Writing the Non-Dialogue Film: In Class Exercise

The number one rule of writing a short film: K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple, Stupid!

In our class exercise we have been focusing on three points so far: Character, Objective and Obstacle.  One of the clear points I've noticed is that we have a tendency to be a bit too abstract with our ideas, and our characters often have far to lofty goals.

We have learnt that our characters' objectives should be short term, tangible and well defined.  They can have larger, long term goals as part of their character but these aren't what we would be dealing with in a short film.  

The Obstacle can be quite broad and a character might have more than one obstacle to face.  It could be an antagonist, a physical obstacle, time etc.  The point here though is that the obstacle shouldn't be too abstract.   

Figure 1: Obstacles. Retrieved from http://www.brittanytrubridge.com

Another point we touched upon in class is plausibility.  This is where a lot of concepts needed reworking, as ultimately whatever problems and solutions occur in a film they should be logical as per the rules of setting.  In a short film there isn't a lot of time to establish rules that are very different from the expectations that an audience would already have.  If something looks to be set in our world, but has a different set of rules that haven't been communicated to the audience, chances are that they will question the logic of the film.

While I've watched heaps of non-dialogue short films I was struggling to think of any that weren't either animated or mixed media.  In fact all I could think of was the Mr Bean TV series!


 
Ok, so technically there is usually some dialogue in Mr Bean skits but I would argue that it really isn't necessary.  This particular skit is a pretty good example of some of the concepts we have been going over in class.

Mr Bean has a really clear objective: To shorten the time he spends in the waiting room of the hospital by stealing other patients' spots in the queue.

Initially his obstacle is quite abstract, all the patients in the line before him are obstacles to his initial goal of not having to wait.  But Mr Bean finds a more clearly defined obstacle in a particular patient who is seated next to him in a wheelchair and the two of them fall into an antagonist/protagonist relationship.

Something else we spoke about in class that also ties in well to many Mr Bean skits is the idea of 'just desserts'.  In this skit Mr Bean behaves horribly but doesn't normally get the last laugh.

Anyway because I've been drawing blank on any non-dialogue films I figure I have a fair bit of research to do.  So I'm going to be spending some time hunting down some better examples! Watch this space.