What makes a film good?

The question ‘What makes a film good?’ is usually answered with ‘The story’, ‘The Director’ and  ‘The Actors’ and while that is true and it can just come down to the viewer’s opinion and/or preference once a film is analysed it becomes clear that there’s more that goes into it; such as the two levels of film, the micro and macro elements, are what make a film ‘good’. if a film has got superb Micro and Macro elements it is sure to be a superb film.

The Micro Elements of film are: the Editing, how the film’s scenes are arranged and cut in the final product. The Mise-En-Scene, the stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a film. The Sound, sound in a movie includes music, dialogue, sound effects, ambient noise, and/or background noise and soundtracks. Some sort of sound is always used to enhance the movie experience. And finally the Cinematography, cinematography involves such techniques as the general composition of a scene; the lighting of the set or location; the choice of cameras, lenses, filters, and film stock; the camera angle and movements; and the integration of any special effects. These four aspects of film are usually the easiest to look for and know if they’re bad or not. 

I would like to mention an example of a good film with good Micro and Macro Elements, this film being ‘Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse’ (2018, Directed by Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman and Bob Persichetti) Just for the Micro Elements this film in this film you can tell it is fully deserving of its Oscar for best-animated film. The editing is obviously and clearly thought out well and when watching the viewer can tell that the crew behind the movie spent a long time on the storyboard and deciding what scenes to cut out from that storyboard because you don’t lose the story anywhere throughout the film, it keeps you captivated and focused. The Mise-En-Scene in this movie is another clear win, since this movie has a very unique style, an impressive comic art style that is heavily influenced by the original comics, and keeping in mind how time-consuming that art style must’ve been it would be quite rational to think that the Mise-En-Scene is therefore well thought out and well planned and that is exactly right the majority of the scenes in this movie are stunning. As for the sound in this film, the Musical score is said to be great and I can say I agree with that. The movie uses a mix of composed music made specifically for the movie and popular music at the time of the movie’s release, some of which mentioned spider man in the lyrics. One of these audios named ‘The Prowlers theme’ is an intense and well thought out audio used for whenever the second antagonist, The Prowler, is on screen. This audio is first used as a first impression to the audience to make sure that an otherwise fairly forgettable character stays in the viewers head throughout the movie which implies that he is significant to the story(which he is). The Prowler end up being the protagonist’s uncle, the person who he respected the most throughout the movie ended up being the person trying to kill him the entire movie. When their identities were revealed to each other his uncle was shot and that was the turning point for the main character and leads us to the next element which is The Cinematography in this film. After the death of his uncle, the protagonist decided to do a leap of faith off a building and hopefully swing away and this scene is where a macro element called ‘the messages and values’ shows. As the protagonist is preparing for the jump the camera is slanted which implies something is off or the character is feeling intense emotions(an example of great cinematography), the camera slants so the colossal buildings of NYC almost surround him like a jungle. And as he leaps off, the camera goes upside down to make it seem like he’s levitating up to the city, in this scene the city could be symbolising his new responsibilities(which he has been trying to run away from) and how he is now willing to accept it and face it(this shown by him going towards what’s being symbolised as his responsibilities by what looks like willingly thanks to good cinematography) 

Now back to the Macro Element of Messages and Values, I believe that in this movie the message and value is resilience and the process of adapting to adversity, the ability to bounce back after difficult experiences throughout life fits perfectly and describes the implied message and values of the film.

In conclusion, what makes a film ‘good’ is its ability to spark an interest in the viewer and send the intended message to the viewer, films use different elements in different ways to do this and whether or not those aspects are done well is mostly up to the viewer’s opinion and/or preference. Furthermore, a film may have good editing, cinematography, sound et cetera but if it doesn’t interest the audience or doesn’t send a message that viewer can relate or agree with then although it may be good technically it won’t be seen as ‘good’ by the viewer.