Why An Emotional Scene Isn't Working - Jason Satterlund

Jason Satterlund is an award winning film director who has been working on films for over 25 years. He has extensive experience in all areas of production including directing, producing, writing, cinematography, and editing. He works all over the world directing, commercials, documentaries, music videos, and feature films.
Early on he developed his skills as a storyteller and uses them to this day on projects as diverse as sci-fi steampunk action films, high end commercials, underwater sea life in the tropics, television shows, top country music artists in Nashville, Tenn, and feature films. He is the only person ever to conduct a night shoot in the ancient city of Petra, and the first person in America to use film lenses on an HD camera.
Satterlund has done extensive work for clients such as Warner Brothers, Bon Jovi, Amazon, Microsoft, Jack White, CNN, Hallmark Entertainment, ABC, and the country of Jordan.
He is creator and director of the award winning feature film, "The Record Keeper," which premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in London, and won the first annual Geekie Awards.
Satterlund's latest film THE ABANDON (written by Dwain Worrell) features a wounded soldier awakening in a strange cube that tests his physical and mental limits as he attempts to find a way to escape against a ticking clock.
WATCH 'THE ABANDON' TRAILER
• The Abandon Teaser
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Stuff we use:
LENS - Most people ask us what camera we use, no one ever asks about the lens which filmmakers always tell us is more important. This lens was a big investment for us and one we wish we could have made sooner. Started using this lens at the end of 2013 - amzn.to/2tbtmOq
AUDIO
Rode VideoMic Pro - The Rode mic helps us capture our backup audio. It also helps us sync up our audio in post amzn.to/2t1n2hx
Audio Recorder - If we had to do it all over again, this is probably the first item we would have bought - amzn.to/2tbFlM9
LIGHTS - Although we like to use as much natural light as we can, we often enhance the lighting with this small portable light. We have two of them and they have saved us a number of times - amzn.to/2u5UnHv
COMPUTER - Our favorite computer, we each have one and have used various models since 2010 - amzn.to/2t1M67Z
EDITING - We upgraded our editing suite this year and we’re glad we did! This has improved our workflow and the quality of our work. Having new software also helps when we have a problem, it’s easy to search and find a solution - goo.gl/56LnpM
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#film #movies #writing

[@filmcourage]

Here is our full interview with Jason - kzbin.info/www/bejne/qam1aXiAo7J-oac

[@blackto0oth]

Dear Film Courage. I’m a songwriter and found your content on my search for sharpening my craft. Holy smokes. The most valuable source of knowledge for creatives - thank you!!!

[@chasehedges6775]

Emotional Scenes, wether heartwarming or a tearjerker, are very important in terms of a good story.

[@kathrinphone0815]

'The structure is the frame of your house, but the emotion is the furniture within it' ==> another good one for my virtuell pinboard!

[@NIKONGUY1960]

Ordinary People is the one that got me. Right near the end. Destroyed me.

[@OlgaKuznetsova]

Jason, I really, really appreciate your embrace of vulnerability on set... I bet actors feel safe to really go there working with you :)

[@corporaterobotslave400]

You have to present characters in situations that your audience are going to relate to and feel for; without that foundation first your emo scene won't feel right. It will feel contrived. Very interesting that Jason became a filmmaker in order to deconstruct emotions; I study Psychology for the same reasons and find these studies the most valuable thing for my writing songwriting and filmmaking.

[@socrazyG]

worth listening to several times ...

[@jayrob5270]

You can watch characters whine through out a movie if you know why they are doing it. Even if the others characters don't and it annoys them, if we know it works. Just really stating what he did, the setup is crucial, we have to understand the character no matter how distasteful their behaviour may be even if it takes the whole movie to do it.

[@bazmurphy7792]

I must be old fashioned. The first film that made me cry was born free.

[@romanumeralz]

Thank You.

[@stevelangely8004]

A man and filmmaker struggling with his own emotions. Quite revealing. Great interview.

[@erinaltstadt4234]

Thank you

[@joelcasseus628]

yet another incredibly valuable video, thanks Film Courage!!

[@filmcourage]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@RDSimpson]

Very interesting interview : very important

[@Eidolon1andOnly]

I found an author here on KZbin who made his novel series in audiobook format available for free, and got into the third or fourth book before dropping the series because the main protagonists (and heroes) kept feeling sorry for themselves. It got tiresome.

[@cristina7317]

If an intuitive has it hard on impacting the audience emotionally, imagine a conceptual writer who's all about concept structure and plot For me personally characters were a drag until I learned I was a concept writer and I was gonna have to develop the intuitive writing There's not always a build up necessary to come up with an emotional scene I read 'Of Mice and Men' and there's a scene where an old man's dog is dragged out of the house and shot in the head for being sick and old You don't get to see how he's killed, the dialogue is the simplest and most cynical, there's no crying, nor melodrama, no protagonists nor the story are even related to that scene, I myself wasn't since I never had a dog and STILL that scene HIT ME IN THE GUTS I couldn't even cry it was that painful, it felt suffocating, I was trapped, and then of course the emotional relief when I could not stop crying I didn't see it coming, came like an undercurrent and just HIT ME! The writing was so good, so subtle, so refined, so well controlled that I didn't see it coming!!! It just hit me! Like suddenly it was about me. Like Steinbeck himself turned his eyes to me and now it was all intimate and personal. For those who haven't heard of nor read the book it's Steinbeck, it's Nobel, it's intuitive he's an INFJ It's just genius!!!! One in a hundred million can write like that! It's so refined and simple, the purest essence of talent, you can't use any tricks or techniques to get that. That's how you punch the audience in the guts.

[@johnrobinson4445]

147. Very valuable.

[@filmcourage]

Which movies make you cry every time?

[@pazu8728]

John Wick - when he was captured and said he could not grief. Real Steel - I want you to fight for me! Scent of a woman - Al Pacino's speech at the end. Schindler's list

[@Kgknipp]

Saving Private Ryan - “tell me I’m a good man”

[@shanicefelix5674]

A Silent Voice Kung Fu Panda

[@forallthestupidshit3550]

Big Daddy - "I wipe my own ass!" Bone Tomahawk - the second time a character says "you're not going to die in vain. You're going to be avenged." Lavender - (no spoilers) scene on the stairs. Lion King was so powerful, I still cry when I hear the song from the score To Die For; I don't even have to see the scene. Mufasa's death is an obvious one though. If you don't cry when that happens, you're basically a soulless serial killer.

[@virginiacharlotte7007]

It’s a wonderful life- James Stewart as George Bailey praying before he goes to jump off the bridge.

[@freeyourmind112358]

Actually she did feel sorry for herself in Queens Gambit. That part where she goes on a bender drinking and doing drugs saying she's never going to play chess again. And then that dude comes over and convinces her to stop feeling sorry for herself and to go play more chess

[@asian-americanwithanopinio8954]

Denzel Washington in "Glory" feels sorry for himself, while Morgan Freedman's character tries to inspire him

[@asian-americanwithanopinio8954]

I don't find it hard to watch at all, but everyeone's different

[@andrewjackson652]

Every writer since Homer reflects the emotional linguistics of his “Iliad” (inscribed nearly 3000 years ago); and millions of years of cognitive-emotional evolution have been (and are being) linguistically redefined and sabotaged by our language and literary institutions. Language and literary artisans are instrumental to the hundreds of thousands yearly suicide deaths, reprehensible mass shootings, and the human degradation and insanity now on exhibit in the Mid-East. Contrary to writing standards, conventions, and implications, cognition, not emotion, precipitates the changes and states of biochemical and neurological being that drives behavior. Emotions are not causal but an effect and the perception of these changes and states of physiology. Teachers within all academic disciplines and authors, poets, journalists, and playwrights must re-learn and re-develop our emotional language to mirror our cognitive-emotional heritage of the heart. Positive, good-feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with health, well-being, and effective and successful decision-making abilities and prowess. Negative, bad feeling emotions, moods, attitudes, and feelings have an evolved correlation with their negation. If this were not so, humanity would not have survived the evolutionary mill. And therefore, emotions instead of being controlled by the cognitive mind as professed by psychology (and our psychological institutions of religion, law, politics, and philosophy), have evolved to guide our cognitive and physical acts away from negative, bad feeling destructive behavior and towards positive, good feeling constructive behavior. The solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies within this new linguistics of cognitive-emotional behavior. Reference: Jackson, A.O. (2023). Cognitive-Emotional Re-Processing Control, Cultivation, and Education: The Linguistic Semantics of Cognitive vs. Emotional Dysregulation (15,500-word paper, free PDF download, new tab)

[@AmeAnimation]

Pixar's "Soul" got me because it was like looking in a mirror too.

[@YOBAMUSTDIE]

Writers nowadays can't write rational scenes.

[@midnightmachinations]

"As an intuitive, I'm feeling it a lot more than other people are" Bit ignorant.