Is directing an acquired skill or a gift you're born with?

iamWZA

iamWZA

Active member
Perhaps this topic has been explored before, but it's difficult to search the forum for something like this. Even so, I'm sure people can give some new perspectives on the subject.
The title of the thread is quite self-explanatory, so go ahead and express your opinions, if you have them.

I'm beginning to think it's something you either have or you don't, or at least that's what separates the wheat from the chaff. And perhaps there is something a little less appealing about somebody who has learnt the craft from a technical perspective. I compare it to somebody playing football. Some players seem to just have a gift, and the way they play is free and natural. Whereas some people have worked exceptionally hard and are very well rehearsed in the fundamentals of the game, and although being very proficient, lack a certain flare or originality to their style.

Interested to hear what you think.
Will
 
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I hope you don't think this is a cop-out, but really it's both.

With almost every aspect of filmmaking, there is a technical side and an intuitive side. There is the technical side of the camera and even the traditional rules of cinematography that almost anyone can learn with enough effort, but there is also an undefinable ability to see great images, or what is usually referred to as your "eye".

Even with acting, there are "rules" you can learn. Many people read books like 'Directing Actors' by Judith Weston and memorize the "rules" (though she explicitly claims there are none, just things that tend to work better than others). However there is also the intuitive side of directing, which usually boils down to understanding people on a deep level.

So I think the real answer to the question is that there are people who are not "born with it", that through great effort can learn how to do it and can probably have a fairly successful career. But I do think it is true, perhaps indisputable, that the truly great possess something that cannot be taught.
 
I don't think it's a cop-out. It was an answer I was expecting, and the points you raised were very interesting. I definitely agree that the really special directors of this world have/had a certain something that can't be learnt. You either have it or you don't. By the way, I'm now following you on twitter!
 
At the end of the day, it's just a job. Essentially it's a sort of creative project management. And as such, anyone can learn the basics to be able to carry out the job (to whatever effect, be it good or bad).

However, as with all things, there are going to be people who are better suited to it than others. I think the ability to understand how to communicate story and emotion EFFECTIVELY through moving pictures, is a relatively rare trait. Good writing is the same. The thing about directing, is that it requires not only that technical ability to see and communicate with images, but it also requires (in equal measure) the capacity to work and interact with a large number of different people, to be able to pull everything together to create the images they need to create. In my own opinion, that's the tougher of the two skills, but both are equally important.

Are these skills you can learn? Absolutely. But I have no doubt that nature, nurture and personal circumstances all play a significant part in how effectively any one person can implement them.

So in short, yes, I think a natural ability to direct is something some people are born with, but I don't think it precludes those who aren't from being able to direct effectively if they've focussed themselves on learning the technical and people skills they need.
 
Not for nothing, more than one film has been made with two directors, one who managed the artistic vision, and the other who managed the people, actors included.
 
If you don't have the ability to play it out in your head, your doomed as far as being a director goes. In my opinion, it's a mandatory trait, and not everyone has the ability to do it. Some people just dont have vivid imaginations. But thats not to say you might be great at directing actors and getting excellent performances out of them. Directing is such a broad job that has lots of different aspects. I feel a good director should have knowledge of cameras,lights,acting,editing,makeup,set design. Pretty much most all aspects of filmmaking. It will be that much easier to get your ideas accross to the crew so they can help mold your vision. But of course it always goes back to, "do you have the ability to visualize detail"
 
maranfilms said:
If you don't have the ability to play it out in your head, your doomed as far as being a director goes. In my opinion, it's a mandatory trait, and not everyone has the ability to do it.
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I agree with you, maranfilms, but I'd like to express it another way. When you're shooting a film, everything will "conspire" against you to make things go wrong. Locations become unavailable, the weather doesn't cooperate, money isn't available, ect. The director's primary job is to keep the film in focus, to make sure that at the end of the day enough footage is captured to make the movie that was set out to make, from beginning to end. Obviously reshoots happen, sometimes major ones, but that costs money and if you're constantly coming back from production with unusable footage to make the movie work on even a basic level, you will soon be seen as a director who is incompetent. Producers/investors don't care if you were able to coach your actors to great heights of performance, or thought up that really cool shot that lasts 1.5 seconds during the third act. They want a director who can shoot for 4-6 weeks and comes back with the material that makes a coherent movie that people will spend money on so that they can recoup their investment and make a profit.

That's not something you can be born with. It's a craft, and requires a lot of getting in there and doing it in order to be able to keep the movie as the goal and know what to do when things go wrong in order to still come out with useable footage.

*useable in this case means footage that helps move the narrative in a way that make sense, not so much quality-level or non-damaged footage
 
David Jimerson said:
Not for nothing, more than one film has been made with two directors, one who managed the artistic vision, and the other who managed the people, actors included.
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That is true, however the vast majority of good quality films that have more than one director are directed by siblings. The only non-sibling great directing duo I can think of is Powell and Pressburger.
 
David Jimerson said:
Not for nothing, more than one film has been made with two directors, one who managed the artistic vision, and the other who managed the people, actors included.
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As other posters wrote: Often siblings. My personal experience with a two directors setting - once as a team member, once as one of the producers - have been not too good with such a concept. Actually the second became a nightmare quickly. On the other hand you can have the experience that with a weak director who has a strong AD, you have in fact something like a two-directors set up often. And it even works.

Hard to make a decision about the question being asked in this discussion. Too many different directors around to say it's this way or the other. I'd say the "born with" part seems to be the more important as it is the one you can not really aquire and this one often has to do primarily not with artistic but social skills (or defects) - are people stubborn enough, do they have enough fire in them, can they easily and quickly make decisions, do they actually like it to make decisions, can they lure, push, nudge, chase a complex bunch of people through an adventure and can they do that without falling prey to what we call "Ceasar's madness" over here - best performed by a performer though called Klaus Kinski .... :-)

On the other hand: If someone is really very, very skillfull and learns with determination he/she may make something big out of a relatively small gift. But it will be hard work and one may not survive long enough in the job to develop this abilities.
 
Skill will make you a good director.

Talent will make you a great director.

But you need to become a good one before you can become a great one, and really, this applies to most things, not just directing.
 
Can you provide an example of specifics when it comes to skill vs talent? What quality is found in a skilled director vs the quality found in a talented director?
 
Gary Huff said:
So if you don't have talent, and only skill, you don't get good ideas?
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Not as many.
Why is Vladimir Nabokov a better writer than Dean Koontz... They both know how to form sentences. They both know how to tell a story in novel form. Koontz certainly had good ideas from time to time, but too often he didn't so he falls back on the same old tired tropes he recycles over and over.
 
Gary Huff said:
So is Nabokov a better writer than Koontz because Koontz uses trope plotpoints? If so, how is talent more of an indication of not resorting to tropes than skill?
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Well there are about 1000 reasons he's a better writer. That is just one easy example (poor Dean Koontz gets so picked on).

In a sense this is a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" argument. There is no real answer. Talent is one of those things that "you know it when you see it". Training and practice can make almost anyone competent in almost anything. What makes someone more than competent, what makes them "special"... talent, whatever it is.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
Talent is one of those things that "you know it when you see it".
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But that's kind of bullshity. I think "talent" is an American idea that people are more with an innate ability to do certain things that doesn't require work, while "skills" does. But the truth of the matter is that no one is born with an innate talent to direct. They may develop interests early in life that lead to them having an interest in pursuing and working at the elements that lead to them being described as a "talented" director, but that's all there is to it.
 
That's just patently ridiculous.
You aren't "born" with all of it. It's also shaped by your environment and what you are exposed to. However, you can want to be and work your ass off to be Einstein or Goddard or Picasso or Woody Allen all you want, but it will never happen. They have more of something than you. Aptitude, talent, call it whatever you want. It exists.

Nothing "doesn't require work". It's that if you work really hard at theoretical physics and Einstein works really hard at theoretical physics, he will be better than you. because he had "talent" in that endeavor.
 
Gary Huff said:
But that's kind of bulls*%ty. I think "talent" is an American idea that people are more with an innate ability to do certain things that doesn't require work, while "skills" does. But the truth of the matter is that no one is born with an innate talent to direct. They may develop interests early in life that lead to them having an interest in pursuing and working at the elements that lead to them being described as a "talented" director, but that's all there is to it.
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I definitely disagree. I understand you want to believe that you can do anything you put your mind to, and to an extent that is true, but there are still certain people who have more of a knack for something than others.

Here's an example. You're directing a scene, and the performance is just not what you want it to be. A director who might be very skilled will have an idea of what to do. They've read a lot of books and understand why for instance giving result direction is usually bad. They try some of the tricks they've picked up over the years, etc. But in the end the performance is still not working. In instances like this, what is needed is a deep and true understanding of people. There will be directors who in an instance like this will be able to dig deep and get to the root of the problem. But a lot of people won't. Now you could argue that understanding people is also a skill that can be learned, but I don't think so. I'm not talking about understanding in a psychological sense, I mean more in an empathetic sense.

The fact of the matter is, people are different. For instance, some people have a higher IQ than others. This doesn't mean that people with lower IQ's can't be successful or smart (and in fact a very hard working person with a lower IQ will probably do better than a very lazy "genius"), but there are things that the high IQ people will be able to do and figure out that others simply can't, no matter what.
 
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