Answered by Savvas Constantinou
Director of Font of Infamy
How to choose a unique subject, Hmm… I think a much better way to think about this is by not even thinking about it and just doing “Your Way” because that would, in turn, give a unique look at whatever the subject you’re choosing is about. As far as uniqueness is concerned, nothing is really 100% unique as far as film and documentary are concerned, as storytelling is at its basis 7 stories being told again and again, as showcased in Christopher Booker’s book “The Seven Basic Plots”. That said, just because the structure is more or less the same, for every film and documentary (With some exceptions here and there to this rule), the body of work of that structure can be anything you can imagine as a filmmaker.
Now for me, let’s give an example of how I went about doing it in my short documentary “Font of Infamy” which discusses the story of the Comic Sans typeface. It is done in a pretty common structure as far as documentaries are concerned, but where I think it makes it unique is in the subject matter, which has never been talked about before in any documentary in existence. This subject matter also gives me the liberty to use this font for the poster, which if I were to use the Comic Sans font in any other film poster, it wouldn’t be such a good idea.
A good starting point if you want a unique subject is to do your research to make sure you’re not rehashing the same idea and execution of someone else. Having an idea for your film is a good start, but its execution is what will make or break it. Many people are trying to be unique for the sake of just “being” unique with their film, not caring about the overall quality and the reason for their film being the way it is. For example, Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” is an incredibly unique film and has a reason for it being the way it is. The story is told the best way possible, and it just happens to be in a way that hasn’t been done before. Uniqueness is not something you can teach, as it’s something that is different for each individual, and as long as you’re not too boring of an individual, you can absolutely be unique in your films if you follow your heart on it. (As cheesy as that sounds)
A good rule of thumb to know if your film is going to be unique or not, is to think about how long you thought about the idea for your film. If you thought of it within 5 seconds after experiencing an event like – COVID-19 just happened, and you thought, “Oh, I should make a documentary about covid!”. I guarantee that 10,000 other filmmakers have thought of this and will be planning to do a film about it or have already done it. Now, the trick is to think beyond that initial idea you had, understand that others will have the same idea, so you then have to think among the lines of – “Oh, I’m sure everyone will make something about how sad they are during this pandemic or tell the facts about what’s happening… What if I shift the expectations into making a film from a different perspective, like how nature got a break from all of this. What if my documentary is about Covid from the perspective of a turtle!?!”
This line of thinking is what I had when I thought of it, not for five seconds, but sixty seconds. Suppose you keep expanding on the basic idea until you eventually execute it. In that case, you can expect to make a film that is something truly special, even if 1000 other people think of the same basic subject.
But remember, it’s all about the execution, not the idea itself.
Now get to filming! Godspeed.
He learned the basics of film-making from his hobby of making sketch videos on YouTube from 2012 to 2018. While concurrently working to get his BA on Mass Media and Digital Communication with a concentration in Film, in the University of Nicosia.
You can follow his work, by subscribing to his YouTube Channel.