Achieving a successful Movie

Achieving a successful Movie

People have different ways of spending their free time. Some people will choose to spend their time swimming, reading, hiking, or engage in any form of activity that they feel is fun for them. Similarly, when one is stressed, he/she will look for stress-relieving activity to keep his/her mind away from thinking about the stressing. One of the activity most people prefer to engage in when stressed is by watching movies either alone in a locked room or going to a movie show. That is one way that the movie has been used by people. However, in the wake of digitization and technological advancement that has been witnessed since 20^th century, the movie industry has continuously grown where people are investing heavily to develop movies that meet the customers or viewers satisfaction under the connotation “Successful movie.” Ideally, a successful movie means developing a movie that meets customer’s need, receive huge acceptance from fans, meet the guideline of the film board, and maintain ethical standards to the right people.

The objective of every movie director is to achieve a successful movie. To develop this, the concerned people (producer, scriptwriter, director) have to play the right role at the right time and at the right place without messing up. For example, Titanic Movie is among the most successful films to be ever developed according to the viewer’s reception. In this movie, the director develops an antagonism between rich and poor, which makes the movie really exciting. Therefore, to develop a successful movie, one needs to understand what makes a movie great. To understand this concept of “achieving successful movie”, this research paper will extensively discuss the history of filmography, components of a great movie and what makes a movie great. The paper will also address the steps involved in achieving a successful movie, the plot, directing, and quality.

History of Movie

The movie industry originated back in the early 19^th century as a result of various technological developments. The chain of events included creating a photograph, discovery illusion motion of combining individual images, and the study of both animal and human locomotion. The history includes a culmination of technological advancements accompanied by the idea of developing motion pictures as a form of entertainment (Peterson, 2018). The idea of movie has no real person who invented it until back in 1891 when US Company Edison successfully demonstrated how an individual could watch moving pictures at a time. Since then, the movie industry has continued to evolve thanks to the advancement in technology. For instance, there is a huge difference between an old King Kong movie and a recent movie. With most of the traditional movies being black and white, the recent movies are coloured, making them more clear to the audience (Peterson, 2018). This is among things that are helping directors to develop successful movies. Therefore, if the technology continues to advance, the movie industry will also continue to advance to provide the audience with the best movies.

What makes a movie great?

Films play an essential role in people’s lives, especially on the entertainment part, but the hard truth is that not all movies that we watch are entertaining. Some of these movies we watch are so dull and boring that it becomes hard to watch the movie till the end. However, not all movies are boring; there those movies that are entertaining and energizing that we get happy when we watch them (Anderson & O’Connor, 2016). For instance, Titanic is a movie that you can watch several times and not get bored. So, movie lovers always look for great movies that are entertaining and refreshing. Otherwise, picking a wrong and boring movie will make you regret and feel like you are wasting your time. It is also a great loss to the director of a movie if it turns out to be boring as it will receive negative remarks causing a reduced sale and overall profit (Anderson & O’Connor, 2016). Therefore, both the viewer and the movie director will end up losing if a movie turns out not to be great. Thus, the viewer needs to read the reviews of a movie before watching to make a decision if it is a great movie. On the other hand, the director has no other option but to incorporate all necessary materials to ensure the movie is great. A movie has certain qualities that make them great. Some of these qualities include;

Good Characters. A movie that is made of great characters have a high potential of being a great movie. Characters play a huge role in the process of telling the storyline of the movie. Actually, characters are the movie breath. This means that the movie director has to develop a way that the characters are liked by the viewer (Liu et al., 2016). This will create the urge of the viewer completing the movie to see how his character ends his scene in the movie. Achieving this cannot happen until movie characters are lovable.

Simple theme. Another quality that makes a movie great is the setting of the plot. Some movies have a complex plot due to the belief of the scriptwriter that making it complex will make the movie great. To be sincere, this is where most of them go wrong. A movie that contains a simple plot is easily understood by the viewers and hence; will easily win their hearts. The complex plot makes it hard for the viewer to understand the movie making it boring and unentertaining (Anderson & O’Connor, 2016). The reason behind this is because a great movie has to contain interesting characters and like in real life, not all characters will be entertaining. Therefore, the simple plot has few characters that are easily loved, hence; making the movie to be great.

Theme. Another thing that makes a movie great is the message in the movie. Apart from entertainment, people want to learn a new thing from a movie they are watching. Some movies will tend to hover away from the main idea where the viewer will end learning nothing from the movies (Liu et al., 2016). To make a movie great, directors and scriptwriters should ensure the movie has a clear message that can make the viewer watch it again and again.

Good ending. This is the last phase of a movie. In most cases, the movie ends with the starling in the movie becoming a winner. Most movies do not have a good ending. Unless the movie is a series, there should be no suspense for a single movie so that it can be termed as a great movie.

Elements of a good movie

The interesting movie has distinctive elements that make it a great movie. In most cases, you will tell a movie was interesting after watching it. From this perspective, you will be able to point out specific elements that made you conclude that a movie was really interesting.

Originality is one of the elements of a good movie. A good scriptwriter develops a story that is unique and original, which have not been told or seen on the screen (Zhanf, 2019). That is, he/she comes up with an untold story. However, if the movie is based on the script of another movie, it will be monotonous and boring.

A good movie contains an interesting script. An interesting script is built on suspense, excitement and twists. However, the storyline should be kept simple by focusing on the main character, one relationship or idea (Zhanf, 2019). Otherwise, the inclusion of many things within a single movie will make it complex and un-interesting.

A good movie should be true to life. This element is not for all movies. However, most viewers prefer those movies that appear to be realistic. Therefore, movies with realistic scenes tend to be good movies.

A good movie should have good pacing. Events in the movie should not be too slow as they become boring or too fast making the viewer unable to follow.

Visual beauty. The quality of a movie makes it beautiful and attractive to the viewers. Visual beauty will include things like contrasts, colours, angle of the camera e.t.c. All these are elements of a good movie.

Steps in achieving a good movie

We all watch movies on the screen, but few of us have an idea of how to make a movie. Achieving a good movie requires nine steps, as discussed below.

1. Writing the scripture

Every movie starts by writing down the idea, which is the storyline of the movie in a piece of paper. Writing the scripture is usually the least part of the movie-making process but very essential part (Akbar, 2019). One may choose to develop his/her movie based on a book. However, this has a lot of issue due to different interpretations of the book by different people. Therefore, writing an original script is the best way to achieve a successful movie.

2. Review the behind-the-scene of the movie

Developing a complete movie and realizing it to the market without a review of the footage will be difficult. Therefore, the next step in making a good movie is to review the footage of the movie. Get enough resources from YouTube-like interviews of experienced Hollywood producers and learn from them. From here, you can go on, and budget for you’re the movie.

3. Budget

After writing your script and feel contented with it, you can move forward and budget for the movie. A clear budget is based on the source of funding and the available funds available. After realizing the source of funding, make sure the budget includes all the costs starting from the location of the shooting and also cast crew (Akbar, 2019). Also, pay attention to small things like transport, catering, and props as they end up being essential in the budget. Therefore, having a detailed in pre-production is essential to help remain on target, which is to develop a great movie.

4. Plan

Planning is very essential in movie production. Plan for where the movie will be shoot, get accessibility and permission. Plan for cast actors, and all crew members that will be required. List all shooting equipment needed. After planning and setting all these in order, schedule for the time when a certain scene will be shoot. Plan for a storyboard that will keep the shooting process on track.

5. Pick the right people to work with

To make a quality movie, have the right to work with who are willing to bring the needed energy in making a great movie. Hire actors who are experienced and in the range of your budget.

6. Inquire from Pros in case of difficult

No one knows everything. Therefore, inquire from experienced people in the industry. The coaching you will get will be essential to use even in future.

7. Focus on sound

A good movie is based on the quality of the voicing and the sound. Carry out a preliminary sound test to ensure the voicing and sound are good.

8. Screening

First, you want your movie to be watched internationally. Achieving this isn’t that simple, so it requires proper planning. Therefore, screening is important as it gives your audience what they expect of the movie (Zhanf, 2019). It’s at this point that you will determine if your movie is quality. If it receives a good reception, go ahead and shoot. If the reception is not big, drop that movie and plan for another to avoid losses.

9. Carry out the shooting

The final stage is on shooting the movie. After completing all other steps and declare everything set to shoot, go out and shoot your movie.

The movie industry has continued to grow since the 19^th century. People have turned to movies as their source of entertainment. Others get inspiration from watching movies. Due to varying preferences, movie industries need to develop videos of a different kind to serve all viewers who have varying tastes. To achieve this, the producer needs to develop a great movie. To develop a great movie, it requires choosing the right plot, script, theme, and characters. Great movies have elements that make them great. Some of these elements include originality, a good script, and a simple plot, among others. Achieving a great movie, several essential steps are followed to achieve this. These steps need to be strictly followed throughout the movie production process. Additionally, to avoid boring your viewers, consider following this research paper as it is a great resource in making a great movie.

References

Anderson, R., & O’Connor, B. (2016). What Makes a Movie. Proceedings from the Document Academy, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.35492/docam/3/1/3

Akbar, M. A., Rante, H., Damastuti, F. A., & Pramadihanto, D. (2018, October). Making Short Movie using 3D Professional Camera. In 2018 International Electronics Symposium on Knowledge Creation and Intelligent Computing (IES-KCIC) (pp. 133-138). IEEE.

Liu, S., Lv, J., Hou, Y., Shoemaker, T., Dong, Q., Li, K., & Liu, T. (2016, October). What Makes a Good Movie Trailer? Interpretation from Simultaneous EEG and Eyetracker Recording. In Proceedings of the 24th ACM international conference on Multimedia (pp. 82-86).

Peterson, A. (2018). History at the Cinema: A Guide for the Movie-Going History Student. The History Teacher, 7(1), 79. https://doi.org/10.2307/491206

Weiss, A. (2018). 21st Century Film Criticism: The Evolution of Film Criticism from Professional Intellectual Analysis to a Democratic Phenomenon.

Zhang, L. (2019, December). The Visual Elements in Film Poster Design Based on Photoshop. In International conference on Big Data Analytics for Cyber-Physical-Systems (pp. 1620-1625). Springer, Singapore.

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