Want an effective film? Tell a story.

'I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.'
                          - Walt Disney

Films are the most effective ways to communicate a message, whether that message be for the purpose of education, advertisement, or entertainment. Which leads many to decide that film will be the medium through which to push society in a more positive direction. 

This is all well and good, and I think that films (particularly documentaries) can open our eyes to truths we have never considered, causing us to make changes for the better in our own lives. But we see many films with obviously good intentions fail to have any positive impact whatsoever. And it's not the audiences fault when that happens. It's the film's.

Filmmaker Mark Bone, director of award winning documentaries such as 58 HOURS and Rescate, posed a central question to prospective filmmakers: Is your film about a topic or a story? A film about a story with a central character who goes on a journey, can effectively communicate a message. A film about a topic, on the other hand, achieves nothing because the audience is given no reason to emotionally invest.

A lot of films today are made with a topic in mind first, and then try to find a character or story to neatly fit into that 'morale of the story' box. And these films are never received well, because they are heavy handed, preachy, and the messages communicated don't feel natural or earnt. They feel unrealistically convenient and 'neat'. 

As a filmmaker, in one sense you have to allow your story to take you in places you might not have intended. Take for example a short documentary about bees that I am preparing for submission to a film competition this month. The topic the holders of the competition want covered is the impact that pollinators and healthy soil have on the ecosystem. I am introducing a story by making my film a short documentary centred on the president of the local beekeeping association. And prior to filming with him, I had an idea in mind of where I wanted the film to go. In the course of filming however, the central character of the film told his story and completely shifted the emphasis of the film to something I had not intended. And it's amazing. I could coach my docu subject until he would say what I had originally intended, but him telling his own story in a real, authentic manner is so much better than him trying to tell the story I originally wanted him to tell. 

Now, when the star of my documentary starts talking about how important bees are to our ecosystem, we've given people a reason to connect to that message because we've given them a reason to connect to him as a character. Without that human connection, anything informational he might share would fall on deaf ears.

In conclusion, We need to allow our films to tell their own stories. And to make the telling of that story the central focus. If delivering a message becomes the central focus, the film loses it's ability to effectively communicate any message at all. 

It might seem paradoxical, but by choosing to entertain over educate, you've given your film the best chance to deliver a life-changing message.