What Oscar Voters Actually Look For...
Download MP3So if you ever wondered who the people are who nominate and judge the Oscars, they're filmmakers. They're people like you who have made films. They know how hard it is to make a film. They know how hard it is to make a good film, and they know especially how hard and how rare it is to even make a great film. And that has impact too when you're thinking about making your film, how does that play out?
Bob Degus:Because you're showing it to filmmakers who are going to bring a different perspective for better and for worse when viewing your film versus just an audience member who's happy to be entertained by it. But it is someone who is looking at film, who is, as a filmmaker, somewhat fluent in the language of film and has a different understanding than, say, a normal audience member. And so that's what this podcast is about, is looking at what that means for your film and how to think about making your film and if you should make changes or not or how you best want to present it. After forty years in Hollywood and watching more than 3,000 short films as an Oscar Voter, I know what separates a good short film from one that wins awards. My name is Bob Degus.
Bob Degus:This is the Hollywood Film Coach podcast where we'll help you create Degus. Award winning short films. Episode four, what Oscar Voters actually look for. So in the last episode, we looked at what I feel is the number one mistake that I feel short film makers make across the board in the more than 3,000 films that I've watched. In this episode, I really want to explore and go inside the room and inside the thinking of Oscar voters and share with you at least my perspective and my understanding of other people's perspectives about how we look at films and how we think about them, because it really shifts the focus to look at this through the lens of someone who is evaluating a film versus the lens of someone who's making a film.
Bob Degus:So let's attempt to demystify this process a little bit because I think it will make you more comfortable. So the Oscar Voters as a whole, like I said, are filmmakers. There's a number of branches of the Academy, and those branches are set up tofor each specific discipline. So there's a cinematographer's branch, there's an actor's branch, there's an editor's branch, and so on. And each of those branches bring in members that that branch feels are experts in that particular area, so the best of the cinematographers, the best of the editors, and so on.
Bob Degus:And so each of those branches then evaluates of all the possible films that are out that year, what are the films that have best cinematography? And so the cinematographer's branch will look at every film that's eligible, and they will pick the top 10 films that they feel are worthy of a nomination, and then from that list, it gets down to five films. And the same thing happens within the short film branch. And the short film branch is made up of people who have made Oscar nominated or Oscar winning short films and is a group of people who are ideally experts in short filmmaking. One of the interesting things I've always felt about the short film branch that's so interesting is it's the one branch in the academy that includes directors, writers, you know, producers, actors, it's people who've made short films.
Bob Degus:Each of the other branches are specific to their own trade, but the short film branch encompasses all filmmakers. So it's a very interesting and diverse group of people who are looking at and judging and thinking about your film. Now, people are all individuals with full careers. They make movies. They're taking time out of their schedule to come and look at these movies, and they're often watching your films after long days of work, you know, that they've also put in and they take out the time or we take out the time to watch the films.
Bob Degus:Now, previously, we used to go to screening rooms and watch the films in screening rooms, and I like that process better, and I think many members like that process better because it allows you to go go to the theater and watch these movies in a cinema and vote on them. Of course, the challenge with that process is it's a tremendous time commitment, and not only is it the time commitment of watching the movies, it's the time commitment of in LA traffic at rush hour driving, you know, an hour, hour and a half to get to the theater, and then an hour to get home at night, and it created a situation where many people wanted to participate in this, but just it was daunting the amount of time commitment. So one of the things they've now implemented that again has good things and bad things is being able to screen the films in your own home, on your own theater, and look at them on your own time. Maybe looking at it at four in the morning is better for you, or maybe looking at it in the middle of the day. And so it's opened up a much wider pool of people who get to watch and vote on these films.
Bob Degus:The demographics of it, I think, are much better than they used to be when I first was in the academy when I was much younger and there were only 20 or 25 of us who was picking the nominees. So that's a very helpful thing. And one of the things that I've really noticed, especially sitting in the screening rooms, but also beyond that, is that you might think that the film with the bigger budget is gonna be favored, or the film that has the famous movie stars, or the film from the bigger director that you've heard of in the short film category is going to get picked or is going to be viewed more favorably than a film from an unknown filmmaker. And that's just not the case. I've never seen that happen and frequently I've seen films from famous directors, films with well known actors, films with very, very, very large production budgets that are not picked.
Bob Degus:And they're not picked because as a group of filmmakers, we're looking to find films that speak to our soul. And that really gives an advantage to you if you're someone with a smaller budget and someone who has great actors but they're not famous or you have this really great script, that that's gonna be taken in some ways almost more seriously than the big budget, high slick project that has a lot of money behind it. So to me, knowing that filmmakers are looking at your work and judging it that way gives both the advantage that they're gonna take it seriously and with respect, and then the other side to it is they're also gonna be looking at it as filmmakers with a perhaps more critical mind than an average audience member. So I thought it would be helpful to talk a little bit about what the voting process is like, both talking about what it used to be and how we go about it now, because these systems are used in other film festivals and other things that you might be submitting your film to. So I think it's worth and going to be effective to have a discussion with you about what the procedure was and what the older procedure was and kind of how we're approaching it now.
Bob Degus:If you think about a film festival like Sundance, they get 9,000 films submitted to them. And so I think a lot of the things that I'm going to share with you will be helpful for your understanding of, you know, submitting in something that's that competitive. And so for the Oscars, for the Oscar short films, we generally, most years, look at between 150 films, maybe it's 160 films. And the process with this used to be we would go to the theater in Beverly Hills and they would screen the films for us and we might do eight to 10 to 12 films a night back to back depending on running time. If the films ran longer, we would see less, if they were shorter, we could obviously see more.
Bob Degus:And so you have to think about this perspective of watching a series of films together. One might be a comedy, then you might see a drama, then you're seeing a civil war film, then you're seeing a space, you know, future space adventure project. And you're looking at them back to back. And you start out, or we used to start out in the evening around 07:00, and we would watch till a halfway point when we'd take a break, and then we would watch the second half of the films for that night. Now at that point in time, we had a system for evaluating whether a film was an Oscar contender or not, and that was the light system that we used whereby if you're watching a film and a certain percentage of the members who are watching it feels that the film is not an Oscar contender, they can vote to turn the film off.
Bob Degus:Generally speaking, this would happen about a third of the first third of the way into the movie, so you'd have to watch the first third to make that decision. But if a significant more than half of the people felt, you know what, this isn't an Oscar, this isn't a movie that is worthy of an Oscar nomination, doesn't mean it's not good, it just means it's not worthy of an Oscar nomination, we would vote to turn the film off. And this was done very elegantly. We had red pen lights and a third of the way through we could hold them up and say turn it off or not hold it up and say keep watching and somebody counted and we either continue watching the film till the next opportunity to turn the film off. And that's how it worked and it was a really interesting learning process for me because you could often tell, you know, there would be some films where every light would go up, like turn this off, it's just terrible, and then there would be other films where, excuse me, if let's say, I'm gonna use 30 people as the number because the math will be easier for me, maybe 10 people didn't like it and would want to turn off, but 20 people really liked it and wanted to keep watching it.
Bob Degus:And so in that instance that we would continue watching that film, but you kind of also knew that, well, there's about a third of the audience that a third of the members who didn't respond to it, and so maybe it's not going to get, you know, a vote that allows it to move on to the shortlist and on to the nominations. Now, the good thing about this system was that it allowed us to get through so many films, and if you think again about Sundance trying to screen 9,000 films and determine what they're gonna program, that really shows you how important the beginning of your movie is to get people to continue watching it. The downside of this system of turning off the films, and this was always a debate, was what if it's a film that starts out intentionally very slowly and it has a surprise turn three quarters of the way through? Well, if we've made the decision at the first third of the movie to not watch it, then we've missed this turn at the three quarters of the way through that makes the film stunning. And so there always was this debate and the idea was to use the, this ability to not watch the film all the way through as a way to deal with the really films that aren't, that we shouldn't even be watching because they're not at a level to even be considered.
Bob Degus:Now, I had a system which I've explained a number of times, but there was a voting system for these short films that was between 10 was a film that you felt was really Oscar worthy, nine was a film that maybe was Oscar worthy, and then you obviously had eight, it was a really good film, and then you had the lower numbers like seven and six, which were films that just really should not be an Oscar nomination. And that was the voting and it was done privately. He didn't talk with the other members. It was just a very respectful, simple vote in the I always remember this instruction. We were voting based on every other movie that we have ever seen.
Bob Degus:So in order for something to for me to give it a 10, it had to be as good or nearly as good as the very, very best films I've ever seen in my entire life, not just that year. And so that really helped give a standard for picking something to view for the Oscars. And you would go through and one of the things as a voter that we were very conscious of was fatigue because you're watching a lot of movies in a row and then like I said, if you've just watched some comedy and then next to it is this very dramatic film, how does that change how the dramatic film plays coming after a comedy? Or if you've watched two dramas together, and are you comparing the two dramas, which you might be because you're looking to find the five nominees for the year, so obviously you're gonna look at the two films differently, but there had to be some way to really balance out thinking about how to judge these films over the course of, used to be ten or twelve nights that we would watch these over a couple weeks. So I use the system of pluses and minuses to balance out, you know, maybe a film, I might give a film an eight, but because it's a good film, but I don't know if it's an Oscar nomination, but I might give it one plus or two pluses, which would remind me that I was thinking maybe this film, I should give it a higher score at the end, or I would use minuses to indicate the other situation.
Bob Degus:And that helped me balance out my voting and that worked for me and I know other members use similar systems or systems that they define, maybe they'll write notes you know, on the ballot to remind them. But you the goal is to kind of think about the the whole film. Now the challenge again, and even with just a 160 films that you've seen over a couple weeks is how do you remember one film over another. And so part of the one of the aspects is if the film if at the end when you're turning in your ballot, you can't remember some of the films, then they probably weren't memorable. And then there's other times that you, when you're working on your ballot, that you remember something from the very first screening, like that was just a great film.
Bob Degus:And so that's how that balancing works. And again, I just, I referenced this because thinking of film festivals like Sundance and Cannes that just get thousands of submissions, that you really wanna be thinking about as you're submitting, how is the voter going to perceive this film, How do I wanna be sending in my synopsis to reflect my film? And all of those steps. Now, I wanna just take a quick moment to contrast how we do it now with streaming. And like I said, the advantage of streaming is, you know, for early part of my life, I lived in Los Angeles, so for me to go to these physical screenings in a screening room was great because I would go from my house to the Beverly Hills and screen them and come home.
Bob Degus:My life now, I travel a tremendous amount. Was just in London. I was in Budapest recently. I just made a film that I filmed in Ukraine. And so for me to be able to participate in voting on these films, being able to screen them is really helpful because it allows me if if I'm in a city where there aren't screening rooms for them, I can watch them through something called the Academy Screening Room that's a very secure, pristine way that we can look at the movies and evaluate them, and I'm really grateful for that system.
Bob Degus:And the advantages to that system, which the old system didn't have, was if you watch a short and then you're going along and then you wanna reconsider it, you can watch it a second time. Now speaking about watching movies a second time, one of the things to think about is there are films that play extraordinarily well on a first viewing. They have a twist punchline at the end that maybe you didn't see coming and it's very funny. There was a film, oh I don't remember the name of it, but it was right at the beginning of the time when cell phones existed and cell phones were very staticky and it was, you could kind of make out what someone was saying, but not like now where they're very clear. And the whole premise of the movie was set up based on that you really couldn't hear who was talking on the phone.
Bob Degus:And it's a very simple story of a husband driving home in the middle of a snowstorm and he calls to speak to his wife and his daughter answers the phone. And the father says, you know, Oh, can I speak to mommy? And she says, No, mommy's upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Bill. And the father says, Uncle Bill, we don't have an Uncle Bill. And the father gives the girl a bunch of instructions to go in and tell the mother that the father's home, and so she's having an affair.
Bob Degus:And so all this mayhem happens, and the guy who's Uncle Bill ends up running out and jumping out the window and crashing onto a frozen pool. And the little girl gets back on the phone and tells the dad this whole story, and the father says, We don't have a swimming pool. Meaning he called the wrong house. And it played so well on a first viewing. It was like really, like, flawless, this film, in its in its working.
Bob Degus:But now it's it made the shortlist and and it may have even gotten nominated. I don't remember. But then on the second viewing, you knew the ending, or certainly we knew the ending because we had already seen it. And it didn't play as strongly because the surprise ending was no longer a surprise. And so one of the things that you're thinking about as a filmmaker is how is my film going to play on multiple viewings when it's being evaluated to be included in a film festival or in the Oscar situation.
Bob Degus:And that doesn't mean to not make a film with a surprise ending, but it is to be aware of that that ending only works once. And then when you see it a second time, it's less effective. And then when you see it a third time, it's less effective. So that's just something to keep in mind and something to think about as you're deciding what projects you wanna make. So I thought it would be helpful to take you through the emotional journey of a voter and to look at what and again, I'm only speaking from my perspective, but in conversations I've had over many years, think many voters go through this same arc because you can use it when you're working on finishing your film to have kind of the same criteria going through your head.
Bob Degus:So when you're sitting down to watch the film and you're really trying to give it 100% of your attention, it is that thing, the advice that directors will often give actors to leave everything that happened to them, like, outside the room so they can just focus on the rehearsal that's happening now. So you you as a voter really come in, and you're doing it in a place where you're giving a 100% or certainly 98 of your percent of your attention to the film that's going to be in front of you. And you have a very open mind and you're very enthusiastic and hopeful about what you see because just like a director who is, you know, when you're doing auditions and different actors come in and you're always hopeful that this is gonna be the person you're looking for for the role, it's the same thing in this process. You're really looking to find those films that are really worthy of being honored. And so I always do a reset between films the best I can so that each film is getting a new me and a new intention of it.
Bob Degus:And then I'm gonna I'm hoping I'm gonna be surprised. I'm hoping that the director and the filmmakers are gonna take me on a really unique journey that's worth celebrating. So that's before the film begins. And then as I've said, there is the first ninety seconds, which in many regards is the most important moment in the film because especially, again, this $9,000, 9, sorry, This 9,000 Sundance film submission thing, you can really imagine how heavily the first couple minutes of your film are going to play in a decision of is someone gonna keep watching it if they have so many films to get through and see. So for me in this voting process, I'm very open in the first ninety seconds, and I'm really looking to match my receiving to the tone that the director has intended and calibrate myself so I can take in the full experience of the movie.
Bob Degus:And I'm looking and feeling to see what is the director saying, what are they setting up in this first ninety seconds, and what journey do they want to take me on. And this is, again, you have to think about having seen 3,000 short films, I've seen a lot of movies and I'm very used to the language of cinema, and so I'm looking to understand what is this director saying, how are they communicating it with me, and I make a I personally make a lot of decisions in the first ninety seconds. I think many voters do, but but especially on, short films, within the first ninety seconds, I'm going to decide, am I in the hands of a good director? A big thing that I evaluate is, is this director going to hurt me? And what that means is making me watch something that's long and slow, that isn't well thought out or directed or that has really terrible acting and that I have to sit through and lose a half hour of my life on.
Bob Degus:And so I'm making that evaluation in the first ninety seconds. And hopefully it's like, okay, wow, I'm with you and I wanna see this film succeed and I wanna see where it's going. And we'll talk about in later episodes how the better short films accomplish this. There's a bunch of, they're not even tricks, but there's a bunch of structure beats that are done a little bit differently in short films, and there's way that the better short films really capture your attention right at the beginning of the the film. But the first ninety seconds is really important, and I'm gonna be looking at things, especially acting.
Bob Degus:How not are your actors famous, but is their performances real and do I believe them? And are they tonally correct for what your film is about? Because that is gonna really tell me how it's like a juggling act in some ways. Okay, you're catching all the balls, everything's moving forward, and I will either relax into the ride of the movie, which is what you want, or I will kind of stay tense, you know, watching it. The middle of the film is an area where, as with screenplays, where films can get lost and they start to lose their direction.
Bob Degus:So you can start out really great, and then when you get to the middle, the act two, films can really lose their focus. They can the thing I'm looking for is the director hopefully set up a journey and an expectation right at the beginning of the movie. Are we still following that or has the film lost energy? Has it lost focus? And am I fidgeting in my seat?
Bob Degus:Has my mind started to wander or am I still holding tight with what the film is about? And that really, again, begins sort of this dividing thing between those films that, yeah, maybe this should be a nominee or I'm not so sure. And then the obvious other point, and this is like the beginning, and if you ask me which is more important, the beginning or the ending of the film, it's really hard to tell because you can do everything perfectly up to the end and then not land your ending, and it doesn't matter. Or you could have this fantastic ending, but everything leading up to it didn't work, so it also doesn't matter. So really spending a tremendous amount of time thinking about your ending, what it is you want to say, how you want to convey that visually, how you want to convey it through sound, how you want to have it land, what you want to leave me as an audience member or voter with, what is that feeling that you want me to have at the end of the film?
Bob Degus:And then a beat and a moment where I can take in the film. A lot of times, a film will end, and then there'll be, like, an abrupt end credit sequence that sort of jars you out of where you were, so you wanna, as a filmmaker, be very clear about where you're landing your audience to and then give them space to contemplate and think about everything that they've seen. And I don't mean just like black space with nothing, but how you transition us from the world that your film created back into the reality of, oh, we're sitting in a screening room and now here are the end credits. That all has to be a fluid piece. And then for me, I watch every film through the end of the end credits because I'm processing what I've watched, I'm taking it in, and then as far as doing a score, I had an initial opinion in the first ninety seconds and now I'm evaluating was that correct, was it not correct, and what was my journey through that film and then what, how should I score it against all the other films that I've seen.
Bob Degus:Now the difference, I think, between Oscars and a film festival is we're not programming the Oscars. We are simply looking for what in our opinion, and it's just our opinion, are the best short films or the best cinematography or the best editing in films that year. We're not looking to put together a cohesive package of films that centers around a theme. And so when you're thinking of film festivals, and again, we'll talk about this in a later podcast, but they're not only looking for great films, they're looking for films that thematically fit what their programming is that year. So they may have a, you know, there's one year they may be doing a festival around a certain theme, next year they're doing a festival around a different theme, and it depends if your film fits into their theme that they're programming to that year, whether it would be screened or not.
Bob Degus:But that this gives you a sense of this arc and and how you can kind of use it to look at your own work. Are you starting strongly? Are you, like, really in charge of your film in the middle portion of it? And are you landing the ending into the credits so that it's a very smooth transition out of the world of your film and back into the reality of either the screening room or my living room where I'm watching it. So the question is, what do voters respond to when they're looking at a film?
Bob Degus:And I think you can actually answer this question yourself by looking at what is it that you actually respond to when you're looking at a film. But keeping in mind that the voters in the at least in the Oscar arena are all filmmakers. So they're coming at this in one of, I think, the most important things is authenticity over production value. Yes, production value is great. Yes, good cinematography is great.
Bob Degus:But really authenticity is the most important thing. You want to feel that the film is authentic and that it's an authentic voice of the director. Moderately produced film with raw cinematography and brilliant acting is gonna do much better than a very slick film that has, excuse me, that has really slick cinematography and is is very glossy and is kind of soulless. So being authentic is gonna be the thing that I think voters will respond to the most. For me, the very first thing I judge is the acting.
Bob Degus:And again, like I said in the last segment, they don't have to be famous actors. They just have to the performance has to be real, and their performance has to be in keeping with the tone that is set by the director at the beginning of the movie. So that authenticity is really important. I think the next thing is films that surprise voters. And I talked a little bit before about the surprise ending, and that's not what I'm talking about.
Bob Degus:I'm talking about a surprise that that the evolution of the arc of the film and the story of the film thematically, the events that happen are consistent with that, but they surprised me in that they weren't things I necessarily was thinking about. In the, one of the earlier episodes I talked a bit about the film Wasp in the opening where this young mother with three children and a little baby storms out of her apartment, crosses the street to her slightly wealthier neighbor, pounds on the door, and the two women, the two adult women mothers, get into a fight, a fist fight, on the ground, and that's a surprise. Like every time I see that, it works really well and I get to bring where I am in my life to that story and it's very effective. I think a film that brings surprises, on the journey is is, again, something else that's gonna really help your chances. And then you want it really to be a film that is that's memorable.
Bob Degus:And, I mean, I don't know quite how to explain a way to to even create that, but you want it to be a film that stays with the audience. And I can tell you that there have been films I saw almost thirty years ago that I still remember. And that that other films that so impressed me, I sought out the filmmakers after the Oscars were over and said, hey, can I get a copy of your film just to have for myself? And I think you wanna make make your film memorable, and you'll accomplish that by having a true voice and by doing a lot of the things that are explored in this podcast to help make your films singularly unique to you and help them stand out from all the other films that are being made. I think in the way we just talked about what things voters do respond to, I think the flip side of what turns voters off is also equally important.
Bob Degus:And again, I would encourage you to start with what turns you off when you're looking at films. It should be you have a real clear sense of that. But let me just give you some things that I know from my perspective that just are just almost an immediate no. If it's something that feels like an exercise or a showcase or a a either of those things, that that that's just not something that that is gonna rise to the level of being worthy of an Oscar. Films that are technically impressive but have no soul, that's just gonna be, no, it's really slick, but it didn't move me, so that's not gonna be something.
Bob Degus:Films where the filmmaker is too clever for the story and that was, I think, one of the, when I look at the short film I directed many years ago, that was a bit of the problem. I was being a little bit too clever showing off my filmmaking techniques that got in the way of the story that I was trying to tell. You know, I think films that get lost in what they're trying to say and that or that start out this is a good one that start out very that are too slow for the story that they're trying to tell. So I've sat down, I'm giving you my attention, and the story's unfolding very slowly. One of my big pet peeves with short films, if you think of a feature film, and I always use the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark, It's three and a half or four minute sequence of titles.
Bob Degus:This production designer, this actor, this editor, this cinematographer, and it goes on for four minutes, and it's fine. There's nice music from John Williams, and it's interesting. If you're doing a fifteen minute short film, you don't have the time to spend doing a feature length title credit sequence because you're using up three minutes of your movie for titles. You have to start your film right away. So if the film starts too slowly, I think that that's gonna really work work against you.
Bob Degus:And I think the other thing is also films that feel like they're trying to game the system a little bit. So rather than a film that is about a specific voice where you're trying to tell your unique story to the world, it's a film that is like, well, these people will like this or those people will like that. So you're almost putting this outside existential idea on what the film should be and you feel that when you're watching it because it's not something that's authentic. So those characteristics and those sorts of things, I think you want to be avoiding as you're thinking about your films, that you're creating something that is authentic to you and authentic to your voice. So I think if I were to sum up everything in this episode to the single most important thing that that an Oscar Voter is looking for when they're looking at the film, it would be this idea of seeing a film that is so perfect in every, in its acting, in its story, in the way it's shot, in the mise en scene, the production design, that all the elements are working, and that you come away from it feeling that that was such a great film and not only that, it was a film I couldn't have made that only that director could have made.
Bob Degus:And you feel that and as we go along on this podcast journey and I share with you films that evoke that feeling, I think you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about versus a film that is more milquetoast or more middle of the road that any number of people might have made a good version of it. The films that get nominated for Oscars are films that only that director could could have made and also have this feeling of being timely and noteworthy noteworthy lee noteworthy anyway, within the the context of what is going on in society. And that's that's hard to design for you. That's just a luck of a draw of a card. But those elements really lend to the authenticity of the film and the excitement that you feel when you're watching it as a voter.
Bob Degus:So how do you take all this into your film and use it to make your films better? So I would say when you watch your film back, ask yourself, does this feel emotionally true? And that's sometimes hard to do because you're in the chaos of screening, you're in in a whole bunch of different head spaces as a director. But if you can get to a place of stillness within yourself and listen to the film, not the audience, not anywhere around you, but listen to what the film is saying and ask yourself this question, is my film emotionally true? That's the first thing.
Bob Degus:Secondly, are you making this film just because you want to make a film or because this story needs to exist? And that's a real important distinction. And again, I'll just use my own career for that. There was a point when I was in my twenties, working on any movie was a great thing, because it was a movie and wow, I was working on it. As I got older, I think I only want to work on projects that I believe this story needs to be told because telling this story will make the world that I live in and the world others live in a better place and help for deeper understanding.
Bob Degus:I don't know what that is for you, which would be maybe the same or different than me, but what I do think is universal is are you making it just to make a film, or are you making it because this story needs to be told? The second thing, this story needs to be told, is what will do much better in an Oscar situation or in a film festival situation. Look at your film as you're watching it and and switch to your audience's perspective and think about, is there a moment in your film that an audience watching it is always gonna remember? That's really gonna tell you if you're on the right track. And you can you'll obviously test your film with before audiences and listen to what they're saying and see if there are those scenes and those moments that really stick with people and really help help you understand how your film is working by how they see this scene was really a powerful or this is a scene I'm always gonna remember.
Bob Degus:Finally, ask yourself, does your film surprise your audience? And I've found it's very helpful to screen a film for an audience and sit in the back of the audience and watch the audience, not your film, and feel what they're feeling. Feel your audience and react to that. And sometimes that's hard in a small screening because they know the director's there and they want to be nice and say nice things to the director, but if you can organize a screening where maybe they don't know the director's there or it's with people who don't know you're the director, sit in the very back where you can watch the audience's body movements and feel their reaction, and that will really help you understand how your film is working and how the ideas that you want to communicate to that audience are being communicated. So in the next episode, we're going to be talking about story, which is really important because it doesn't matter how much you know about what goes on in a voting room, if your story isn't where it needs to be, none of anything else matters.
Bob Degus:So I hope you'll tune into the next episode of the Hollywood Film Coach Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. One more thing. If today's episode sparked something for you, head over to hollywoodfilmcoach.substack.com for the companion piece. It's original writing that goes deeper into the most important idea from today's episode and includes links to every film we've talked about so you can watch them yourself and form your own conclusions.
Bob Degus:The gap between a good short film and a great one that wins awards is smaller than you think. I'm Bob Degus. This is the Hollywood Film Coach Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, follow us, and check out the next episode. Please join me in episode five where we will look at how story is everything, the nonnegotiable foundation.
