§ RESOURCES / TOPICS / Thematic Question
Thematic Question
Every episode covering Thematic Question.
"What is the point of all of this? And she can’t quite answer it. And to me, that’s why you would want to do these techniques is because you don’t want to be misunderstood."
— Stu Willis | DZ-113: Tools For Filmmakers To Talk To The Audience
DZ-113: Tools For Filmmakers To Talk To The Audience
What tools help ensure that you as the filmmaker are not misunderstood?
AI✦The episode’s central question--what tools help ensure you as the filmmaker are not misunderstood--operates as a thematic throughline uniting how ADAPTATION, STORIES WE TELL, and THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION each answer it differently.✦
Listen if you want to explore how you can make your creative hand visible through meta-storytelling and structural choices!?!
▶ More Info
In our final (ha!) episode looking at Talking Directly to the Audience, we turn away from character-and-text based craft tools to look at other ways that filmmakers - whether they be directors, writers, editors, or anyone else - can make the audience feel their ‘hand’ more. To that end, Mel, Stu and Chas dive into ADAPTATION, STORIES WE TELL and THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION… →
DZ-119: Final Character Choices & Great Endings
How do you dramatise a protagonist's internal journey through their final decision?
AI✦When Stu says theme questions are character questions, he’s showing you how Michael Clayton and Promising Young Woman both withhold the moment of choice from the audience to make a thematic point resonate more than the plot mechanics.✦
Listen if you want to understand how to better dramatise a character's internal journey
▶ More Info
In this episode, Stu and Chas focus solely on the final choices made by protagonists and how that reflects their character journey and successfully, or not, dramatises the internal… →
Films:
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
, Finding Nemo (2003)
, Michael Clayton (2007)
, Promising Young Woman (2020)
, Talk to Me (2022)