What makes a movie great?

Introduction

I decided to ask this question because I am such a huge movie fan! I love watching movies and every time I watch a movie I critique it in my mind. I think about the plot, the acting, the special effects, the script and so on. I collect movies and I have about 300 DVD´s at home so you could say I´m quite the fan. Movies have always interested me because they can make you feel like you´re a part of something, they can totally suck you in and I love that! I have always been able to get completely lost in a really good movie, but not all movies are great in fact some are really bad. So the question is what makes a movie, is it the director, the actors, the script, the plot, the special effects, what is it? 

Every time someone asks me; what´s your favourite movie? I have never really been able to make up my mind because there are so many great ones out there. So I have decided to try and find out what makes a movie great and if maybe the world has decided on one movie that exceeds all others! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Chapter 1; Directors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does it matter who directs the movie? Does it matter whether James Cameron is directing the movie or a man who just graduated from film school and has no experience? You would think so, but that´s not always the case. 

When looking at the IMBd top 250 movies of all time I see that the highest rated movie is "The Shawshank Redemption", the movie came out in 1994 and was an instant hit. The man who directed the movie is Frank Darabont and before directing it in ´94, he hadn´t had a lot of experience or won any awards. He had directed two TV films before Shawshank and they hadn´t gotten very high ratings so The Shawshank Redemption was his first hit movie and with that movie he made his mark on Hollywood. Five years later he directed another huge hit, "The Green Mile", which also made quite a mark on the movie industry in Hollywood. So it would seem that in Frank´s case it didn´t matter though he hadn´t had any previous hits before The Shawshank Redemption, he still managed to land at the top of the list!

Then there are other directors that seem to do no wrong, like James Cameron the director/writer of "Avatar", who also directed movies like "Terminator 1 and 2", "Aliens", "Titanic" and "True Lies". All those movies were very successful at the box office and received many awards. James Cameron is a true pioneer when it comes to film making. But he also advertises himself and his movies very well, which could have a lot to do with his success. James is not only a director he is a writer and producer as well, which is another thing that may give him a little advantage over the other people in the business.

So when it comes to making a good movie the director is very important, because his overall opinion is going to be everywhere in the movie. After all the director is the one who controls the scenes and has the important job of deciding how the movie looks. But it doesn´t seem to matter whether you have a lot of experience or success with your previous projects, when it comes to finding out whether your future projects will succeed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Capter 2 ; Actors 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do the actors in the movie make it good? Does it matter who you cast in the roles and how they portray that character or can an average joe just step in and do whatever they want with the role?

Looking at the same list on IMDb, I can already see that most of the films that rank high have very famous actors playing the lead roles. The first movie on the list is of course "The Shawshank Redemption", where Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins portrayed two very powerful characters. The movie as said before was a huge hit and was nominated for seven academy awards. The second film on the list is "The Godfather" which ofcourse has amazing actors like Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and James Caan playing the leads. As the list goes on and you look at the filmography and learn more about the films you find out that most of the films there have very famous actors in them like John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Liam Neeson, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and plenty more. So it would seem that it truly matters who´s playing the lead in how well the movie turns out. 

Adding my personal opinion to the bunch, it matters a lot to me who´s playing the lead in a movie I watch. One of my all time favourite movies is "Girl Interrupted" and Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder play the leads and I couldn´t imagine anyone else playing the leads in that film because to me Angelina´s portrayal of a sociopath completely makes the movie for me. If it wasn´t for her I´m not so sure that it would be my favourite movie. It´s also so important how the actor experiences the character they´re going to be playing, if the actor doesn´t connect with the role it´s very likely the acting isn´t going to be as good as it could be. 

Another thing that´s important in making a good movie is who you cast and if they can actually act. I hate going to the movies after seeing a trailer that looks pretty good. Then I sit down and the script is good, the dialouge is good, the scenes are good, everything is good but the acting is horrible and you don´t buy anything that´s going on because you can actually see that the actor doesn´t connect with the role or understand the depth of it. That completely ruins a good movie for me, so in my opinion choosing the right actors makes a huge difference in making a good movie and it would seem like the public agrees. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3 ; Script/Dialog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every time I go see a movie I really tend to focus a lot on the script and the dialog. It´s very important to me that those two things are as close to perfection as possible and I really hope that´s the case with other people as well. Because when you think about it, writing a script is the first thing you do when you make a movie. The script is what the movie is based on, whether it´s in the form of a book or a poem to begin with, it always turns into a script which then turns into a movie that a lot of people will pay a lot of money to go see (if it´s any good, that is).

A person writing a script has a lot of power in their hands, they´re writing dialog that people could be quoting for years to come, I mean who doesn´t remember the line "Nobody puts Baby in a corner", from Dirty Dancing or the short and simple line "I´ll be back" from the Terminator. Those lines have become epic and in a way the scripts to those movies have as well, but it isn´t all about lines or quotes that you can use in your daily life or that make you laugh when you think about them, it´s also about dialog that you can relate to, dialog that´s made an impact on you and that may help you in the time of need, like this line from The Pursuit of Happiness "You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period." Whoever wrote that line had the power to really get a message out there to everybody watching that movie and that´s really powerful to me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When looking at the top 250 best movies of all time according to the internet movie database, I can see that the most popular movies on there are movies that had really good scripts and carefully thought of dialog behind them. On that list there are movies like "The Godfather", "Schindler´s List", "Pulp Fiction", "Fight Club" and "Seven", I´ve seen all of those movies and I know a lot of people have as well and I can honestly say that the script never got boring and the dialog was always very interesting, I also never thought "Nobody would ever say something like that in real life" or "No one talks like that". Those two statements are very important, because I don´t want to go see a movie that´s supposed to happen in the time I live in and have the dialog be completely different from the way people actually speak! That doesn´t make sense to me, I want the dialog to be powerful but also to be something that ordinary people could say and sound like something I could hear when listening to someone´s conversation. Dialog is not supposed to be fake unless you´re making a movie that either happens in the future, in space or on another planet. 

A script is what makes a movie, a script is a very important part of a movie and so is the dialog. The script makes the movie what it is, therefore it makes it GREAT! 

 

Chapter 4 ; Plot/Special Effects

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In some movies special effects have a lot to do with the script, the story and the overall outcome of the movie. The first movie that I can think of that just wouldn´t be the same if it didn´t have such brilliant special effects and CGI is Transformers. Those movies are based on mechanical beings trying to protect us humans, ofcourse those robots aren´t real so they have to be made using a lot of technology. Here is a scene from the movie, just in case you missed it;

 

 

 

That clip is of the most amazing special effects I´ve ever seen! The fact that all of those robots and machines are brought to life with the use of a computer, it completely blows my mind. Special effects are mostly used in the making of films that have something to do with things that aren´t real or simply can´t be made using live objects, there CGI comes in and really does it´s job. To make things that aren´t real, seem as if they were.

Special effects are not used in every single film that is made, romantic comedies or rom-com´s don´t need special effects like that. They´re mostly used in films like Transformers and Constantine, that´s another favourite of mine, special effects are used there very well in creating demons and angels that ofcourse don´t exist in real life. Special effects make movies like that come to life, they make them seem ordinary and make everything our imagination holds real. And if you think about it, being able to bring your imagination to life is pretty remarkable. 

Here are a few clips from the movie Constantine, that show the special effects in the film very well;

 

In my opinion special effects make some movies great, I mean if Transformers didn´t have such amazing special effects would it have gotten such great ratings, would people really want to see a movie that´s mostly about robots if they weren´t as spectacular as they are in those movies? I don´t think so, if they had just been drawn or been made improperly they wouldn´t have become so popular. So in some cases CGI is needed to make the film one of kind and GREAT, but in others it makes no difference. 

 

Chapter 5 ; Interview

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My interview is with Hákon Már Oddsson, he teaches several film courses in Borgó. I am in one of his classes right know and have been before and I can say for sure that when it comes to movies, he certainly knows what he´s talking about. I asked him what he thought made a movie truly great and he said that from the moment he starts watching a movie he gets a feeling about whether it will be good or not. He says his gut feeling is usually right, but sometimes things that started off very badly become better as the film progresses or the other way around, things that looked good to begin with turn out as something awful. Hákon says that what really matters to him and what he focuses on when he watches a film is the mood, editing, the music, lighting and the course of events. He also says that when watching a good movie, the movie has that certain x-factor that pulls you in, he can´t exactly pin point what that thing is though but he says you just feel it. 

He said that the question I was asking him was not an easy one to answer, because there are so many factors that make a movie great! The answer to the question also has a lot to do with aesthetics which is a whole factor all on it´s own. He says that there´s no absolute answer to the question because everyone has their own taste in movies and love different movie genres. It depends on the movie background you come from what matters to you when watching a movie. He says he hasn´t really given all of this much thought before, but he has trusted his instincts which have gotten him by so far. 

 

Chapter 6 ; Conclusion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 What makes a movie great? That´s a pretty big question I suppose, maybe even a bigger one than I realized, but in my opinion there are a lot of things that make a movie great and the internet seems to agree with me. It would seem like the thing that matters the most is the script, it makes the movie because it´s the starting point, it´s what everything else is based on. If the script is bad there´s a pretty good possibility that the movie will be as well. The director also makes a very huge difference because people will obey everything that he says, he makes the final call over every aspect of the movie. He has to decide what´s best for the movie, what looks good and what doesn´t, therefore he has a lot to do with the overall outcome of the movie so if the director is bad the movie will be as well. 

You could say that the scriptand the director are the personality of the movie and the actors, specialeffects,lighting, music and other things are the outer beauty, the things thatmake the movie look good to the viewers. When looking at a movie like that,like a person, you realize that the personality (script, director) is veryimportant in order to be able to enjoy the story the movie is telling but youcan´t forget that the outer appearance (actors,lighting, music, CGI) is alsovery important because it can be more fun watching something that looks good aswell. 

In looking at all the points I made inthe beginning of this website it would seem that all the things I listed areimportant if you´re going to make a great movie and if you´re a movie-makerthat wants to make a great movie you will have to begin with making sure thatall the things listed are great, if you do so then there´s a very bigpossibility you´re movie will be a hit!  

 

 Chapter 7 ; Vocabulary 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plot; Is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story.

CGI; Computer Generated Imagery; The application of the field of computer graphics.

Script; Is like the structure of a movie, the plan that needs to be followed in order to make the movie.

Ratings; A rating is the evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality.

Box office; Is a place where tickets are sold. Sometimes the term "Box office gold" is used when talking about how good a movie did in the theaters.

Dialog; Conversation between two or more people.

Critique; Is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a written or oral discourse.

Director; The person who´s responsible for overseeing all aspects of making the film.

Ad lib; Short dialogue that´s created by the actor on the spot. 

A-list; Refers to the most popular and most highly paid actors/actresses in Hollywood.

Antagonist; The hero/good guy in the movie, sometimes the one who begins as the underdog but comes out as the winner!

Protagonist; The bad guy, the one that pushes the hero to it´s edge. 

Scenery; The outdoor background in a set.

Screening; The first exhibiton or display of a movie, typically shown at a theater. 

Dolly shot; A moving shot taken from a Dolly.

Pan; A shot in which a stationary camera turns horizontally, revealing new areas.

Producer; The person who is responsible for all the business aspects of making and releasing a film. 

Sequence; A structural unit of a film, using time, location, or some pattern to link together a number of scenes. 

Trailer; A short segment of film that theaters use to advertise a feature film.

Wipe; A transitional device in which one image slowly replaces another by pushing the other out of the way. 

 

References; 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000116/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001104/ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/inspirational-movie-quotes.html

http://www.filmsite.org/afi400quotes.html 

http://www.google.com/search?q=Transformers+scene&um=1&hl=is&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&ei=blduTqr-CIuFhQfo6omDDA&start=21&sa=N

http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms16.html

http://www.psu.edu/dept/inart10_110/inart10/film.html 

 

THANK YOU FOR READING ! :) 

 

 

Lára Eygló

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