Need advice on drawing viewer emotion for short film

The original question is a GREAT one, but one that (I feel) is not a matter of technique, tricks, or even advice. That question of how to draw emotion from one's audience is the central struggle of any artistic medium -- books, music, performance art, and visual art alike. This is why (as someone else mentioned earlier) A-List directors like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg are given hundreds of millions of dollars to direct movies: because for whatever reason, they know how to combine the various skill sets of cinematography, acting, editing, and leadership to bridge the emotional gap between Creator and Audience. That's the magic.

There's nothing anyone will really say to get you there. That's the one part of filmmaking that you truly have to learn yourself.

LastChancey said:

The original question is a GREAT one, but one that (I feel) is not a matter of technique, tricks, or even advice. That question of how to draw emotion from one's audience is the central struggle of any artistic medium -- books, music, performance art, and visual art alike. This is why (as someone else mentioned earlier) A-List directors like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg are given hundreds of millions of dollars to direct movies: because for whatever reason, they know how to combine the various skill sets of cinematography, acting, editing, and leadership to bridge the emotional gap between Creator and Audience. That's the magic.

There's nothing anyone will really say to get you there. That's the one part of filmmaking that you truly have to learn yourself.

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No one could have said it better. I nearly teared up. I think you have the gift

threeplusnine said:

So what I need help on, is making the person watching the film feel like crying. I want the viewer to finish watching the film and go "That was beautiful."

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Spielberg has a fine sense of building emotions and matching sound and camera to the story. Yes, the first time you see ET die, it's designed to make kids cry. So is the Lion King, Avatar, and many movies. This pattern becomes a repetitive theme in films. You see the hero/heroine die (and sometimes mysteriously resurrect). It becomes very formulaic when done poorly. And it has been done so often -- triumph, defeat, redemption -- that it's expected and ho-hum. We've come to expect the hero to die, get tortured, lose his friends/possessions, or otherwise be utterly defeated at the end of act two (50-60 minutes in), that we can get up and get a beer from the fridge and come back without missing a beat. S/he'll be back to kick but in 10 minutes. Imagine if sports were that predictable!

To be clear, I'm not saying that effects shouldn't be used to heighten a moment--visual, auditory, or through scripting. I agree that camera shots, lighting, and sound can be used to good effect. As Dreadylocks points out, poor use of the medium can equally detract from the emotional intensity of a scene.

What I take issue with is the premise--"How do I make the audience feel ...?" The question should properly be, "What is the best way to convey or heighten the feeling of X in this scene to the audience?". The former has an air of manipulation to it. There is a difference in my mind between "I want the audience to feel sad even if the character/situation isn't so" as opposed to "I want the audience to understand the depth of sadness of this character/situation."

It may have been how I read the question. But 'amplifying emotions' if different from 'forcing emotions'. I always get misty at the end of "Jacob's Ladder". While the music, lighting or camera shots play into it, the simple resolution touches a part of me.

Can you force emotions? Of course. Most of us have seen melodramatic "tear-jerkers". In this day and age, manipulation is second nature to the industry. Look at the use of movies to push political agendas. My reading of the question was, "How do I trick the audience into crying and thinking 'Whoa, this is art!'" Can it be done, yes. And some of your audience will fall for it. But as Chancey points out, to do that consistently requires a very developed skill set. And if it's done poorly, it ends up detracting from the film.