Who has the last word

Coming from a theatrical background, I tend to visualise a script in the form of a play, with the audience well back from the action and players and surroundings seen in the round with their thoughts and feelings conveyed by dialogue, movement and gesture which is visible and audible at a distance.

With our last 'film in an evening', which Vicky Jackson directed whilst I wrote the script, I came to realise two truths. Firstly, video is not theatre; and secondly, when it comes to filming, time is short and the director must have the last word so to shape the story as he or she sees fit.

Film or video, particularly, is an intrusive close up medium. Emotions which when seen onstage may need actors to give anguished speeches wave arms etc can be conveyed in a film by close up. The twitching left nostril or eyebrow, the tapping foot, the drumming fingers or even a swelling stomach, all supported by suitable sound effects, are just as effective. I managed to keep silent during our shooting session, though I admit to having to 'bite my tongue' at times.

When a film comes to be edited by computer-aided equipment available today, the whole nature of the film can be changed. Shots can be lengthened, shortened or transposed, sound track can be added or moved relative to the picture and even the plot can be modified. It is as if the original film was just a collection of raw material waiting to be re-crafted into the way the editor sees it. That is where the last word is.

If the scriptwriter/Director/Editor are one and the same, well and good (apart from the risk of schizophrenia), but where they are three different persons, then at the first showing of the finished film at least two will be 'biting their tongues' and thinking 'we must keep silent - we can't face doing that all over again', while the third will be rejoicing in the Ultimate Mastery of the Complexity of the Technology. THE LAST WORD!

Ken Mackay