Film dialogue, that is. The way characters speak to each other, themselves, and even the audience, is very important in understanding any story presented to us. Humans have been telling stories since the dawn of time and have been able to communicate them to others as well. The ability to communicate with what we know as speech is an incredible trait for animals like us to have. In this lesson we will discuss why dialogue is so important in films.
Activities
Here are 3 videos that I would suggest you all watch before my presentation. I think these scenes are very different, but set up their respective films and genres very well.
These are the various points that will be discussed
Film genres and character dialogue: How do people in crime films talk and why? Do characters explain the plot directly to the audience?
Freytags Pyramid: There is a certain structure to every character driven story represented by Freytags pyramid. How do characters use dialogue to go through all the different stages on this pyramid? We will discuss this, then there will be a class activity.
After leaving the classroom, I hope that the next time you all watch a film, you will think about the amount of effort it took to write dialogue sequences, as well as thinking about how what these characters are saying will impact them later on during their story.
