Should a director be interested more in screenwriting or cinematography?

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dioxholster

Member
How do directors start being directors without being immersed in one of these two fields? I personally love directing position but who doesnt, thats not enough I think. So which technical skills are better to attain to be able to justify being a director? And for real life employment what route does an aspiring director take? Ive dabbled in both, and I honestly can't find myself liking one more than the other, they are both essential and yet can be unnecessary for a director to have knowledge of at least in the beginning. however since everyone writes it can be hard to draw attention to your work while presenting a video can be much easier.
 
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I know i'm throwing a wrinkle at you, but also look into editing. It is a trade craft the film/tv industry. There a lot of jobs available, to sustain you as you direct your own projects. You become a better storyteller, which will help with your writing, and you will quickly learn how to compose and not compose shots, and how they effectively cut together.
 
I was into editing a while back actually but after interning in a news station I didn't want to think of editing again. Its tough frustrating work because you have to work with what you were given. I know the basics and can pursue it if I believe I can, but I cant put it above cinematography and writing. I can see what you are saying, editing is same as storyboarding.
 
If you would like to direct in the future - than you should write. The path to directing lies via writing screenplays. While there are some cinematographers that become directors - i think - and please correct me if I am wrong - that most directors who do stuff you like write rather than light.

Having a great eye can't hurt though, and certainly sometimes being able to direct and shoot cant get you jobs over someone else when budget is a concern - but the power lies in the pen my friend!

RCOK 0n!#@
 
The more skills you have and better versed you are the better. Nothing is more powerful and efficient than a director who understands light and composition, story structure, drama, emotion, acting, editing, color, texture, the technical aspects and requirements of visual effects, and how sound and music affect the viewer. It's all part of the exact same big microcosm and the more versed and comfortable you are the better your decisions will be.
 
dioxholster said:
I was into editing a while back actually but after interning in a news station I didn't want to think of editing again. Its tough frustrating work because you have to work with what you were given. I know the basics and can pursue it if I believe I can, but I cant put it above cinematography and writing. I can see what you are saying, editing is same as storyboarding.
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You are so wrong:) I've also edited news but and this is a big BUT: news editing has nothing to do with EDITING. A news video editor is actually in most cases only an technician. Real editing is something entirely different. To be honest I can't imagine directing without having a felling for editing. Editing is the grammar of motion picture storytelling. You have to know which scene is going to be to long, or to short, you have to know how's it going to play out, is it going to be a good dynamic, a slow one, is it going to be weird or stupid, or cheesy, is this part of the scene even necessary, do we have to show the character walking towards that door of the house or can we just cut in when he is standing at the door ready to ring the bell, etc etc. The list goes on and on. An editor knows how something is going to look and FEEL in the end when it's going to be edited before it's even shoot. This is IMHO one of the most important skills that the director should poses. Some things are hard to put to words. But having a basic feeling for editing is a must.

Storytelling is also important because you have to know what the film is about. You have to know what this particular scene that you are shooting is about. Directing is about bringing subtext into context. You can't do that if you have little or no idea about storytelling. And there's tons of other stuff. Storytelling is what it's all about. Everybody in the production should know something about storytelling IMHO.

Cinematography is also a nice skill set to have. What lens to use or how to frame a shot. Especially framing is a must! The lens department can be left to the cinematographer. But it does help to know what options you have as a director.

I just had to reply to this, sorry if I was a bit energetic:)
 
Chris Adler said:
The more skills you have and better versed you are the better. Nothing is more powerful and efficient than a director who understands light and composition, story structure, drama, emotion, acting, editing, color, texture, the technical aspects and requirements of visual effects, and how sound and music affect the viewer. It's all part of the exact same big microcosm and the more versed and comfortable you are the better your decisions will be.
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+1
 
what a silly question, OP, thats like asking if painters should be more interested in shapes or colors, or if musicians should be more interested in melody or harmony.

you can lean towards one or the other but obviously both are essential for a successful movie

I think of filmmaking as being composed of three main elements

cinematography
drama (acting, script)
editing (montage)
 
A director that knows a little about another area will be able to liase better with that department whether it be camera, fx/makeup or other area. The reason screenwriting and cinematography make for common bedfellows is that writer/director are two roles that have some overlap in terms of vision and don't get in the way of each other during production; director/cinematographer crossover or even all three is a situation that often occurs as a matter of necessity in early careers and low budget films.
 
None of the above. A director should be most interested in acting. Writing/script is second. Directors need know little about cinematography, so long as they hire the right DP.

Danny Boyle didn't even want to talk to me about anything camera related other than basic shot composition, offloading all such decisions and even conversations to ADM. He was an extreme example, but many other talented directors I've worked with are similar.
 
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If directing is storytelling with the means, the tools, the possibilities of the motion picture, writing and acting are the most important instruments a director has to work and come to terms with. Not by necessarily doing it himself but by understanding the mechanics, the basic structures of how and why it works and - even more important - why it at times won't and then make it work. And it makes almost no sense to set these two apart.

By understanding writing while maybe not even actually doing it yourself, I mean the understanding of the dramatic structure of a complete script, a scene, a sentence. And the same applies to acting.

While cinematography, editing and music follow close behind - those two are defining the ability of a movie to come to life in the first place. The problem is: As a director you do not have the luxury of not knowing about any one of those five factors. You can only decide where to you put the most of your time, attention and energy (my tip - again: dramatic strcuture and acting).

postscriptum: apart from all of that - knowledge about the above is not what defines a director in the end but the social skills to make this knowledge "functional" and become someone who can work with a team of other creative people .... so if you asked your questions in the sense of "what is best to give others the security I am a director" then this is the hardest part.
 
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tipota said:
postscriptum: apart from all of that - knowledge about the above is not what defines a director in the end but the social skills to make this knowledge "functional" and become someone who can work with a team of other creative people .... so if you asked your questions in the sense of "what is best to give others the security I am a director" then this is the hardest part.
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This is what I mean. If all a director is, is good social interactions then anyone can be a director. What quality proves that this person qualifies as a director thats not easily found in people? If im not someone who is deeply entrenched in writing, cinematography, editing, or composing, etc then im not good at anything and basically someone who is not needed. Yes I can have a "vision" for the project but I'm told thats just a ego thing.
 
the original question was kinda how to become a professional director. i respect the other peoples opinions, but lets face it, writing is where the power is. always was, always will be. Thats why DP's study their craft, so they can handle the pretty stuff for you and they are damn good at it.

But hey , i like being over all departments too since you guys just validated that filmmaking at its highest form is 100% a totalitarian experience! So let's get those orders going - orders that must be obeyed at all time!
 
Well a director needs to know a decent amount about every single aspect of the filmmaking process. IF you don't know the process, you will be ineffective at translating your vision to others. Even if you don't direct your own scripts, you need to know how to work with the writer and how to determine what makes a good script in the first place. Even if you don't shoot your own movies, you need to know how to make your dp understand the mood and pace you are going for. And so on, with every aspect of filmmaking.

The awful truth is, filmmaking is an extremely complicated process with many parts.
 
For me as an European it's at times a bit hard to understand what it is about that "vision thing" and how the concept is used and understood in the American culture. One possibility would be to see a director as someone who has to navigate between different points and vectors that define, influence and shape his work. His or her basic ability has to be to connect with this points, know about their shape, form, their requirements, energy and economy and understand how they interact and influence each other. If you will: You need to be a twelve-legged spider in a multicolored web..... ;-)

Yes, a director needs to have a concept (or vision if you like) where to he wants to bring a movie. But most times he or she has to live with the bitter or sobering reality that both for economic as for principal reasons there will be a significant difference between concept/vision and what the movie will look like in the end. Once you accept this, the whole thing starts becoming both highly interesting and very much alife as you will suddenly be able not only chase the more or less fuzzy pictures of you imagination and beweep that you can not - at least to a point - bring all of them to life exactly like "envisioned" but that your project may become animate all of a sudden. What you win now is that your concept can really become alive, breath, move, change (clearly: within the boundaries set by you), form the shapes you want but also can surprise you with new ones.

To enter such a process needs knowledge and some courage and the ability to give the process a very individual colour and taste and, yes, a goal towards which it moves. All of this while not only accepting but actually embracing the idea, that along the way you will find surprises - both the nice and the ugly ones - that will make your movie better or worse and which you can control only to a certain extend. If you envisioned to work with, say, Sandra Bullock but have to come to terms with Mary-Lou Hupfendudler, it won't help you to bark at the moon. But see if there is not a bit of Bullock in Ms. Hupfendudler to find. And if maybe Mary-Lou brings somehting inexpected and very special with her that will make you movie - well: maybe even a bit better in a way.

This is how I see it and as I have no side job neither as pope or chaplain of movie-making none of this is a dogma and every director may want to see it differently. But I very much doubt that the idea of a director being somehing of a bonsai fusion of Stroheim-Patton-Kubrick-Caligula has any meaning in any form of reality we may ever enter. Or want to enter. It's probably even self-defeating in the end. Being the creative octopus (or even dodeka-pus... :-)) that holds the thing together and give it it's distinctive and very individual form defines the ultimate ability of a director to be a director.

And yes: For this you need a mountain of social skills. And no: Most people are - different to what they think - not very good in that. But this social and psychological skills are at the same time completely futile if they are not connected with definit knowledge about human beings, about art and about the technique and the technics of film-making. So its kind of impossible to set these elements apart from each other as a director. You only may be better or worse in one field or in another - but you have to try cover all of them up to a point.

And I'm begging your pardon for germanoid sentence structure and teutonic metaphors.... :-)
 
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Cedric Perry said:
Screenplay is so essential. I believe that there wouldn't be any cinematography if there wasn't a concept first.
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But there is a big difference between concept and screenplay. A lot of directors come up with a story concept, and then get a writer to write the screenplay.

I mean look at David Fincher. He's one of the most acclaimed directors in the world, and he has never written any of his films.

The truth is, there are many ways to be a director. i think the key is to figure out what you as a director want to say, and what is the best way for you to do that.
 
jghenderson said:
A lot of directors come up with a story concept, and then get a writer to write the screenplay.
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Sometimes I find it rather useful to talk about the function more than about the person. A movie needs writing and it needs it dearly and it is sometimes the writer(s) alone to do that or the director or producer may be part of that.

Concept then is a rough form of the script, a sketch. Whoever comes up with that is a writer in a way - even without working his keyboard. Same can happen at times when a director hands over parts of his job to producer or DoP. Like writers at times may have conceptual ideas about the movie which enter the field of a directors "vision". Not completely without possibilities for conflict though.....

Luckily I often direct my own scripts - so I can shout at the writer whenever he wants to enter the directors field too much and he whenever the director kills a dialogue or a scene.... ;-)
 
On "Vision"

SOMEBODY has to have it in the sense that for everyone to be pulling in the same direction somebody has to define what that direction is. If the DP is making a noir film and the lead actor thinks he's in Hamlet and the art director is making Willy Wonka and the costume person is making a 60's period piece then you'll get a jumbled mess. It's the director's job to make sure everybody knows what movie they are making and keeps them headed down the road to THAT movie.
 
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