Directing

Film Techniques and Aesthetics

Michael Rabiger, Mick Hurbis-Cherrier

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351186377
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics is a comprehensive exploration into the art and craft of directing for film and television. It's filled with practical advice, essential technical information, and inspiring case studies for every stage of production. This book covers the methods, technologies, thought processes, and judgments that a director must use throughout the fascinating process of making a film, and concentrates on developing the human aspects of cinema to connect with audiences.The fully revised and updated 6th edition features new sections on using improvisation, the development of characters for long form television series, visual design, the role of the digital imaging technician, film promotion and distribution, alongside expanded information on contemporary color grading tools, stylistic approaches and genre, workflows, blocking scenes for the camera and more. The book emphasizes independent and short form cinema which allows cutting-edge creativity and professionalism on shoestring budgets. Recognizing that you learn best by doing, it includes dozens of practical hands-on projects and activities to help you master technical and conceptual skills.

Just as important as surmounting technological hurdles is the conceptual and authorial side of filmmaking. This book provides an unusually clear view of the artistic process, particularly in working with actors and principle crew members. It offers eminently practical tools and exercises to help you develop your artistic identity, find credible and compelling stories, choose and work with your cast and hone your narrative skills. Directing shows you how to surpass mere technical proficiency and become a storyteller with a distinctive voice and style. The accompanying companion website includes film analysis exercises, shooting projects, checklists and assignment forms, analytical questionnaires, updated production forms and logs for all phases of a project with links to additional resources and set safety advice.

PART 1

THE DIRECTOR AND ARTISTIC IDENTITY

PART 1-1

Director Sarah Polley and cinematographer Luc Montpellier line up a shot on location for the film Away From Her (2006).

PART 1-2

Director Gustavo Mercado consults with an actor on set during a directing workshop at EFTI Centro Internacional de Fotografía y Cine.

CHAPTER 1

THE WORLD OF THE FILM DIRECTOR

Exploring the art of filmmaking and the world of the film director is like exploring an ocean; there are the depths to consider, the shorelines, the currents, and the sea life; one can examine the trade routes and their impact on history and culture, or even the ocean’s effect on the climate and civilizations. So where should we begin with our exploration into filmmaking? Let’s start with what is clearly most important—go make a film. Now!

Why? Filmmaking is an art you acquire through practice, like dancing, painting, or playing an instrument. You learn by doing—however and wherever you can, over and over. Don’t wait to gain knowledge of film equipment, technology, and film techniques because they won’t lead to the stories you must tell, nor will they help you direct your actors. Don’t wait to feel grounded in history, theory, and criticism—important though these disciplines are. Jump in where you are now and just start doing it. All you need is access to a laptop computer and a DSLR¹, or even just a smartphone, to start amassing experience right now.

For practice films of just a few minutes, try restaging a small incident that occurred to you recently, at home, on the street, at the park, wherever. Think of a recent event where you learned something or had one of those “Ah-Ha!” moments. It need not be a huge lesson or profound moment; it doesn’t even need to involve spoken exchanges. Keep it small and compact but apply it to a character unlike yourself. Imagining someone different gives you a character to develop, generates new ideas, and avoids the self-indulgence that often afflicts beginners’ films. Recreate moments you can shoot in an hour or two and edit immediately. Finish in a day or two, then make another and another. Get used to crafting small, believable moments on film, regularly. The idea is not to produce a magnum opus, but to cut your teeth on small, do-able exercises. You want to begin experiencing the creative flow that links ideas, acting, shooting, editing, and audience response (your family?). Go ahead, we’ll be happy if you put the book down and go make a two-minute movie. When you return with a bit more experience, we’ll still be here.

¹ Digital single lens reflex camera

CINEMA ART AND YOU

The language of the screen is the great art form of our time because it offers compelling entertainment and an outstanding forum for the marriage of ideas and feeling. As a primarily visual, behavioral medium it leaps national and cultural barriers, and changes hearts and minds as only good art can. There is no limit to the number of meaningful films the world can consume. So if you can create outstanding work, there will be a place for you. Proving yourself won’t be simple or easy, for the competition is stiff. But profit from what’s in this book, and you can make successful films no matter whether you’ve done ten years in the industry or are just starting out.

Historically speaking, filmmaking, particularly directing, has been a rather exclusive and homogeneous profession; but happily, we’re experiencing an explosion of fresh voices from every corner of the world, from every subculture, racial background, personal experience, and point along the gender spectrum. Today, creative media makers, no matter where they live, are harnessing affordable technologies and the Internet to gain wide audience recognition. If you are just starting, this is an exciting moment since the circle of who is represented, and who gets to make films, is growing. Not just new equipment and greater distribution are involved: there’s a hunger in the public for stories not yet told about people and experiences not yet seen and lives not yet explored. So, don’t listen to anyone who says you can or can’t direct, or who says you have, or don’t have, talent. For many, “talent” is often confused with the facile replication of the status quo. We’ve taught thousands, and “talent” is often a flash in the pan. More important is persistence, a love for teamwork and learning, and a passion for telling stories—your stories. These are qualities you choose to enact from day to day, so nobody can predict who will do well. If experienced faculty could truly spot talent, Mike Figgis would have got into Britain’s National Film and Television School, and the German Film & Television Academy would have embraced Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Thomas Tykwer.

Running throughout this book is an urgent concern for the sad fact that many filmmakers, professional as well as student, often direct their best work early and then fizzle out. This also happens to novelists, playwrights, painters, and musicians, of course, but two main factors decimate filmmakers. Both are preventable if you work to acquire the specialized inner resources we urge in this book. What’s going on?

The first factor involves conceiving and directing a striking artwork, which takes an underlying idea powerfully rooted in the artist’s own experience. Film directors need an especially strong, evolving inner life, or their idea bank will be a one-shot deal and unable to support subsequent projects. The other factor is the nature of filmmaking itself: making long fiction is a technocratic factory process whose formalities, processes, and personalities engulf the director and all too easily smother the founding vision. In film school you see promising directors deflect their attention to improving their technique. But serving this mystique only produces glossy, functional films that touch nobody because they have no soul.

To avoid treading in their footsteps, listen carefully to what we say throughout this book. Place your priorities firmly in human experience and human artistry; and listen to your instincts.

HOW MOST PEOPLE GET THERE

Learning to direct films is like learning to conduct an orchestra. Conductors usually first learn an instrument, master music, and only then turn to conducting—which means coordinating an ensemble. Conductors are seldom virtuosic on even one instrument, but they must understand the musical range and expressive capabilities of all the instruments under their baton. Likewise, most film directors start by mastering one key craft such as screenwriting, acting, cinematography, or editing. Along the way, they ingest a general understanding of the other crafts and how they interrelate to tell a cinematic story. Eventually the film craftsman elects to direct—a big step.

Which craft should you make the first rung of your ladder? This will emerge as you roll up your sleeves, use this book and get an all-around filmmaking immersion. This may happen in film school with fellow students, or outside it, working with a few committed friends. Either way, carrying out the rudiments of each film production role will greatly inform you as you move toward directing.

Luckily, digital equipment has massively reduced production costs so that any emerging filmmaker can now practice intensively. There is much to understand and control since film, still a young art form, incorporates all the other arts—drama, writing, acting, music, choreography, architecture, painting, photography, design, sound composition—as well as the sciences of electricity, sound, and light. The director must concentrate on the integrity of the story, the mode of storytelling, and the actors’ interpretation of their characters. Directing demands primarily intuitively human rather than technical judgments and this will always remain so. Most of all, the cast and crew need a director armed with strong, clear, critical ideas, a leader who uses the film medium creatively and who has something penetrating and memorable to say about the human condition.

PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

A professional director answers to the producer and is responsible for the details, quality, and meaning of the final film. A film team (cast and crew) consists of many creative and technical collaborators, and the director’s job is to coordinate their collective expertise and effort and inspire its creative energy. The outcome should be a stylistically unified, coherent story that connects with audiences and moves them in memorable ways.

A project begins with preproduction during which the director writes or works with writers; envisions the film’s scope, purpose, identity, and meaning; finds appropriate locations that advance the dramatic meaning and atmosphere of the film; auditions and casts actors; assembles a crew (though this may be done with the producer or unit production manager, if you have one); develops both cast and script throughout rehearsals; and defines the technical and stylistic approach with the various department heads (camera, sound and art departments).

During production (the shooting of the film), the director essentially performs two major functions: staging scenes for the camera, and assuring that the performances are strong, consistent and appropriate. One involves directing the crew, the other, directing the actors. If director, actors, and crew have done their work properly during preproduction, everyone arrives on the set knowing what they must do to get the film in the can. This allows the director to stay loose, with eyes and ears open, ready to improvise, rework, improve, or reconceive scenes along the way when necessary. The realities of production always reveal both obstacles and opportunities; these demand continuous flexibility and improvisation.

During postproduction and distribution, the director usually oversees the creative aspects of the editing and finalization of the project. In the commercial film world, the director collaborates with an editor to deliver a “director’s cut” to the producer who in turn has the authority to make changes—and they usually do. In the independent and student film world, the director works with an editor to guide the film through all the postproduction stages. Additionally, the director must be available during its early distribution run to promote the production by attending festivals, establishing a social media presence, and engaging other promotion avenues.

PERSONAL QUALITIES

It is good to be methodical and organized while being outwardly informal and easygoing. You should be able to: scrap prior work if assumptions become obsolete; and possess great tenacity for searching out unusual ideas, techniques, people, and performances. The better directors are articulate and succinct in communication; make instinctive judgments and decisions; get the best out of people without being dictatorial; can speak on terms of respectful equality with a range of specialists; understand technicians’ problems and inspire their best efforts. In short, a film director is a leader, and needs to build trust and respect, communicate ideas clearly, and inspire people to do their best work.

If directing is beginning to sound superhuman, rest assured that you don’t have to walk on water. Many excellent directors are also obstinate, private, awkward, and idiosyncratic. During production, they may sink into acute doubt and anxiety, suffer sensory overload, and find all choice painful. Most try to...