Tips or advice for a first time Director

[Melvin Harris]

lmao...wow threads on this forum degenerate so quickly into one-upsmanship posturing.

yes, my post on getting great performances to edit together was tooootally ridiculous.

my bad.

...and various posts degenerate to pontification and talking just to hear ones own voice. Yeah, your post was ridiculous. And it is your bad, thanks for apologizing. There is a craft to directing, a process to the job, and working with actors is just a small part of it, its an integral part, but there is so much that comes before it and after it. Acting like a douchebag because people don't agree with you, is not the way to impart any knowledge at all.

You're being facetious when the OP clearly is not prepared to even begin talking to actors because of the sheer size of the undertaking.

Also, if you have a problem with what I say, or think I am just a troll who will hide behind the internet, you can call me in my classroom or email me or pm me and we can discuss it further. I think your advice is good, possibly great if enacted at the appropriate time, but your tone, your attitude, and your delivery is ridiculous.

Melvin Harris is my name.

 

[Ted Spencer]

FWIW I'm reading more of a misunderstanding here than a real 'heated dispute'. I think if you guys took a deep breath you'd realize that you largely agree. Maybe you could relax and just enjoy the discussion, including the differing views...

 

[fobers95]

First, try to do something else. This job is hard. If you can, you should go and live a life. Still here, ok. Then fully commit everything to the process of directing. Process is everything. Learn it, master it.

Second, don't do so much. As a director, you have to learn how to delegate authority and put together a team. 80 percent of directing is surrounding yourself with people who can do the work you need done. Directing is managing and making decisions, at least part of it is, so get people to manage. You don't need money, you just need vision, persistence, magic, and a little insanity, and a great script and people will follow your vision like the Pied Piper! As a first time director, I recommend not producing and operating the camera and lighting and acting. You already have a hundred-thousand reasons why you will still do this, so God speed. Maybe you are a godbody prolific film directing savant, but in case you are not, solicit help.

Third, study craft and don't skip any of the process. Don't think yourself smarter and better than any piece of advice. Read everything. Breakdown your script. Storyboard. Ignore everyone telling to skip any step of craft or process. It is so important to know the rules before you start breaking them because it is so hard to relearn them once you disrespect them. Also, value every department. Learn about all of the departments so you can speak to them intelligently. Have departments for goodness sake. Actively seek out people who are willing to help and get them to help.

Finally, do not be afraid. Don't be afraid to ask. Don't be afraid to not ask. Don't be afraid to plan, and then break your plan. Chance favors only the prepared mind. Don't be afraid to over prepare and then not need it. Remove fear from every equation by knowing all of the answers.

Thanks for the advice, only reason I am doing so much right now is because this is my first movie, I am working with my cousins and none of them know anything about making a movie, so I kinda have to do a lot for this movie. I want to work with a team because I know that is the best why to get ahead in this business.

 

[El Director]

My advice to the OP, just do it. Do it the way you want to. Have fun. You WILL encounter people that say it can't be done, and you WILL encounter people that tell you you're doing it wrong. Screw them. Make your movie, your way

 

[CharlesPapert]

nycineaste, apparently this isn't your first time being misunderstood, since you find these forums "heat up" quickly. So perhaps there's a lesson to be learned in all this. When you write something that is interpreted wrongly by others, it usually helps to simply and gracefully acknowledge that you weren't clear rather than chastise those who interpreted your words differently.

I have a horse in this race and that is defending the craft of cinematography, which is undergoing a quantifiable attack at this point in history. The democratization of ever-advancing technology is giving producers more opportunities to question the DP's workflow than ever before.

In terms of this thread, I suggest the same thing I always suggest to first-time directors: find the best DP you possibly can and LET HIM DO HIS JOB.

 

[Liam Hall]

Charles, one day, I'll buy you a beer.

 

[nycineaste]

I would love to have the money to hire a DP and let him do his job, but I have to learn to light and shoot myself.

if this thread is about concrete advice for beginning no-/micro-budget filmakers:

from the bottom up, in order of importance-- script, acting, light it, shoot it, edit it.

dont skip the second one, beginners (like me) tend to...

 

[CharlesPapert]

I would love to have the money to hire a DP and let him do his job, but I have to learn to light and shoot myself.

I never said anything about HIRING a DP. i shot countless shorts for free as have most DP's I know. It's a great way to build a reel with diverse material. These days there are likely to be even more DP's out there looking to do the same--of course the trick is finding a good one.

I have done the director/DP thing no-budget thing many times myself. It was always a compromise of one craft or the other. The exact time that I wanted to be working with the actors was consumed with setting up shots or lighting. While there is a small triumph involved in pulling it off, I always knew that the results would have been better if I could devote my energy purely to directing.

Getting back to the OP--my personal recommendation for one's first project is to start with a short rather than a feature. The experience will teach you much that you can then hone on the feature which will surely be that much the better for it. Even shooting the feature in sections can be helpful as you can start cutting, learning what is and isn't working and then re-tool as needed for the subsequent shoots.

 

[Ted Spencer]

Getting back to the OP--my personal recommendation for one's first project is to start with a short rather than a feature. The experience will teach you much that you can then hone on the feature which will surely be that much the better for it.

Agreed 100%, and it's what I'm doing currently. Nonetheless, despite my exhaustive preparations, I know I will make many mistakes and learn a great deal from the experience. Whether this one film will provide enough of that to prepare me for a feature project remains to be seen. I'm hopeful, obviously, that it will...

 

[OldCorpse]

My advice to the OP, just do it. Do it the way you want to. Have fun. You WILL encounter people that say it can't be done, and you WILL encounter people that tell you you're doing it wrong. Screw them. Make your movie, your way

I think El Director has the best advice. And I would also agree that you should start with shorts - it has the virtue of being much more manageable. But I would add this much: try to make a complete movie within strict limits of the short. So that it gives you a complete experience - like a mini-movie. Don't do what I see so often here and elsewhere - pointless footage of random stuff that really is just a bunch of images. The discipline of having to tell a complete story, in for example 2 minutes - or even 15 seconds! - is what will really hone your skills and give you a feeling for how all the elements of directing work.

If you think one can't tell a story in 15 seconds, you'd be wrong. I once saw this short, which was really just 15 seconds - it started with a car coming to a stop at an entrance to a parking lot with one of those barriers that go up and down once you put in money. The driver side window opens, an arm comes out, the hand holding a quarter... he's about to put the quarter into the slot, and then hesitates, thinking... then he closes his hand around the coin, extends his finger and gently strokes the slot up and down... slowly the barrier goes up, and the car drives into the parking lot. The End. It took all of 15 seconds. But it had everything - wit, a story, something unexpected, something that got a smile out of the audience. And it was just 15 seconds. And all you saw was an actor's arm.

It reminds me of a story about Hemingway. Supposedly he made a bet that he could tell a story in six words. He won the bet. This was his story:

"For sale: baby shoes. Never worn."

And it is a whole story, isn't it? It has emotion, tremendous emotion, overt text and subtext and beautiful economy of language. A whole tale hangs by those six words. Our imagination is sent reeling.

So yes, you can tell a story in 15 seconds. Make shorts like that. Why do I say that? Because such a discipline FORCES you to think deeply about the most important elements of a film and how to achieve them. It forces you to get a reaction from the audience - because without a reaction, you cannot have a successful film. And hence the challenge: tell a tale in 10 minutes. Try 5 minutes. Try 2 minutes. And try 10 seconds. It will force you to use all the elements of filmmaking to make this work. Even in that example of that 15 seconds - as a director you must make a ton of choices about how to tell this tale most effectively, which angles to choose and how to edit - and even influence the acting, though all we see of the actor is the arm and hand... but believe me, there's acting in that - how does the movement look, how do you show it so the audience clearly sees the quarter, how long does the actor hesitate, what motions does he use in caressing the slot, etc. etc. etc. - there is ACTING performance notes you can give the actor (including the timeless instructions given by directors everywhere: "faster" or "slower" ).

And I think the shorter the piece the greater the instructive potential. When you have to sit and generate a tale that will last only 10 seconds on screen, you will learn a huge amount - and then by comparison, having 5 minutes - or indeed 90 minutes to tell a story will seem like infinite riches. This reminds me of what Brian Eno said. Back in the day, Eno was tasked by Microsoft to write the little tune/chime for computers to play when windows starts. The whole thing would last only a few seconds. And Eno of course, worked on this quite a while, and afterwards said that what he took out of it is how much richness there is in shifting perspectives, when you have to do a tune that has to be complete within seconds, writing a conventional pop song that lasts 2-5 minutes made it seem as if you had infinite time.

Same here. Discipline. Do a 30 second short story. A COMPLETE 30 second story. It won't be easy, and you'll learn a ton. And it has the advantage that you can afford to do quite a few very short films before you tackle your feature. You'll learn.

Remember though: you must move the audience, get a reaction, in that time frame. If the audience is "meh" or bored, you failed. Good luck!

 

[jghenderson]

My advice to the OP, just do it. Do it the way you want to. Have fun. You WILL encounter people that say it can't be done, and you WILL encounter people that tell you you're doing it wrong. Screw them. Make your movie, your way

I am a believer in the Auteur theory, so I do agree with you for the most part. However, I think it is a dangerous line. I've met and worked with plenty of people that simply could not take advice, and believed that their way was the only way. As a result, the work almost always suffered. I think if you want to be successful in this industry, you have to be able to take advice, while still maintaining the integrity of your own personal vision. What do I mean by successful? I define that as being paid to make movies, enough that you don't have to have a side job.

But yes, just go do it. We learn more from failing than we ever do from sitting around thinking.

 

[nycineaste]

I am a believer in the Auteur theory.[/QUOTE

auteur theory? hmm...

here's the opening line of the Seven screenplay:

"Sunlight comes through the soot on the windows, more brown than bright"

hmm...

as the screenwriter Robert Riskin allegedly said to Frank Capra as he tossed a blank script onto his desk, “Here—let’s see you give that the Capra touch.”

 

[PopcornFlix]

I want to have a directing style similar to Hitchcock, Spielberg and Nolan.

This you can accomplish through study and practice. For the movie you're about to make, pick one director you want the film to be inspired by. You said Spielberg inspired you to be a director, so let's say Spielberg just for this example. Okay, now pick one move of Spielberg's that has the same feeling to it as the movie you're about to make. To make the example easy, let's say you pick JAWS, because your film should have that same kind of tone.

Now go get a copy of the DVD of the movie, and start studying. Here's a good example, which includes this cool breakdown:

 

[nycineaste]

BEST advice ever given here, above.

I have EVERY SINGLE shot of Robert Rodriguez "Bedhead" in a folder on my pc (copyed and pasted it shot by shot into MS paint), will soon print out, put in a binder to write my notes on.

I also have full sequences from other movies that are shot in a similar, editing-heavy "montage" style

Its tedious, hard work, but its the kind of work those of us destined to become masters ourselves, will do-- I learned so much so fast my head is still spinning

this goes back to the painting days when young painters would copy the masters

 

[fobers95]

I actually have two DVD copies of JAWS, one regular DVD and the other on Blue-Ray, actually three copies the blue-Ray version came with a regular DVD version. JAWS is my all time favorite movie and have been studying in for the last few years I watch it pretty much every week, I have also watched 2 documentaries on it as well one on the making of JAWS and the other was the legacy of JAWS.

 

[fobers95]

Where can I find more Breakdowns of scenes?

 

[KrickProductions]

I have met a few of the guys from Little Hollywood. They're some great and helpful people! I would recommend them!

 

[fobers95]

I have looked at little Hollywood, I just need to find the time to go to one of the meetings.

 

[GLow]

Where can I find more Breakdowns of scenes?

Just a word about using the term "breaking down" a scene. This is actually a specific step in preproduction which is crucial to making sure you make the best use of your resources and time. In my experience it is usually done by the AD.

Deconstructing and analyzing scenes by directors you like needs to go way beyond analyzing where the cuts occur and figuring what setups were used. Not to belittle what PopcornFlix shows above, it is a start but it is only a very small start. Ask yourself why does he use these shots and this sequence of shots? What is the subtext of the script and does that match the subtext of the images and sounds you are experiencing? Take the Jaws example above. A very important item in that scene for me is the lamp. It is very prominent for a reason. Notice as the scene begins, it's between Brody and Hooper. At this point, Brody wants to believe that the girl was killed by a boating accident. As Hooper talks into the recorder and describes the details of the wounds, he gets closer to the light and the blocking and camera angles begin to decrease the distance between Hooper, the light, and Brody. Then as Brody is convinced that it was not a boating accident, he and Hooper are on the same side of the light. At the end of the scene, Hooper is being illuminated by the light which cements the idea that Brody now sees that Hooper's analysis is correct. I don't know for sure that this is what Spielberg meant to do because I haven't had the opportunity to talk to him, but that is how it plays to me. The audience may not explicitly now that this is being suggested, but the message is there.

As far as how to direct, that is a huge question. In a nutshell, everything you see on the screen and experience through the movie should be the directors vision. As has been mentioned there are a lot of different styles of directors. I am by no means a seasoned director but I am someone who is an aspiring director. So far I've worked on over 40 shorts, three features, and a hand full of music videos and documentaries. I've worked many different rolls from PA to gaffer to DP to AD. I'm now working on two projects as director, one short and one commercial. From what I've experienced I know that I'm the type where I, as the director, will have a vision for every detail of every scene. I have already played the movie in my head, I hear the voices of the characters, I've scene what books are on the bookshelves, I've even smelled the odors that accompany each scene. I know why I have a 3' tall white picket fence at the walkway leading up to the house, and why the protagonist is on camera left and the antagonist is on camera right for that scene. I know that there has to be steps leading up to the front door of the house. Those are all details that are important to telling the story.

Having all that detail doesn't mean that I will be a control freak on the project. For me, it's a necessity because now my job as the director is to communicate the importance of all of these details, and what their purposes are. Then I need to listen to my DP, Art Director, Gaffer, and actors during preproduction to be able to make sure the film is making the impact that I want and use their knowledge of their craft to help me make it better. Then, if I've done my job during preproduction correctly I can get out of the way of the people who can do a better job at their craft than I, and make sure druing production that I am getting what I want.

I am a big believer that if you've done the other jobs involved in making movies, i.e. you've light a scene, you've been a DP, you've edited before, you will make a better director. That doesn't mean that you do all these jobs when you direct. It just gives you a better understanding of how all the parts fit together and it allows you to surround yourself and get people to work on your film that are better at those particular jobs.

I agree with CharlesPapert to get a good DP and let them do their job (in case you didn't know he is an accomplished DP with a lot of real Hollywood experience). Two other very important rolls that you need to find people to fill are your Assistant Director and your Producer. I had it explained to me that your Producer will become your partner or your second wife. When making your film you may see more of your Producer than your wife. And, from experience, your AD will be your first line of defense and the person who helps you get virtually everything done. A good AD will shield you from all the problems that are occurring during production so that you can concentrate on making the best movie you can. Finding those people are part of your job as the Director. You have to be able to work with them and trust them completely. Your Producer, AD, and DP will be the backbone of your crew.

A quick observation about the OP's desire to start filming in May and finish in June or July. They don't say if it is a feature or short. In any case the schedule seems off. If it is a short, it should not take that long during production, if it is a feature, I don't think that they've left enough time for preproduction. Finding locations, tech scouts, blocking and rehearsals take a lot of time from my experience.

Sorry for the long post and as with almost everything in life, these are only my opinions and what I currently believe. And, I'm sure over time, as I gain more experience, they will change.

 

[fobers95]

The film I am working on is a feature, I already have most of the preproduction figured out. My orignal plan was to film last summer but there was a few issues with the script and my main charachter wasn't in the same state when I wanted to film. Thanks for the advice.