Choosing a style.

J

jghenderson

Well-known member
My favorite films tend to come from Directors who have a very distinct "style" to their work. The kind of films that when you see it, you immediately know it comes from a certain Director.

I also have a friend in L.A. that is on the cusp of being a big-time music video director (he's already done one video for a well known band). He told me that one of the most important things for a young director getting into the industry is that you have a style and you stick with it. Reason being that if a client is thinking of hiring you and your work is varied in style, they don't really "know" what they're getting. If you have a cohesive style, however, they can trust that what they end up getting will look like this certain thing that they like.


Now here's my issue. I have a short film i'm shooting in a few months. It's going to be my first "big" short film in the sense of having a full crew of mostly professionals. It's really important to me to get this right, as the finished product is going to be shown to some people in L.A. that can have a big effect on my career. This fact coupled with the advice from my friend has me really feeling like I need to decide on a distinct "style" with this film that I can keep for the future.

Problem is, I just really can't make up my mind. I've gone so far as to analyze a list of my favorite films, trying to see if there was a correlation between a certain style and films I like. In the end it just made me even more confused. Styles seemed to have nothing to do with how great I thought a film was. I'm like this in all areas of my life. For instance in music, I love almost all styles of music. While this is great as a listener, if I was to ever try to make music, I wouldn't have the first clue of what type of music to make.


Basically: When no style seems to stand out to you as the one you like the most, how do you pick one? Just arbitrarily? Am I worrying too much about it? Even trying to decide whether to shoot this film handheld or on rails is driving me insane. I love both styles, and I don't see how I can pick.
 
Style is really important for music video directors. Less so for narrative. The most important thing for a narrative director is to keep the audience hooked. A good story, well told.

Worry less, concentrate on telling the story visually as well as you can, and your style will emerge on its own over the course of several films. Think in terms of a body of work, and don't make any one film too important.

Before he shot his first feature, Sir Ridley Scott had shot 2,500 commercials. Do you think he fretted over each one about his style? No, he did his best and moved on to the next one.
 
cult classics, but from different cults. interesting. at least we got the pacing down, they all have the same tempo.

why did you pick chungking express over in the mood for love?

why did you put rear window in the top ten, it does not fit with the rest. don't you think?
 
What POPCORNFLIX said, +:

A while ago I attended a "Creative" advertising seminar where a question was asked: "How do you come up with your creative ideas?" One of the major participants replied: "We get most of our ideas off of YouTube". We later called the seminar - PLAGIARISM 101 -
Mark Twain didn't copy anyone else's style . . . Shakespeare didn't copy anyone else's style . . . nor did Copola or Lucas. Style comes from an individual's imaginative interpretation and presentation of material using the tools of one's trade. "Knock-offs" are rarely successful or respected. Think about how YOU want to present your material to another person . . . and do it.
Good luck,
Ken
 
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actually Shakespeare and lucas are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy off. Shakespeare was sometimes a translator and mostly adapted stories to plays, some of witch were copies of other ancient stories.

star wars and indiana jones on the other hand were almost copy/past from from old serials and movies, sometimes scene to scene, shot to shot. and any additional work but into them that made them unique were never by lucas.
 
actually we are adaptors of stories (scripts) for visual presentation . . . and adapting them through our personal perception (style).

While Star Wars and the Indiana Jones films are adventure stories they were presented with fresh style and new techniques in adventure story telling. They certainly are not literary works. Just popular and successful exploitation films.

actually one should not pirate someone else's style, but should develop one's own presentation style through honest, thoughtful application of vision.

Ken
 
Amr Rahmy said:
cult classics, but from different cults. interesting. at least we got the pacing down, they all have the same tempo.

why did you pick chungking express over in the mood for love?

why did you put rear window in the top ten, it does not fit with the rest. don't you think?
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I do love In The Mood but Chungking gets a slight edge for me because I find the style of it very exciting and the characters are more relatable to me.

And yes I realize Rear Window is the odd one of the bunch, but I can't help but love it. Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly make a perfect pair to me and I love the confined perspective of the movie.
 
My sense of the original question is: "For my first "big" short film where do I find a style to apply, and to repeatedly copy, that will get positive recognition in L.A. for my career?"

Where . . . how?

My suuestion: Apply your own vision to the story and shoot as if you were telling that story to another person. Then your unique style will develop.
 
kennedymax said:
My sense of the original question is: "For my first "big" short film where do I find a style to apply, and to repeatedly copy, that will get positive recognition in L.A. for my career?"

Where . . . how?

My suuestion: Apply your own vision to the story and shoot as if you were telling that story to another person. Then your unique style will develop.
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Yes I understand that, but my question is HOW to make a decision about my style when so many seem applicable and good. I am very inspired by the story of this short, have some very specific images in my mind, and have a very specific mood I want to get across. But it seems to me that there are multiple ways for me to establish that mood and I'm wondering how someone is able to make a good decision when there appears to be multiple, equal options. Should I just pick the style that is easiest? Fastest?
 
the characters are more relate-able to me
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Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly make a perfect pair to me
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and I love the confined perspective of the movie.
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Brazil and children of men as well as some of the other movies share the same confined, lonely, confused, sad, dull, depressing world for the main character. unfortunately they share something else. style over substance.

no one would give rear window a second look if Hitchcock name was not attached to the film. and no one cares what you like for personal reasons, or if you relate to the main characters. or if you consider a movie as a dream or as escapism from reality.

make a top 10 list of movies as story telling mediums, what movies did you think conveyed a story in a good manner?
 
The list I provided ARE the movies I believe tell good stories. I believe they treat film as a true artform and not merely as photographed literature or theater.

I disagree wholeheartedly that those films are style over substance. I doubt you could find any films much more profound that the likes of Stalker, Ordet, The Son, Andrei Rublev, . Even Children of Men, which is the most action oriented of the films, has a great depth to it. And so what if "style" is a large part of a film. People don't knock Monet, or Dali or Picasso for being too stylized.
 
I don't think a signature style is so much something you choose as it is something that chooses you. Style could pretty much be defined as the set of ideas/techniques that you overuse because you like them.

M Night Shyalaman needs a twist whether its awesome or lame. Michael Bay likes explosions and uses them at every opportunity. The fact he uses them when others wouldn't makes it part of his style. Some like to use more blood in combat scenes, some prefer to use less or none. Some insist that the blood be practical, others are happy with CGI, some are even happy with using the same seed for their particle engine for every spatter. That is style. Some are fond of a particular lighting technique and find a way to get it into any movie, regardless of the genre's style. Some are in love with a particular film stock and even if they don't use it will use one that tends towards it. Some filmmakers have certain people they always work with so part of their style is in fact the style of their colleague.

The thing about it is though, a filmmaker will likely be blind to the elements of their own signature style until it is pointed out to them. Once these have been identified a filmmaker can play up to it if it proves popular but it is hard to choose to like something. You either do or you don't. Each film has its own style dictated by genre, story, cast, crew and other factors but the elements of the filmmaker's signature style (or preferences) will come through. Without even seeing your films you have a signature style forming. If you ever get to see the student films and early works of any major director, the unpolished kernels of their eventual signature style are there to found.
 
you picked the worst possible. if you had picked psycho or stranger on a train or birds or vertigo or north by northwest, ...etc from Hitchcock, it would have been different.

you picked the most sterile, made in a set. paper thin telling of them all, no character development, no goal, no story structure and the biggest problem is that it was taken from one of the original themes and altered specifically for the purpose of overused technology(at the time), wrong cast choices, 1D characters and side characters, multiple convenient timings.

if you look at strangers on a train for example. you can see how balanced story structure, what character development is, how the rhythm changes.

2 strangers meet on a train
the deranged antagonist gets an opportunity he have been waiting for
problem for the protagonist
protagonist determination and goal
struggle and character development
revelation and resolution

you get low points and high points for both characters, there is a crime, a mystery, a cover up, an investigation, love story, life problems, society, a psychopath on the loose. and you also get a 3D antagonist...etc.
 
Forgive me for not thinking all films must fall into a standard set of rules. No character development? Who cares? We get to watch the most likeable man who ever lived and the most beautiful woman who ever lived solve a murder and deal with their relationship at the same time. 1 Dimensional side characters? Again, so what? The detective is charming enough and has a good banter with Jimmy Stewart. The Nurse is funny. And all the other characters we see out the window, well frankly they're supposed to be 1 dimensional because all we know about them is what Stewart sees from his window.

Complaining about a lack of character development seems silly when you consider that the film is a masterful example of building tension. By comparison, North by Northwest is poorly executed (especially the atrocious final 10 minutes. The main characters don't actually DO anything to save themselves), The Birds is hard to take seriously, and Vertigo is too obtuse for it's own good. Only Psycho can hold up to Rear Window in my opinion.

P.S. I am in no way saying Vertigo, North by Northwest, and The Birds are bad films. In fact I think the three of them are great films. But as far as i'm concerned, Hitchcock only made 2 masterpieces, and that's Psycho and Rear Window.
 
p.s.: i'll make small quotes, which i normally don't do. sometimes it takes things out of context, and could be considered a bad habit.

solve a murder
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did they solve a murder? as opposed phoned it in? can you make a short list of the murder from there perspective. (with time stamps if you will, and add (visual and dialogue keys))

deal with their relationship
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did they deal with there relationship? what was there relationship before and after? and how many times was it brought up. (with time stamps if you will, and add (visual and dialogue keys))

the film is a masterful example of building tension
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masterful, can you make a short list of tension change throughout the film. (with time stamps if you will, and add (visual and dialogue keys) and add (rise and decline tension keys))

example of short list

1:23 - we see x and y going to a convenient store - visual
 
Amr Rahmy said:
no one would give rear window a second look if Hitchcock name was not attached to the film.
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You're joking, right? Of the 65 or so films Hitchcock made, Rear Window is consistently considered one of his 5 best. Many people put it at number one. And it's on the top 100 all time best films of AFI's list (at #51) and gets a 100% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. There are quite a few other films Hitchcock made that wouldn't get a second look if they weren't Hitchcock films, but Rear Window is certainly not one of them.


EDIT: Holy cow, you were serious about Rear Window. I kept reading down the thread until I got to this:


Amr Rahmy said:
you picked the worst possible. if you had picked psycho or stranger on a train or birds or vertigo or north by northwest, ...etc from Hitchcock, it would have been different.


you picked the most sterile, made in a set. paper thin telling of them all, no character development, no goal, no story structure and the biggest problem is that it was taken from one of the original themes and altered specifically for the purpose of overused technology(at the time), wrong cast choices, 1D characters and side characters, multiple convenient timings.
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Okay, fine. You clearly don't like the film. But you've totally missed what Hitchcock was doing with that film. Hitchcock could have shot it a hundred different ways, but the choices he made were all very deliberate.
 
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