Ok, welcome everyone! This is going to be the first post of what I will call what makes a good and/or bad and associate it to a particular role within filmmaking. I’m pretty excited to do so and hopefully I’ll will fulfil this task; I’ll do my best in covering main aspects, drawing upon examples and obviously butting in with my opinions ahah. Just to point out, there are no right or wrong versions of what will make a good or bad role, it’s what each of us perceive and as we know we all account for things differently.
I’ll research certain
aspects via internet and also would like to introduce some personal opinions,
like interviews of people (maybe randomly pick someone on facebook ahah). Hope
you’ll enjoy it and I’ll do my best.
Today’s post will be
what makes a good and/or bad Director, but if it’s not or doesn’t seem to be
covered in depth, no worries I can also expand with an alternative post!
From a brief discussion
by Ed Zwick and Morgan Freeman, the characteristics to associate to being a
good director are: determination, knowing what you want, good casting agent and
knows his/her role and sticks to it.
“I would have been very over determined”.
–
Ed Zwick
There are so many
things a Director needs to consider, it’s not just a name on the front/back of
a DVD cover or magazine... it’s a big responsibility, where do we even start
from? Obviously, this does not mean that any other role is less important or
less efficient.
I’m going to try and
draw an outline of the main characteristics by reviewing my role as a Director
for the documentary I previously [like ages ago] mentioned in a post; being as
honest as possible, I will provide an insight to responsibilities and
behaviours that a Director should assume.
First of all, whether producing a fiction, a documentary etc you need and idea [you don’t say – I know this is what most of you would think ahah]. The idea can be a story, an episode or event you would like to inform or simply amuse your audience with, for films in general (as many say) you hunger for a good script/story. Just by absorbing the films from one of my first year modules of Hollywood Classics, I realised how black and white or no special effects can deliver a fantastic movie simply by drawing you into the story – personally I really enjoyed Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce (1945).
Additionally, vision and originality are crucial aspects. The film is how you produce that good story in visual terms, how to convey to your audience certain massages, feelings, ideas. It will take a lot of practice, however some manage to distinguish themselves due to their way of showing – we know a Tarantino’s film from the violence and good dialogue or Michael Bay from explosions ahah. A director should have a clear vision in mind of how he/she wants to portray something but it does not limit itself there, a director should also be able to communicate his/her vision to the rest of the crew; if the actors do not understand what the director is looking for then it would be hard to fulfil the visual story.
Briefly, a director
should have a “minimum” knowledge of the equipment he/she would like to use,
where it is best to position lights in order to create a certain effect, how
many shoots to take from different angels etc. But I’ve learnt that you always
come across new things when actually on the field, during the filming of my
documentary I learnt how to use the video camera [this sounds like I’ve never
used one ahah] in many of its aspects; no more auto. The main thing is that
technology is always evolving so we need to keep up to date with the
development but determination, passion and enthusiasm are key ingredients.
There is one very important point I would personally stress to work on: team work and preventing any hostility. In any work environment there will be people disagreeing with each other, discussions, horrible bosses (the film was hilarious ahah) or colleagues. If you encounter any of these its obviously not going to be a very nice atmosphere to work in and sometimes you can’t prevent it but you can try and also if it does happen, try to overcome such situations. It’s something we always hear, even in school but at the end of the day it is so vital! I admit I didn’t apply this during my project, not that there were any discussions but still I took a different approach. In connection to this I should have firmly done what every Director should do: remind everyone of their role! Not by being bossy or a pain in the ... but by being direct and firm about it [big mistake I didn’t do]. You would think that everyone knows they have responsibilities and duties and that you wouldn’t need to tell them but if you have to, then yes remind them [not to the point where you turn red and steam starts coming out of your ears].
This is a general idea
of how and what Directors should do, but obviously with time everyone will
learn from different experiences and I do hope that any of you aspiring
Directors may become successful because I do believe that every voice should be
heard; yes there are those who distinguish themselves but every effort made should be appreciated.
“I believe that a good director has to be sensitive […] to the
strengths and weaknesses of the actors he or she is directing and be able to elicit
a performance that will be in keeping with the character they are portraying.
[…] The Director should be able to direct his technical crew knowing if they
are able to achieve his direction and vision and not push them to a state of
uncooperation and resentment because of high handedness and arrogance and
insensitivity to their feelings.''
- Chima Luke Okafor
- Chima Luke Okafor
See you next month with What Makes A Good and/or Bad Actor!
AG
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1 comment:
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