I noticed that a lot of people were coming to my site by
Googling “How to direct a movie!” so I thought I should actually write
something here on the subject.
The first lesson then
is, be careful who you take a lesson from!
Now I don’t want to decry my talents as a director, but I’ve
been a screenwriter far too many years to worry about what I am going to do
when I grow up, and have only just managed to start directing anything. I got
fed up writing and doctoring stuff nobody made, and suddenly realized how much
a decent camera costs nowadays. Once you have a professional camera in hand and
learn which end is the front and which the back, you realize that all you need
are some actors and you can make a movie.
You can even make movies with crap cameras. In fact, you can
also enthrall an audience with nothing more than a sock puppet and a lot of
imagination. But for reasons not unrelated to greed and self-importance,
working at a level with absolutely no chance of hitting the big time, never appealed
to me. But there is a time and a
place for the camcorder, as I shall explain later on. Bearing in mind then that
nobody tells the director how to direct his movie, read on.
The second lesson is,
in order to direct a movie you have to be a director!
Are you a director or just a guy who wants to tell stories? I
hear people saying, as they blithely tell me they are going to find a couple of
million dollars to make a film, how they are not doing it for the money but
merely want to tell good stories. If that is all you want to do, get the sock
puppet out and go stand on a street corner entertaining people. But once you
start thinking about telling a story that requires a lot of other people
bending to your will, you usually have to start paying them and that means
borrowing the money from someone who will want it back one day.
Either you pay that debt out of your day job, or by selling
your product. And if you want to get into the cinemas and on the TV, you are
going to have to have a product made to a professional standard. This means
using trained actors and technicians who depend on this for a livelihood. The
last thing they want to work with is an idiot, especially an idiot who cannot
pay them. In short, they want to
work with a director not a story teller. They want to work with someone who relishes the power and the responsibility, who relishes maneuvering what is an industrial enterprise into an economically viable position. They want someone who makes sure everyone gets a pay day.
Remember that camcorder I dismissed as small time? Well that
is where you start: small time. For that matter, getting hold of the sock
puppet and trying to provide just ten minutes of entertainment with that crude
tool might be a good place to start your training. Do not worry. Greed and self-importance will come in time
and you’ll want to upgrade soon enough. In the mean time find something special
to do with the crudest of tools and work the imagination, and then you will
begin the road to becoming a director. But remember that being a story teller is but one aspect of the equation. One might say that being an awesome bullshitter is more important, though perhaps that's the domain of the producer!
The third lesson is, know
thyself, or at least know your situation.
So despite my acquisition of some professional level
equipment and relatively high skill levels as cameraman, editor, musician,
driver and caterer, I know that my “let’s do the show right here” attitude can
only produce a certain level of product. I need to be able to command a couple
of million dollars, at least, of investment. Which means I need a commercial
proposition for independent investors, and/or access to some soft funding, i.e.
government or arts foundations, that back what is considered artistically valid
with no obvious commercial outlet.
In my own case I have no access to government funding. I am
not a UK resident, which somewhat limits my ability to claim that I am using UK
facilities and furthering UK cultural development, and I am not Chinese, which
limits my ability to apply for Hong Kong’s meagre support. I am also of an age
where I cannot expect a long and creative career ahead of me if only someone
gives me the support and encouragement at this crucial stage of my development.
Life being what it is, missing your moment where youthful exuberance is at a
premium, does not make it easier to plead your case later on. So my reality is that I have to work
out how to give an investor a good return on their investment. If you can make
money for someone, they do not care how old you are or, for that matter, how
ugly and stupid you may well be. And so I have to prove myself through making
small sample works at as high a standard as possible and put those forward as
part of my presentation to gain investors. Scripts I can do, but attaching
myself as director isn’t necessarily a deal maker.
This takes a lot of scheming, a lot of work, and a lot of
subjecting myself to the sort of criticism that I have not tolerated for thirty
odd years as a screenwriter. I am,
the oldest film student in the business and will make a video diary of my
attending summer school, so watch out for that. This is my situation, my problem, and my solution. I am writing what can be made on the small scale, positioning myself in that market as producer or director, with the intention of scaling up on the back of scripts I would normally put onto the open market as commercial vehicles, but when the time is right attach myself as director and not capitulate on this point in negotiations.
The fourth lesson is,
remember what the first and second lessons were!
My strategies as a director, and the decisions I make at all
points in the directing process, have a lot to do with my situation and my
experience, and are not necessarily to be copied by anyone else. I am playing the indie-film production game that appears feasible here in Hong Kong. There may be easier and better options for you in your region, at your level of experience, and at your age.
If you are a
teenager, I would say grab a cheap HD camera and get a few friends together and
have fun. You are the director and the director can direct any way they damn
well please and if the result is entertaining and you had fun, then there you go,
mission accomplished! And there is nothing an old fart like me can tell you.
And if there was, you do not deserve to be a teenager and should hand your
youth over to me right now as I know exactly what to do with it.
If, callow youth that you are, you want to take this
further, then whatever you did, you just do more of it and begin the process of
scaling up and professionalizing. Which means you now are looking for show reel
material to get yourself into a decent film school, maybe win some prizes, or
even skip school and start getting agents interested in you. You can finance
yourself making adverts, music videos,
and TV shows while you piece together the finance for that breakthrough feature. I say, while you are making adverts, music videos and TV shows, but that does not mean you will be directing them but rather working on them in various assistant capacities. The apprentice system operates in this field and there is nothing quite as useful at breaking you into the realities of production that simply working on professional shoots even as a lowly runner. Welcome
to that scramble up the muddy slope we call life.
What you will find in this process of developing your own projects, working on other peoples, and taking courses, where your own special
methods, own attitudes, own network of collaborators, own tortuous career path, lends a unique flavour to
your work, is that you will learn the professional process and how to work
within a complicated industry with a lot of complicated technological
requirements as well as political and artistic issues.
The fifth lesson is, to
be a director you probably have to be a producer and a writer!
You will, on googling “How To Direct”, discover a lot of
obvious information. Information
like: You need a script! Well, maybe… and I’m a scriptwriter saying this. But
if you’re the writer and director, you can always write with the camera. It
some times works. Some times it doesn’t.
Either way though, you need a plan! You need to schedule
your shoot so that everyone knows where to be and what they should be doing.
You need to plan to have the right equipment at the right place. You need to
make sure there are toilets available, transportation, and food. And you need
to have the time to shoot the film in a way that it edits together and tells
the story.
You could get someone else to deal with all the practical
stuff and you, as the “director”, can concentrate on directing the actors and
telling the cameraman which shot to take.
Here is the basic method of shooting: you establish the what, where, how
of a situation with a wide angle of some sort, and then cut into the action to
show details and reactions. You then create transitions that continue the
action, or contrast it, to take us to the next beat of the story. Big action stories require some big
open vistas whereas more chatty character pieces tend to avoid the big wide
angle and use more mid shots to establish situations. All films go for close
ups and some times really big close ups showing the hairs in the nostrils and
on the back of the hands. Though you’ll find that comedy tends not to do that,
despite it being funny, and big Epics some time focus on extreme close ups as
well as extreme wide angles with huge focal depth.
You got all that? You knew it anyway didn’t you? You watch
movies. You watch TV. You know this stuff instinctually, though perhaps not the
distinction between styles and genres and all the nuances. And Scorsese just sticks the camera on a
crane and takes the whole scene in one swoop. Now what’s that all about? Apart
from being pure genius.
You get the point? Most of this stuff you know and every
director is different, and what counts is practice! And to get the practice in
you need to be your own producer, writer, location scout, caterer and even
actor. Or you throw money around until the police come and escort your from
your home while the bailiffs move in.
The sixth lesson is,
do anything you like as long as you know what it is all about.
It pays to become a bit of a movie buff, though not so you
lose sight of the general audience reaction. You need to analyse and look at how scenes are put together.
You need to read up on what critics tell you about their meaning. This is film
school stuff, and despite everyone having a low opinion of film school,
especially since you do not need to know anything to be a great director, there
is some use for this. Knowledge is no handicap. Just don’t let it kill your
enthusiasm, because then you will lose the one thing you have to have!
And what was that about not losing sight of the general
audience reaction? Film buffs often love boring movies. They love them
because the photography is great, the camera angles innovative and cut together
in fascinating ways. They forget that the point of all this is to portray
something funny or dramatic. Remember the sock puppet? If a film isn’t more
entertaining than a sock puppet some one is going to want their money back.
You’ve watched a Wong Kar Wai film? Twenty minutes in, one sort of gets it and
starts thinking about pizza. Genius no doubt, but for me he’s selling pizza and
a curious respect for Chris Doyle, his cameraman, over and above the director.
But Wong gives good festival presence and does the business side of things, so
falls in with my definition of a director even if his films seem to me like
parodies of what used to be known as Art House movies. He has worked his career well and knows his product, knows his audience, knows how to add value to his reputation and thus finances, and make his art work for him. I still find the films dull and they still don't appeal to the mass audience.
It is a great mistake to think that if the mass audience do not like your work and your work is photographed beautifully and comprises of moody actors and lots of peeling paintwork, that it is somehow a work of genius. There is always the possibility that it is just dull and derivative of past Art House successes. In this creative arena you have to be different, very different, and still coherent. Your genius may well be in the presentation of the work rather than the work itself which, as I hope I am making clear, is part of the director's job and in some cases might be the dominant part.
The seventh lesson
is, remember what I said about nobody wanting to work with an idiot?
Dealing with actors is one of the hardest parts of
directing. It is usually recommended that you have some idea about the actors’
process, though actors all have their own and some of it can be pretty loopy.
But if you cast them, you usually cast them because you thought they could do
the job. So whatever it is that they do, you have to work it into the process,
even when it becomes irritating and time consuming. Actors are always skirting
with the danger of making fools of themselves and so they like to protect
themselves. When the director starts making difficult demands they will try to
bring the situation back to something they are familiar with and know will
work. This, we call “resistance”
and blithely assume it to be a bad thing and that the director has to over come
it.
If you are David Lynch and you make a difficult
demand, the actor will think perhaps he should try it. He hopes it will extend his
or her range and create a new depth of performance. But if you, the idiot, make a difficult demand, there is a
good chance that it is stupid and will do nobody any good and the resistance is
justified! All of which means, that the director must know the script in depth
and cast the right people and be aware that he or she is an idiot until proven otherwise.
Getting to know a script and the actors thoroughly enough is not always that easy. It would be nice to rehearse but rehearsals are not always extensive on a film because
shooting the rehearsal can be just as effective as waiting for the rehearsals
to get it right. Often
rehearsals come up with something that cannot be replicated. Unlike the stage
you are not creating a perfectly oiled machine that can repeat itself over and
over every night. You are looking for the one take that says it all, and that
some times can be the first ever encounter with the script and the location
that the actor has. The actor thus
has to trust that at least the director knows what is going on and can
recognize gold when he sees it and the director often has to do a lot of thinking on their feet and pretend that they know what is going on.
The secret of thinking well on your feet is to eliminate as many uncertainties as possible before the event. Apart from really understanding a script, understanding the actors is a must and many directors believe that casting is the most important part of directing. If you
watch what the actors have done before, then you go and cast them to bring that
to the role. Star actors often bring a whole baggage of expectations to a set
and must live up to them. The star’s job does not end on the film set; they
have to cultivate their brand in between jobs. A director that does not
understand this and wants the star to act outside of the parameters of their stardom
will be thought to be an asshole. If stars think you are an asshole, you are in
serious trouble and your director status may well slip back down to idiot
again.
Luckily you probably wont have to face a star until you’ve
made someone a star. The character
actors that never get into Hello Magazine are often relegated to secondary
positions where versatility might be useful, but it won’t make them a star. But
if you see something in them that can, with the right script, make them an
icon, then even if your skills on set are a bit shaky, the end result might
well make your career. Now you’re the idiot who cast Schwarzenegger. Nobody will ever call you an idiot ever
again, except the screenwriter, but that is a whole different story... Who
was the guy who made Schwarzenegger a star? Some dick head who once got sacked
by Roger Corman, and worked on dumb moves like Piranha, and once hired a camera
to shoot a short and spent half the time dismantling the camera to work out how
to get it running… I remember his
name now - James Cameron! I believe he’s been doing quite well recently.
Why is James Cameron a big shot director? is he a great writer? Hmm... is he a director who coaxes extraordinary performances of his actors? Hmm... Is he a maker of movies that film buffs love? Hmm... is he noted for his tact, smooth dealing with press and critics, and easy relationships with people? Hell, he's been divorced five times! But is he the maker of some of the movies that everyone else in the whole world loves and will go down in movie history as the most successful films ever made in the whole history of the universe? D'uh, yeah! He came through the ranks and saw the big picture, literally!
Lesson eight is,
reach for the stars.
How one spots a star before anyone else and thus takes him
or her out of your league is a mystery. But looks and controversy are good for
the movies. Good looks pop out of the screen. You need actors who know how to make
themselves look good, who know where the light is, know their best angles, know
how a twitch on their face can read in close up. It does not matter if they are not able
to deliver long complicated speeches. In the movies the visuals dominate. Did I mention that the career of a
certain Mr. Schwarzenegger is worth studying?
Come on, admit it, would you have cast him in anything? I
mean, I’m a screenwriter. I want people who can act, who can make my dialogue
sing, and who can move gracefully spreading wisdom and enlightenment through
their presentation of my grand vision. The director phones me up and says, Larry, you have to take
all that dialogue out. I got this guy who can’t walk, can’t talk, but the
camera loves him! The press loves him! The make-up girls complain about him
screwing around with them, but hey, he’s a big guy with big needs and already the media are gossiping about him... And at this point I’m screaming and the
director is talking about getting another writer in if I won’t do what’s necessary.
You would have
done Schwarzenegger a disfavour casting him in a film version of Hamlet, but
casting him as a monosyllabic robot…
Now that’s directing!
And so is making
sure that the script has a part that takes best advantage of Arnie’s peculiar
charisma, even if it means pissing the writer off.
Of course having someone who thinks they are a star, thinks
they know the angles, thinks they know how to best light themselves, and so on,
but are complete idiots and get it all wrong, is not uncommon. But then so are stupid directors, bad
lighting cameramen, idiot costume artists, moronic makeup guys, etc etc. Idiocy
and stupidity know no barriers especially in the film industry, and that is why
there are very few people on the A list. When making a decision you should always ask yourself, is this the idiot talking or the director?
When a successful film is made, the director sticks with his
team and often sticks with the actors he knows made it a success. They also
stick with the writers they know they can work with, some times to the
detriment of the script that the producer hired them to direct! But that’s
another story, and also another incentive for a screenwriter to turn to
directing. Then you become a director and realize all screenwriters are pains
in the neck. As a screenwriter, of course, it is my job to be a pain in the
neck and punch directors. And as a director, I have to take the punches. One hopes that the idiot gets knocked out and not the director.
Lesson nine, be loyal
to those who make you look good.
Trust is very easily lost on a film set and everyone working
to their highest capabilities without upsetting command structures, fragile
egos, time schedules or budget limits, is the only way to make anything that
stands the scrutiny of people who have paid to watch it.
The director must be a team leader not an hysterical bully,
a moody primadonna, or a wild egomaniac making impossible demands. Humility and
confidence can go a long way to attract good people to work with you. Though
often money does the attracting and this is where life gets unfair because lots
of movies get made with everyone at each others throat and everyone swearing
they will never work with each other ever again, until the next time. Even
rubbish projects can bring the same unsuited team together again and again if
money has been raised! Rubbish films on which everyone had a bad time, happen over and over again despite everyone knowing better. What a miserable way of making a living!
The fact is that a good proportion of people on set are
biding their time before they get their film project together and become
directors. They are looking for a million and one reasons to be in your shoes, and can spend a lot of energy undermining you and proving that you are an idiot.
If you find a nice team and everyone is happy doing their thing, you are a
lucky director, but only if the team is successful. If not, then they are bunch
of assholes who dragged you down to their level.
Some times the film is so so but everyone had a good time making it. And some times the film is great and everyone hated every moment. Your aim is to have it both ways, and then stay with the people who made it that way. But...
Lesson ten, just
accept that not everything works the way it should.
Remember the first lesson? Be careful who you take lessons
from. Some directors are your kind of directors and you can learn from them.
Others do stuff that if you tried, would be a disaster. And most directors are
mediocre so not exactly great role models. The advice about how to direct that you
get on web sites is probably not from great directors and the great directors
often give bad advice! So my opinion here is probably no better and no worse
than anyone else’s. It would certainly be worse if I, of no great achievement,
outlined a method of directing. On the other hand, what I am doing nowadays
might be bottled and sold as Hollywood’s Secret Success Formula. Google it up!
I am sure there are plenty of people selling you something like that for a
hundred dollars a pop. But until I
get my Oscar, keep your money in your pocket, and heed my advice to find your way through the doing and the studying of film and video, and through the developing of relationships and self knowledge. There is no quick fix and just sticking people in front of a camera, shooting it and cutting it together, is only part of the equation.
Hitchcock for reasons that I never understood, is held in
far higher esteem than I hold any of his movies, though I do find it endearing
that he got his rocks off torturing women by throwing birds at them. He did
however say some things about directing that are worth paraphrasing. Essentially he said that you write the script, add
the dialogue, then once the interesting bit has been done, you have to shoot
the damn thing. Apart from it being worth considering in depth that distinction between writing the script and adding the dialogue, it is also worth considering how he found the shoot
tedious and actors an inconvenience. The point I am reiterating here is that directing is not just about standing on
set shouting action, nor about concerning yourself with directing the actors,
nor even just about the one project in front of you, it is about being a
director. It is about taking the broad view and the narrow view, about
developing lots of film and TV projects, and looking for front of camera
talent, and technical virtuosity. It is about writing scripts, working with
writers, and sitting down for meetings with financiers and producers. It is
about engaging with public taste and developing changes in that taste. It is
about having sophisticated opinions and viewpoints, and placing your creative
ideas within an acceptable context. And it is about fighting battles with
censors, financial backers, creatives of differing visions, and still coming up
smiling.
How do you direct a movie? You have to know what you’ve got,
know what you need, and know what you want! The rest is up to you. In short,
you just buy a camera and go do it anyway you damn well like because you’re the
director!
Or the idiot... NO! Today, you are the director!
What's he doing? He's wanting to do what?
Did you see the costume he wants me to wear?
I'm not going to crawl through that shit!
If he expects me to kiss that guy...
Hell, he's taken my best line out of the script...
No, you cannot blow that car up here, you'll kill someone...
It's after five o'clock, everyone's on overtime!