Discussion of the role of the director in the filmmaking process. Week 3 Lecture from Intro to Film at Lake Washington Institute of Technology.

1. Week 3 Lecture
Directing

2. What is the role of the director?

3. 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

4. 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”

5. 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?

6. 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 action
3. Full Shot: Used as a master shot, to cover action
taking place within a scene
4. 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?

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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