From the course: Creating a Short Film: 02 Writing

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Ensuring everything matters

Ensuring everything matters

- I should preface this tutorial by saying that this tutorial is only my opinion and not necessarily something that is or should be done in every film. If your preferences are more for European or indie cinema, you might especially disagree with me here. But I think scripts are more powerful when everything coheres and when everything has a purpose. The famous Russian playwright Anton Chekhov is quoted as saying "Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. "If you say in the first chapter "that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, "in the second or third chapter "it absolutely must go off. "If it's not going to be fired, "it shouldn't be hanging there." Now, for me at least, this idea of tying everything together serves two purposes. For one, it makes the whole story and the accompanying film feel more cohesive and purposeful. But it also makes sure that you're using every opportunity to tell a better story. In the earliest concepts of The Assurance, we had Cordea wandering…

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