SUBTEXT: watching movies is kind of like going on a treasure hunt. Sure, you watch the story unfold like any normal moviegoer, but you’re also always on the lookout for little clues and easter eggs that might be trying to give you special information about the narrative. Films, namely if they’re created by a clever filmmaker, are full of symbolism—sometimes it’s used to foreshadow imminent events, sometimes it’s used to draw parallels, but perhaps its most important job is to provide subtext.
Subtext can be one of the more difficult narrative constructs to grasp, let alone use effectively, but Alex Buono, former SNL DP and current director of Documentary Now!, offers an excellent explanation of it in his MZed course The Art of Visual Storytelling. Lucky for us Film Riot has released that particular portion of the course so you can view it for free. Check it out below:
Subtext is one of the most effective and efficient ways of adding depth to your story. It doesn’t take up any additional screen time the way a long expositional scene would nor does it require heavy-handed information that takes viewers out of the narrative experience.
You work it into the very fabric of your story: it’s the color red in The Sixth Sense, it’s that scene in Sideways when Miles describes his favorite wine (but is really describing himself), it’s the constant comparison between Batman and The Joker in The Dark Knight
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