Keep a Watch Journal
If you’re an aspiring filmmaker, you probably watch a lot of movies.
An amazing tool you can use to zero in on your style and figure out what stories and techniques resonate with you, is also a very simple one: keeping a watch journal.
Don’t overcomplicate it. It can even be as simple as a log, containing the title of the picture, the year it was released, the director, writer, producer, editor, cinematographer, key cast, and a logline or short summary of what it was about, as well as your overall thoughts about it.
Keeping this bare bones log will help you recall movie names and the key talent involved in bringing the story to life. In short, it will help you talk about movies. During film discussions, you won’t be digging through your brain as much, trying to come up with the name of the picture or who was in it.
Furthermore, writing your own summary or logline for films you watch is a good practice for writing loglines for your own films. It helps to hone your skills in pulling out the key elements that make up the story and communicating them concisely. You’ll more easily observe patterns between films or commonalities across the different stories you’ve been experiencing.
Finally, writing your overall reaction or thoughts on the film, even something as simple as whether you liked it or not and why, forces you to form an opinion. Communicating this opinion in writing will help you better understand yourself. You’ll notice things like, “Huh, I’m intrigued by pretty much every film this director makes,” or “Wow, I really don’t like it when filmmakers use this camera technique.”
From there, you can elaborate on why. Why do you have these reactions? Answering that can help you pull out tools and techniques to try (or avoid) in your own filmmaking. What’s more, since you’re keeping all of this in a watch journal, you’ll have it to reference at any time, and be able to look back to see how you’ve changed throughout your filmmaking journey.
This “log” style of a watch journal is nice because it’s super easy to maintain and doesn’t require much time to fill out. However, you can always take it to the next level. That would involve also answering questions like, “What was the filmmaker’s intention? Were they effective? What is the thematic statement of this film? How did the cinematography support or convey the intended message of the filmmaker? What is the tone of this film? Where are the key beats or acts?”
You can even take screenshots of your favorite shots from the film, and try to guess how the shot was produced. What was their lighting setup? Why was the shot so effective? What would you have done differently?
The whole practice of keeping a watch journal will help you watch movies more intentionally. You may find yourself noticing things you didn’t notice before, simply because now you’re looking for them so you can write them down in your journal.
Have fun with it. Don’t overthink it, and use your journal as a source of inspiration for your own films and stories!
