"My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water." - Robert Bresson
Film and Stage directing are different, but I advise to start with the theatre. To learn about the text and the actor. Master mise-en-scene -- the primary motion. Only then we can talk about directing the camera.
Of course, there is my online directing class, you can enroll yourself, but the best is to study the pages first and see how we work on UAF productions (Shows directory). I believe in self-education and the web is a good tool!
Spring 2004: Film Directing Class * A film director directs the artistic and dramatic aspects of a film. The role typically includes:
Defining the overall artistic vision of the film.
Controlling the content and flow of the film's plot.
Directing the performances of actors, both mechanically by putting them in certain positions (i.e. blocking), and dramatically by eliciting the required range of emotions.
Organizing and selecting the locations in which the film will be shot.
Managing technical details such as the positioning of cameras, the use of lighting, and the timing and content of the film's soundtrack.
Any other activity that defines or realizes the artistic vision the director has for the film. wikipedia
Questions
Director and Script
Director and Actor
Director and Camera
Notes
Film, Stage and Television Director
( Radio or Television Director ) *
[ Duties and Tasks
Quick Facts
Personal Requirements
Related Industries
Labour Market
Related Jobs
Earnings
Related Courses
Qualifications
State Specific Information ]
Film Directing Shot by Shot : Visualizing from Concept to Screen
A complete catalogue of motion picture techniques for filmmakers. It concentrates on the 'storytelling' school of filmmaking, utilizing the work of the great stylists who established the versatile vocabulary of technique that has dominated the movies
since 1915. This graphic approach includes comparisons of style by interpreting a 'model script', created for the book, in storyboard form.
I will talk only about Director's relation with camera, or call it his home-work, his self-process. For dealings with actors I reserved another ("Theatre with Anatoly") page.
Well, directing is a new profession. In order to talk about the craft, we have to define the art, the reason for craftmenship.
Visions give birth to images. You have to see things in order to show them (and film is a show biz), you have to notice them in order in order to learn how to reconstruct them, you have to dream in order to lead your audience through a couple hours of a day-dreaming. There are no actual "pictures" on the screen, only MOTION (pictures), everything is in the mind of your spectator -- that's where film is finaly composed. The beginning of it is in your mind.
You don't have to be a director to understand directing and if you want to do theatre (and, especially, film) you better learn a few things about directions.
This page is about VISUAL composition. DRAMATIC COMPOSITION is on ANALYSIS Also, I recommend you visit my Lab Theatre -- The analysis of dramatic structure is a biggest part of directing for stage.
If you don't know it yet... the framing (check the glossary) is a beginning of everything:
Extreme long shot (XLS)(2001)
(Of course, it was shot with the model). Important to remember the three major sizes -- Long Shot, Medium and Clouse up. It almost as if 3rd, 2nd and 1st face -- they (he), you and I. That's how your spectator lives through an indentification with the screen. The close you get, more personal it feels. Notice that all climatic moments can't excape closeups.
Now,
long/wide shot (LS, WS)(Basketball Diaries)
Sometimes called "establishing shot": gives us the sense of environment, the settings -- tradionally, opens the scene.
Next --
medium shot (MS)(Sense & Sensetivity)
Most popular, tv loves it. Keep in mind that cut from LS to MS reads as another degree of "subjectivity" (I'll talk about POV and "subjective time" time later. Remember that getting closer to action is getting action inside you).
Finally,
closeup (CU)(S&S)
The king of the screen.
....and, of course, the extreme closeup (XCU), often called "detail" (the eye-logo on my front page).
A note:
Sometimes, we give the same size shot a different name.
Closeup could be reffered to as a "head shot" and MS as "chest-up" -- and there are several in-between sizes: MCU, for example (Medium-Closeup). Stay with with "1-2-3" for reality breakdown, it will help you to measure the cuts. The jump from one to antother is extremely dramatic, but if done right, we do not notice the cut. That is the art of montage (check the Glossary)
There are practical reason for different names for the same size of a shot.
MS could be called "Two-Shot" (two people in)
Even without a storyboard the crew understands that two actors will be in one shot.
(Alien)
The size of shot is no less important for constructing your visual sentence than I or He in your grammatic construction. The cut from LS to CU is a statement. Skipping a MS, we are sucked into action; if done properly, it's very effective. Try to master first the transition between LS -- MS -- CU
Remind yourself that by selecting the size of your shot you are EDITING the reality. You CUT everything out in order to concentrate my vision. If you will see the process of framing as a first spet of editing, the post-production will be natural and easy.
(Alien Resurrection)
[Framing, focus, line of tention - The Golden Triangle Principle.]
(Piano)
What is the focal point of this shot? Right, the relations, the kiss, the between!
@All images are freebies. You are welcome to copy.
THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
The laws of visual composition were studied for centuries by the Fine Art. The dimensions of our screen are inhereted from paintings. "4X3" is simple "frame" -- as long as you know that you're dealing with the "motion pictures"! The visual composition on the screen is a DYNAMIC composition. "3X4" is a begining of the game.
If you draw two diagonals between the corners, you have a focal point in the middle, a center of our natural attention. The action is gravitates to center, but you don't want to get there without a resistance, no, you organize your shot in such a way that action arrives there only when your spectator beggs for it. Never be too much ahead of him, only one small step -- you directing the movie in order to direct his emotions.
Unfortunally, I'm not a sophisticated enough HTML writer to give your frame by frame sequence of one shot to demonstrate the dymanics of composition in motion.
This is a shot from Tarkovsky's "Sacrifice" -- one of his many favorite non-communication compositions. Reconstruct the position of actors in front of the camera, using the floor plan chart.
Indicate the axises, the direction of their looks. Some consider his mise-en-scenes "too stagy" (tradition of Eisenstein). But Tarkovkosky's notorious long takes are justified by within the frame complex composition, we need time to see it.
SIGHT Oil, 36X48, canvas, 1982. Click on to see it big
My paintings on this site are the left-overs of the DEATH Page, which I moved out. I left only images from the FIVE SENSES cycle as somehow relevent to film.
DIRECTOR
Who is he? Director is the spectators' congressmen. Again, I have to send you to the theatre page, if you want to know about the theory of spectatorship. At this point we have to accept that director is the first spectator, who sees the film before it even exists. The rest is the laborous path to arrive to this space in time, when the rest of the world can see it. In my radical view everything I create is already exists, all I need to do is to see it. I base my theory on Genesis: seeing was the creation of the world.
Director is an extremely active spectator.
There a short list of titles I show the segments in class,
when we get to Acting; here are the samples.
There are other movies with Jack Nocholson could be recommended (use Amazon suggestions).
[ I am not mentioning European film actors here. ]
See Acting I, II, III and Film Directing pages.
[ long list @ film.vtheatre.net ]
I have no pages on individual actors. Only film directors -- Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini (Film-North).
[ updates ]
Questions: Can I study directing on my own?
Yes.
Homework
Yes, yes and yes -- you can and you should. Keep your notes, while watching movies. Analysis -- how many shots, cuts in this commercial? How this or that shot was organized? Learn to separate the script from the screen, acting from directing... Most important, if don't like something, how it could be fixed? Treat verything you see as your "material"! Write, think, shoot. The technology is here; the only question -- do you have anything to say, to show.
NB
The "process pages" and "subject pages" are still not together!
* filmplus.org/kino * picasaweb.google.com/anatoly.antohin * my shared page google
* diggo [ new ] & 2010 AA Ethiopia
theatre theory and 
blog: anatoly-film
(2001)
(Basketball Diaries)
(Sense & Sensetivity)
(S&S)
(Alien)
(Alien Resurrection)
(Piano)
