Ask Spling – Episode 2: What’s your biggest frustration with the way films are made today?

In the Episode 2 of ‘Ask Spling: Reel Talk and Real Life’… Spling answers: “What’s your biggest frustration with the way films are made today?”

Welcome to Ask Spling. So, one of the things that bothers me when it comes to filmmaking is when filmmakers have not taken the time with their script. They’ve basically thought, let me write a script, let me put it together, let me throw it out there, let me get this film made, let’s go into production.

And that script development work is so, so important. We don’t realise that, as filmmakers, it takes sometimes a decade to make a film. And that involves a whole lot of script development, a whole lot of pre-production, a whole lot of budget funding, you know, trying to seek that.

But before that all happens, you have the opportunity as an individual, as a screenwriter, to actually go out there and do all the work. Create engaging characters, write a story that is super connective, super timely, super relevant, and create something that is going to transport your audience. And that means not having all the distractions.

That’s another thing that bothers me, when there are little distractions that can actually derail a film. Because you’re being taken out of that dream space, you’re being taken into the space of analysing the film. And that’s how you know you’re watching a bad film, is when you start analysing it from the outside in.

So, yeah, characters, story, dialogue, all of that stuff, the action part of writing a script as well, it can be done. It can be done by one person, it just needs to have the effort, the time for that to take place.

About Ask Spling

This weekly shorts series features film critic, Stephen “Spling” Aspeling answering questions to do with film, or anything for that matter!