I’ve been thinking a bit more of my notion that all art forms are basically about creating and relieving drama (or tension as some call it.) It strikes me that film is an interesting art form to examine as it really is a combination of different art forms. Film uses storytelling, dialogue, music, framing and various other devices. To really build drame well, all these tools need to work in concert.

For example, let’s say we wanted to write a movie scene that captured a sense of mystery. Here’s some bad dialogue.

Bob: What was that sound?
Mary: Huh… I dunno, I didn’t hear anything. It’s probably the neighbor’s cat. He always prowls around when I leave food outside and I did this morning.

Bob: Oh, ok.

Much better would be something like…

Bob: What was that sound?
Mary: You heard it too? It sounded like it was coming from inside the walls. But that’s impossible… Isn’t it?

But film can’t just stop at dialogue. The music needs to be spooky too. If some Katie Perry song is playing in the background it deflates the mood. You need some creepy, Bernard Herrmann-esque chords to amp up the tension.

And the framing of the camera comes into play. If the camera just positions the characters in the middle of the frame… BORING! The camera should shift uneasily, like the view of a person itching to make a break for it.

You could say that in all these art forms a language has arisen than communicates a mood such as suspense. But, just as with spoken language, repetition becomes cliche. Certain music sounds creepy but corny. So artists have to be always experimenting to find the new thing that audiences will find novel and exciting.

Thus I have spoken.