason I can still remember that title and that film, literally thousands of films later. No, I don’t know what that title means, either.

Pay your Composer (or Music Supervisor)

Great film scores and soundtracks are justly celebrated, performed, and enjoyed as works of art in their own right. They sometimes even fuse with their films to become something larger, something…aesthetic (remember Drive, the film that sold a thousand synths?)

When it pops up in filmmaking advice, music is usually discussed as “another weapon in your creative arsenal,” an extra way of making your point. That’s actually kind of a misguided way to think about scoring or soundtracking your film, since it implies that music should be reinforcing, in a one-to-one way, whatever’s happening in a scene. Sad scene? Sad music! This, to a programmer, is frankly annoying. Especially if the scene in question isn’t doing its emotional work, and the score is just there trying to drag me into it.

Rather than just juicing it for excess emotion, great film music often throws a scene into contrast, encouraging us to look at it in a different way. Think about Nicholas Britell’s stately orchestral score for Moonlight, or Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs, chopping up Tim Roth to the jaunty strains of Stealers Wheel. Two examples (each of which has inspired legions of imitators) of thinking beyond the obvious musical options.

Have an Opener and a Closer

Okay, I’ll admit this is a take on some pretty hacky advice that proliferates anywhere art and commerce are yoked together, whether it’s pop songwriting or podcasting: “hook your audience!”

Yes, the opening minutes (seconds, even) of your film will determine a lot about whether I or any viewer, want to go deeper into your film or is already struggling not to mentally check out. But beyond that, if done well an artful and cinematically conceived opening scene can be a statement of purpose for your whole film. A good intro is just that, an introduction to you, dear filmmaker. It’s not just “hooking” me but assuring me that you are for real, that you have something to show me, and that I’m in good hands as I embark on your film.

Here comes another hallmark of questionable advice: appeal to authority! Scientists who study memory observe that subjects who are given a list of numbers to remember will retain and recall the first and last numbers in the list at a much higher rate. A film of any kind is, unavoidably, a series — of scenes, or maybe of pure images if we’re getting experimental. So what comes last is also of outsized importance. Comedians understand well the value of putting a button on the bit. Is your ending a fond farewell? An abrupt cutoff? A crashing climax? There are so many possible answers to this question. When I watch and judge your film (which is, let’s face it, my job) I will know whether or not you answered for yourself or copped out.

If you’ve read this far I hope that either 1) There’s something here that you hadn’t heard before or 2) You’re ready to tap out a detailed email to noff@neworleansfilmsociety.org loaded with reasons why I’m wrong and why Crocs That Talk is in fact the perfect title for your animated talking-crocodile movie. I’ll read it with an open mind.

p.s. Film submissions for the 32nd New Orleans Film Festival (Nov 5–21, 2021) are open until June 18 via FilmFreeway!

ABOUT JONATHAN KIERAN

Jonathan Kieran has served in New Orleans Film Festival’s programming department since 2012. He recently moved cross-country from New Orleans to take over film curation at Cinema Salem, an independent theater on Boston’s North Shore. In his spare time, he is a slow reader and novice synthesist.