Experience or Story in feature films - Vote Time

Experience or Story in feature films - Vote Time

  • Story

    Votes: 9 64.3%

  • Experience

    Votes: 5 35.7%
  • Total voters
    14
K

Kholi

Section Moderator
Alright, I think Ted Spencer's gonna come and beat me up, but I think it's time for a new diatribe for beginning feature filmmakers.

"Experience is Emperor"

>:]

For the first time in a while I'm split from the audience on a movie. Chronicle is it. I keep reading these reviews calling it a good movie, and I wonder if people watched the same thing that I did. It was actually so confusing it stopped me for a few hours. The reality of it is, it really is not a good movie, but it was a good experience for a LOT of people.

That experience equates to a strong word of mouth campaign, and of course a 22M box office weekend (advertising, I get it.)

We'll see how it plays out the remainder of the week, but all of you story purists would probably agree that Chronicle lacked it to an almost film school beginner level. Even I was pretty astonished by it.

So, given one choice, which is it gonna be!? Is Story King? Or Experience?
 
I've been on this thought track for a while now, particularly in relation to Drive and movies like The Tree of Life which are more about the emotional journey the audience undergoes than a specific, paint-by-numbers plot. I'm not interested in campfire storytelling, I'm interested in cinema -- cinema is an experience, and filmmakers will always push the boundaries on how we communicate that experience, whether through a specific narrative or through a montage of shots that carry emotional weight based on context.

While I'm sure many would disagree, I felt The Grey was much more an emotional arc than a plot-based narrative, and I found that emotional journey to be compelling and enlightening. For me, that's an experience more than it is a story.

-JMT
 
I don't think it can be reduced to an either/or proposition. I think the films we remember most and that become classics provide a great story and a fantastic audience experience....I'll add one caveat though. It is probably more likely that a film which provides a fun, but empty audience experience will do well at the box office than a film that only provides a good story. An example of the former would be every film Michael Bay has ever made. An example of the latter would be The Shawshank Redemption.
 
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What is king in music? Melody? Beat? Lyrics? Performance?

I think it relates to where you are in life and what you're looking for to fill the void.

I'm going to vote for Experience... because to me it often includes a good story to me.
I don't think that a story is good. I feel it. I experience it. It just clicks into place like a good puzzle piece.

A decent definition of art is power of communication.

A story is one of the most powerful methods of communication but not the only one.

The best is when you match the audio-visual experience and the story...

Batutta said:
I don't think it can be reduced to an either/or proposition.
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Agree!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Lots of experience cannot outweigh a bad story, but I do think a really good story can compensate for some lack of experience. I've seen student films that I've watched to the end despite glaring technical flaws, but the story kept me watching.

On the other hand, I've seen my share of movies that were fine on the technical level, but the story was so bad that I couldn't watch to the end.
 
Just to be clear, by "experience," we're talking about the "experience that the audience has in seeing the film," right? Not the technical expertise of the crew behind the film? For instance, Transformers 3 had a lot of experienced crew and did some amazing things technically, but there was no experience to be had there like there was with Transformers 2 (yes, I'm the odd man out for actually enjoying Tr2, but that's beside the point).

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 were arguably bad story-wise, but they rank high on my all-time favorites list because for me, both films were (and still are) a very enjoyable experience.

-JMT
 
Michael Traven said:
For instance, Transformers 3 had a lot of experienced crew and did some amazing things technically, but there was no experience to be had there like there was with Transformers 2 (yes, I'm the odd man out for actually enjoying Tr2, but that's beside the point).
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Oh, such sacrilege. May the gods of VFX strike you in your happy fun place.
 
J Davis said:
yeh thats how I took it. The 'experience' of seeing Avatar etc
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And Avatar's probably the most criticized for having a bad (tired) story, but presenting a great 3D experience. That's a good example.

There are a lot of movies that are REALLY good, REALLY freakin' good, but the stories are depressing and the experience is a sad one so I won't rewatch them. However, I'll rewatch a bad movie (guilty pleasure) many times over if it's fun and coherent.

That's more of what I was getting at.

Same time, I agree with Bruce that perhaps trying to figure out which piece of the puzzle is more important overall isn't necessary.
 
But Kholi, a story that has an unhappy ending or a story that is depressing, can be just as rewarding as all the fluffy feel good movies out there. Personally, as long as there is resolution, a movie with a sad/depressing ending is just as good as one without.

For me, as long as the story resolves well, then I am good with it.
 
Oh, experience CAN compensate for lack of story.

Titanic. No story. Boat sinks. Everyone knew it was going to. It's spectacular.

Favorite of mine: Twister. Should never have bothered with its attempt at a plot.

Both movies did exactly what I wanted them to do.
 
Kholi said:
There are a lot of movies that are REALLY good, REALLY freakin' good, but the stories are depressing and the experience is a sad one so I won't rewatch them. However, I'll rewatch a bad movie (guilty pleasure) many times over if it's fun and coherent.
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I'm the same way, but I think it's because the sad/depressing movies (read:melodramas, and I don't mean that as a pejorative) take the most out of you emotionally. I can watch The Hangover 80 times in a row, because it's fun and I like having fun. But The Duchess is powerful and depressing and cathartic, and while I like the serene feeling of coming out on the other end, sometimes it's a lot to get through (and if you watch it at the wrong time, can really f--k you up emotionally for a few days).

Judd Apatow ranks #2 or #3 on my list of all-time favorite directors because, like John Hughes, he knows how to give you a "rollicking good time" but still give you a film that's emotionally honest and in some cases kind of depressing in a "clouds and silver linings" kind of way (see:the ending of Superbad). Obviously, some (possibly many) people will (strongly) disagree with me about Apatow, but that's my, ahem... experience.

-JMT
 
Ironically, the only movie in the last 6 months to leave me truly depressed was Jackass 3, because I watched it knowing that Ryan Dunn had died so young and it kinda made the film... have a point? That life's fleeting and s--t. I'm sure that's not what they were going for, but it's what I got. <grin>
 
Kholi said:
For the first time in a while I'm split from the audience on a movie. Chronicle is it. I keep reading these reviews calling it a good movie, and I wonder if people watched the same thing that I did. It was actually so confusing it stopped me for a few hours. The reality of it is, it really is not a good movie, but it was a good experience for a LOT of people.
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I'm not sure I understand the question.

If a film made 22 million dollars opening weekend and has now grossed 36 million dollars on a 12 million dollar production budget, and people on top of that like it, how is it a bad movie?

"Good" and "Bad" tend to be difficult to define when it comes to film because everyone defines a "good" film by different merits.
If you ask an actor what a good film is, he'll say it's one where the acting is good. If you ask a screenwriter, he'll say the screenplay and story. A producer usually says a film is good if it makes money, and the audience usually don't know what the hell they're talking about (if you ask me). I mean, it could be they had a good experience because they went into the film expecting to see exactly what they were getting so the marketing for the film was good. It could also be the audience had a good experience because the popcorn was good and nobody interrupted the screening by talking.

I realize that's not what you mean, I'm just saying the audience (or at least most people) don't ever judge a film by its craftmanship.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
I'm not sure I understand the question.

If a film made 22 million dollars opening weekend and has now grossed 36 million dollars on a 12 million dollar production budget, and people on top of that like it, how is it a bad movie?

"Good" and "Bad" tend to be difficult to define when it comes to film because everyone defines a "good" film by different merits.
If you ask an actor what a good film is, he'll say it's one where the acting is good. If you ask a screenwriter, he'll say the screenplay and story. A producer usually says a film is good if it makes money, and the audience usually don't know what the hell they're talking about (if you ask me). I mean, it could be they had a good experience because they went into the film expecting to see exactly what they were getting so the marketing for the film was good. It could also be the audience had a good experience because the popcorn was good and nobody interrupted the screening by talking.

I realize that's not what you mean, I'm just saying the audience (or at least most people) don't ever judge a film by its craftmanship.
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Compared to Cloverfield the movie was sub-par, so to me--someone who thinks Cloverfield was actually pretty decent, this movie was bad. I am an audience member, I paid to see the movie.

David Jimerson said:
Oh, experience CAN compensate for lack of story.

Titanic. No story. Boat sinks. Everyone knew it was going to. It's spectacular.

Favorite of mine: Twister. Should never have bothered with its attempt at a plot.

Both movies did exactly what I wanted them to do.
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Two great examples of what I mean.
 
Glad you like my choice of Avatar as an example for experience. For an opposite I choose Soderbergh's Sex Lies and Videotape. Zero experience, cinematography and image is meh, yet its story is very powerful, won Sundance, and the title became a popular cultural reference.
 
Kholi said:
And Avatar's probably the most criticized for having a bad (tired) story, but presenting a great 3D experience. That's a good example.
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David Jimerson said:
Oh, experience CAN compensate for lack of story.

Titanic. No story. Boat sinks. Everyone knew it was going to. It's spectacular.
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I still take issue with people who say Titanic and Avatar had no story. They had clear stories that were assembled with a base level of competence. They work as stories. They are just lacking in finesse and originality...I don't care how amazing a time the audience has, for a film to gross the insane amounts of money Titanic and Avatar did, the story had to resonate for large sections of the public on some level. Michael Bay's films provide the same amount visual eye candy, but they haven't grossed nearly as much as Cameron's work. I think story is the major reason. For me the most recent example of a film where the audience experience made a really terribly written film enjoyable was BRIDESMAIDS.
 
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