The Craft and Art of Directing for the Screen

Catalog description

The director's craft touches on every aspect of filmmaking but is often seen in a limited way, leading the beginning filmmaker challenged to create a film that satisfies the image as conceived. In this arts workshop the students will work toward the craft and technique of directing to bring it in to service of the end goal of the director. This begins with the simple but central challenge of having what is called a vision. For the purposes of this class, vision can be defined as an artistic focus that unifies the work in an organic and holistic way. Through a series of exercises and reading, practical and creative challenges, the aspiring directors will be tasked with working toward first articulating their vision, then communicating that in a clear and concrete way. This dialogue will be done with crew members and cast, producers and all other aspects of the film. Once it is clear, the student will work to make the final scenes and imagery match that vision. Along the way, there will be focus on choosing a text or screenplay, thinking visually, working with production team including but not limited to cinematographers, production designers, wardrobe and finally actors. While working with the script will be central to every aspect of the class, the students may choose between scripts they have written or those of "other writers. Exercises will include analyzing the technical and creative choices from specific scenes from cinema history, breaking down a script for production, and working on the edit.