Power of Story Live-Streamed from Sundance

I’m headed to the Sundance Film Festival to schmooze and be inspired by world-class documentaries. Last year our director/client Chad Gracia won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize. This year, I’m looking forward to being inspired by director panelists such as Morgan Spurlock, Werner Herzog, and Joshua Oppenheimer—and meeting visionary filmmakers with works-in-progress.

If you’re going, let me know. If not, consider live-streaming some of the fabulous off screen panel discussions. You can watch The Power of Story and Cinema Café panels at:

www.sundance.org/festivals/sundance-film-festival

Aiming to apply to Sundance this Fall? Let us help you complete your own compelling documentary in our Finish Your Film program.

And now…I’m reprinting a popular blog inspired by a previous Sundance panel in 2009:

My ears perked up when author Samantha Power, a Times magazine columnist who was featured in the documentary Sergio, likened a good story to a Trojan horse.  Whether in print or film, she said, you needed an appealing vehicle in which to cloak your message in order to penetrate past the guarded mindset of your audience.

Why is it so important to tell a story, anyway?  First, it will entertain your audience.  In particular, the pacing set by Aristotle’s classic three-act structure has an uncanny ability to evoke our emotional response and catalyze our capacity as humans to make meaning.

Second, we filmmakers want to convey our vision, but our insights can put us at risk of being preachy or didactic.  To change metaphors: the story is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.  Whether your medicine is an expose, a political solution, or an environmental wake-up call, climbing onto a soapbox with your prescription for society’s ills won’t do–unless you conceal your soapbox within a spoonful of sugar (or a Trojan horse).

Third, and now we’re getting very practical, it’s important to tell a story because that’s what acquisition editors and funders (like ITVS) want.  So if your goal is to get your project funded and broadcast, the best film synopsis describes a character in hot pursuit of a goal. Email me for a free consultation to learn how we can collaborate in creating your character-driven film.