By Scott Shaw
At the
heart of Zen Filmmaking is the ideology that, “The stories have all been told.”
Therefore, why attempt to tell the same story that has been filmed a thousand
times, over-and-over again, simply by providing it with a different title?
This is one of the primary reasons why in Zen
Filmmaking we do not use scripts. Though the Zen Filmmaker may begin with an
overview of a story concept, they allow the naturalness of non-defined organic,
spiritual inspiration to be the only guide in the formation of the Zen Film. As
nothing is etched in stone, (i.e., no script), the Zen Film is allowed to
develop in a natural and unhindered process. From this, the Zen Filmmaker frees
themselves from the constraints of a formalized story and enters into the world
of artistic cinematic creation. By allowing the film to evolve in its own
naturalness during the filming and particularity the editing process, many a
Zen Film has been created.
There have
been many Zen Film created with this technique as a foundation. But, the next
evolution of Zen Filmmaking is the non-narrative film.
What is a
non-narrative film? With no need to tell a story, an entire film is simply
allowed to be what it is – constructed with film footage the Zen Filmmaker
deems appropriate to edit into one cohesive product.
No story
need be told, as all the stories have already been told. No definitions of
filmmaking particulars need to be defined: such as a particular filming
technique, delineated lighting, specific character development, or formalized
editing. The footage that is shot is allowed to be what it is and is then put
together via the freedom based, ongoing cinematic vision of the filmmaker.
Freedom is
the essence of Zen. The non-narrative Zen Film is, therefore, the absolute
embodiment of Zen.
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