Sergei Eisenstein is credited for pioneering montage in film. Using quick collision of shots, Eisenstein theorized he could manipulate the audience’s emotion and create film metaphors. Coming up with a number of methods or conflicts to a montage, they were not necessarily linear. This brainstorming article discusses two opposite techniques of story telling. Traditional dialogue versus the montage.
When I started guerrilla filmmaking, I believed in my heart characters defined the story and dialog defined the characters. Early, I relied on conversation to create a new universe that would exist only minutes. From what I have seen in short, guerrilla films this is not only norm but a near exclusive practice. The writer or director introduces their story through talent in a stable scene not threatened with continuity distortion. Generally, talent comes in pairs or solitary speaking with audience directly or indirectly.