Patrick Moreau—founder of Muse Storytelling—has narrowed down the top five mistakes in storytelling that he’s seen around the globe. Via Muse Storytelling:
Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to conduct workshops in countries across the world. Regardless of where I find myself, there is one thing that they all have in common.
As soon as the workshop is done for the day, there’s at least a handful of people who have a clip pulled up on their phone or laptop and are hoping to get some 1-on-1 feedback.
Making time is the easy part. The challenge is finding a new way to say the same thing over and over again. You quickly start to notice that there is a pattern in the feedback. I’ve long wanted to put together a list of the most common mistake we’ve seen from filmmakers across the globe (and we’ve certainly made all of these many times over as well).
You can read the full writeup above, but to summarise:
1. Mistake 1: Too Many Characters
2. No Defined Purpose or Objective
3. Poor or Non-Existent Story Structure
4. Little or No Conflict
5. Style over Substance
Which one is your pet peeve? Ours is probably #5… though we do love our artsy films.