Week 3 Lecture

Directing

What is the role of the director?

What is the role of the director?

• The director determines the artistic vision for the film. They determine how they want the story to be told, and the voice that they want the story to be told in.– What is the voice in a film?

• The Auteur Theory• Directors are also sometimes:

– The screenwriter – Woody Allen, Christopher Nolan

– The Cameraman – Steven Soderbergh– The Editor – The Coen Brothers– The Actor – Mel Gibson– Composer – Clint Eastwood

• While Directors are concerned about the artistic direction of the film, producers are primarily concerned with the films financial matters

Stylistic Decisions

Realism Classicism FormalismRealism Classicism Formalism

DocumentaryDocumentary Avant-gardeAvant-gardeFictionFiction

How much control does the director take over the interpretation of reality?How much control does the director take over the interpretation of reality?

•Director exerts minimal control over interpretation of reality•Very little style is present•Meaning is interpreted by the audience•Major concern is with the content rather than form

•Stories are based in a reality that we as an audience know•Directors use camera angles and edits narrate us through how we should interpret the world•Most films fall in this category

•Construction of world is completely under directors control•Stories are based in a world that may be unfamiliar to us; different from how we perceive reality•Emphasize Technique and expressiveness

Spectrum taken from Gianetti’s “Understanding Movies”

A Spectrum of Directors

Realism Classicism FormalismRealism Classicism Formalism

• John Cassavetes•A Woman Under the

Influence (1974)• Francois Trauffaut

• 400 Blows (1959)•Michel Gondry

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

• Tim Burton• Edward Scissorhands (1990)

• Fritz Lang•Metropolis (1927)

•Darren Aranofsky• The Fountain (2006)

• Stan Brakhage (Avant Garde)•Mothlight (1963)

Where do your favorite films/directors fall on this spectrum?

Directorial Decisions: The Shots• Directors are responsible for the individual

shots that will be used to tell the story. Overall there are 6 major types of shots.1. Extreme Long Shot / Deep Focus Shot: A shot

taken from a great distance. 2. Long Shot: To establish place or action3. Full Shot: Used as a master shot, to cover action

taking place within a scene4. Medium Shot: Knees or waist up. Used for

dialogue scenes. Initial dialogue shots.5. Close up: Concentrates on a relatively small

object such as the face. Used for dialogue to establish closeness between characters. Is also frequently used for cutaways or inserts.

6. Extreme close up: Shot of only a small area such as the eyes or a mouth.

• For examples, check out: http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/ – Note: some of the shot names vary, as there is

no set system for naming shots• Why do directors choose shots? How do they

contribute meaning?

Directorial Decisions: Shot Angles• Birds eye view: Photographing from

directly overhead. Can make images seem abstract, expressive

• High angle shot: Usually done from a crane– Often used to establish a setting for a movie

(beginning and ending shots of films)– High angle shots reduce the importance of

the subject and show that the audience is omniscient with the story

• Eye-level shot: Typical shot used in film, places audience on same plane with the story

• Low angle: The viewers seems powerless against the subject. Often used in Horror Movies.

• Oblique or Dutch angle: express a disoriented view of the world

Directorial Decisions: Camera Movement

• 7 Basic types of moving camera shots– Pans: Camera pivots on an axis horizontally. Can connect

two objects that are on screen– Tilts: Vertical movement of the camera on an axis.

Connects two objects on a screen in a special way.– Dolly Shots: A stationary camera moving on a horizontal

plane– Zoom Shot: Change in framing of scene via telephoto lens.

Can make us feel like we are thrust into the action, or to give a reveal

– Hand held shot: Makes the camera more versatile. Allows the director to follow a wide variety of characters

– Crane Shots: Dolly shots in three dimensional space– Aerial Shots: Taken from a Helicopter; Establishes scenes,

shows larger action

Directorial Decisions: The Mise en Scéne

• Mise En Scéne refers to the arrangement of objects on the screen

• Directors need to think about:– The body position of their actors and

what that communicates to the audience• Full Front, Quarter Turn, Profile, Three

Quarters, and Back to Camera– The Proxemic Patterns of the Actors:

How close they are to one another• Intimate, Personal, Social, and Public

– Open and Closed Forms in the frame• Open: Informal compositions. Not

everything is arranged; objects are often dirty in frame; the frame is de-emphasized

• Closed: More removed from reality; objects are deliberately placed in strategic positions within the frame; frame is important – Ex: Wes Anderson

How do we evaluate directors?• Who are some of your favorite directors? What is it

about those directors films that make you like them?• Who is the author of the film?– Is a film good because it is directed well or because it has a

good writer?• What can we look at to evaluate directors?– Style: Are the methods (shots, mise en scene, production

design) that the director is using the best way to tell the story?

– How well is the story told? • What do we do if it is just a bad story?

• Signature styles