Ted Spencer
Veteran
Just like the "function before form" idea in architecture and industrial design; practical art forms that have many parallels in filmmaking. "Less is more" applies quite nicely as well...
Are there any directors out there telling stories?
- Thread starter Melvin Harris
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Just like the "function before form" idea in architecture and industrial design; practical art forms that have many parallels in filmmaking. "Less is more" applies quite nicely as well...
This thread is great. Thanks pharpsied.
There are a lot of long posts and a lot of valid points.
There are so many layers, angles, visions, viewpoints, styles, depths, genres that coalesce into "FILM", and this makes it difficult to have the kind of discussion that is unfolding here.
To me making a film is tantamount to creating a world. How deeply that world is mined, explored and ultimately presented has everything to do with the depths from which it arises. Not only the depth from which it was written, but also the depth of understanding that a director cultivates/ possesses. The more a director understands the essence of the story and the characters, the better the odds of intelligent casting, detailed vision and ultimately greater execution.
I often think of the quote by William Blake- "Execution is the chariot of genius". So I am always aware that what people talk about shows little and what people execute ultimately speaks volumes. I will keep that in mind as I continue to write
Knowing 'beats' comes from knowing the story, really understanding it. This is inner work, and requires some emotional maturity, and genuine interest in what makes the human animal work. I think this is the area that separates painting by numbers and recreating from sovereign expression and creating with your own 'voice'.
There are the obvious beats that can be marked at the entrances and exits, but there are also the minute beats when the realization occurs, or the precise moment we see the decision hit the facial muscles.
As a director, everything is important. Yes, you have to decisively choose your battles and prioritize depending on budgets, etc. and do your best to find a good crew to delegate, but you are, in the end holding the vision and executing the creation of a world. I don't cringe as much when I read oversimplified posts about the "art of directing", because if it is a true aim to make a great film, then eventually a person is going to dig deeper, or likely just become bored by their own work. We are all kids in a sandbox anyway.
I can offer some perspective from my past life (the first half), much of which was spent acting and directing theatre and a bit of film & tv as well:
Most directors (in my experience) rely on the actors to get it right and often haven't a clue as to how to actually direct the process. Again the most sure way to gain ground here as a director is to deeply understand the story. Understanding it completely is not really possible and would sap the unexpected revelations (and probably the life) out of the experience, but by digging until you begin to see and understand each character and start to see the universal dynamics of human experience, you start to know what you are wanting. . . How to get what you want requires another kind of emotional skill. . . understanding "The Actor". Really, just one acting class will change your life as a director. I am not saying this is essential, but it is definitely a fast lane into the realm of an actor's experience.
I did a film directed by an award winning editor and it really was like painting by numbers. Another HBO film directed by a couple (swanky commercial directors). All of the actors I talked with felt lost! The "directors" would print a take and say things such as,"That was so cool the way the light hit the side of the truck", and seemed to have little interest in what the actors inside the frame were doing.
If I see a film in which the acting is really poor, My first thought is, "Didn't the director see that?"
A director is responsible [def.= the ability to respond] for the acting in the film.
That is probably a good mantra: the director is responsible (able to respond)
Lens tests, exposure tests, quality lighting and sound- important.
The ability to execute (capture) the story inside of the technical process- essential.
Nothing easy about it in a way and yet the enjoyment of the human side makes it more like a challenging inner sport than 'work'.
Until I finish my own (in the works) project, feel free to consider this all balderdash. :thumbsup:
There are a lot of long posts and a lot of valid points.
There are so many layers, angles, visions, viewpoints, styles, depths, genres that coalesce into "FILM", and this makes it difficult to have the kind of discussion that is unfolding here.
To me making a film is tantamount to creating a world. How deeply that world is mined, explored and ultimately presented has everything to do with the depths from which it arises. Not only the depth from which it was written, but also the depth of understanding that a director cultivates/ possesses. The more a director understands the essence of the story and the characters, the better the odds of intelligent casting, detailed vision and ultimately greater execution.
I often think of the quote by William Blake- "Execution is the chariot of genius". So I am always aware that what people talk about shows little and what people execute ultimately speaks volumes. I will keep that in mind as I continue to write
Knowing 'beats' comes from knowing the story, really understanding it. This is inner work, and requires some emotional maturity, and genuine interest in what makes the human animal work. I think this is the area that separates painting by numbers and recreating from sovereign expression and creating with your own 'voice'.
There are the obvious beats that can be marked at the entrances and exits, but there are also the minute beats when the realization occurs, or the precise moment we see the decision hit the facial muscles.
As a director, everything is important. Yes, you have to decisively choose your battles and prioritize depending on budgets, etc. and do your best to find a good crew to delegate, but you are, in the end holding the vision and executing the creation of a world. I don't cringe as much when I read oversimplified posts about the "art of directing", because if it is a true aim to make a great film, then eventually a person is going to dig deeper, or likely just become bored by their own work. We are all kids in a sandbox anyway.
I can offer some perspective from my past life (the first half), much of which was spent acting and directing theatre and a bit of film & tv as well:
Most directors (in my experience) rely on the actors to get it right and often haven't a clue as to how to actually direct the process. Again the most sure way to gain ground here as a director is to deeply understand the story. Understanding it completely is not really possible and would sap the unexpected revelations (and probably the life) out of the experience, but by digging until you begin to see and understand each character and start to see the universal dynamics of human experience, you start to know what you are wanting. . . How to get what you want requires another kind of emotional skill. . . understanding "The Actor". Really, just one acting class will change your life as a director. I am not saying this is essential, but it is definitely a fast lane into the realm of an actor's experience.
I did a film directed by an award winning editor and it really was like painting by numbers. Another HBO film directed by a couple (swanky commercial directors). All of the actors I talked with felt lost! The "directors" would print a take and say things such as,"That was so cool the way the light hit the side of the truck", and seemed to have little interest in what the actors inside the frame were doing.
If I see a film in which the acting is really poor, My first thought is, "Didn't the director see that?"
A director is responsible [def.= the ability to respond] for the acting in the film.
That is probably a good mantra: the director is responsible (able to respond)
Lens tests, exposure tests, quality lighting and sound- important.
The ability to execute (capture) the story inside of the technical process- essential.
Nothing easy about it in a way and yet the enjoyment of the human side makes it more like a challenging inner sport than 'work'.
Until I finish my own (in the works) project, feel free to consider this all balderdash. :thumbsup:
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Those two are state of mind. Beauty is not easy. B movies are nor beautiful neither meaningful.
I still think that beauty + meaning = great movie (book, sculpture, music, poem, etc.).
Melvin Harris
Black Flag Member
You know, I am a piano player, and like others, I am captivated by Bill Evans. He was a monster, a beast on piano who changed the landscape of Jazz and ushered in the modern era in solo and ensemble playing. We are all (modern jazz piano players of all ability levels) descendants of Mitochondrial Bill. It's funny though, as much as we work to attain just the smallest amount of his proficiency, he thought he was untalented so he worked like a slave because he felt deficit. He put in hours and hours, days and weeks, to cultivate a voice. He also did not believe in practice for the sake of practice, and technique for technique's sake. If he wanted to learn a technique, he learned it in the framework of a tune where he could also work on feeling, touch, tone, expression, and rhythm.
I want to be that director.
Melvin Harris
Black Flag Member
Here's something to this point... I don't know about you, but I didn't mind the influence in the movie.
Again, from MovieMakers' Master Class by Laurent Tirard
Martin Scorsese:
I guess the film I experimented on the most was probably Goodfellas. But then again, I'm not sure I would call that experimenting, as the style was mainly based on Citizen Kane's "March of Time" sequence and the first few minutes of Truffaut's Jules and Jim. In the latter film, every frame is just filled with information, beautiful information, and there's a narration which tells you one thing when, in fact, the image shows you something else... It's very, very rich and that sort of richness of detail is what I played with in Goodfellas, So it was nothing new, really. But what was new, I felt, was the exhilaration of the narration juxtaposed to the images to create the emotion of that lifestyle, of being a young gangster.
Ted Spencer
Veteran
^why what he (Scorsese) did, which was expressly imitative, actually worked.
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Ted Spencer
Veteran
Exactimundo. Spot on.
As an actor this has unfortunately been my experience as well. To put it simply, I have met precious few directors who I would consider to be genuinely competent in this regard. Many who are fine with the technical side, but few who know how to coax the best from the actors. Or the script. Or evidence a deep understanding of either, most surprisingly the latter, which is most surprising because, usually, they *wrote* the thing...
Sorry...I hate to be so tough on the fine folks who've hired me to act, and nearly all of them have been just that, but...well...'nuff said I guess...
I just finished forcing myself to watch almost all of "The Last Airbender" (some parts of the Blu-Ray weren't reading properly, so the player mercifully skipped over them - I didn't intervene). I found the poor acting quality throughout to be literally breathtaking. Scene after scene, line after line, even with actors like Dev Patel, who was wonderful in "Slumdog Millionaire" (along with everyone else in that film, including completely inexperienced child actors). I found myself coming to the inevitable conclusion that Shyamalan must have been doing something actually *proactive* to destroy the quality of all the acting. In other words, a level of directorial cluelessness that transcended the (already haphazard) level of 'I don't know a whole lot about it, so I'll let the actors figure it out on their own', into the stratospheric 'I'll force them all to do it in my own, half-baked, cockamamie way' level. I am hard pressed to think of a major-director big-budget film I've ever seen in my life that has as consistently, relentlessly awful acting.
Prezactly
No way, Jose : )
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dougspice
Veteran
Obviously I was simplifying. However I think it is true that making beautiful images is a skill more easily done than making something coherent and meaningful.
"Beautiful," of course, is also subjective. The classical definition of beauty wouldn't be appropriate to a film like Taxi Driver or Pi or whatever. Knowing what is appropriate to the story is another one of those skills that a good director must have.
dougspice
Veteran
Oh, I don't mind influences. Hell, I generally love Wes Anderson's films, and those are almost entirely reference and pastiche. But they're also interpreted through a very original perspective to provide something new.
Influence isn't something you can escape... it's automatic. I doubt anyone would be a filmmaker if they hadn't once seen something that blew them away and said, "I want to do that." But you have to bring something new to the table.
Rolf Silber
Veteran
And yet...... the ability to be that "traffic cop" is where the process starts. Without this ability you can not be a director. I see people with nice ideas and with lot's of "visions" running around on sets who have no idea how to organize themselves and, worse, even less ideas how to organize other talent or even the artistic functionality of a set. Over here we call them "director impersonators" (And, at times, it reminds about what Vienna writer Karl Kraus wrote: "if you have visions go and see a neurologist").
But, yes: The "traffic cop"-part does not make you a director. It's a prerequisite. Like good eyesight is prerequisite for being a pilot. If you don't have it, don't even start.
One can learn from great directors. Yes. But in my experience one can at times learn even more from not so great directors. I have learned from such directors what to avoid. What not to do. And I don't mean outright terrible movies. But rather such that have some good ideas, that work for a long time and then hit a rock... and maybe get into the flow again ... or go down. Perfection is a bad techer imho. It's too closed often, too hard to really find out about the "mechanics". And this has another aspect: It makes oneself a bit more humble and careful. Because one realizes that no one awakes in the morning with the idea "Wow, I dearly want to start to shoot a real bad film now".
If you are a good "traffic cop".... and if you have good ideas (or even visions) and knowledge and references...... you still have to meet "the ghost within". What we may call the mighty sub-text and which will - hopefully, if we find it, if we can evoke or invoke it and keep it alive by whatever method - give our films a "soul". Give it the "movens". Give it a theme. A taste. A colour. It's in my view a bit like the ego and the super-ego which we may think are the ruling powers within ourselfes.... but without the "Id" we very probably get a very well shot, superbly executed but empty film. And it will happen. To you, to me, to almost every director I know. And that's why at times we have films that are not so well shot and still work just terrific. They have met their ghost.
This "ghost" one only meets in the process of making. And hopefully before the shooting starts. It comes - in my experience at last - from a lot of sources and impulses. And a director has to have the ability to integrate them in a constant and ongoing process and at the same time carve out his very individual idea(s) about the movie he is going to shoot. He needs to be flexible in this and clearly orientated at the same time. Organize the tribe, the flock, the team and the actors but know where to go to and why. But then...
Sitting in the 28th - completely empty - floor of a high-raiser in the middle of the city..... in what will be the principal set for our next movie ... the night was about to come and with some fascination I watched the lights in the other tall buildings getting switched on and saw this hundreds and hundreds of people in their tiny bureaus, fighting, working, craving, hurting for their lives and their jobs and their money and their minds ...... and all of a sudden the city was a bees nest, you almost could feel the buzzing and humming .... no: not bees, not ants. Not really insects. Humans. Warm Full of blood. And they, like me, where sitting in this now illuminated glass cages and only sometimes watching out and realizing - for a second maybe - that some hundreds meters away, high up in the air and lonely, another human in another cage was watching them. Towers of light, filled with hopes and love and hate and dullness .... and like ships in the night passing each other. Two passengers waving to each other from ship to ship maybe.... that was the moment when I hope I have met my "ghost within" for what we start shooting end of the month and what will be a dramatic comedy about the financial industry in my country.
The rest of what "directing" is about - the traffic cop part - we can learn. "Meet the ghost" is the hard part.
Forgive me for my at times cranky English. May stop communicating for a while because the machine gets rolling... best wishes and good luck to all other ships out there.... ;-)
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j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
Mehr KK Sprüche... 'Talent ist oft ein Charakterdefekt'... oder 'Es gibt keine Erzeuger mehr, nur mehr Vertreter'.
More Karl Kraus quotes... "Talent is often a Character defect" or "There are no more founders, just more followers"...
But I think the concept of 'management with vision' is essential to the activity of 'director'. I've had enough 'traffic cops' in my day job masquerading as 'managers'...
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Rolf Silber
Veteran
Okay, maybe I have a more positive vision of traffic-cops as organisers of a very complex process and not so much as the ones to give you a ticket.... some analogies get overstressed quickly. And, yes, "mechanical" we should not be in that process.... but know who goes where and why....
Rolf Silber
Veteran
Hi Kholi, sit in the mountains in the woods - with a shoe-string size data line - with my cinematographer and wait for the the magic fire salamanders to appear and to tell us what "the ghost" wants from us and how to draw the story board.... ;-)
Keep you updated.
Rolf Silber
Veteran
To an actor entering the stage: "Can you please come without coming so much?" ;-)
postcriptum: Have you seen the documentary about Kortner working on "Hamlet" I believe with Helmut Lohner? Great film, may have to watch it again.....
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Rolf Silber
Veteran
....and just this night it came to me hat I did befuddle Karl Kraus with Fritz Kortner in my last post.... oh, the embarrassment... ;-)