Guidelines for New Movie Directors

A Guide for New Movie Directors The most obnixious and worn out line about film directing is, "Once the script is in shape and the right actors are cast Ninety percent of the director's job is done." An obvious response to this might be to suggest that any conversation about the director's potential duties can skip talk of the casting and the screenplay development. A TV series director rarely has a choice about the main cast and the scripts. And a writer may not be excited upon learning that the chief talent a chosen director is to re-shape a script. If a director has the right support team on a crew, with Assistant Directors and other department heads, the ability to "run the office" is not a priority skill - nor is it interesting to the average movie goer if he or she pays any attention to directors. Is the director willing to approach a project as if it matters how the frame and the cut are used? Or is this person just shrugging off the way a movie is shot and/or delegating the concepts of shots to the cnematographer? Is this person going to treat each scene as if it is an event being covered or recorded, or will it be shaped and informed by how the frame is used? Often, camera placement is just a matter of pragmatism and it may not mean anything. But if the psychology of the frame and the displacement impact of a cut are motivated by the context and characters, it can make the director's contribution more thoughtful and satisfying and less a matter of just following the rote way of doing things. Every camera set-up has been done hundreds of times by most of the people on a crew, and there is a short hand for most of them. There will be pressure to do things in a generic and expedient way. But some people in leadership positions experience The Imposter Syndrome and so it may be helpful if the director is bouyed by preparation and a vision. Why are you the director? Is it affirmative action? Did someone hire a woman to make sure there were not too many shots of breasts and buttocks? Do you shotlist, sketch storyboards of each shot, or draw camera positions on an overhead view map of the set or location - or do you see value in all of these? Even some people who regularly work on film sets will scoff at the idea of the motivated camera shot or move. This might be an uphill battle. But if shots follow each other in an interesting way and if characters are introduced effectively on screen, the viewer unconsciously gets a sense of confidence in the person directing his or her attention. When people ask what is the most important thing a movie director directs it is the attention of the audience. Many people from theater mistake the cinematographer's job for the director's job and vice versa. In a play, the text and the actor are the most important elements. In a movie, the addition of the frame can make the audience feel detached from the very same content or even more engaged. That makes it more than a mere recording of what is said and what happens in a scene. Sometimes detachment and the objective camera are the right call, and the subjective or motivated camera or a flourish that energizes and externalizes the psychology or tension of a scene is the best call. If I do not go through my script and doodle thumbnail storyboards and then refine those and I merely show up and wing it on the day of a shoot I will feel fraudulent even if every decision comes directly from my own mouth. I can think on my feet and often have, but it is best if even that is motivated by contemplation of what the scene means or represents and any undercurrent that would usually be applied to the storyboarding or pre-vis. It is the thought process and the chance to challenge that process and discover problems and solutions that makes the storyboard process valuable. Deciding when or how to conceal or reveal something, for example. Or finding visual motifs or images and set-ups that echo each other and help tie a story together can come from storyboarding. The old saying was, "Paper is cheaper than film." Today, it is cheaper than making your mistakes and changing your mind under the gun on a tight schedule with your cast and crew watching the clock. You may discover that one angle is enough on a scene - keeping the audience oriented following a more hyper sequence. Do your key collaborators all want to make the same movie? Is the script a fixed point of reference? Will the dialogue as written get its day in court? Are the actors willing to find the rhythm of the dialogue and vest it with pressence and personality or will they only be satisfied if they are making up new dialogue themselves? Is the cinematographer willing to follow storyboards? Is the editor willing to accept the pattens of design? Do you need an editor or can you hire someone as assistant editor to ensure that he or she has technical proficiency but also is not coming with the baggage of expectation and pretense? Can you just promote and credit someone as "edited by" as a reward for being competant and aggreeable? Are their leaders and resources on your crew that have unspoken expectations? Try to draw those out. Sometimes arriving at the end of a production with the wrong movie is worse than not having begun shooting at all. Some performers want to be the entire show, and to shrug off any script or directorial vision and simply be kept in focus with clear sound. In that case the sound recordist, cinematographer and the director will all be on the same level of heirchy: a low level, a cog in the machine. But as long as you know this is the gig and you all want to make the same project, no harm done.