What's the Hook?

We're different!

Most camcorder owners make movies only for their family. Readers of this website are different. We make films for a wider group: the club, the state, national or even international audiences.

To do that, we have to hook the audience. Switzerland has a competition called "Slam Movie Night" where the audience decide whether each film should stay or be thrown out of the programme. Many are booed and whistled off screen in less than a minute. It is a drastic test for any movie. Our audiences may be more tolerant but you still need to grab the viewer's attention right away.

People like people

Effective movies often feature interesting characters -real or fictional.

Still from 'Lifes Little Gaps'. In the 2007 AIFVF festival a superb fiction film called Life's Little Gaps introduced us to Evan. The film maker, Scott Hillhouse, explains:
"Evan is your ordinary six foot, two-hundred and fifty pound man in cricket pyjamas. Some would call him "special", others, "mentally handicapped."
In the opening moments Evan's brother, is called away leaving him at home with only the strange, unreliable Gary as a companion. We are hooked. We want to know what will go wrong … and when it does, how Evan will manage.

Still from 'Will Ye Go to Flanders'.
In the 2008 AIFVF Festival a documentary about World War I graves was given personal interest.
In Will Ye Go To Flanders the film maker, Willy Van der Linden, and his brother find a portrait of their great-uncles who died in the mud of Flanders. By starting with the two men we are hooked ... will they discover what happened or not?

Still from 'An Amateur Auteur'. Also in the 2008 festival was An Amateur Auteur. In this personal documentary Paul Kittel tells the story of his father's amateur film-making career. It starts with grainy black-and-white footage of a toddler which morph into a photo of the man he was to become operating a projector. In one sense it is a family memoir about a much-loved man who died 17 years ago. In another it is a history of how we made films from Super-8 through to S-VHS. But at heart it is telling us about someone like scores of people we know - besotted with making films. Most of his movies look pretty hammy but his enthusiasm captures our attention.

Mark Levy posing with two models from his film 'Painters Pointers'. Watching naked women? Us!
Well, yes, we did with Painter's Pointers from Mark Levy. He made it a study not of the pretty women who allow their bodies to have clothes painted onto them, so much as of the woman whose hobby is doing this form of art.
Because she is so engaging and straightforward, we view the film with interest not with lust.

The difference between winners and losers is in how the film makers set out to grab our attention and take us on a journey through their film.
t's the difference between "Our Trip to Miami" and "Miami or Bust"; between "intricate machinery in action" and "How X solved the problem of …".
There are other ways to hook an audience but basing your movie on an engaging person is a well-proven one. And if you want a great comedy watch this gem from 2008's festival, Robert Lorrimer's The Trap featuring the "crusty-old-man" persona he has built up for himself on screen.
It's all about this guy …

- Dave Watterson