Necessary Magic

I was watching a documentary about the making of a big, blockbuster Hollywood film recently. In it, we get to see some cool behind the scenes footage of numerous takes. I was particularly interested in one action sequence featuring an explosion that sends the actors hurtling through the air. I understand basically how movies are made, but I was still struck by how very, very different the raw footage looked compared to the final product.

First, the documentary footage was shot through the ring of lights, boom mics, cameras, gaffers, directors, and assistant directors surrounding the set, reminding one that nothing that is about to happen is truly natural. It’s planned, practiced, and choreographed. Then there was the scene itself. Off camera, we hear the director shout, “Action!”, the two heroes step through the doorway of a crumbling building, looking furtively left and right, the unseen enemy apparently all around, when there is sharp Bang! and a flash of light behind them. The actors launch themselves forward, landing safely on mattresses arranged just off camera. The director calls, “Cut!”, and that’s that.

It was the “explosion” that so caught my attention. It looked like someone had merely set off a particularly big firecracker. Clearly, the actors hadn’t been blown forward; they’d jumped. It was all so two-dimensional, rote, and thoroughly un-dramatic. But then the documentary cut to the same scene as it appeared in the film. Gone were all the movie-making trappings surrounding the actors. Now there was just the building and the tense expressions on their soot-stained faces, and music rumbling beneath it all in an ominous minor key, and then – the explosion, brought to life with the help of CGI flames and a thumping bass kaboom. How could the heroes not fly sprawling through the air?

Orson Wells famously said of naturalistic cinema: If you want reality, there’s the street. I happen to agree with him, though not that “the street” is an unworthy subject for a film. The point of art is to capture reality by limiting what we see of it, and by drawing our attention to its emotional content. Yes, all artists employ some technical tricks to express that emotion, whether it’s sound effects and CGI, or a poet’s rhyme, or a composer’s key change. Such is the magic necessary to point the audience inward, back to where life is felt before we name it, before we understand it, when we know it immediately simply as something we care about.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com