Rabiger Directing: Film Techniques & Aesthetics 4ed Teacher’s Notes Page 1

Teacher’s Notes
for
Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics 4th Ed
By Michael Rabiger

These notes, mostly addressed to teachers and film schools offering a directing focus for
the first time, offer practical guidance on how to make use of Directing:Film Techniques
and Aesthetics 4ed under a varying range of student, teacher, and institutional
circumstances. The book is designed as a huge toolkit to use and amend while you
achieve your teaching ends. The notes are in three sections:

 INTRODUCTION (p2) explains the book’s underlying approach and the

classroom and other organizational issues that the instructor may confront.
 FAQ: TEACHING CONSIDERATIONS (p7) is organized as a series of questions
you might ask—of your students, of yourself, or of me.
o Who am I teaching (p7)
o What preparation do my students have? (p7)
o How should I develop appropriate coursework? (p8)
o What are my strengths as a teacher? (p9)
o What do I need from teaching? (p10)
o What does my institution expect of its students? (p10)
o What support will I need? (p10)
o How much can I expect to teach my students? (p11)
o What work should I expect students to do in class and outside? (p11)
o What preparation should I do for each class? (p12)
o What equipment will I need? (p12)
o How can I grade the elements of fiction work? (p13)
o How can I build a syllabus? (p13)
o What should I tell students about their chances in the film industry? (p13)
 OVERVIEW OF BOOK’S CONTENTS
o Macro view—parts and chapters. (p16)
o Micro view—parts, chapters, chapter contents (p17-38)

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INTRODUCTION
Directing:Film Techniques and Aesthetics concentrates on what the beginner and the
professional alike will find most challenging, that is, how to
 Find stories that are dramatically rich and make good cinema
 Define a storytelling approach that stamps the film with an authorial identity
 Develop a script from a director’s point of view
 Cast actors who may or may not be professional
 Use a rehearsal and development technique to form an ensemble (vital for low
budget production where the director can seldom hire experienced players)
 Make a shooting schedule and plans for shooting
 Hire a crew
 Shoot
 Edit the material into a fully functioning story.

Implicit is the idea that making films, like functioning in any other art form, has an
artistic process whose guidance comes from within. This is wealth untapped in most
students, whose education has taught them that learning to function in the world requires
that they inhibit their feelings and instincts, and learn “the proper way” to do everything.
Those that come from arty families, or have had theater or art school training, will know
differently. The rest have to be prised away from the notion that films come from an
alchemy inherent in expensive equipment.

Let your passions show. In its opening chapter the book appeals to the latent idealism of
those attracted to the cinema, and I believe it important that teachers encourage students’
humane principles and ambitions. Let your students see who you are and what moves
you. Good teaching helps students connect with their latent passions. Can it be any
accident that my lifelong interests (and perhaps yours too) reflect those of my best
teachers?

Point of view and collaboration. The book stresses that good fiction comes from a
passionate observation of life. Above all, film is a construct implying a storyteller’s point
of view. In fiction filmmaking, this comes from a consortium of minds, a commonality
that arises out of collaboration and dialogue—a powerful factor in making film of any
kind. A film class is special because it is a laboratory for shared creativity, a form of
collaboration notable by its absence from most contemporary education.

The audience is like a jury. A film sets out to build a bridge between its audience and
fictional characters in fictional situations. As with documentary, the quality and relevance
of the evidence that the film presents, and the verve with which it is presented,
determines the journey the audience takes, and any ideas and convictions about the
human condition that they take home afterwards.

Film language, the book explains that, in fiction films as in documentary, film is really an
artful approximation to human perceptual processes. Films are streams of consciousness
designed for audiences to experience. Thus all wise camera and editing decisions are

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modeled on how to construct a humanly integrated stream of consciousness rather than

one that is mechanically derivative of cinema stereotypes. Making films becomes a
fascinating study, therefore, of ourselves as living, moving, acting and reacting beings.
Teach with this in mind, and you will captivate your students and thrust them into an
artform rather than the technological jungle they anticipate.

Teaching is really learning. Out in the world as you experience a range of feelings and
impressions, any of them might become a film, so you lead your life more purposefully
and consciously. Make a film, and you discover what level of consciousness you can
sustain on the screen. Teach, and you see many people tackling similar tasks in different
ways, so you learn with, and from, them. Teaching makes one a better teacher, a better
person, and a better filmmaker too. Students should be encouraged to teach and learn
among themselves for this reason.

Learning from doing. Students in all fields of study learn best from doing, and this is
especially true in filmmaking. The simplest production is like learning to juggle, because
it involves handling a great many dynamic variables. Even were it possible to deliver a
thorough intellectual preparation, most students could only absorb a fraction of it before
needing to put theory into practice. Projects and theory should therefore advance hand in
hand. Making films is not unique in this regard: to learn dancing you must dance, and to
learn swimming you must use water. Directing thus includes acting exercises and
shooting projects, each with its own authorial and production objectives. Like nothing
else they will help your students develop real-world skills. Students learn most
enthusiastically from work they find challenging, engaging, and mind-expanding.
Thankfully the digital age provides us with superb and affordable media for the task. A
teacher’s job is no longer figuring out how to give any practical experience, but how to
construct as thorough and fascinating an obstacle course as students’ time and abilities
permit.

Conceiving and controlling fiction: This book is not a technical primer, though it
describes much that a director must know. When it describes technology and techniques,
it does so in necessarily broad terms. Given the pace at which the digital domain is
evolving, it would be futile to make hard and fast recommendations. Happily, most
institutions can draw upon those technocrats among their faculty and senior students who
have spontaneously made themselves expert in digital tools. Whether formally or
informally employed, these wizards usually make excellent “tech” instructors. Harder and
more demanding is to teach how to make acted stories that grip and inform an audience.
This is the book’s primary focus, along with preparing the reader for every stage of the
artistic process. This gets regularly lost amid the delightful turmoil of fiction-making’s
industrial process. More than anything, this explains why so many beginning fictional
screenworks are more deeply flawed than their documentary counterparts.

From the ground up: The book presumes no prior knowledge. Most of your students will
need basic training in constructing cinema language and using digital equipment. The
graduated shooting projects are really vehicles for students to discover and self-teach in
each area that a director must know. Doing and doing again is the only viable way to

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develop skills and standards in such a complex medium.

You, your students, and setting learning goals: Schools, their curricula, equipment levels,
and students vary greatly, so it’s impossible to say how best to use Directing:Film
Techniques and Aesthetics. Not even the most thorough syllabus does more than scratch
the surface of directing, which takes years of experience. Most who direct go on
developing into old age—as long as they can stand up.

You, better than anyone, will know what you teach best, what your students bring to the
table, and under what constraints of time and equipment your classes have to function.
The book is anyway so comprehensive that you will have to make use of it selectively.
By choosing astutely, you can guide your students into using what works best for them at
their particular level of education and development. When they no longer have classes or
a formal learning structure, the book will be there to keep supplying ideas, methods, and
reassurance.

Here is what most arriving students seem to know best and worst:

Where students are knowledgeable

The area in which they need the least conceptual help is editing—with their 18,000 hours
of watching TV, students take to it like ducks to water. Many will do an astonishingly
professional job of structuring and pacing fictional or documentary material. That part of
the process is assured of success.

Technical education
Most students need help developing basic camera and microphone handling techniques
before they can get anything like the results they are used to seeing from the screen. Most
are far more sophisticated visually than aurally. Only musicians, it would seem, have any
experience of critical and analytic listening. This you may have to teach. Digital
camcorders continue to improve and to provide more and more control to the user. It’s
important to get students making stories, even if that means using automatic features at
first. Classes can easily get hung up for weeks learning stuff that often distances the more
creatively inclined. Stress the dialogue with the audience from the start, and phase the
tekky stuff in as gradually and unobtrusively as possible. It’s a medium of
communication, a place to speak from the heart and mind to an audience.

Conceptual education
The obstacles to good fiction filmmaking are formidable;
 Choosing (or writing) cinematic stories. Beginning student films are remarkably
consistent from country to country, which says something about the ubiquity of
television. They need challenging as writers and thinkers if they are to reach
below the surface of their experience (see my Developing Story Ideas Focal Press,
for a series of writing exercises that are designed to teach dramaturgy)
 Developing their story expressly for the strengths of the screen and its audience.
This swims against the current of a show-and-tell commercial culture, with its
heavy emphasis on words.

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 Achieving brevity and compression, that is, making cinema art rather than
mimicking the prolixity and circularity of life.
 Casting, especially when no professional players are available
 Developing actors into an ensemble before shooting. This is the only avenue of
success for independent filmmakers who must often rely on non-actors.
 Allowing the piece to be influenced by its players’ strengths and particularity. The
artistic process behind making an effectively linear film is not the linear
manufacturing job that students expect but circular, and involves endless
experimental drafts.
 Holding on to the dramaturgical and storytelling consciousness that allows the
industrial process of directing to become humanly expressive.

Student expectations: All students, individually and as a group, start with a

preponderance of expectations and prejudices, so you’ll need a good idea of what your
students expect to get out of the course. Your part, of course, will be to prioritize and
decide what they can learn and accomplish in the available time. Attaching learning goals
to the syllabus and to each project is useful because students know from the outset where
they are supposed to be heading. The outcomes assessment forms in this website signal
this, and let you report back on their success in each important aspect. About the forms
themselves: even where no grid lines are visible, they are constructed in standard
Microsoft Word tables, so I encourage you to add, subtract, or edit as you see fit.

Forming groups and who’s in charge of what: Making films is collaborative, so you will
need to form your class into production groups of, say, five persons. When students
already know each other, they sometimes have fixed ideas about whom they want to work
with. This may not be optimal for learning. But by making a simple skills and availability
questionnaire you can solicit information to help form more rational choices for the
groups. It’s good to distribute skills and genders so you don’t have a group containing,
say, three cameramen. Some students will have their own equipment, so it’s good to
distribute them so groups are evenly equipped.

Especially in the beginning, everyone needs basic experience. Some will try to corral the
most cherished positions. Apart from this being unfair, premature specialization actively
prevents students getting the holistic understanding of filmmaking they will need. So, to
ensure that each group member gets comprehensive experience, I suggest you ask that,
 Students stay in the same group for the duration of the semester
 Group members rotate through all the major creative roles (director, camera
operator, shooting sound, and editing)

Under some circumstances, such as when shooting improvs, the camera operator has to
take most of the shooting decisions, so a two-person crew may be in order, with the
director shooting sound, and remaining group members serving as actors. Coverage
requiring careful lighting will need a larger crew, so you may amalgamate groups for
more tech-heavy projects.

Some aspects of the project work, such as critical writing, researching or directing a

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complex film, may primarily be under the control of one person, but most work is
teamwork and the organization of the team, after firm guidelines are laid down, can come
from the team itself. As groups accrue experience, and members recognize each other’s
capacities and talents, people tend to naturally specialize. How soon you let your students
specialize may hinge on whether to shoot for the best-produced projects or the broadest
education. Too much specialization too early can deny directing experience to, say, a
camera operator and relegate him or her to being a good rather than ideal collaborator.

Some cinema schools require their students to opt for roles on entry to the academy, and
fix the division of labor from the outset. I believe it essential for each person to taste,
however temporarily, the responsibilities and decisions governing the lives of their
collaborators. This helps each become more tolerant and respectful of the others, and
helps each acquire experience on which to found their choices and ambitions. While
nearly all students harbor a desire to direct, only a taste of directing will send them
satisfied into one of the crafts that they do better.

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FAQ: TEACHING CONSIDERATIONS

How you configure groups, and what set of experiences you construct for their education
will depend on a number of variables, which I’ll present as an FAQ list:

1) Who am I teaching? Undergraduates, or graduate (“post-graduate” in European

parlance) students? Are you leading a special interest or other professional or semi-
professional group? And what kind of students does your institution draw? For
instance:
i) A polytechnic teaching fiction filmmaking probably draws the technically
minded. You might therefore budget less time teaching the science behind
sound and video recording, and do more to develop conceptual, narrative and
editing skills.
ii) Young undergraduate students may come with excellent computer skills, but
have no experience of writing and conceptualizing, or of giving and taking
criticism. They will need to learn about the profound bank of inner experience
they must call on if they are to collaborate in an art form.
iii) Students in a fine art school might have to concentrate more on the physics of
light and sound. They may understand individual expression very well but be
much less intuitive when using editing software or production hardware. You
may also have to persuade them to collaborate with each other instead of
instinctively competing for distinction (after the model of artist as isolated
seer). Narrative skills are frequently underdeveloped in individuals first drawn
to painting, photography, or sculpture. They tend to see in a static and
symbolic way, rather than in the dynamics of drama.
iv) Graduate students may be making a career change and arrive wanting to use
film to further the work they have been doing professionally. This might be in
advertising, the juvenile justice system, or local politics. Without efforts on
your part to broaden their idea of effective drama, they may try to operate
entirely within television traditions in which law enforcement and medical
emergencies create heroic stereotypes.

2) What preparation do my students have? To determine this, try defining their

strengths and deficiencies:
a) Conceptual. What do they know about the purpose, history, and range of
fiction, both in literature and film? What do they know about narrative
traditions, in particular the dramatic ingredients that go into “telling a good
story”?
b) Film literacy. What do they know about the evolution of film as a medium?
What do they know about the range of film language and its relationship to
traditions of literature, theater, painting and other imagery?
c) Artistic. What can you expect your students to know about the self-
exploration that is endemic to the artistic process? Are they sophisticated
about using film as a medium of expression and self-expression? How well
are they likely to understand the need to act on the viewer, rather than to
passively record and reflect what is “there”?

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d) Self-expressive. Some social classes and cultures encourage individual

expression, some frown on it as blatant egotism. Some make it politically
dangerous to have ideas or a conscience of your own. But self-awareness is to
the arts what brushes are to paint: you will have to stress authorship as a
necessary counterweight to the consuming industrial process of filming. You
will need to develop a critical self-awareness in your students so they
appreciate that they already carry, albeit unconsciously, a developed and
critical point of view. This alone allows them recognize what is humanly
authentic and is very different from intellectually imposed ideas.
Unfortunately, many film appreciation classes teach students not to feel and
respond, but to intellectualize. This can delay students from developing
independent judgment.
e) Critical. How critical are your students of the world around them, and how
prepared are they to develop a critical tension in their work?
f) Technical. Presuming they are computer literate, how much time will be
consumed teaching the fundamentals of camerawork, sound recording, and
editing?
g) Collaborative. Have they worked with others before? Do they know each
other and have preferences for working together? Will you need to determine
who has particular skills, and distribute these people equably through the
groups? How will you prepare them to hierarchical or shared decisions?

3) How should I develop appropriate coursework? You will need to:

a) Assess the goals of entering students.
i) If the class is required, then the department has probably set goals, or needs
to. You job will be to build a bridge between your students and the
competencies that the curriculum demands.
ii) If the class is an elective you will need to integrate your students’ goals as
well as those you set yourself, or they won’t enjoy the course enough to
recommend it to others. What kind of experience are they looking for? With
what skills do they hope to emerge? If you have to train their sights on a more
realistic target, how will you finesse the transition?
iii) Where do the students go next and what will they need from you to perform
well?
b) Acknowledge that people learn in different ways. Some prefer to understand the
theory of a thing before embarking on actually doing it. Theory can become a
refuge from doing. Such individuals have a high capacity for abstract thinking.
Most only discover what they need to know through making something and from
confronting degrees of failure in its effectiveness. For those who want a great deal
of information prior to production, you have Directing. It’s a 24/7 resource for
those who want to know first and do later, or who do first and inquire what they
should have done after seeing concrete results. For those weaned on multiple
choice exams, I found I had to develop quiz questions that week by week forced
people into applying their hitherto unused faculties (thanks, public education…)
In discussions I would press people without answers into reasoning their own way
to an answer, just as one has to do in the field.

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c) Take approximate decisions about

i) How much historical overview will benefit your students. What will they
reject as “ancient history” until they have tackled some pioneering problems
themselves and are ready to tread in the footsteps of their forebears?
ii) What projects you want them to undertake in order to develop particular skills
and outlooks.
iii) How much work you can reasonably expect your students to complete in the
given time.
iv) What films to show in order to inform and enthuse your students about their
project work. Finding good short fiction is really hard.

4) What are my strengths as a teacher? Most teachers feel deficient in either teaching
experience or production skills—or both. Don’t be discouraged: figure out how to use
your strengths to best advantage. You should cast the work your students are going to
do in your own most effective mode, at least until experiment leads you toward other
equally effective modes.
a) How are you used to teaching, and how do you best engage your students? You
may like to give lectures, or you may excel in a more Socratic mode of
questioning and evoking discussion. You may like to set problems for the students
to solve, and let discussion of principles arise out of their efforts at problem-
solving. You may take the risky path of instructing students in technology and
then letting them determine what they want to film. Begin with whatever mode
will work for you, and develop your ideas as you go. If you don’t make yourself
comfortable, your students won’t feel secure either.
b) Do you teach from a body of production experience? It’s helpful but by no means
vital.
i) If you have some production experience: Is it on the technical or on the
conceptual side? Few filmmakers have all-round experience, so inevitably you
will be teaching both what you know and what you don’t know too. Honesty
is usually the best policy. Tell the class when you won’t have all the answers.
Use email to communicate after class, or have the answer ready for the next
session. Luckily, from the sheer responsibility of teaching, we teachers usually
learn even more than our students. In each repeat class go further into your
areas of deficiency.
ii) If you don’t have fiction production experience. You can still approach the
class authoritatively from a wide range of other specializations. You can run a
fiction class from a background in journalism, literature, poetry, sociology, or
photography, and approach making fiction as a shared endeavor with your
students. It’s wise to be candid about what expertise you do and don’t bring,
since students will find out anyway. There’s nothing wrong with students and
teacher sharing discovery as a form of learning. A teacher does not have to be
an ultimate authority to be respected and liked by his or her students.
Especially if you are young, being a senior colleague to your students is an
effective stance from which to teach. Organizing, goal-setting, and
coordinating are all invaluable leadership activities. Your seriousness,
commitment, and drive will be most important.

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5) What do I need from teaching? To teach only what you know leads to dull classes
that reek of repetition. You need to break new ground if you are to sustain your
enthusiasm and energies. What interests you, as a filmmaker and as a teacher, should
affect how you use this book, which allows many kinds of approach. Going into new
territory renews you and makes you a more exciting teacher.

6) What does my institution expect of its students? These may come from school
traditions or top leadership, or they may come locally from a dean or department
chair. There are two main kinds of expectation, neither of which are likely to change:
a) Some departments or institutions must justify their funding by turning out
prizewinners and pride themselves on admitting only “talented” students.
However, those who are socially adroit or good at academics aren’t necessarily
going to succeed. Filmmaking takes persistence and long-term learning ability
and these don’t necessarily register in admissions tests or academic records.
b) Others (and I trust your institution is among these) are more inclusive and try to
administer a good overall education to all their students. Despite such
egalitarianism, stars still arise. Usually few people begrudge them their
achievements.

7) What support will I need? The trend is toward making fiction on a low budget using
digital technology, and to have fewer people in a unit with a range of skills. The ideal
training for filmmakers is anyway holistic, and everyone becomes a better filmmaker
because of it. In the technical area they will need:
a) Acting. Ideally this is taught by a trained acting teacher, but often one has to do
the best one can. Take some acting classes if you haven’t before; this will teach
you humility because acting well takes a lot of knowledge and discipline. This
edition of Directing has a great deal more to help student and teacher alike.
b) Video theory & practice. The basics about video such as frame rates, interlace,
digital versus analog recording, luminance, chrominance, time code, drop frame
and non-drop frame, etc. A lot of this theory applies easily to film, for those who
are moving to cinematography. Many good manuals cover this material.
c) Sound theory & practice. Sound is the Cinderella of filmmaking, and unless you
are lucky enough to be teaching musicians, your students will mostly poor
listening abilities. Your students will learn most through analytic work on film
sound tracks and from conducting microphone experiments. Recording well
means understanding sound theory, microphones, and their pickup patterns, and
learning to hear the difference. Sitting in on a film mix will teach a lot too.
d) Camera and sound operating practice. There are many exercises through which
to develop this, each with a set of assessment criteria to help you and your
students make judgments and dig into the reasons why a particular technique does
or doesn’t work. See also my Directing the Documentary (Focal Press) for
additional sound and camera exercises.
e) Editing software and editing in practice. Most students’ ability to produce
professional-looking editing is nothing short of astonishing. Your class or your

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institution should have its complement of natural editors whose specialty is the
software. Do not, however, cede them complete control of the aesthetics of editing
—its rhythms, logic, moods, and narrative function. Those remain very much
your business. Where students are much less at home is in researching and
proposing a film, and then, once their material is shot, in producing a compact,
interestingly-sequenced narrative. Gaining an understanding of human perceptual
processes and of traditional dramatic theory (both of which the book returns to
often) will work wonders.

8) How much can I expect to teach my students? How much they can absorb depends
on whether it is a residential school, how often classes meet, how long they last, and
the length of the school term. Most classes run 2-4 hours, and term lengths vary.
a) Semester system. This is usually a 15-week term, twice a year, and often includes
an optional summer semester to make what is in fact a trimester year.
b) Quarter system. This is a 10-week term, three times a year, and sometimes
includes a fourth summer quarter as well.
c) Periodic meetings versus an immersion course. Where a filmmaking course is part
of a liberal education, students may be taking 2, 3, or 4 other concurrent courses
that compete for their time and attention.
Immersion courses are less usual.
i) Long immersion courses are good because students can concentrate on the one
subject with minimal distractions. In a national film school, for instance,
students will take a set of core cinema courses and then concentrate on one of
the crafts alone. Immersion learning helps students concentrate by excluding
the outside world, but fatigue and pressure preclude contemplating as they
learn. Occasionally students experience such pressure that the class can turn
into a dysfunctional family.
ii) Short immersion courses are popular (and hard to find) as a form of further
education. Older students, often unable to leave jobs and families for long,
like them. You can cover a lot of ground in a two-week crash course of 8-10
hour days, but the pace is exhausting for students and teacher alike. The
shortest course that included production in which I felt I was teaching
effectively was a 2 week course meeting 4 hours a day for 10 sessions. You
usually need a co-teacher. Students shoot over the weekend and edit at night
during the second week. During the last week fatigue is a problem for
everyone.
During acting classes, fatigue is a problem because students are using unfamiliar
skills and are very self-aware. Try to vary the diet and pace to refresh their energies.
Keep them physically busy and I suggest keeping lectures to a minimum. You can
combine improve with shooting, so people are learning on several fronts
simultaneously.

9) What work should I expect students to do in class and what outside? Some work
(such as lighting experiments) is best done as a large group; other work can only be
done in small production groups or even as individuals. As a general guide:

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a) In class:
i) Viewing films and discussing their attributes.
ii) Anything that develops common knowledge or standards, such as hardware
instruction, lighting, camera handling and movements, composition, pitching
stories or critiquing each other’s work.
b) Outside class, anything concerning,
i) Research (which you review and critique)
ii) Production (its outcome shows on the screen, and all its faults and virtues are
evident in a dailies viewing)
iii) Editing of group or individual projects, which usually proceed at inconsistent
speeds. More affluent students may have their own editing rig, and no longer
need long hours of editing on scarce school equipment. Everybody benefits.

10) What preparation should I do for each class? Because each class develops its own
rhythms and dynamics, planning in too much detail or too far ahead may be
counterproductive. Instead make an overall outline, then, before each upcoming class,
make a brief list of the issues you want to cover, and a list of questions that will get
your class there. Having this in hand will liberate you to watch and listen. That allows
you to work off the energies and issues arising in the moment. Every question you
pose invites students to problem-solve, and while they ponder, you have moments in
which to look ahead. Students are energized when they feel they are making the
direction and pacing of each class, but it’s wise to prepare to cover more ground than
time will allow. Students like a detailed syllabus and they expect you to fulfill it week
by week. Having a set path, yet elements of freedom while completing each step,
requires an alert performance from you, the teacher. Also recommended:
a) Pose questions to the class as a whole so it engages everybody in thought. After
students have a few moments to think, nominate someone to answer. I spin a pen
like a lottery pointer, and spin again if it lands on anyone who has just answered.
b) If you have time, select anyone who appears to be struggling a little, and
encourage this student to reason his or her way through the issues. To let students
opt out can reward indolence or fail to challenge shyness, so a little pressure to
fabricate an answer on the spot is often good. So much about filmmaking requires
thinking on your feet that expecting students to rise to any challenge is the
responsible thing to do.
c) Pick on the withdrawn or work-shy to answer more often, until they engage with
the work or the social challenges, and pick up speed. Be encouraging, not punitive
about this. Explain that the film industry is a tough taskmaster, and that you want
them to succeed. They may grumble but will eventually thank you for it.
d) Let winners answer questions when you are running out of time and must cover
the ground on the double.

11) What equipment will I need? This may pivot on what the students themselves may
own, which you can’t always ascertain in advance. If you have a class of 15 students
(the maximum size in which to see everybody’s work and give everybody adequate
attention) you will need the following:

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a) Projection. You will need a DVD player and either a monitor or (better) a video
projector. Sound should be played through a hi-fi and speakers, not the TV
monitor’s speaker, which is always a poor alternative. A video projector and hi-fi
treats the material as cinema while a monitor makes it “television.” Students
know there’s a world of difference.
b) Cameras per class. Depending on how many projects you set and how many
students have their own camcorders, I suggest three camcorders minimum per
class of 15. Having too few camcorders may limit the type of projects you can
allow.
c) Editing rigs per class. Likewise, depending on how many projects and how many
students own computers equipped for editing, I suggest 3 editing rigs available
12-15 hours a day, available 5 or better 7 days a week. Conserve on editing time
by requiring that students view and organize their material at home in advance of
editing. This speeds up the process.
d) Classroom. The classroom can be any space large enough to hold a table around
which the class can sit, plus space for the monitor or projection screen, the stereo
system and speakers, and a board you can write on. There should be shades for the
windows. If you have no table, sit students in a circle, never in the institutional
bus formation. I hate teaching in a viewing theater because the teacher becomes
Authority and students cannot see each other’s faces. This is contrary to the
collaborative spirit of filmmaking.

12) How can I grade the elements of fiction work? Giving grades to expressive work,
especially to a genre with so many interconnecting aspects, can be a quagmire. Educators
used to concentrate on what they wanted to put into students, but the trend now is toward
defining objectives that students can demonstrate in their work as outcomes. Directing
supplies outcomes assessment forms (see Assessment Forms folder) with an explanation
of how to use them. Make it clear that scores are subjective and that you encourage them
to score each other’s work. Classroom discussion can range beyond basic matters of
technique and equipment and consider the real purpose of the cinema—to say something
about contemporary life.

13) How can I build a syllabus? Choose the learning objectives that you’d like to use,
and the projects that deliver them. Lay these on a timeline. Postproduction, for instance,
can overlap preparation for the next shoot. Now fill in the gaps with viewings, lectures,
demonstrations of equipment, and so on. In no time you’ll have a really packed syllabus.
Don’t forget screening time for projects, portions of dailies, and example films. Now
show your day by day syllabus to a knowledgeable colleague, who will probably see
things you didn’t. A true directing course would probably last two years with each student
directing perhaps ten projects. Few schools outside those that are highly specialized can
ever do more than cover a few of the necessities and then let their students take their
chances in the world. Directing emphasizes how necessary it will be to have a craft
specialty to earn one’s bread and butter while continuing to prepare as a director.

14) What should I tell students about their chances in the film industry? Have them
read Part 8 Career Track and discuss it in class. Encourage them to set career goals and to

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set benchmarks through their schooling as reality-checks to help in their navigation.

Emphasize the degree to which their lives have been directed thus far by stick and carrot
educational frameworks, and that the only expectations they will have acting for them
when they leave school will be those they make for themselves. The time to start
implementing the change toward entrepreneurship is in film school.

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OVERVIEW OF BOOK CONTENTS

Macro view
Introduction

PART 1: ARTISTIC IDENTITY

1 The World of the Director
2 Identifying Your Themes
3 Dramaturgy Essentials

PART 2: SCREENCRAFT
4 A Director’s Screen Grammar
5 Seeing with a Moviemaker’s Eye
6 Shooting Projects

PART 3: THE STORY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

7 Recognizing the Superior Screenplay
8 Analyzing a Screenplay
9 Director’s Development Strategies
10 Alternative Story Sources
11 Setting Creative Limitations

PART 4: AESTHETICS AND AUTHORSHIP

12 Point of View
13 Subtext, Genre, and Archetypes
14 Time, Structure, and Plot
15 Space, Stylized Environments and Performances
16 Form and Style

PART 5: PREPRODUCTION
17 Acting Fundamentals
18 Directing Actors
19 Acting Improvisation Exercises
20 Acting Exercises with a Text
21 Casting
22 Exploring the Script
23 Actor and Director Prepare a Scene
24 Initial Meetings with the Cast
25 Rehearsals and Planning Coverage
26 Production Design
27 The Preproduction Meeting and Deciding Equipment

PART 6: PRODUCTION
28 Developing a Crew
29 Mise-en-Scéne
30 Breaking Down the Script

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31 Before the Camera Rolls

32 Roll Camera
33 Location Sound
34 Continuity
35 Directing the Actors
36 Directing the Crew
37 Monitoring Progress

PART 7: POSTPRODUCTION
38 Preparing to Edit
39 Getting Started on the First Assembly
40 Editing Principles
41 Using Analysis and Feedback
42 Working with Music
43 Editing from Fine Cut to Sound Mix
44 Titles, Acknowledgments, and Promotional Material

PART 8: CAREER TRACK

45 Planning a Career
46 Major Film Schools
47 Breaking into the Industry

Glossary
Bibliography and Useful Websites
Index

Micro view (part by part)

PART 1: ARTISTIC IDENTITY AND DRAMA

CHAPTER 1: THE WORLD OF THE DIRECTOR

Cinema Art and You
The Director
Who Directs
Responsibilities
Personal Traits
Collaboration
Leadership
Facing Tests
The Medium
Film or Video?
Short Films or Longer?
Developing Cinema Art

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Why Hollywood Methods Won’t Work

Filmmaking Tools and Film Exhibition
Learning to Direct
Environment
Film School
Developing a Career in Independent Filmmaking
The Good News
The Bad News
With Low Budgets in Mind
The Auteur and Authorial Control

CHAPTER 2: IDENTIFYING YOUR THEMES

Stories You Care Deeply About
Art, Identity, and Competitiveness
Identity, Belief, and Vision
Find Your Life Issues
Subjects to Avoid
Displace and Transform
Projects
Project 2-1: The Self Inventory
Project 2-2: Alter Egos
Project 2-3: Using Dreams to Find Your Preoccupation
The Artistic Process
How Writers Work

CHAPTER 3: DRAMATURGY ESSENTIALS

Duality and Conflict
Identifying a Character’s Conflict
Representation
Temperament Affects Vision
Character-Driven and Plot-Driven Drama
Drama and Propaganda Are Different
More Types of Drama
The Dramatic Unit and the Scene
Beats
Introducing the Goblin Teasmade™
A Character’s Agenda
Drama Makes Us Ask Questions
Interrogating a Scene
The Dramatic Arc
Levels of Action
The Three-Act Structure
Building a World around the Concerned Observer
Observer into Storyteller

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PART 2: SCREENCRAFT

CHAPTER 4: A DIRECTOR’S SCREEN GRAMMAR

Film Language
What Works
The Need for a Humane Voice
Human Vantage
Film Language and Human Perception
Fixed Camera Position
Moving Camera
Camera Movements from a Static Position
Traveling Camera Movements
Shots and Subjects in Juxtaposition
Point of View
The Concerned Observer and the Storyteller
Literary and Film Storytelling Compared
Scene Axis Essentials
Lines of Tension and the Scene Axis
Crossing the Line or Scene Axis
The Actor and the Acted Upon
Authorship Essentials: Text and Subtext
Authorial Point of View
Make Metaphors and Symbols Organic
Constructing Meaning
Screen Direction and Angles
Changing Screen Direction
Different Angles on the Same Action
Abstraction
Subjectivity and Objectivity
Duration, Rhythm, and Concentration
Sequence and Memory
Transitions and Transitional Devices
Screen Language in Summary
Researching to Be a Storyteller
How Making Documentary Can Help You

CHAPTER 5: SEEING WITH A MOVIEMAKER’S EYE

Projects
Project 5-1: Picture CompositionAnalysis
Analysis Format
Strategy for Study
Static Composition
Visual Rhythm: How Duration Affects Perception
Dynamic Composition
Internal and External Composition
Composition, Form, and Function

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Project 5-2: Editing Analysis

First Viewing
Analysis Format
Making and Using a Floor Plan
Strategy for Study
Point of View and Blocking
Character and Camera Blocking
Fiction and the Documentary
Project 5-3: A Scripted Scene Compared with the Filmed Outcome
Strategy for Study
Project 5-4: Lighting Analysis
Lighting Terminology
Types of Lighting Style
Contrast
Light Quality
Names of Lighting Sources
Types of Lighting Setup
Strategy for Study

CHAPTER 6: SHOOTING PROJECTS

How Best to Explore the Basics
Outcomes Assessment
Scoring Method
On Developing Your Abilities
Projects
Project 6-1: Basic Techniques: Going and Returning
6-1A: Plan, Shoot, and Edit the Long Version
6-1B: Editing a More Compressed Version
6-1C: Setting It to Music
Project 6-2: Character Study
6-2A: Plan, Rehearse, and Shoot Long Take of Character-Revealing
Action
6-2B: Adding an Interior Monologue
6-2C: Vocal Counterpoint and Point of View
Project 6-3: Exploiting a Location
6-3A: Dramatizing an Environment
6-3B: Adding Music
Project 6-4: Edited Two-Character Dialogue Scene
6-4A: Multiple Coverage
6-4B: Editing for an Alternative Point of View
Project 6-5: Authorship through Improvisation
6-5A: Developing a Short Scene
6-5B: Editing a Shorter Version
6-5C: From Improv to Script
Project 6-6: Parallel Storytelling
6-6A: Seeing the Scenes as Separate Entities

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6-6B: Long Intercut Version

6-6C: Short Version
6-6D: Discontinuity and Using Jump Cuts

PART 3: THE STORY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 7: RECOGNIZING THE SUPERIOR SCREENPLAY

Choosing What is Right for You
Why Reading Scripts Is Hard
Signs of a Good Screenplay
Standard Script Forms
Screenplay Format
Split-Page or TV Screenplay Format
Split-Page with Third Column
Script Form Confusions
First Assessment
Determine the Givens
Making a Scene-by-scene Content List
Assessing Cinematic Qualities
Storytelling Through Behavior
Establishing Characters and Motives
Ambivalence or Behavioral Contradictions
Metaphors and Symbols
Checking the Embedded Values

CHAPTER 8: ANALYZING A SCREENPLAY

Plot
Obstacles and Predicaments
Plot Points
Characters: Conflict, Growth, Change
Initial Impressions
Static Character Definition
Dynamic Character Definition
Development
Dialogue and Verbal Action
Testing Dialogue
Verbal Action
Checking the Foundations
Step Outline
Treatment
Premise
Assess and Reassess
With the Audience in Mind

CHAPTER 9: DIRECTOR’S DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

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Story Logic
Exposition and Establishing
Delaying Exposition
Credibility, Mood, and Enlisting the Audience
Work to Create a Succession of Moods
Creating Space for the Audience
Planning Action
The Displacement Principle
Inviting a Critical Response
Pitching Your Story
Seeking Responses
Testing with a Scratch Cast
Incorporating Criticism
Act Only After Reflection
Don’t Take Criticism Personally
Expanding and Collapsing the Screenplay
Rewrite, Rewrite, Rewrite!
Fundraising and Writing the Prospectus
The Rise of the Entrepreneurial Producer

CHAPTER 10: ALTERNATIVE STORY SOURCES

Adapting from Literature
Copyright Clearance
Actor-Centered Films and Their Scripts
Ideation: Alternative Ways to Start a Project
Method #1: A Thematic Core
Method #2: Character-Based Core
Method #3: Event-Centered Core

CHAPTER 11: SETTING CREATIVE LIMITATIONS

The Dogme Group
Make Your Own Limitations

PART 4: AESTHETICS AND AUTHORSHIP

CHAPTER 12: POINT OF VIEW

Point of View in Literature
Point of View in Film
Main Characters
Types of POV
Storyteller POV
Audience POV
Point of View is like Russian Dolls
Planning a Point of View

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CHAPTER 13: SUBTEXT, GENRE, AND ARCHETYPES

Subtext: Making the Visible Significant
Genre Options
Archetypes
Genre and Point of View
Genre and Dramatic Archetypes

CHAPTER 14: TIME, STRUCTURE, AND PLOT

Time
Time Compressed
Time Expanded
Linear Progression
Nonlinear Progression
Other Ways to Handle Time
Plot
Plot Failures
Plot Success: Flow and Inevitability
Structure
Planning and Testing a Structure
Narrative and Non-Narrative Approaches
Options
Theme and Thematic Purpose
Metaphysics: Meaning Behind the Real
Using Graphics
Chance and Change Along the Way

CHAPTER 15: SPACE, STYLIZED ENVIRONMENTS, AND PERFORMANCES

Space
Stylized Worlds, Characters and Genre
Distancing and Suspending Disbelief
Stylization
The Stylized Performance: Flat and Round Characters
Naming the Metaphorical and Using Symbols

CHAPTER 16: FORM AND STYLE

Form
The Storyteller’s Vision
Visual Design
Sound Design
Rhythmic Design
Motifs
Visual Motifs
Aural Motifs
Brechtian Distancing and Audience Identification
Long Takes versus Short Takes
Short Film Forms: A Neglected Art

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Short Films and You

Style

PART 5: PREPRODUCTION

CHAPTER 17: ACTING FUNDAMENTALS

Stanislavski
Justification
Imagination
Focus and Relaxation
Losing and Regaining Focus
The Mind-Body Connection
Developing the Character’s Interior Life
Interior Monologue
Isolation and Communion
Actions
Objectives
Subtext
Business and Personalizing
Adapting and Anticipating
Sense Memory
Emotion and Emotional Memory
Using the Actor’s Emotions as the Character’s
Theater and Film Acting Compared

CHAPTER 18: DIRECTING ACTORS

Director in Relation to Actors
Make Contact
Ask Questions
Direct Positively and Equably
Common Problems
Lack of Focus and Relaxation
Mind-Body Connection Missing
Anticipating or Not Adapting
Acting in Isolation
Missing Interior Life
Cueing: Treading on Lines
Missing Subtexts
The Generalized Interpretation
Distancing and Indicating
Lack of Intensity and Intimacy
Limiting an Actor’s Sphere
Tackling Stubborn Artificiality
How Much Rehearsal Is Enough?
“It’s Getting Stale”

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Some Do’s and Don’ts

CHAPTER 19: ACTING IMPROVISATION EXERCISES

Acting and Doing
Your Role as a Director During Improvs
Seeing Beats and Dramatic Units
Your Role as an Actor During Improvs
Make Your Audience See
Stay Focused
Getting the Most from the Exercises
Keep a Journal
Audience Etiquette
Duration
Assessment and Discussion
Improv Exercises
Exercise 19-1: See or Be Seen
Exercise 19-2: Domestic Appliance
Exercise 19-3: Flying Blind
Exercise 19-4: “Timber!”
Exercise 19-5: Mirror Images
Exercise 19-6: Who, What, When, and Where?
Exercise 19-7: Solo, No Words
Exercise 19-8: Duo, No Words
Exercise 19-9: Gibberish
Exercise 19-10: Solo, with Words
Exercise 19-11: Duo, with Words
Exercise 19-12: Make Your Own Character
Exercise 19-13: Ensemble Situations
Exercise 19-14: Developing an Emotion
Exercise 19-15: Bridging Emotions
Exercise 19-16: Surfing the Channels
Exercise 19-17: Video Convention
Exercise 19-18: Blind Date
Exercise 19-19: Inner Conflict
Exercise 19-20: Thrown Together

CHAPTER 20: ACTING EXERCISES WITH A TEXT

Scene Breakdown
Example
Read-Through
Developmental Process
“Useful When”
Exercises with a Text
Exercise 20-1: What the Actors Bring
Exercise 20-2: Marking Beats in a Text
Exercise 20-3: Improvising an Interior Monologue

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Exercise 20-4: Characterizing the Beats

Exercise 20-5: Actions at Beat Points
Exercise 20-6: Give Me Too Much!
Exercise 20-7: Let’s Be British
Exercise 20-8: Spot Check
Exercise 20-9: Switching Characters
Exercise 20-10: Translating a Scene into an Improvisation

CHAPTER 21: CASTING

Overview
Cast Breakdown and Character Descriptions
Attracting Applicants
Passive Search for Actors
Active Search for Actors
Setting Up the First Audition
Fielding Phone Applicants
The Actors Arrive
Conducting the First Audition
Starting the Audition
The Danger in Ideals
Monologues
Cold Reading
Decisions After the First Round
Negative Characters and Typecasting
Long- or Short-Term Choices
The Demanding Part of the Character Who Develops
First Callback
Additional Monologue
A Reading from Your Script
Improvisation
Second Callback
Interview
Mix and Match Actors
Making Final Choices
Review Your Impressions
Camera Test
Announcing Casting Decisions
Giving and Taking

CHAPTER 22: EXPLORING THE SCRIPT

Onscreen Length and Maintaining Timings
Interpreting the Script
Two Kinds of Film, Two Kinds of Preparation
Picturization
Homework
Break into Manageable Units

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Script Breakdown
Define the Subtexts and a Metaphor
Tools to Reveal Dramatic Dynamics
Block Diagram
Graphing Tension and Beats
First Timing

CHAPTER 23: ACTOR AND DIRECTOR PREPARE A SCENE

The Actor Prepares
Given Circumstances
Backstory and Biography
Justification
Objectives
Defining Actions
How Do Other Characters See Me, How Do I See Myself?
What Are Other Characters Trying to Do to Me or Get from Me?
Beats
Adaptation
Keep My Character’s Interior Voice and Mind’s Eye Going
Know My Character’s Function
Know the Thematic Purpose of the Whole Work
The Director Prepares
Subtexts, Scene Analysis, and the Authority to Direct
Conflict
Maintaining Dramatic Tension
Acting ‘in General’
Changes in Character’s Rhythms
Obligatory Moment
Naming the Function of Each Scene
Thematic Purpose of Whole Work.

CHAPTER 24: INITIAL MEETINGS WITH THE CAST

Setting Up the Rehearsal Schedule
First Meeting
Introducing the Project
Research and Visuals
Rehearsal Space
Work with the Book
Taking Notes
First Rehearsal: The Table Reading
Consolidating Characters’ Formative Experiences
First Scene Study Sessions
Working One-On-One with Actors
Feedback and Establishing a Working Rhythm
Rehearsal Order
Character Complexity

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Dealing with “Negative” Characters

Mission Creep
Deal Only with Top-Level Problems
From Beat to Beat, the Dramatic Unit
Focusing the Thematic Purpose
Physical Movement
A Long Journey

CHAPTER 25: REHEARSALS AND PLANNING COVERAGE

Rehearsing Without the Book
Turning Thought and Will Into Action
Using Space Significantly
A Character’s Inner Movement
When a Character Lacks an Inner Life
Reactions
Useful Misperceptions
Expressing the Subtext
Spontaneity
Blocking
Cueing and Pacing
Using the Setting
The Director as Active Observer
Form: Seeing in an Unfamiliar Way
Videotaping Rehearsals
When Not to Show Actors Their Work
Following the Film Industry
Check Timings
Making a Trial Movie

CHAPTER 26: PRODUCTION DESIGN

Production Design Questionnaire
Examples for Discussion
The Importance of the Palette
Designing a World
Moods
Costumes
Sound
Make-up and Hairdressing
Walls, Furniture, Practical Lamps
Proving the Design
Blue Screen or Green Screen
Models
Mise-en-Scène

CHAPTER 27: THE PRODUCTION MEETING AND DECIDING EQUIPMENT

Scheduling the Shoot

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Location Order
Script Order
Key Scenes and Scheduling for Performances
Emotional Demand Order
Weather and Other Contingency Coverage
Allocation of Shooting Time Per Scene
Under- or Overscheduling
Draft Budget
Above and Below the Line Costs
Cost Flow and Cost Reporting
Insurances
Drawing Up an Equipment List
Caution: Over-Elaborate Equipment
Caution: Equipment Compatibility
Digital Acquisition
Drawbacks of Consumer Cameras
Film Acquisition
Sound
Postproduction
Hiring Equipment
Production Stills
Agreeing on Budget and Schedule
Cast and Crew Contracts
Awful Warnings…
Golden Rule #1: Be Prepared for the Worst
Golden Rule #2: Test It First
Production Party

PART 6: PRODUCTION

CHAPTER 28: DEVELOPING A CREW

On Crew and Actors
Using People with Experience
Developing Your Own Crew
Crew Members’ Temperaments
Crew Etiquette
Organize Areas of Responsibility Clearly
Crew Roles
Areas of Responsibility
Role Descriptions
Direction Department
Director
Script Supervisor
Production Department
Producer
Unit Production Manager (UPM)

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Line Producer
Assistant Director (AD)
Craft Services
Personal Assistant (PA)
Camera Department
Camera Crew Generalities
Director of Photography (DP)
Camera Operator
Assistant Camera (AC)
Gaffer (also Grips and Best Boys)
Sound Department
Sound Recordist and Boom Operator
Art Department
Production Designer
Construction Specialists
Special Effects
Wardrobe and Props
Make-up and Hairdressing
Postproduction

CHAPTER 29: MISE EN SCÈNE

Purpose
Surveying the Film
Long-Take versus Short-Take Coverage
Fixed versus Mobile Camera
Subjective or Objective Camera Presence
Relatedness: Separating or Integrating by Shot
Have the Courage to Be Simple
The Camera as Observing Consciousness
The Heart of Directing: the Storyteller’s Point of View
Approaching a Single Scene
Script, Concept, and Scene Design
Point of View (POV)
Whose?
Point of View Can Change
Compromises: Space, Perception, and Lenses
Camera Eye and Human Eye Are Different
Aspect Ratio
Choosing Lens Type
Perspective and Normalcy
Perspective Changes Only When Camera-to-Subject Distance Changes
Manipulating Perspective
Zooming Versus Dollying into Close-Up
Lenses and Image Texture
Why There Is a Film Look and a Video Look
Lens Speed

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Camera Height
Limit Camera Movements
Adapting to Location Exigencies
Backgrounds
Camera As Instrument of Revelation
Compromises for the Camera
Work within Your Means
Study the Masters

CHAPTER 30: PRODUCING A SHOOTING SCRIPT

Diagnostic Questions
Planning Coverage
Cut to Seagulls

Cover Important Aspects in More Than One Way

The Floor Plan and the Storyboard
Script Breakdown
Camera Placement
Using Lines of Tension
Subjective and Objective
Show Relatedness
There Are No Rules, Only Awareness
Avoid Crossing the Scene Axis
Regrouping and Reset Transitions
Planning Where to Edit
Editing in Movement
Editing for Intensification and Relaxation
Editing As Refreshment
Oversight
Shooting Order
Crib Notes
Keeping Track of Progress

CHAPTER 31: BEFORE THE CAMERA ROLLS

Rigging the Stage
Avoiding Shadows and ‘Cheating’
First Setup and Lineup
Blocking and First Rehearsal
Placing Marks
Rehearsal
Lighting with Stand-Ins
First Walk-Through
Dress Rehearsal

CHAPTER 32: ROLL CAMERA

Shot Marking Systems

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Shot and Scene Identification

Clapper Board
Setup and Take Numbers
Shooting Logs
Double-System Recording
Film
Video
Logs in Action
Countdown, “Mark it!”, then “Action!”
Starting without a Clapper
Crew Responsibilites
Who Can Call “Cut”
Pickup Shots
Print That
Complementary Shots
Keeping Track
Blocking Changes
Director, Script Supervisor, and Continuity Reports
Continuity Sheets
It’s a Wrap

CHAPTER 33: LOCATION SOUND

Monitor All Recorded Sound
Sound Theory
Sound Experts Should Scout Each Location
Unwanted Location Ambience
Sound Equipment
Recorders
Microphones
Boom
Mixing Desk
Recording Requirements
Direct and Reflective Sound
Ambient Sound and Presence Tracks
Shadows and Multiple Mikes
Source to Microphone Distances
Sounds on the Set
Sound Effects and Wild Tracks
Atmosphere Loops
Soundscapes
Automatic Dialogue Replacement

CHAPTER 34: CONTINUITY

Coordinating and Reporting
Script Breakdown
Chronology

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Planning the Shoot

Types of Continuity
Wardrobe and Properties Oversight
Continuity Breakdown
Timing
Monitoring Dialogue
Physical Continuity
Coverage
Bracketing the Script
Script Supervisor’s Positioning

CHAPTER 35 DIRECTING THE ACTORS

Daily Organization
Your Role
Actors’ Anxieties at the Beginning
Warn Actors That Shooting Is Slow
Before Shooting
Tension and Its Consequences
Hitting Stride
Directing
Dividing Yourself between Crew and Cast
Run-Through
Before the Take
After the Take
Demands and Feedback
Side Coaching When a Scene is Becalmed
Reaction Shots
For the New Shot
Challenging Your Cast
Everyone Needs Feedback
Overload
Delegate
Criticism and Feedback
From the Cast
From the Crew
Morale, Fatigue, and Intensity
Protect the Cast
You As Role Model
Using Social Times and Breaks
At Day’s End
Don’t Show Dailies to the Cast
Share the Dailies with the Crew

CHAPTER 36: DIRECTING THE CREW

Limit Your Responsibilities
Initiative

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Communicating
Crew Etiquette with Cast and the Public
Look through the Camera
Making Progress
When You and Your Crew Are Alone
Wrapping for the Day
Dailies

CHAPTER 37: MONITORING PROGRESS

Monitoring Your Resources
Dramatic and Technical Quality
Fulfilling Your Authorship Intentions
Measuring Progress
Moving Beyond Realism
Ceding Control
Keep the Storyteller Alive
Cost Reports
At the End of the Production

PART 7: POSTPRODUCTION

CHAPTER 38: PREPARING TO EDIT

The Postproduction Team
The Editor
Editing Film and Video
A Postproduction Overview
Syncing Dailies
Keeping a Dailies Book
Crew Viewing Session
Taking Notes
Reactions
The Editor and Director View Dailies
The Only Film Is in the Dailies
Marking Up the Script
Editing Begins
Assembly
Beginning Work with the Director
Partnership
Director-Editors

CHAPTER 39: GETTING STARTED ON THE FIRST ASSEMBLY

Hardware and Software
Production Variations
1. All-Digital Acquisition, Postproduction, and Release

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2. Digital Acquisition and Postproduction, Release on Film

3. Film Acquisition, Digital Postproduction, Release on Film
Editing Mechanics
Sound Considerations
Timecode: NTSC Drop Frame and Non-Drop Frame
Editing Concepts
The First Assembly
First Assembly Viewing
No Interruptions
What Do You Have?
Run the Film a Second Time
Diagnostic Questioning
Resolutions After Seeing the First Assembly
Prioritize
Length
Structure
Leave the Editor to Edit

CHAPTER 40: EDITING PRINCIPLES

Editing Mimics an Observing Consciousness
Eye Contact
Watching Is Also Thinking
How Camera Positions Reveal Psychological Vantage
Inner Lives
Observer Into Storyteller
Editing to Influence Subtexts
Altering Performance Rhythms
The Power of Subtext
Making or Altering Subtexts
Visual and Aural Editing Rhythms: An Analogy in Music
Rhythmic Interplay
Harmony
Counterpoint
Dissonance
The Overlap Cut and Transitions
Dialogue Sequences
Sequence Transitions
Sound Effects as Scene Elision
The Problem of Achieving a Flow
Counterpoint in Practice: Unifying Material into a Flow
The Rough Cut Viewing
See the Whole Film
The Audience
Drama Takes Place in the Audience’s Imagination
The Audience As Active Rather Than Passive Participants
Summary

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Help, I Can’t Understand!

CHAPTER 41: USING ANALYSIS AND FEEDBACK

Diagnostics
Making a Flow Chart
Using the Flow Chart Again
A Trial Showing
The Trial Audience
Preparation
Surviving Your Critics and Making Use of What They Say
Listen, Do Not Explain
Lines of Inquiry
Balancing Differing Views
The Egocentric Critic
Wear and Tear
Make Changes Cautiously
Hold On to Your Central Intentions
Mea Culpa
The Uses of Procrastination
Try, Try Again
Knowing When to Stop
Make a Final Check of All Source Material

CHAPTER 42: WORKING WITH MUSIC

Spotting Session
Musical Choice and Using Scratch Music
Copyright
Music Libraries
Hiring a Composer
How Long Does It Take?
Beginning Work
When There’s a Guide Track
Developing a Music Cue List
Keys: Diegetic and Non-diegetic Music
When to Use Music, and When Not
Conflicts and Composing to Sync Points
The Live Music Session
Music Editors and Fitting Music
The Mix

CHAPTER 43: EDITING FROM FINE CUT TO SOUND MIX

The Fine Cut
Finalizing Sound
Sound, Psychoacoustics, and Sound’s Narrative Contribution
Sound Effects and the Sound Spotting Session

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Post-Synchronizing Dialogue (ADR)

The Foley Stage and Recreating Sync Sound Effects
Sound Clichés
The Sound Mix
What It Can Do
Sound Mix Preparation
Narration or Voice-Over
Dialogue Tracks and the Problem of Inconsistencies
Laying Music Tracks
Atmospheres and Background Sound
Sound Mix Strategy
Premixing
Tailoring
Comparative Levels: Err on the Side of Caution
Approve Sections, then Listen to the Whole
Make Safety Copies and Store Them in Different Locations
Music and Effects Tracks

CHAPTER 44: TITLES, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, AND PROMOTIONAL

MATERIAL
Titles
Subtitles
Promotional Material
Making Festivals and Screenings Work for You

PART 8: CAREER TRACK

CHAPTER 45: PLANNING A CAREER

Vocational Self-Assessment Questionnaire
Opportunities
Crafts that Lead to Directing
Directing Documentaries Straight Out of School
Having Passion
Film School Admissions
Who Succeeds
Getting Started
What You Get in Film School
Apprenticeship as a Beginning
Self-Help As a Realistic Alternative
Key to the Vocational Aptitude Test

CHAPTER 46: MAJOR FILM SCHOOLS

Choosing the Right School
North American Schools

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Study Abroad
Schools Affiliated with CILECT
Preparing for a Career during Your Education

CHAPTER 47: BREAKING INTO THE INDUSTRY

Festivals, Conferences, and Earning Recognition
Internships
Where You Live Matters
Personal Qualities
Compromise?
Paths to the Director’s Chair
Craftsperson
Craftsman Worker with a Director Struggling to Get Out
Maturing
The Visionary: Directing Straight Out of School
Experienced Industry Worker Wanting to Direct
Low-Budget and Straight-to-DVD Market
Freelancing
Television as a Route
Development Institutes
Importance of the Sample Reel
Presenting Yourself for Employment
Developing New Projects
Finding Fiction Subjects
Finding an Agent
Form and Marketability

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