Digital Marketing

Film Therapy and the Film-Making Process

Do movies make a difference in our lives? Of course they do. We are human beings and we learn from what we see, hear and feel. Movies offer it all.

Even when the experience is vicarious and we only imagine ourselves in a role, movies affect us due to the combined impact of music, dialogue, lighting, camera angles, and sound effects that allow a movie bypass our ordinary defensive censors.

We can become emotionally receptive and energized by an uplifting message, or we can become desensitized to violent behavior. But like no other medium before it, the popular film presents the potential of a new power for therapeutic success. It is up to us to see that potential and use it creatively and beneficially.

Film Therapy is an evaluation tool. Although many adults benefit from talking about problems, thoughts, dreams, or emotions in psychotherapy, most children and adolescents find it more difficult to express such feelings. A young child’s response to movies can help the therapist understand the child’s current personality, concerns, interests, or problems. In a child’s choice of movies, we can find clues about their functioning role models…ideal self-images, inner resources, potential goals, perceived obstacles, degrees of imagination and creativity, and their overall philosophy of life. Motion therapy allows children to express feelings that may be too threatening to express directly.

Movies can also be used to get to the bottom of difficult issues. Movies provide common ground for discussions about issues related to family, friendship, school, anxiety, self-esteem, or love. Problems can be addressed in relation to an external element, and seeing how an individual in a film handles a situation can give children ideas about how to deal with a problem in their own lives. Key scenes, seen over and over again, can become the basis for practicing new skills. Many movies allow children and teens to imagine how their own problems can be solved when the characters demonstrate a change in behavior.

Many movies, like dreams, are full of metaphors and symbols that affect us on a deep level. Carl Jung believed that as the mind explores the symbol, it arrives at ideas that lie beyond the reach of reason. Metaphors and symbols stimulate two-way thinking and creativity; creating a bridge to the subconscious and bypassing the normal ego defenses often found in traditional therapeutic approaches.

Myths and stories can help people place their own personal story and the stories of others in their proper context. All myths and stories have a villain and tell great stories of a journey that a hero must begin. Likewise, young people are on a journey of the heart and soul.

Filmmaking can be considered the contemporary form of mythmaking, reflecting our response to ourselves and to the mysteries and wonders of our existence. Movies can have a powerful effect on children and teens because they speak directly to their hearts and spirits, bypassing the resistance of the conscious mind.

Motion therapy can offer information, role models, and options for more positive behaviors, but its limit is its vicarious nature. We are observing, perhaps internalizing, but not necessarily doing. Unless a child actively and consciously participates in a behavior change, motion therapy lacks the element of experiential learning.

While Film Therapy is an assessment tool, the Film Making Process becomes a concrete tool for behavior change. This is the best experiential learning, because it is creative and requires a child or adolescent to actively participate in its creation by becoming self-aware. A boy becomes the hero of his own movie and actively participates in his own journey towards healthy behavior and adulthood. In essence, a child now becomes his own teacher and is learning about himself while watching the movie, over and over again. He is becoming the behavior he admires and solving his own problems while acting within his own scene and as his own role model. The Movie-Making Process was nominated to SAMHSA’s Service to Science Academy in 2008 as one of the most promising prevention programs in the Midwest for its unique fusion of creativity, technology and human development.

The movie-making process begins with the problem to be addressed, then zeroes in on the desired outcome. The movie becomes the hero’s journey to solve the problem and demonstrate more positive behavior. If the problem is bullying, the film’s focus is kindness, the hero learning through his film experience how he feels, how he looks, and how he affects others. The film is often based on a myth or story from ancient times, but our hero is the boy.

The movie making process uses gorilla filming techniques, which is basically the ingenuity of what we have available at any given time. This can be in the child’s own home, in the backyard, in the neighborhood, in the park, or on the school playground. It’s the creative process of choosing a theme and putting together, or creating, props that make a movie a movie. Kids and teens love to create their own costumes and their costumes represent the hero they want to become.

The movie is shot like a silent movie, using gestures and expressions. This is an important part of child development, learning and recognizing the subtleties of human feelings, represented non-verbally in facial expressions and physical postures. This also allows any child to participate. No need to learn and memorize lines, just play the role, expressing emotion through physical expression.

The film is often shot through reflection. A child is remembering something from his past, perhaps an incident that has caused him emotional pain, himself or others. The film is the journey through emotional pain to resolution and a happy ending. The film always ends with resolution and hope. The journey is complete and the hero is more aware, more skilled and can now see the incident from a new perspective.

The narration is added after editing the movie. Narrative is the plot that tells the story of the hero who looks into his past, overcomes obstacles, learns new behaviors, sees new perspectives, and becomes more than he was before. Using voiceover narration, rather than trying to shoot a movie with sound, keeps the focus on facial expressions, body language and action, and is very time and cost efficient.

Music is added to the entire movie. Music that is meaningful to the child or teen is best and is meant to create the emotional feelings that are important for behavior change. We should feel inspired to change behavior and we should feel hopeful. Music can take us to those heights. While the use of copyrighted music is a very serious issue these days, there are always musicians in every community who want their music to be heard and used. There’s also a lot of royalty-free music on the Web.

It is essential that a complete child’s film be released with as much fanfare as possible. Inviting family and friends to watch the full movie is an important element in creating new behavior. Most kids and teens like to watch their movie over and over again. This reinforces new learning and each visualization reinforces that learning. Now a boy is learning from the movie she created. He is learning that he can be her own hero and can get through life’s difficulties with awareness, skills and hope. He is no longer just watching, he has actively participated, and that is the great power of experiential learning.

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