If you want to study film and filmmaking, you should take an epistemological approach.
There’s an old saying that goes something like, “The only person who knows a lot is the person who knows they know nothing.”
Aside from feeling like word salad, there’s a real core belief in there that knowledge is an ongoing journey. There is no way you could know it all. You have to keep learning.
Well, filmmaking is very similar to this philosophy. You can get better and better, learning more and more, but you will never know it all. You’re just working long and hard enough to acquire the knowledge base to make the best decisions you can.
We call this the epistemological approach. It sounds fancy, but it’s really not. It’s much more introspective. This approach will help you develop characters, stories, and worlds.
But what is the definition of epistemological? And how does epistemology work in filmmaking as a whole?
Let’s work this out together.
Author: Jason Hellerman
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
