Taking inspiration from M. Night Shyamalan

Manoj "M. Night" Shyamalan is an Indian-American film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots. He is best known for directing and producing films such as The Sixth Sense, The Visit, The Last Airbender, The Village and Signs. I am going to be discussing why I think Shyamalan’s films are so successful. Directors/producers such as Shyamalan study lighting to be able to help support the mood of their story. He is aware of how he will light a set using either artificial or natural light. A stylistic issue which may turn a lot of audience’s off, is the lack of design in a film. I have found that Shyamalan’s productions hire a production designer to conceptualize the look of a film. Essentially, a film’s designer is the film’s architect. They work with the director, stylists and set decorators to help design a colour palette, incorporate texture and find outfits and props that fit into the overall design of a film. To add to this, I also found after looking at many of Shyamalan’s productions that it is very important to understand that most natural environments have neutral design elements. For example, most homes and apartments have white walls. However, most audiences will find white walls infinitely boring.

However, from a filmmaking standpoint white walls may support the emotional tone of a scene, relating to emptiness and focusing the scene of whatever may be in front of the white wall. It’s a filmmaker’s responsibility to adapt these natural environments in creative and low cost ways to support the tone of their film. As discussed above, when watching almost any of Shyamalan’s films, I find I am always able to identify a good storyline. A director such as Shyamalan will always be able to go through a script and look for the dramatic peaks in the plot. He is also able to identify issues with relationships, character arcs, what the scene needs, emotional highs and lows and so on. He studies how to analyse and deconstruct the plots of his films as to keep the audience intrigued throughout the entire duration of his production. What also strikes me about Shyamalan is his ability to work well with the actors cast in is films. I can see this trough how the actors portray their roles and in interviews. He understands the need to learn and use the communicative tools used to help shape the plot of his films. This means understanding character back-story, knowing how to communicate using active verbs, being able to identify improvements in the scene and so on. As well as this it is also clear is Shyamalan’s attention to detail and his ability to properly punctuate his scenes.