#filmmaking is about telilng a story

[bombshellsandbluebells]

Ok because I can’t let this thought go, I need to say my piece on media analysis and fandom’s version of it really quickly:

I’ve worked as an on-set dresser, a set dresser, and in the set decoration department in other roles. I get how set dressing works. And I’m also a huge fan of media analysis and overanalyzing and drawing meaning where you find it from the text, intentional or not.

I’m all on board with finding details in the set dressing and expanding on them, but there are so many times I see posts that argue small set dec details are intentional and foreshadowing something - usually a ship going canon - when it never feels that way to me. Yes, there is thought behind every aspect of film, but that doesn’t mean that the exact placement of everything has some great meaning behind it. Sometimes the meaning is “it would make logical sense for this item to be in this space” and nothing more.

I don’t comment on these posts bc I don’t want to be overly negative or ruin anyone’s fun, but the problem I keep seeing happening in fandom spaces is that meaning that was never intentional on the creators’ part will be drawn from small details and passed around fandom as proof of foreshadowing of something that was never intended to happen. And because someone is able to find meaning in something, people believe it was an intentional set-up.

Sometimes the item is just there. Sometimes a set dresser went “yeah that looks good” and there’s nothing more to it. Sometimes the DP goes “yeah that shot looks visually good and the items in it make sense” not “every item placed in this shot is intentional”.

(Sometimes something gets stuck in a weird place and you don’t notice it until cameras are about the roll but it’s like, not worth the hassle of holding for art bc literally everyone hates holding for art, so it just lives there now.)

The problem isn’t drawing meaning from the text where you find it. That’s a great way to interact with media honestly. The problem is making the mistake of deciding it was intentional AND intentionally setting up the exact scenario you already wanted to happen. Bc honestly, until we hear it from the creator’s mouths, we don’t know always know what minor details were intentional.

#this was inspired by several different posts of this nature across all fandoms #like sometimes i'll read a post and go no trust me that items just there bc it's there #and when something is very very intentionally meant to mean something more attention is drawn to it in a signficant way #filmmaking is about telilng a story #and telling a story is not effective when you hide the meaning from your audience and only give them tiiny clues to do detective work to #stick together #so if you're ever having to do too much bending backwards to argue intention in some set dressing placement or lighting choice #or anythign #it's likely not an intentional choice and you're just subscribing the meaning YOU want to read into the text