Week 13: Director's Statement

A director's statement is a written proposal of the directors vision for a film. A director's statement is often asked for by producers to see if your vision is right for the job and then by investors or funding body's to help them decide if your vision for the film is worth funding, so it is important that you get it right. Director's statements can be long or quite short, sometimes you are given a page limit and other times it is up to you. A director's statement is ever changing, anytime the script changes so will the statement

Here are some examples you could use for a director's statement. You should write at least a paragraph per dot point.

Story

• What the story is about?
• What genre does it belong to?
• What is the time period?
• What is the hero's goal?
• Cinematic scene

Themes

• Moral
• Lesser themes
• Subtext

Vision

• Performance
• Visual look
• Cinematic Style
• Editing
• Music
• Post sound
• Visual effects

I think writing a director's statement is a great way for the director to have a better understanding of the film and be able to communicate that understanding to others.

Week 12: Casting

Finding the right cast for your film is crucial to help you secure funding and then for the overall success of the film. To find that perfect cast it is important you have a good casting director. A casting director spends all their time watching actors perform and keeping an eye on their development over time. This is something a director just doesn't have the time to do themselves and should trust in their casting director to do for them.

When looking for cast members it is important to keep in mind you will need funding. Investors wont give money to a film if they don't know who your cast is because they don't believe an audience would watch a movie full of unknowns. So your best option is to find at least one big name actor for your cast and the rest can be known or unknown and you will be more likely to get the money to make your film.

It is good to give your casting director details of the type of actor you want but not so much the physical details rather than the type of emotion you want them to portray. Giving an in depth physical description of your perfect cast is going to limit the casting director and make it hard for them to find what you want. If you describe the characters emotional state, the casting director can find more actors that can portray the part better than just someone who looks like what you imagine for the role. You may also find someone that you never expected that blows you away, so keep an open mind when looking for your cast.

Some tips for during auditions to find the right cast members.

• It is a really good idea to keep the actors relaxed and happy because they could be really nervous and that could affect their performance.
• Try to test their range with different character objective so you get a better idea if they are right for the part.
• Get them to do an action how their character would do it. An example would be to have a rack of coats and tell them to pick out the one their character would pick. This shows their understanding of the character
• Always have someone to read lines with the actor. You get to see how they work off others and if they can create chemistry with other cast members.
• Try not to cast actors that are too similar to each other, this can create a one dimensional cast.
• It's not a bad thing for actors to challenge you. If you give them an objective and they suggest the character might do it in a different way, go with it, it might or might not work but it shows the actor is really thinking about the character and not just reading lines from a script.

Week 11: Character Breakdowns

Character breakdowns show how good of a director you really are. The more in depth you know a character the better you can communicate that to an actor and have them become the character rather than just play the character. That is the key to a film being believable and successful.

From your first few readings of a script you may or may not have a solid idea of who each of the characters are. A good way to learn more is to ask the writer. Who knows more about the characters than the creator. Once you get a good idea you can start creating your character background or back story. Some directors don't go into great detail with their back story's. I think this is wrong because the less details an actor is given the more times they might have to think "what would my character do in this situation" and for that brief second or two they are thinking about it, they have gone out of character. If you give them a complete and detailed back story they start to become the character and act as the character would in those situations, not how the actor might act in that situation. This is how you help the actor find the truth of the moment and create believability.

In class we watched the making of Collateral starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, Directed by Michael Mann. IMDB Link  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369339/ . This was very interesting to watch in regards to character backgrounds. Micheal Mann had gone to such great detail to create Tom Cruise's character, Vincent, going all the way back to his childhood and where he grew up, his parents, the schools he went to and more. I found this fascinating because before this lesson I thought it was the actor that came up with the background from their research and what they understand from the script. I think Michael Mann goes above and beyond what some other directors do because even Tom Cruise was surprised at all the information he was given and said that this is usually the kind of work he does to get into character. Michael Mann said he wanted Tom Cruise to become Vincent and think like him. Tom Cruise did a lot of physical training to achieve this, things like training with live ammo to get a realistic reaction to firing a gun, which is different to firing a gun with blanks. With Jamie Foxx's Character, Max, who was a taxi driver in the film, he got him talking to veteran taxi drivers and learning defencive driving because taxi drivers know how to cut corners and avoid accidents. The amount of time and effort put into these characters by Michael Mann made the film and characters realistic and believable. This is the type of director you should aim to be. Someone who puts a great deal of time into the characters instead of just how the film looks. It's the only way you are going to get your actors to become the character.

Watching the behind the scenes from Collateral got me inspired to come up with more in depth character backgrounds from now on because I want to be a better director.
  

Week 10 Update: Short Films & Scene Breakdowns

This update is about why we do short films and what is involved in a scene breakdown; including scene action, unit action, beats, objectives and why we do them as a director.

Before I began studying film & TV, I never really thought about doing short films or why it can be important to make them. There are several reasons why short films are important. One reason is time constraints. For example in my case while studying, all of the projects we work on are short films because we just don't have the time to learn what we need to and make feature length films. When studying, short films are a good starting point to learn the basic skills of film making that you then apply later on to feature films. Another reason is that sometimes the story isn't long enough to be a feature and is better told as a short film. A very important reason to do the short films is to use it as a platform to secure funding to make the feature length version. Sometimes a script might not be enough to get the money you need to make your film, but if you can show investors what it would look like, they can see it without having to imagine what it might look like and they may be more likely to invest. I now understand the importance of making short films and how they are a very useful way to start learning about film making.

Scene breakdowns are one of the hardest things I have learnt about directing. There are supposed to be no right or wrong answers but there are better choices to go for than you might initially think. This is why a scene breakdown takes a lot of time and effort. A film is broken down into scenes and then each scene is broken down further into units. A director does this to understand the sub text and figure out what the crucial points of the story are. A scene breakdown is made up of a scene action, which is the psychological structure of the scene. This is where you try to establish which character the scene is about and what they are trying to achieve. Once you work out who the scene is about, it makes it easier to work out the unit actions because you already know which character it is going to be about. The scene action is broken down further into unit actions. The unit action is about how that character is faring throughout the scene. The units are defined by the beats of the story, this is where there is an emotional change . Each beat is the beginning of a new unit within the scene and each unit requires a title to describe what is happening. Once you have figured out the unit actions you can figure out your objectives. An objective is the motivation given to the actor to help them understand and play the character truthfully. There are four types of objectives a character has: Super objective, Overall objective, Scene objective and Unit objective. The super objective is the life wants of the character. The overall objective is the characters goal for the whole film. The scene objective is the characters objective for the scene and the unit objective is the characters objective for the unit. The director uses the objective to communicate how the actor should portray their character. The director usually gives the actor a  verb as the objective so they understand why the character is acting that way. An example a director might give to an actor would be is, "to be intimidating", where the verb "intimidating" is the objective. The scene breakdown is crucial to your understanding of the story and how you want the audience to understand it. It is also how you find the best way to communicate the character to the actor and have them play it believably. It takes multiple read throughs to come up with the right scene breakdown but it is worth it in the end because your vision of the story comes to life and you get the best performance from your actors.

Some tips I learnt from these lessons are.

• First figure out who the scene is about, this make things much easier. Once you know, you look at each unit and think what is this character doing now and thats how you title each unit.
• When it comes to objectives be short and simple. An actor will probably tune out if you give them a huge speech on what their character is meant to be doing. All you need to give them is a stong verb that sums up what the charachter is trying to achieve.
• Getting your actors to understand their charachter is how you get them to play their character believably. Everybody hates watching a movie and thinking "that is so fake" or "thats not realistic".
• Put in the work because it's worth it, you will understand the story much better and you will be able to get the best possible performance from your actors.