I. Love. Stories.
And I’ve always loved them. Ever since I was a little kid, I would read countless books since it was my only real way of escaping reality. That new, thrilling experience of entering a new world of monsters, gods, wizards, was always just so enrapturing. As time went on, I discovered new mediums of storytelling that I learned to greatly appreciate: visual arts, theater, video games, and of course, cinema. Out of all of these different mediums I’ve always found that I was most drawn to the world of film. But why so?
Well, for starters, I’ve always been a visual person. Even through my bookworm phase, I’d always be on the lookout for fanart and movie adaptations of my favorite franchises to help me visualize the characters or the world. And movies, well, provided that. Some people prefer the freedom of imagining whatever they want to visualize in their head, but I find it much nicer to see everything in front of me. Not to mention that film is open to many visual mediums, such as animation. From everything to color, composition, cinematography, special effects, films have always managed to prove that telling a story through a visual medium is not only beautiful, but impactful.
But the thing with film is that it’s just not the visual aspects. There’s sound design, score, acting, screenplay, editing; all of these different parts coming together to make one beautiful piece of artwork is just amazing to see. The amount of work that goes into a movie is astounding, no matter what the outcome is. That’s why I think film is so special to me. Little details like aspect ratios or camera angles can all contribute to how the story is being portrayed. The creativity and choices that people in the film industry have can be used to breathe one simple script into life.
Of course, not all stories necessarily fit into the film medium. As I mentioned before, there are so many options and ways to tell a story, and sometimes only one fits the narrative. That’s why many book-to-movie or animation to live-action adaptations are heavily criticized. It’s hard to transfer one story to a different medium, and more often than not, a story can only be told in one way. That’s why it’s so jarring to see these beloved series, novels, and movies become tarnished just from presenting it in a different format. This doesn’t necessarily mean that books are always better than movies; it simply means that some stories are much more well presented in a certain medium over another one.
Exploring the world of cinema has always been a special thing to me. Of course, this is all purely opinion-based, but I’m certain that many people can relate to me. This balance between entertainment and art has always been hard to get, but film opens up new possibilities of effectively using different tools to tell a narrative. Falling in love with cinema has allowed me to analyze and look further into the realm of storytelling; all while going ‘off the script’.