FILM DIRECTING FUNDAMENTALS Film Directing Fundamentals Second Edition

FILM DIRECTING FUNDAMENTALS Film Directing Fundamentals Second Edition See Your Film Before Shooting Nicholas T. Proferes Amsterdam Boston Heidelberg London New York Oxford Paris San Diego San Francisco Singapore Sydney Tokyo Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier 200 Wheeler Road, Burlington, MA 01803, USA Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK Copyright © 2005, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier homepage (http://elsevier.com), by selecting “Customer Support” and then “Obtaining Permissions.” Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, Elsevier prints its books on acid-free paper whenever possible. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Proferes, Nicholas T. Film directing fundamentals : see your film before shooting / Nicholas T. Proferes. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-240-80562-3 1. Motion pictures — Production and direction. I. Title. PN1995.9.P7P758 2004 791.4302¢33 — dc22 2004019069 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 0240805623 For information on all Focal Press publications visit our website at www.books.elsevier.com 04050607080910987654321 Printed in the United States of America To Frank Daniel A great teacher, a generous colleague, a delightful friend. CONTENTS FOREWORD xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii PART ONE LEARNING HOW TO DRAW Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO FILM LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR 3 The Film World 3 Film Language 3 Shots 4 Film Grammar 5 The 180-Degree Rule 5 The 30-Degree Rule 8 Screen Direction 9 Film Time 11 Compression 11 Elaboration 12 Familiar Images 12 Chapter 2 INTRODUCTION TO THE DRAMATIC ELEMENTS EMBEDDED IN THE SCREENPLAY 14 Spines 14 Whose Film Is It? 16 Character 16 Circumstance 17 Dynamic Relationships 17 Wants 18 Expectations 18 Actions 19 Activity 19 Acting Beats 19 Chapter 3 ORGANIZING ACTION IN A DRAMATIC SCENE 21 Dramatic Blocks 21 Narrative Beats 21 viii FILM DIRECTING FUNDAMENTALS The Fulcrum 22 Dramatic Elements in Notorious Patio Scene 22 Notorious Patio Scene Annotated 23 Chapter 4 STAGING 30 Main Functions 30 Patterns of Dramatic Movement 32 Changing the Stage Within a Scene 33 Staging as Part of a Film’s Design 34 Working with a Location Floor Plan 34 Floor Plan and Staging for Notorious Patio Scene 34 Chapter 5 THE CAMERA 40 The Camera as Narrator 40 The Reveal 40 Entrances 41 The Objective Camera 41 The Subjective Camera 41 Where Do I Put It? 42 Visual Design 45 Style 46 Coverage 46 Camera Height 47 Lenses 48 Composition 49 Where to Begin? 49 Working Toward Specificity in Visualization 50 Looking for Order 50 Dramatic Blocks and the Camera 51 Shot Lists and Storyboards 51 The Prose Storyboard 51 Chapter 6 CAMERA IN NOTORIOUS PATIO SCENE 54 First Dramatic Block 54 Second Dramatic Block 59 Third Dramatic Block 61 Fourth Dramatic Block and Fulcrum 66 Fifth Dramatic Block 67 PART TWO MAKING YOUR FILM Chapter 7 DETECTIVE WORK ON SCRIPTS 77 Reading Your Screenplay 77 A Piece of Apple Pie Screenplay 78 Whose Film Is It? 83 Character 83 Circumstance 83 Spines for A Piece of Apple Pie 84 Dynamic Relationships 85 Contents ix Wants 85 Actions 86 Acting Beats 86 Activity 86 Tone for A Piece of Apple Pie 86 Breaking A Piece of Apple Pie into Actions 87 Designing a Scene 87 Visualization 88 Identifying the Fulcrum and Dramatic Blocks 88 Supplying Narrative Beats to A Piece of Apple Pie 89 Director’s Notebook 96 Chapter 8 STAGING AND CAMERA FOR A PIECE OF APPLE PIE 97 Staging 97 Camera 100 Conclusions 130 Chapter 9 MARKING SHOOTING SCRIPTS WITH CAMERA SETUPS 131 Chapter 10 WORKING WITH ACTORS 139 Casting 140 First Read-Through 143 Directing During Rehearsals 144 Directing Actors on the Set 147 Chapter 11 MANAGERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE DIRECTOR 150 Delegating Authority While Accepting Responsibility 150 The Producer 151 The Assistant Director 151 A Realistic Shooting Schedule 152 Working with the Crew 153 Working with the Director of Photography 153 Chapter 12 POSTPRODUCTION 154 Editing 154 Music and Sound 156 Locking Picture, or How Do You Know When It’s Over? 157 An Audience and a Big Screen 157 PART THREE LEARNING THE CRAFT THROUGH FILM ANALYSIS Chapter 13 ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S NOTORIOUS 161 Overview of Style and Design 161 First Act 162 Second Act 165 Third Act 178 Summary 179 x FILM DIRECTING FUNDAMENTALS Chapter 14 PETER WEIR’S THE TRUMAN SHOW 180 Overview of Style and Design 180 First Act 182 Second Act 187 Third Act 199 Summary 204 Chapter 15 FEDERICO FELLINI’S 8-1/2 205 A Masterpiece? 205 The Director as Auteur 205 Dramatic Construction 206 Overview of Style and Design 206 Detective Work 208 First Act 209 Second Act 220 Third Act 235 Summary 238 Chapter 16 STYLES AND DRAMATIC STRUCTURES 240 Tokyo Story, Yasujiro Ozu (1953, Japan) 240 Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder (1959, USA) 242 The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo (1965, France) 244 Red, Krzysztof Kieslowski (1994, Poland, France, Switzerland) 245 Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Steven Soderbergh (1989, USA) 247 Shall We Dance?, Masayuki Suo (1996, Japan) 249 The Celebration, Thomas Vinterberg (1998, Denmark) 251 The Insider, Michael Mann (1999, USA) 253 The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick (1998, USA) 255 Chapter 17 WHAT NEXT? 257 Writing for the Director 258 Begin Thinking About Your Story 258 Concocting Your Feature Screenplay 260 “Writing” Scenes with Actors 260 Shooting Your Film Before You Finish Writing It 261 The Final Script 261 Shooting Without a Screenplay? 261 Questions Directors Should Ask About Their Screenplays 262 Building Directorial Muscles 263 Directing Exercises 263 Make A Piece of Apple Pie Your Own 269 Conclusion 269 BIBLIOGRAPHY 271 INDEX 272 FOREWORD How do you teach film directing? Nick Proferes’ book, Film Directing Fundamen- tals, answers the question perfectly by providing a clear and concise methodology to the directing student. It is the only book I know of that addresses both the art and craft of directing. It not only offers a step-by-step process to follow but engages the reader as if he or she were sitting in Nick’s class. His language is accessible, and he uses wonderful examples and clear, in-depth analysis that inspires you to the highest kind of effort. When I first started teaching at Columbia University, I looked through many texts to find one to recommend to film students who wanted to become directors. Some books were informative but extremely technical and hard to follow; others were oversimplified or were anecdotes by a particular director. None offered the students a concrete, organic approach. At Columbia, Nick addressed this problem by teaching a lecture course for all beginning students in our graduate film program. His focus is on training directors to engage their audience emotionally by first of all becoming clear on their story (detective work), then helping the director to orchestrate the progression and dramatic escalation of that story. The organization of action through dramatic blocks, narrative beats (director’s beats), and a fulcrum around which a scene moves are categories Nick identifies for the first time. Film Directing Fundamentals also provides a close analysis of three feature films to give the reader a chance to look at and understand how to use the dramatic elements as tools in their own work. The book leads us through an almost shot-by- shot discussion of dramatic structure and narrator’s voice in Hitchcock’s Notorious, Fellini’s 8-1/2, and Peter Weir’s The Truman Show, and examines style and dramatic structure in nine other feature films. Although I have been an artist and a director for a number of years, it wasn’t until I started teaching that I truly began to understand my own process. To have a book that tracks the process so precisely is invaluable to me as a teacher and as a filmmaker. I consulted this book before, during, and after my last film project, and it is certainly a book I will use again and again. — Bette Gordon Vice Chair and Directing Supervisor of Columbia University Film Division Director of the feature films Variety and Luminous Motion ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book could not have been written without feedback from the hundreds of students who attended my directing workshops at Columbia University. Their probing questions and impassioned work forced me to constantly clarify my teaching to better serve them, and I thank them one and all. I am also immensely grateful to my colleagues for their support, especially Bette Gordon and Tom Kalin, and for any of their wisdom I may have purloined without attribution. I owe sincere gratitude to my colleague James Goldstone for his dedicated reading of the manuscript and for his valuable suggestions, and to Andy Pawelczak and my son Ted Proferes for their astute editorial contributions. I thank the fol- lowing students: Branislav Bala for his insightful comments on Part I, Jason Graham for his short screenplay The Marriage Bed, Sonny Quinn for the The Piece of Apple Pie storyboards, Greg Bunch for the diagrams, and Patrick O’Connor for digitizing the artwork. I am deeply grateful to all of the directors and writers whose films I rely on for their masterful demonstration of the directing craft, and to Kostas Matsoukas, a true lover of film and owner of Video Express in Astoria, New York, who supplied me with each of the films.

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