How Filmmakers Make Emotions Visual

When it comes to expressing the emotions of characters in a scene, we think of the basic reactions and emotions, but there is a stronger way to convey these messages that isn't just a character crying when they're sad or smiling when they're happy. Sure, showing crying or smiling isn't a bad move to convey emotions, but the ways many film makers show it resinates with the audience more then simple facial expressions, and the impact is all around stronger. Sometimes, subtle details can make an emotion really stand out, and create a real and understandable sense of emotion.

For example, in Shawshank Redemption, he uses a lot of subtle detail's to convey the loneliness for the character Brook. In the shots that show Brook after his release, everyone is turned away from him, and they only turn and address him to scold him. This portrays how loneliness feels to the individual, like they don't truly exist even in a sea full of people, and this comes to a head when we see Brook hang himself to escape this loneliness.

In 12 Years a Slave, this idea of emotion is conveyed using some smart composition, and sets up a contrast that can effect an audience when put together. While Solomon is being tortured in the foreground, we see other slaves entering in the background, and the audience now has two deeply contrasting elements. The torture in the foreground, and everyday life in the background, come together to convey the message of brutality this film strives for. And finally, when another slave comes to help Solomon, she enters from the side instead of the background as to not break the composition.

Finally, in Children of Men, we see these two previous ideas put together to convey a message of hope. When a baby is finally born into the world after two decades, we see that a miracle can bring peace, even if only for a moment. As the rebels find the new parents, they at first enter full of hostility, then we see this hope slowly enter their faces as they see and hear the baby. As the parents and child are escorted through the building, we see a clever use of blocking so we can only see the effect slowly over time as the British solders are shown on screen being effected by this miracle. When they step outside after the ceasefire is declared, we see the camera slowly pan over the solders outside, and the composition principle comes into play as the solders slowly stand up as the camera reaches them to immolate the spreading of joy.

These are some of the clever ways that filmmakers convey emotions without the actors actually having to spell it out through strong facial expression. Though you can certainly find ways to convey harder to grasp emotions, it's always good advice to not write "unwriteable" scenes, so that you don't write yourself into a hole. However, sometimes the fix to a certain scene can be to simple shot it a different way.

This was really an interesting video, and it really gives some good ideas on how you can create stronger scenes, without doing what everyone does. It's is kind of a given that you resort to having the actors emote what you want to convey, but sometimes that isn't enough, and you need other details to strengthen the emotion. I will try to think of ways I can incorporate this in future works.