The Evolution of Telling a Story in Film & TV

Filmmaking and Storytelling is a work of art. As an author and a child at heart, I’ve always loved any marvelous storytelling. The essence of a good story is marvelous storytelling. Making the fantastical come to life. In novels, this is done through words, both descriptive and telling. In Film and TV, the basis of keeping people to continue watching a show is epic storytelling. Now a day’s films are often done in trilogies, and in order for those movies to work, it needs to have a story that people want to continue to watch.

Telling a story in a film is almost like watching a novel from beginning to end. Filmmaking has always been a visual experience. It is this reason why characters are now given epic introductions. Like the appearance of Captain Jack Sparrow standing proudly on the mast of his ship while the orchestral chorus of the film played epically in the background, or the majestic hero poses of the Avengers in the beginning sequence of Age of Ultron. We all know and love these characters for their showboat introductions and as is the case of Tony Stark their Dramatic endings as well. Storytelling when done right gives us a sense of love and hate for the characters involved in the storytelling.

In fact, some of the best storytelling has been done in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These movies, Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor were all technically stand-alone movies, but if you watch them in the order they were released you will see links within them all. It’s not just the films, even within the TV show, Agents of Shield, you can see the different events that happen across the movies. Like Winter’s Soldier’s sudden appearance of Hydra, that directly affects Shield and of course Agents of Shield.

The Storytelling is so grand that you can easily follow it through films and TV. The continuation of the Marvel Universe after the events of Endgame has been distant storytelling. The Emergence of WandaVision giving us a glimpse of what has been happening to the more background characters of the Marvel films. With the characters of Monica from Captain Marvel, Darcy Lewis from the Thor films, and of course Agent Jimmy Woo who has become a fan favorite.

A story is made out of the sum of its parts. While the story itself is about the characters and in turn all the things the characters are thrown into, within film and TV. Unlike a novel or Children’s book, film and TV is a mostly visual experience. It’s a way of telling an epic story through Setting. If you think about it, would Frodo’s journey have been as epic if not done with the mystical setting, of lush green meadows, the Rocky Mountains, and dark forests that the characters found themselves in throughout the storytelling? In any event, when turning Fantasy into real life, which has been done across film and TV, the biggest part of telling that Story is showing the magic of that place.

While the setting is a great part of storytelling in film and TV, the narration is something that’s used quite often in both film and TV. Narration, if done well is a great way of making a story move forward. Of course, narration helps if the character telling the story is quite interesting. One of my favorite examples of great narration in a film is the 2015 masterpiece The Martian. Where Mark Watney is stranded on Mars of all places. This story is done in three parts; most of the story is done by Mark Watney, the other two parts being done by the rest of his team on their route back to earth, and NASA itself.

For someone stranded and with little hope of rescue, Watney is surprisingly witty and sarcastic. Even surprisingly optimistic at times. He’s angry and snarly towards NASA when he finds out that his being alive is something that’s been withheld from his team, and he’s is overly sweet to his communications with his team. Of course, the narration isn’t always done to tell a story but also to convey a character’s flaw as is the case in the Netflix drama, YOU.