The Complexity of Film

Art is a tricky thing. It can be both the end result of a meticulously detailed process or a work of near happenstance. A complex web of interconnected disciplines or the random smattering of colors against a white wall. The gulf is both infinite and yet still undefinable. And while the question of what art IS might be impossible to answer with any level of certainty, it is likewise impossible to deny that certain disciplines require a greater level of investment, in both terms of time and energy, from a greater number of professionals, than others.

Moreover, I would argue that the medium of film (or, more broadly, moving visual media) might well be the most singularly complex art form ever devised.

What this isn’t

I first want to make it clear what I am NOT saying. I’m not saying that any one form of art is more important, more valuable, more creative, more expressive, or more meaningful than any other. I am also not saying that any given medium or final work requires any less skill, persistence, vision, or talent than any other. All forms of art – from music, to visual, to physical – are the culmination of a myriad of factors both small and large. Each represents an important part of the human condition and each has a rightful place amongst our collective imaginations.

In short: I’m not saying that ANY form of art is better than another.

Now that I’ve explained what I’m NOT saying, I shall tackle the topic of what I AM saying…

A Spider’s Web

                Visual media in all its forms (animation, live-action, movies, television, shorts, mini-series, documentaries, etc; hereafter referred to as ‘film’ for simplicity’s sake) is a vastly complex combination of a thousand different disciplines. Even in its most basic forms, it still requires artistry and talent from a vast array of fields of study. From cinematography to set design, editing to lighting, writing to music – the list is seemingly endless, even on the low end.

Each one of these forms of art requires its own skill set, training, and due diligence. Like a masterful game of JENGA, each one relies on the others to support it, as well as to maintain the overall structure of the final film. As the old adage goes, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

This is an unquestionably true statement in regards film.

A film can exceed in all categories but one and still falter. It can have the most breathtaking visuals imaginable and be hampered by poor sound. It can have the best writing ever put to page and sink under the weight of poor performances. It can wrestle with the mightiest ideas and founder to horrible effects.

As such, like a well-oiled engine, a film must demand excellence in all categories in order to ensure even the slightest chance of success. Drop the ball on even one of these and you doom the final product to a life of mediocrity at best and complete anonymity at worst – lost to the sands of time, never to be seen again.

So, in light of all this, I thought it might be interesting to take a moment to remark (briefly, given the depth of the subject matter) upon many of the nigh-infinite disciplines that each all help build the artistic scaffolding of the medium of film (being well aware that I will only have occasion to mention a fraction of the totality).

Pre-Production Art Forms

Long before the first frame of a film is ever recorded, there are a limitless host of talents that will need to be employed:

Imagination: Perhaps the most ethereal of all the items mentioned on this list, it is no less important. It is the foundation of every great story and, in truth, of all forms of artistic expression.

Writing: While it might seem obvious, no story of any medium (save oral traditions) truly exists outside of an intangible idea until it is written down. It is in this stage when the vagaries of possibility coalesce into the structural certainty of the written word. The characters find their voices and the descriptions of the action and setting are expressed in such a way that others besides the author might see them in their own minds. If imagination is the foundation of all art, in film, the written word is the water that binds together the loose ingredients into a solid whole.

Storyboarding: This particular art form can be a mixture of many others: 2D art (aka. drawing), digital art, 3D modeling, collaging, etc. In essence, however, the artistry in storyboarding comes from the intention of visually representing the story in a way that helps determine the desired shots and angles. What is in the frame? What is it doing? How is it composed? These basic questions all feed into the eventual storyboards, effectively allowing the artist to make the important creative decisions ahead of time, such that they can be planned for and scheduled.

Animatic Creation: Kind of like storyboarding on steroids. Instead of representing the eventual film with static images, it (or parts of it) is now represented by moving visuals that may or may not have sound. It allows artists to even more clearly display and determine the shots they are hoping to achieve. Moreover, it can also help to more acutely determine something impossible for the static images of mere storyboards – time. In this way, it allows the artist to test the pacing of a film or sequence to further nail down the desired outcome.

Art design: While easily subdivided into a myriad of other categories such as prop design, set design, wardrobe design, makeup and hair, etc., the effective final result is the same. This coalescence of talents exists to nail down the visual look of the things that appear on the screen. What does the room look like? What’s in it? How does the character look? There are so many decisions that need to be made here – all of which are interconnected to form the cohesive whole of the look of the film – that it is nearly impossible to overstate their legion. Each is unique and each is a world in and of itself.

Equipment Selection: While not an art in the traditional means, selecting the right equipment for crafting a film is just as important an aspect. The camera and lenses used each give a different look and have a different use, both practically and aesthetically. The same goes for rigs, filters, dollys, cranes, and more. This also includes all sound equipment – what type of mic, placed where, and for what purpose. What format will it be shot on? In what program will it be edited? A million and one separate decisions all have to come together to determine the very means by which the story will be transcribed into the visual and auditory mediums.

Locations and Sets: The utmost care must be placed on finding the appropriate settings in which the characters will live. Locations must not only look the part, but they must be practical – can they fit the number of characters, and do they allow for the necessary movement, both of them and the camera? What about room for the crew? Proper acoustics (i.e. no loud or distracting sounds that would ruin audio)? And if a location cannot be found (itself a long and arduous process of sifting through the sands of potentialities), it must then be built in the form of a set. Men and women must physically assemble and create these spaces from scratch, bringing about not just the physicality but the artistry and look.

Scheduling: When and where does everyone meet? Who needs to be there? For how long? Which shots will be taken and what props, wardrobe, and equipment will be needed? Juggling all these questions – and so many, many more – takes a degree of wizardry and more time than most would like to imagine. Like assembling a jigsaw puzzle in a moving car with half the pieces upside down. Miss just one facet and an important scene might be missed or costs could overrun. And this is all putting aside the unforeseen possibilities such as inclement weather, illnesses, disasters, or just bad luck. When (not if) any of these occur, the alchemy of scheduling must be adjusted and adopted on the fly once more.

Budgeting: The other side of the twin medallion of Scheduling, creating the budget for the film is the engine that helps ensure the production has all it needs to properly tell the story. It drives decisions both practical and creative. Who can be hired? At what rate? For how long? What music can be used? Where can you shoot? How many effects can you do? What equipment can you use? How many days do you have to film? Each and every decision of the film hinges on having a properly crafted budget to allow for getting the necessary images.

Casting: The best story in the world is a lifeless heap of words until an actor (voice, motion capture, or live-action) breathes life into them. Countless books have been written that only scratch the surface on what it means to create and inhabit a character, written by those far more knowledgeable in the craft than myself. As such, I’ll merely state the obvious: choosing which actor is best suited for each role is a critical component to bringing a film to life. What is Harry Potter without Daniel Radcliffe? Gollum without Andy Serkis? Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford? These actors do not just appear out of nowhere – they must be found and brought to the project.

The list goes on…

But, in the interest of some semblance of brevity, I’ll cut it here and move on to the next phase:

Production Artistry

Like pre-production, production is a bevy of skills, talents, and arts that all culminate in what you finally see on screen. As above, this will be far from an exhaustive list:

Cinematography: What does the final image on screen look like? How is it composed? What is in focus and what is not? How does the camera move? What is the color pallet? These questions and more are all answered in the placement of both the camera itself and of what lies in front of it. Like most of these topics, entire tombs can and have been written on this art form. Suffice to say, this is a make-or-break aspect that can either immortalize your film or damn it to be forgotten. Above all, beyond being pretty, the camera must aid in telling the story. It must evoke emotion. It must serve the greater good. To do anything else is to betray both the script, the characters, and the audience.

Lighting: Hand in hand with the above, an infinite amount of decisions have to be made on how to light the scene. What is the mood? The tone? Where and how should the lights be placed for maximum effect? What kind of lights? How much diffusion? What colors? The mind boggles at how much skill and expertise are needed to make every frame a painting, using light as the brushstroke.

Acting: While touched on above, talented men and women will have to block out the set and world around them, forget who they are, and inhabit the skin of another. They must connect emotionally and deeply, usually out of chronological order, with the trials and tribulations of a fictional character. They must mine the depths of themselves and interact with both their fellow actors and the truth of the story. Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Craft Services: Just as an Army marches on its stomach, so too does a film set. Making sure that everyone is fed and comfortable is a must to create an environment inductive of artistry. Not just selecting the food (which must vary every day), but transporting it, serving it, keeping it warm/cold, and preparing and cleaning the space – all these and more must be done on a daily basis. Failure to do so can and will bring an entire production to its knees… plus, it needs to be tasty. 😉

Stunts: If a story call for actions that could be dangerous to the primary leads, professionals must step in and take the proverbial (and literal) hits. Individuals with the proper training must design and safely implement the impossible – doing dangerous activities in the most controlled way possible. They put their bodies on the line to service the story while protecting others.

Equipment Setup and Takedown: Cameras, microphones, cords, stands, lights, props, chairs, tripods, cameras, rigging, monitors, and literally ANYTHING ELSE a production might ever use has be transported to set and moved between each and every shot. Depending on the scale of the production, this could be anything from a few items to an ocean of equipment. All of it must be properly and carefully transported and placed or stored just so. The sheer muscle mass and time required for even a modest setup is staggering.

Special Effects: Not only do people need to design and implement complex practical effects – things from green screens, explosions, animatronics, gore, prosthetics, miniatures, and so much more –, they also need to also plan and light for computer-generated effects that will be implemented later. Is there room for the creature in the frame? Does the blood or makeup match from take to take? Did you get the proper angles and measurements for the compositing? Are the wires hidden? The possibilities here are so boundless as to be unnamable. Suffice to say, in many modern films, the sheer numbers and creativity included under the umbrella of special effects are more like an Army within an Army.

Sound: Sure, your movie might be pretty, but no one is going to care if the sound is bad. Muffled dialogue, scratchy mics, distracting sounds, loud or whispered dialogue – any one of these and a million other things can immediately and irreparably break immersion. While the old adage might say that sound is 50% of your film, that number skews way higher when there’s dialogue involved… WAY higher.

Makeup and Hair: While decisions about this topic need to be made well in advance, there must then be someone (or a team of someone’s, depending on the scale of the production) to actually implement this vision. It takes not only speed and timeliness, but the ability to paint a living work of art that remains consistent across weeks if not months (or, alternately, that changes in subtle and grandiose ways to service the story being told).

Directing: With a million things to manage, the director is the captain that steers the ship of the film. But perhaps equally as important as helming the general tone and look of the film across all aspects, it is the job of the director to communicate and work with the actors to help find the performances that will bring the characters to life. He or she can help them find the voice or the emotion that might be needed at that moment or to find ways to make the sequence play out even more truthfully or believably. Their job is to DIRECT the flow of the story and ensure that the power of the words on the page finds its way to the screen.

And, as above, this list could go on and on. But, for the sake of brevity, I’ll end it here.

Post-Production Art Forms

While many might think the heavy lifting is over once the film is shot, nothing could be further from the truth. While the images might have been captured, there is still a long way to go – and many talents needed – before they comprise a finished work of art.

Editing: Quite simply, editing is taking the (usually hundreds of hours of) footage and scouring it for the best possible takes, angles, shots, line readings, etc., and putting them in order to tell the story in the most effective and efficient way possible. It is quite literally building the film, piece by piece, out of a veritable puzzle box of potentialities. It takes patience, skill, knowledge, vision, a trained eye, and so many other incredible properties to perform that it boggles the mind. But it hardly happens in isolation – the editor must work with the director, the sound mixer, the VFX department, the colorist, and so many more – each operating independently and in tandem. Speaking of…

Sound Mixing and Design: Just as the visuals of a film are a complex and layered series of images set to pace, so too are the sounds. Everything from the music to footsteps to the hum of a non-existent laser sword. Each of these must work with one another to form a cohesive whole. They must be distinct and yet they must not fight for attention. Each must be perfectly placed to add depth, realism, and emotional complexity to the film.

Scoring: The film’s music, or score, is an incredibly important part of the formula for telling an effective story. Where and when should it be placed, what instruments should be used, what emotion is it trying to heighten or evoke? These questions and countless others all have to be answered by the composer. They must then actually compose the music for the page and find artists capable of bringing it to life. It may be something as simple as a solo guitar or as complex as a full orchestra – or anything in between. And just as important as what music IS there is what music ISN’T there. When should you hold back and let the setting or characters speak for themselves?  When do you enhance it? These artistic decisions can only be made from a trained ear that uses their knowledge to craft a wholly unique and engaging auditory journey.

Coloring: While it’s true that most films shot today are done so in color by default, much of the visual pop and flair that comes from the scene is enhanced in post. Colors are made richer or more washed out. Depth is added to the blacks. Disparate elements are blended together by similar color profiles or light waves. The colorist looks at the frames they are given and helps mold them into a cohesive whole – weeks if not months of shooting are meticulously adjusted to match one another as if they all happened sequentially. Different rooms or moments are lit differently to evoke or enhance the desired emotion. If every frame is a painting, the colorist holds the color wheel.

VFX: All the more common in modern films, for better or worse and for a variety of reasons and uses, are computer-aided or generated visual effects. This can be anything from composting green screen footage to puppeting and modeling a dinosaur that has long been extinct.  It can take us to distant worlds or simply out the window. (Or, in other cases, remove a coffee cup.) This “single” subject contains within it an ocean of different disciplines, skill sets, and talents, such that any small approximation I give here would only do them all a disservice. Suffice to say, lifetimes could be spent attempting to master even a fraction of the aspects that go into crafting visual effects for film. It is – in truth – near wizardly and wholly impressive what these artists can create.

Subtitles: While it might seem an afterthought, each and every film made that hopes to have distribution on a stage larger than YouTube has a massive list of deliverables they must meet – things which must be included along with the final film to be considered complete. A full list of all subtitles, each coded to their specific time of appearance within the film, is one of them. Lists of all relevant sounds heard on-screen or of every word spoken must be compiled such that the eventual audience can, at the push of a button, be able to follow along with the film, soundlessly.

Titles and Credits: Yes, the long list of names at the beginning and end of each film needs to be created. Not only does every person need to be included, but their names and titles also need to be spelled correctly. Then, one must consider not only the speed and placement of these titles but what sort of artistic embellishment (if any) might need to be added. While not sexy, this part of the process is nonetheless important and necessary.

Conclusion

While FAR from exhaustive, the above list is hopefully able to give an idea of the sheer expanse of talents, skills, time, effort, and people that go into making just a single film. It is a monstrous undertaking, fraught with limitless ways for things to go wrong. Each of the hundreds of disciplines must work together in concert to create something bigger than any single element. To craft a believable world filled with characters that you empathize with and enjoy. To share a part of the human experience in a unique and intimate way. To be transported to a world that is not your own, if only for as long as the images dance across the screen.

Film is, in many ways, the most collaborative art form ever devised. A collation of the essence of nearly every other art form, brought together by tons of talented artists, each with their own skill set and expertise, and all working together under one unified vision and goal. A veritable tower of cards, potentially brought down by any single weakness, each aspect wholly reliant on all the others.

All this, just for a CHANCE at telling a story that resonates with audiences.

But beyond that, art, in general, is complex. The way it makes us feel. The methods it uses to achieve these goals. It takes an understanding of not just storytelling, but of emotion. Of Humanity. Of the ability to truly connect a sometimes singularly unique and personal experience with others by finding the universality of it. By being able to express it. By being vulnerable. By being willing to be SEEN.

So, given all the above, I feel that it is safe to say that film stands tall as perhaps one of – if not THE – the most complex art form of all time. A testament to the gathering of singular artists, from all manner of disciplines, pooling their talents in service of something greater than any one of them. Taking the risk of not only relying on their own skills but of those of everyone around them. The humility of realizing and embracing the fact that they CAN’T do it alone. That just as art is communal in its appreciation, so too must it be in its creation… at least in film.

And therein lies the complexity.

Therein lies the beauty.