“An underlying and often distinct theme in a piece of writing or conversation.” It could also the mean the following: 1. The unspoken or less obvious meaning or message in a literary composition, drama, speech or conversation. 2. A ‘Message’ that reveals a certain truth over time throughout a story summing up to a revelation (McKee, 2014).
Often times found footage films ignore the possibilities of sub textual thinking in favor of linearly dimensioned realism in situation and story, overtly ignoring a possible message in it’s overall narrative, which by truth is followed in all found footage flicks which defined the sub-genre of it’s time. Although their intentions maybe to make an entertaining film under meager circumstances with films crossing the 200-million-dollar mark (The Blair Witch Project) and some making no returns at all (Paranormal Activity 4; The first Paranormal Activity grossed 100 Million Dollars under a 15,000 Dollar budget), Film is a medium : An agency or means of doing something.
Film has been used as a medium propaganda to shape history right or otherwise (Birth of A Nation), art in cinema (French New Wave), Change in ideas (Casablanca). Having honed into many genres’ specifics, film has certainly been come around two ways: the commercial or the niche. And such is the birth of the found footage film. Such as ‘Unscripted’ the film we worked on.
In the context of cinema and as a screenwriter, Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was one of the first films to employ a faux documentary feel with the use of news clippings and POV’s from the camera used by the central character. Although excessive in its exploitation and in its violence, it has a clear underpinning in subtext in the form of social commentary- that the ‘civilized’ man is often more ‘cannibalistic’ than the savage cannibals who hunt them in dreary, all in gravitas to the ratings-driven war that is the media in the early 80’s, driven on ‘Violence’ and ‘Sensationalism’. Similarly, the 2013 Russian found footage flick ‘Shopping tour’ incorporates successfully socio-political satire with the workings of family dynamics as a mother and her son encounter ‘Cannibals’ on a shopping spree through Finland. Noroi: The Curse (2005) from Japan also builds on family dynamics and mythology while paying many homages to J-Horror.
Although written with such brilliancy ‘Unscripted’ had such potential to incorporate the subtext and underpinnings on the workings of making a film, an allegory perhaps describes what it could have been. The villa complex where the film takes place could have been the representation on the workings of a creative force or the hive comprised of directors, camera operators ,editors , actors and so on, all part of the collaborative process which is filmmaking .This aspect could have been fleshed out more by building dynamic relationships and responses from actors in one crew role to the other, in effect a lack of team effort could be the slow destruction of their film and the eventual hauntings that precedes , the demon of creativity and miscommunication which every film set faces .Quoting Werner Herzog : “I would travel down to hell and wrestle a film away from the devil if it was necessary”. Teamwork would be the only plan against an unreal and invisible opponent which is ‘Miscommunication’. These ideas are strictly from a screenwriter’s perspective and all writers have their own essentialist approach to their material and all the ways are ‘Fun’ and ‘Creative’ in their own right, ‘Unscripted’ was nothing short on the latter.
References:
McKee, R. (2014). Story: Substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting. London: Methuen.
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