10 Things Filmmakers Need To Stop Doing Immediately

Film-goers are not looking for anything elaborate here. “Bye” is, of course, a classic, but there are any number of other options: “See you later”, or perhaps just “Laters” for efficiency; maybe “Au Revoir” to show some class or, of course, if your characters are French; you could even go a bit gangster with “In a bizzle”. All fine choices, among many more, and all short and snappy.

Is this a prevalent film trope simply because it saves time? Unless the entire film is about people on the phone, then surely not a great deal of runtime will be added if the afore-mentioned pithy farewells are used. Why does it matter, you patiently ask.

Because, once noticed, it can take you out of the film. You begin to ask why the characters didn’t say bye to each other – are they mad at each other? Is there some back story in which the two characters mutually decided to not say adios anymore, to save time in their lives?

Or is the film actually set in some dystopian future in which humans have stopped saying goodbye? Maybe if any variation of bye is said in this dystopian future world, then the person you say it to disappears forever, so that is why it is a criminal offence to say it and thus why the two characters neglected doing so on the phone to each other just now?

Anyway, cool film concepts aside, the point is, by the time you have become lost within all these potential scenarios, you don’t know what has happened in the film since the phone call.