Should a director be interested more in screenwriting or cinematography?

[jghenderson]

No disagreement here as far as we see it as a combination of those factors - but for me the hierarchy is exactly the other way round. People can be very competent in or about writing but lack the talent to actually write really good or even averagely. Editors in Publishing may have a mountain of competence and will help a writer tremendously in making his book better but will never become writers themselves because the lack "it". And if they are lucky they realize this early enough. Call it the Mozart / Salieri connex.

I have worked some time in my first years in the business as a cameraman but soon found out that I lack both "the eye" as other things needed to be really at least average in that field. Same did apply to editing. But I found that writing and later directing where my turf. And was happy then to have learned the basics of both the other professions. So, yes: The learning bit is dearly needed, a lack of talent is deadly.

I definitely agree with this. I think I have a good taste for screenplays. When I read a screenplay, I instinctively know what I don't like about it, what I do like, etc. I can point out dialogue that sounds odd and make suggestions for changes. But when it comes to actually sitting down and writing a script from scratch, I find myself to be limited, not in ideas, but in writing ability.

 

[Ted Spencer]

Okay, but we've already established that a "good story" means nothing when giving advice to someone. You or I may hate a story, and yet it becomes a classic. So, great, the story matters. You can talk that up all day. But when it comes down to telling someone how to write a "good" story, then all bets are off.

No they're not, and that position would appear to speak volumes about your (lack of) knowledge of it.

Like any artistic pursuit, as long as the student's requisite talent is there, quality story/screenwriting is a largely teachable thing. Only someone who has done little or no such study would say what you said above. There are many fine teachers, hundreds of books, and countless other resources that (along with good old fashioned 'doing it') can indeed turn a talented beginner from relative cluelessness to relative mastery. I personally have availed myself of many, many such resources, and there is zero question ion my mind that they have enabled me to make enormous progress as a story/script writer. The elements of quality of storytelling are not especially arcane, and are largely agreed upon by most who teach it and/or do it well. The works of most directors with unusually long-term success in all of film history can be held to the test with these precepts and in the overwhelming number of cases will be right in keeping with them.

As long as one has talent, then:

Talent + education = skill.
Talent + skill = vastly increased chances of success

Talent - education = crapshoot.
Talent + crapshoot = little chance of success, and almost no chance of long-term success

I'll take door #1, Monty...

 

[Gary Huff]

No they're not, and that position would appear to speak volumes about your (lack of) knowledge of it.

Funny that you would call me ignorant, based on my quote about there not being a standard by which someone can legitimately proclaim "this is a great story!" vs "this is a terrible story!" and yet follow up with nothing that pertains to developing that standard.

Like any artistic pursuit, as long as the student's requisite talent is there, quality story/screenwriting is a largely teachable thing. Only someone who has done little or no such study would say what you said above.

Well, then you'd be wrong again because I've definitely "studied", taken classes at state university, and read most of the requisite books, including McKee and Straczynski, have written for national and local broadcast, and even have a produced audio drama to my credit.

There are many fine teachers, hundreds of books, and countless other resources that (along with good old fashioned 'doing it') can indeed turn a talented beginner from relative cluelessness to relative mastery.

I highly disagree with this assumption. No teacher can turn a talented beginning into a relative master. A good teacher can inspire, can lay the foundation for the craft, but I don't think you will find a writer of any note who will tell you that they achieved even relative mastery of writing by doing anything else besides writing, and lots of it.

The elements of quality of storytelling are not especially arcane, and are largely agreed upon by most who teach it and/or do it well. The works of most directors with unusually long-term success in all of film history can be held to the test with these precepts and in the overwhelming number of cases will be right in keeping with them.

And yet they still fail, sometimes on a fundamental level, even by people who should know better.

Talent + education = skill.
Talent + skill = vastly increased chances of success

Talent - education = crapshoot.
Talent + crapshoot = little chance of success, and almost no chance of long-term success

I'll take door #1, Monty...

The oversimplification fails to address a lot of minutia of the process and distills a very complex process into a nice little soundbite for you to impress people with. Mastery of writing requires a natural inclination to write for the sake of writing (talent), and a willingness to write often and fail often. Even then, you may never achieve any level of success, but you should still continue on because it is the process that you enjoy, the stories that you must tell, not the primary desire for accolades from the public at large.

There is a list of writers who achieved nothing until after their death. There is a list of writers who told terrible stories poorly who still won the heart and mind of a mass public. There's no rhyme or reason to any of it, which is why you write primarily because you must.

 

[Batutta]

I think I'm somewhere in between you two. With enough education and practice I think ANYONE can become competent at anything, and produce something that may be considered good by an average audience. Innate talent may give some an advantage, and may allow them to surpass others if they educate and practice their craft. But I'm not sure what use that information is. I've never met someone who I considered talented, and who achieved some success, who went around believing their innate talents were responsible for their success. They approached their craft like any serious person does, with dedication and perseverance, and that's all anyone should focus on. It's up to audiences to decide how talented they think you are.

 

[Ted Spencer]

Funny that you would call me ignorant, based on my quote about there not being a standard by which someone can legitimately proclaim "this is a great story!" vs "this is a terrible story!" and yet follow up with nothing that pertains to developing that standard.

And so on...

Sometimes forum threads are useful, enlightening, inspiring...

Sometimes they are exercises in sheer futility...

I greatly curtailed my time spent here a while ago for one of those reasons...

Remembering why right about now...

 

[Doc Bernard]

+1 for what Battuta said. Great discussion, if we could tone down the rhetoric. People are passionate, I get it. But no reason to take insult or give insult. If you were talking in person.......I highly doubt anyone would be feeling insulted right now, because you would have context.

Both Ted and Gary have good points, just from different perspectives.

 

[Gary Huff]

I greatly curtailed my time spent here a while ago for one of those reasons...Remembering why right about now...

I'm not sure why people try this tactic. I find it childish. If you have an issue, or think I'm wrong, isn't it better to either explain yourself more succinctly if you feel I'm not "getting it" or offer a rebuttal to actual points I went on to make, rather than be like, "Well, I'm taking my ball and going home!"

+1 for what Battuta said. Great discussion, if we could tone down the rhetoric. People are passionate, I get it. But no reason to take insult or give insult. If you were talking in person.......I highly doubt anyone would be feeling insulted right now, because you would have context.

First, I also +1 for Battuta (yeah, impending Apocalypse now, right?) Plus, I'm the first to admit that I'm incredibly blunt, but never angry or upset. I think that gets confused a lot on here.

 

[jghenderson]

I understand where everyone is coming from, however I think to say that mastery is a formula you must simply learn, and that anyone with a bit of talent can become a "master" of their craft, is an overstatement. In fact the more I live, the more I come to feel that innate talent is perhaps just as important if not more important than teaching or even practice.

I'll give an example. There's a young guy (18 years old) that posted some pictures he took on Reddit. This kid has only been doing photography for one year, shot most of his photos completely by himself (self portraits with a tripod and a timer), and uses very simple and relatively inexpensive gear that many people have (a canon 60D with a 50mm1.8 lens). Despite that, his photos frankly blow 99% of professional photographers away. Simply put, he has "it". Here's a link to his work : http://imgur.com/a/fONuR

My point is this: I have a better camera than this guy, I have the exact same 50mm1.8 lens he has, I have the same software he has. I'm 6 years older than him, and i've practiced photography for a few more years than he has (and yes i've shot some things professionally). But I can't even begin to approach the talent of this kid, nor can the vast majority of very talented people that study photography for years at art school.

Now of course he could just be a fluke, a freak of nature so to speak. But the more I am around artists, the more apparent it is to me that while your craft can certainly be developed, and practice and teaching will of course improve your craft, the people that are the elite of their craft all possess an innate talent that allows them to operate on a level above the rest.

 

[Rolf Silber]

With enough education and practice I think ANYONE can become competent at anything, and produce something that may be considered good by an average audience.

Sorry to say: If this would be so then in my country at last we should have a tsunami of able writers and directors coming from the academies each year that have been founded in the last 20 years and good acadenies most of them, btw. Turns out this is not so. My wife, a fiction editor for a publishing house for 25 years, get's today the same amount of working or even very good manuscripts like in the beginning of her career: few of the first and of the latter even fewer.

Same with directing, same with acting, same with performing music. And I don't mean that you have to be what Jeff Beck is to a guitar - a master. An un-talented director will produce movies that are mostly dull, that do not sing, do not talk to audiences. Maybe, if lucky he or she may get saved by talented people around him though......

 

[Batutta]

Sorry to say: If this would be so then in my country at last we should have a tsunami of able writers and directors coming from the academies each year that have been founded in the last 20 years and good acadenies most of them, btw.

This is why I said ENOUGH education and practice. For some people it may take ten to fifteen years of practice to get that competent. Most folks give up by then....And by good I don't mean earth shattering masterpiece. I mean something an undemanding audience would watch and find to be an acceptable movie, that keeps them interested for two hours.

 

[Rolf Silber]

In the end, Battuta, a lot of what we discuss here may be semantics and interpretation where education ends and talent starts. Or the other way round. Napoleon once allegedly asked about a general who was considered for a post "but has that man fortune" in the French sense of someone to whom the gods give plenty of luck and success. I have seen co-students of mine whom I considered to be very talented - and more than I felt I was - not coming to grip with directing and had the feeling I had to work and educate myself harder than they. So I have sympathy for your position but also keep my doubts.... Anyhow: good shooting an may the force be with us ....

 

[FrontFilms]

As for the comment that history has shown time and time again that filmmaking is a story telling medium, not completely a visual medium. Well, I agree and disagree. Sure, it's a story-telling medium. I believe all art should have something to say. However I think film, at it's essence, is a primarily visual medium, meaning that film is at it's most powerful when it uses images to tell the story. I do not believe film should be a mere continuation of the dramatic arts. It should not simply be a recorded version of a play. Thinking of it that way completely neglects the power of the ability to record time passing in a camera. Honestly I think film has more in common with music than it does literature or theater.

+100
Finally! Someone else in a forum has said this! Haven't even read the entire thread yet, but I just wanted to write my response after reading this!

Yes, cinema is not just a continuation of dramatic arts. It's not just a play that one merely records with a camera. Sure, SOME may approach it it that way... but that isn't really cinema. Any true representation of an art form uses the sum of it's parts to become something more. If you are just "recording actors with a camera" you are not creating something that is more than it's parts. You're just recoding actors with a camera. This is not representational of cinema.

I love the example of Drive. This is CINEMA. It uses the various disciplines... camera movement, lighting, MUSIC... to create a feeling and emotion that no actor or performance could ever achieve on it's own (MORE than the sum of it's parts... this is what an art form does). You feel SO MUCH tension in that movie, and it's not because the actors or performances. There no way you can say to an actor "now for this scene... I want you to make the audience feel tension". This doesn't make sense. It's not even possible. Yet you'll see all the time in bad indie movies where they try to do just that. There's some miss-informed director, that thinks "directing" is just working with actors, who over-directs the talent and tries to coerce emotions out of them that are much better left to (or only even possible) with editing, camera choices, or music. Directors who don't understand the art or philosophy of cinema just try to have the actors do "everything"... and it looks awful. Going back to Drive now, and how it creates so much tension with minimal acting, well... it using editing, cinematography, music to do it! It uses CINEMA! The slow camera push-in's of the "the driver" chewing on a toothpick, with the quick-tempo pulsing of the score's synthesizers, brings out MUCH more emotion and tension than COULD EVER BE achieved by performance alone.

Thinking that directing is "only" working with actors and performance is missing about 90%, actually more like 100%, of what makes cinema it's own art form. If you just want to work with actors and drama... THAT IS THEATER... not cinema. Cinema IS primarily a visual/editing medium. Why? Well, because by logic of definitions themselves, you cannot define something by what it shares with something else. Story telling is VERY important, yes, but it does not define cinema. Why? Because well, it exists in other art forms (theater, literature, ect) ... so logically, again, you cannot use this a a definition. What separates it from other art forms is really only two things... motion over the course of time (cinematography), and editing. You cannot find these in any other art form. They are inherent to cinema. They ARE the art form. The best directors in history have always known this...

“A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”
"To make a film entirely by yourself, which initially I did, you may not have to know very much about anything else, but you must know about photography."
Both Kubrick quotes

And I don't have any direct quotes, but Kurosawa always said that the directors greatest skill was editing.

Now if you are to credit the director with authorship of the film, they ABSOLUTELY NEED to understand and have mastered both cinematography and editing. Otherwise, they are unjustly taking credit for an entire process that they play only a little part in. Most studio films you see in theaters shouldn't even have a "director" or "a film by" in the title... it should just be "performance supervisor". If you do not know editing or cinematography, and cannot incorporate them yourself, you are not the author of the film. Period.

So where did the notion that working with actors and performance is the most important job in cinema come from? Well, if you'd like to get all psychoanalytical (which many say is part of directing anyways)... I'll put it this way... I've never met a someone who claimed that cinematography and/or editing, was an important skill for a director, that was actually good at it. It's that age-old cognitive-dissonance theory again...

"A classical illustration of cognitive dissonance is expressed in the fable The Fox and the Grapes by Aesop (ca. 620–564 BCE). In the story, a fox sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them. When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them, he decides that the grapes are probably not worth eating, with the justification the grapes probably are not ripe or that they are sour (hence the common phrase "sour grapes"). This example follows a pattern: one desires something, finds it unattainable, and reduces one's dissonance by criticizing it. Jon Elster calls this pattern "adaptive preference formation"

Simply put, many who attempt cinema, yet find out that they are not good at the core disciplines, yet still wish to work in the art-form, would like to believe that there is still a job that they can be considered an artist or filmmaker at. And since directing is primarily a subjective job, they use this as the primary definition. I'm not trying to offend or be mean spirited about this at all, I'm just being objective and drawing rational based on what I've seen. I've brought this up around people in real-life, and have gotten bad reactions... even when it was clear that it wasn't the intention. But we are talking philosophy here, not what makes us all feel good. This all from a a purely existential perspective.

So in conclusion, yes directing actors and performances is pretty important, but I feel that an over-emphasis is placed on it, and it is not the definition nor even the most important aspect. Is it the most important aspect in SOME projects? Yes, absolutely. Television sitcoms and Apatow-like films come to mind... but I wouldn't put either of these into the category of cinema. Even though I love the crap out of some of them. But for something to be considered "cinema" and to be really considered a "filmmaker"... you need to be a master of using the two defining disciplines (motion photography and editing) to elicit a response in the audience that all the crafts (even acting and story), on their own, are not capable of.

 

[Rolf Silber]

I've come across a lot of extremely well shot and edited fims that where just empty designer showroom pieces and most of them went belly up. If we talk about feature length movies (not short forms that often work on different bases) we need to create a dramatic structure.

A dramatic structure that holds and binds an audience for 90 minutes at least. Whatever movie you take, be it "Triumph of the Will" by Riefenstahl, "My Dinner with Andre", "Stalker" or "Horton Hears a Who" and even or especially if you look at other works in TV like "The Wire" or "Breaking Bad" - people watch this movies because of a dramatic structure that makes them work, thrilling, breath taking.

It's completely insignificant by what means we create this dramatic structure - cinema, as probably the most complex of art forms we know (besides newer forms of computer games), the one that inherits nearly all other arts, transforms them into something new, lives on and is completely based on this dramatic structure.

Now, by what means we create this dramatic structure is the only question that is important. Writing, acting, photography, music and editing (and a few other arts) are all indispensable elements of our art. And they are indispensable nearly all of a time and which factor rules more may be different from scene to scene, from movie to movie. So it makes no sense whatsoever to look at film with the reductionist's spectacles in trying to find out what is the core of the movie, clipping away or chipping off all others that may have a different heritage till it leaves only what makes it different to other arts. And now state that this then has to be the defining factors. Occams scissors are no instruments to cut off what is laying over but to cut through the bases. Sorry to repeat myself: Which is dramatic structure.

This is why a lot of script-writers hearts are bleeding so often, because even they at times forget that they are not payed for writing but for construction. And while a scriptwriters profession may have some analogies to a that of a writer of literature - his or her function is significantly different to that. So their work is definitely much different and more than a "mere continuation". Like a DoP's work is not a "mere continuation" of photography or painting. And yes, even a film-editors work could be labelled as a "mere continuation" of what an editor in a publishing house does - but all this artforms change in significance when integrated into the work for a movie. There is no "mere continuation" anymore. They all become instruments in a directors hands because they have not the function any more to fullfill the original requirements of their art but that of the new one - the movie.

Like opera is not merely a continuation of theater or music but a fusion of both (including ballett and special effects at times) and so becoming a new form, the movies have integrated nearly all other forms of the arts. Movies are a hybrid art. To undertake their "de-hybridisation" by stating "this element differentiates them most to...." would be an attempt to destroy the very context of our art itself. It makes no sense. You may say a rainbow is made up by red, blue, green, yellow - but you can not say a rainbow is a rainbow because of yellow and yellow alone. It has to be multicolored or it ceases to be a rainbow.

But the really great thing about it is, that by now in their enormous complexity the movies can change, shift their shape and wander in fantastically different and broad and differentiated dramatic landscapes. They can be pure and seemingly simple - theater-like if you will - or highly complex or just entertaining roller-coaster rides. And by what internal means their back bone, their dramatic structure is built, their story is told is completey secondary if it only is there and works.

But this dramatic structure we need. Because that is what humans do when they meet: tell each others stories of love, of hate, of crime, of passion, of war and peace. And they did and do that by talking, acting, singing, dancing, painting, sculpting ...... and we in the movies are the lucky fellas to play with the whole set.

Sorry for Germish sentence structure and else.....

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Sorry for Germish sentence structure and else.....

Don't worry Siegfried Kracauer wrote for years in 'german' while using English vocabulary...

 

[Rolf Silber]

Don't worry Siegfried Kracauer wrote for years in 'german' while using English vocabulary...

Ach du heiliger Wurstsalat! Ziggi Kracauer? He was a bit garbled even in German at times .....

 

[drapeama]

I love the example of Drive. This is CINEMA. It uses the various disciplines... camera movement, lighting, MUSIC... to create a feeling and emotion that no actor or performance could ever achieve on it's own (MORE than the sum of it's parts... this is what an art form does).

I agree with that.
I think, to answer the original question, that the director should put more attention to the cinematography: his job, imho, is to put into images a story, either his own or someone else story.
I, personally, am not great when comes the time to write a story. I have the great lines, but I'm not a fine writer. That's why I would collaborate with someone better than me. Then, you can also collaborate with a great DP and share thoughts and opinions about how to visually tell that story. It's a team work.
I'm for the Cinematography part, over Story.

 

[maarek]

Sure, Drive was a very well shot and edited film. Beautiful amounts of tension and great shots. But it fell on its face with the story. The story was so simplistic and - frankly, not very good - that I doubt I'll watch it again. Kinda misses the point.

 

[jghenderson]

Sure, Drive was a very well shot and edited film. Beautiful amounts of tension and great shots. But it fell on its face with the story. The story was so simplistic and - frankly, not very good - that I doubt I'll watch it again. Kinda misses the point.

I agree that Drive's story was simplistic and filed with cliches. That was exactly the point I was trying to make. The story was merely ok, but the FILM was brilliant and more exciting than almost any other film that came out last year. What that says to me, is that story is not the be all end all of a good movie. There is so much more to filmmaking other than a good story.

In the end, though, I think it comes down to taste. There are many people that agree with me, and there are many people that think any movie that doesn't have a good story is automatically a bad movie. Thankfully, there is room for both sides in this great big world of filmmaking.

 

[Noel Evans]

Back to topic. WARNING - personal opinion follows.

I dont think a director needs to be a cinematographer or a writer as much as I dont think a director needs to have been the head of the art or sound department.

Im trying to steer away from all the discussion on why and how a movie is good here as well as I dont think its relevant to the initial question.

The director essentially needs to be the visionary and then be able to effectively communicate that to all other components. On set those things / those decisions should be done and dusted apart from minor tweaks as on set the director needs to concentrate on the performance of his actors and the dialogue. Personally I believe on set dialogue tweaks / ad-lib etc are key to fine tuning the final product.

 

[john threat]

does every film have to be Lawerence of Arabia? or can there be Visual Tone Poems that let us view a snapshot of a time and place and feeling, or can we have empty vessel films that just give us a little laugh to move us along during the day.

I would say there is a lot of apple -vs- orange comparison going on here. There is no one meter for film - but if you want to do film - you better write - or know how to hire/work with writers.